Lin Yan has a bunch of science fiction novels on his desk, these are basically Japanese translations, although Lin Yan can understand the original English books, however, in the golden age science fiction works, most of them have more original words, and if you want to browse quickly, it is still easy to have problems with understanding.

There were not too many accidents, and Lin Yan's last sight fell on "Dune". After all, this one is more in line with changing into a real-time strategy game than any other science fiction novel.

However, how to negotiate the copyright, and after the negotiation, the coordination in the process of making the game is another troublesome matter. It's better not to look for copyright.

Lin Yan remembered the "Warhammer Series" board game that had a deep impact on "StarCraft", and he wondered if it was also like "StarCraft", which blended the worldviews in various literary and artistic works together to create a new worldview.

Why don't you leave it at that?

Lin Yan decided to adopt this strategy of "borrowing", first of all, set up several camps. After thinking about it, the setting he finally wrote down still has a striking similarity to "StarCraft".

However, speaking of which, Lin Yan remembered the background story he wrote for "Space Invaders", and that story was not also based on the universe of "StarCraft".

Perhaps, this can be used as an easter egg? Lin Yan thought about it, and in the plot setting, he added a text plot of the Zerg attacking the human planet and the human race defending with railguns.

Hastily completed the background setting, as well as the racial setting of the entire game, Lin Yan handed over these drafts to the fifth group of staff members who were in charge of the background structure. After all. Background architect, on a red-and-white game. The appearance rate is not very high.

After all, except for role-playing games. Few of the remaining action games require detailed background settings and story settings.

For the rest, Lin Yan is about to start writing the engine of this game.

The game engine, which can be said to be the foundation of a game, is not the game itself, but the tool for making the game.

The game engines of later generations have their own characteristics, and basically sophisticated players will get in touch with a new game. Even if you don't look at the producer, you can tell what engine is used to make a game within seconds or minutes of getting started.

Of course, the game engines of the eighties were nowhere near as complex as they were later. One game and one engine is still a very common thing in this era.

However, as the level of refinement of the game increased, the cost rose dramatically. It's not so realistic to design a game engine for a game. In this case, the development cycle of the game will become very long, and the second is that it will be too expensive. Third, there is no need for this.

The game engine that you have developed with a lot of money may not be as good as the engine made by other companies. The engine used in Fallout IV is basically a modified version of the Elder Scrolls V engine. Add a little bit of functionality. But the torso is still the same as before.

The game engine is like a platform, the Elder Scrolls series. The producer of the "Fallout" series, Beishe, is able to do it every few years. The reason why they can launch new games stably is because they continue to use the same engine, which is a good cost saving. And the reason why they don't use other engines is, of course, because of the awkwardness of using other people's things and producing their own things. The other is that the engine functions of other companies may not meet their requirements when it comes to them. They just got their hands on it, and they need to be transformed.

For example, Villefort's origin engine is mainly designed for shooting games, and the flaw of this engine is that it is easy to cause players to be dizzy about 3D. In addition to being able to effectively induce vomiting, games with this engine also have a special feature, that is, most of the objects in the game will appear more angular and lacking in metallic luster. Even the metal items in the game will not reflect the metal, but will instead produce a concrete feed similar to the frosted and worn-out treatment.

There is also a more famous game engine, which is "Unreal Engine III" in the Unreal Engine series. Games with this engine, although it doesn't look easy to get dizzy, but it seems that the games made by this engine are oily and not so bright, and you can see at a glance that this is a product of the "Unreal Engine III" engine.

The engine that produced the "Rampage" series is characterized by a high degree of freedom and artificial intelligence with good computer characters.

In short, different game engines have different characteristics and strengths, some are in the picture, some are in efficiency, and some are in the degree of freedom.

Different game types require different specialties.

For example, in real-time strategy games, the most important thing is the pathfinding of units. If the pathfinding algorithm is efficient, the moving units will look smooth, and if the algorithm is inefficient, the units will appear dull.

Of course, most games, even those on red and white machines, have a pathfinder. However, the pathfinding function of these games is still not enough compared to real-time strategy games.

If you look like a reel game is a one-act play, then the actors are fixed. When the player walks to a position, different reactions from different units are triggered, all of which are fixed and do not need to be changed.

In real-time strategy games, the units that move are not puppets that only move in a fixed way. The units in this game will automatically calculate the route of action according to the instructions given by the player.

If there is only one unit commanded by the player, pathfinding is not a problem.

Worst, real-time strategy games are not turn-based games, nor are they single-player role-playing games. It requires the game's graphics to respond quickly to the player's commands, rather than the gentlemanly "you punch me, I'll punch you" type of turn.

There will not be only one unit that the player commands, maybe five, ten, fifty. When a unit moves, pathfinding really doesn't have a problem. And when there is more than one, there is a chance that there will be a problem.

It's just a unit that takes up the pathfinding route that another unit is going to take next. At this point, there will be an error in pathfinding, and the pathfinding route needs to be recalculated.

And the more units. The bigger the problem. The final problem can be catastrophic. The whole game is because of pathfinding. Takes up a lot of CPU frequency. The consequence of this is that there are a large number of computers that cannot be played. And the computer that can play will not have a much better gaming experience.

Of course, what is needed at this time is optimization.

Most games need to be optimized, after all, the player's computer or game console has a limit, and if you want to show the best game content at this limit, you need the efforts of game manufacturers.

Optimization, for the most part, can be counted as a form of laziness. If the game is simply a layer of layers. A game that isn't optimized is just showing the full contents of all layers and then showing the final picture.

This is not the case with optimized games. A game that's optimized to show only what the player can see. The display effect is the same as that of the unoptimized, all displays.

However, if you lift the veil on it, you will find how economical it is inside, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as full of holes.

Lin Yan also had no previous experience in making real-time strategy games. It's not like he's an old expert when it comes to console games and arcade games.

Therefore, the optimization problem of pathfinding needs to be solved by himself. His optimization scheme. It also makes the comparison rough.

Didn't a team of soldiers order them to go to a location, then at this time, can't you imagine these soldiers as a whole? Isn't it possible to use a pathfinding, and isn't it so easy to be stuck by other units?

And this squad's own card slot is split. There are two solutions. The first is to ignore all units in the squad and collide with the units within the unit.

That is, when they hit an obstacle. It can be overlapped, and when it stops moving, it will revert to the collision volume and separate little by little.

This mode is okay for farmers who are responsible for gathering resources, as well as air units in combat units, but for ground units, this is a disaster.

Because, when the two sides fight, it looks like a bunch of soldiers overlapping into a point, which also looks at a yarn, reflecting the charm of an egg's real-time strategy game.

Therefore, ground combat units must always have a collision volume. Lin Yan's solution to these units is not as crude as the previous one, and he still treats a team of units as a whole, but didn't he treat a team of units as a point before. This time, it's a line.

The units in a team, like greedy snakes, one by one, marched forward in a long snake formation.

These two optimization solutions cannot be said to be the best. For example, the solution of the latter one-word long snake formation is not very good. However, this is also the most resource-saving optimization method that Lin Yan can think of in a short period of time.

As for the graphics of the game, Lin Yan didn't particularly care. Basically, it's not much different from the resolution of the output picture of the red and white machine,After all, the TV is a little far away,It looks like the particles may be smaller。 The computer, on the other hand, is closer to the human eye, so the picture is almost a mosaic crowding mosaic.

What Lin Yan has paid for this real-time strategy game, except for a framework for background setting, is the engine of this game.

This engine looks a little more foolish compared to the game development tools of the red and white machine. Although, the permission to allow calls is not directly to the hardware level of the machine, nor can it be to the hardware level.

After all, a PC compatible machine is a PC compatible machine, and it is unlikely that each one will be configured the same. Computer games run more in the environment of the operating system, so it is better to match the operating system than to directly bypass the operating system to access the hardware.

On a personal computer, if you go beyond the operating system and go directly to the hardware, then both the user and the operating system development company can almost sue this "rogue game".

The game engine made by Lin Yan is very stupid, it can't be said that a monkey can play it easily, at least a junior high school student, with a little research, can still play and understand.

This engine interface, with a little emasculation and cutting off some features, can be turned into a map editor that will be released with the game.

One of the significant differences between PCs and game consoles is that PCs are more free, and it's not too bad to let players make their own maps. Perhaps, it can be said that it is a good way to give a game life.

If Warcraft III only has a campaign mode and an official battle mode, then this game will only be popular for a few years at most, waiting for players to get tired of playing, which is the end of this game.

Then, the player makes a map, but it breathes new life into the game. Players can make a variety of maps, from role-playing maps to mini-game maps, and in short, players can develop a variety of new ways to play, giving players more time to stay on a game that has been in place for years.

At this time, it can be said that the game has changed from a game to a platform. People who weren't able to make games before can now make their own games. It lowers the threshold for game development, so that those who previously had ideas and did not have the ability to make games have the ability to make games.

This is similar to the "Game Future" activity launched by Lin Yan, after all, the ideas of a few people are limited, and the more people there are, the more ideas. There are even more credible ideas.

Lin Yan spent a week writing the engine of the game, and then after using this engine to make a few demonstration maps, he handed over the specific work to his subordinates.

If, Lin Yan will do everything himself. He estimated that he could live to be twenty years old in this life, which was already a miracle of human physiology.

Because this is not only equivalent to his daily sleep and 24 hours of continuous work, but also equivalent to his day is not 24 hours, but 100 hours, 10,000 hours, 100,000 hours, 1 million hours.

What can be given to the people below to do it, let the people below do it. Even if what they do is not reliable, they can be allowed to correct it.

If they don't exercise, they'll never do anything.

In this way, Chiba Games began to produce original computer games for the first time, and the North American branch of Chiba Games also began to negotiate with some computer game publishers, intending to negotiate a more reliable cooperation model. After all, everyone is in business, all to make money, and it is the best thing to be able to win-win.

However, until this time, Chiba Yuki was not optimistic about any real-time strategy games, although Lin Yan said it very toughly, but he didn't have much spectrum in his heart. (To be continued.) )