There is a huge building near Akihabara, and on the first floor of this building, is a huge wholesale fruit market. And on the upper floor, there are fruit companies one after another. Some of these fruit companies can be called large, because they are engaged in the import and export trade of fruits. Of course, it is more about imported fruits, thanks to the relative scarcity of local fruits in Japan, and the imported fruits are very profitable and can afford to support so many multinational companies.

Just when Lin Yan was strolling around on the first floor of this building, on the sixth floor of this fruit building, there was a small room where a meeting was being held.

When an industry is pioneered by the original pioneers, it will attract a large number of followers. And what these followers are best at is probably to summarize the advanced experience of their predecessors, so as to find the law that can succeed. And now the most popular video game is Ren Hell's "Donkey Kong" released in North America.

"Let's start with a list of the more famous arcade games that have recently been released in ......the United States," said a young man with a large bald head without a single hair on his head. He took out a marker pen and wrote a string of English on the whiteboard, followed by the corresponding Japanese translation.

"Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Arkanoid, Bomberman, Tank Battle...... Donkey Kong. This is a game with a unique gameplay that has recently been released in the United States, so I'll start talking about some games that follow the trend. ”

"The first is to follow the games of "Space Invaders", "Radar Range", "Eagle King", "Space Heat", and the second is to follow the "Arkanoid Game", "Magic Wukong...... The rest is also a parody of the computer typing game Frog Crossing the River, Duckling Crossing the River. "Flying Cars" parody of "Pac-Man...... You have seen so many games, have you summed up any rules? ”

The bald young man said, and as he spoke, he motioned to the few people at the conference table to look at the manuscript in his hand. They are a newly established game studio, of course, they don't have much money, and these distributed manuscripts are all drawn by the bald young man himself, without using a photocopier. Because, ink is a consumable material, for them, it is definitely an expensive luxury.

Although the manuscript is all handwritten, the degree of completion is very high, the straight lines are very straight, and the mosaic images are also very mosaic, as if they were depicted one at a time. Best of all, the game's graphics are extremely rigorous, to the same extent as the real game.

"The images of "Space Invaders", "Radar Range", "Eagle King", and "Space Heat" are at the top, do you find their characteristics?" The bald young man asked.

"It's all about attacking alien monsters in the context of space?" One of the personnel below asked.

"Yes, that's it! Very good, let's put aside the space series of games first, talk about other games, everyone pay attention to the gameplay of "Arkanoid", "Bomberman", "Tank Wars" ......"

The bald young man then made a long speech, which was a more "brief" description of the gameplay of each game. For example, in the space series of games, you only need to control the left and right directional buttons, and there is also an attack button. Arkanoid, on the other hand, only requires the left and right buttons. Although "Tank Wars" and "Bomberman" can use four buttons, up, down, left and right, there is still only one attack button. That is to say, three of the four buttons on the right side of these video game arcades produced by the Video Game League are empty and useless.

And the minutiae of these buttons have also been "optimized" by many small manufacturers, because only one button is used to attack. There are even some games where even the only button is canceled and changed to a joystick up, which is an attack.

And Ren Hell was originally scheduled to sell to the United States "Radar Range", which is also a game similar to "Space Invaders", however, this game is different from other similar space games in that it is trying to create a three-dimensional feeling of depth, the spaceship can move up and down, left and right on the plane of depth, and the right side is also conventionally reduced to become an attack button.

However, the video game arcade machine equipped with this game, after it was shipped to the United States, did not sell. Because, this game feels weird, and Ren Hell is also a small company without any name. It is far from being comparable to the "Space Invaders" of many small manufacturers, and it is not as good as the plagiarized arcades produced by those local workshops.

Although Ren Hell used sexy girls in the magazine's advertisements, and all the very "passionate" and provocative advertising words. But whether it's sexy or not, these marketing methods are not new, and American advertisers have already used them.

And after that, it was Shigeru Miyamoto who appeared.,"Radar Range" only sold a total of 1,000 units.,There are still 2,000 machines in that batch.,At this time, a new game is needed.,Put the remaining 2,000 units lying in the warehouse.,It seems that the arcade machine that will never sell.,Make a completely novel game.。

Although everyone is an imitator, the technology used by each family on the arcade machine is not the same. The display of the video game arcade machine in Radar Range is just a topped Sanyo monitor, which can only display pixel-based bitmap images, which is very profound, but it is not really profound, that is, it does not achieve the same flashy geometry as several other Space Invaders follow-up titles.

The motherboard of this arcade machine is equipped with a digital-to-analog converter that converts the electronic signals of the gaming motherboard into sound. The processor is the same as "Space Invaders", it is 6502, compared with Intel's 8080, this processor is much cheaper, and the performance gap is not obvious. It has now become standard in video game arcades.

I've already talked about operating the device before, a joystick and a button. Because, this game is a shooting game, such a configuration is normal, and it has not shrunk to the point of madness.

And Shigeru Miyamoto's circle as a game adaptation is "Popeye" on the game watch. Because of copyright reasons, and Miyamoto Shigeru himself is not interested in the plot of "Popeye", the image of the protagonist of this game is finally defined as a middle-aged man with a super strong sense of justice, but he is not handsome, and even has a big belly.

The name of the game also adopts the stubborn donkey temper of the protagonist, as well as King Kong, a special film not long after the release, and the two words are soft together, and it becomes "Donkey Kong".

Shigeru Miyamoto himself didn't give this righteous uncle any name, he directly called this uncle "Jumping Man" or "Osan".

For the design concept of this protagonist, he also adopted an image design that does not show obvious nationality and race. This kind of image design is not very flattering, but it is the most mediocre and will not be annoying.

This new protagonist, as a "jumping man", of course, is going to jump, and he jumps very high, and it is estimated that he has exceeded gravity and reached the jump height of his height. And when running, the jump will be a little higher, just enough to jump over the bucket thrown down by the gorilla. But Shigeru Miyamoto himself feels that such a game is still too boring, and only one button restricts the game "Donkey Kong", and it is impossible to have too many actions. However, these restrictions are nothing to Shigeru Miyamoto, and people will always have a way to solve the problem at hand, so he added a prop called a hammer to the game. The jumper can pick up the hammer as soon as it touches it, but the hammer is too heavy to jump. However, this is not a problem at all, when the obstacle comes, the jumper can smash the bucket in front of him with just a swing of the hammer.

It should be noted that at this time, Shigeru Miyamoto's design of the game has been innovative. The protagonist of this game, by now, has two actions: jumping and swinging the hammer. That is, he defines two operation methods for the only button.

Next, the bald youth began to deconstruct the image elements that make up the jumping man. And, the content of each sprite module was judged. And focused on the analysis, why such a color scheme is used, why this jumping man, should have a big beard.

Later, he analyzed the ladder going upstairs and the implementation principle of each action, in short, this game has been basically deconstructed by him.

"I've analyzed so much, that's why I think Donkey Kong can be popular in the United States, what is your opinion?" The bald young man asked the people below.

The people at the bottom really didn't know how to answer his question, because, basically, everything that should be analyzed, the bald head had already been analyzed. And it doesn't seem to be the same thing to let them just nod their heads and agree without saying anything.

So, they have said a few words of their own opinions. And at the very back of the conference table in the conference room, there was a young man with long hair, holding his notebook, studying something. He didn't seem to hear a word the whole time the bald head spoke. However, the bald head didn't have any opinion on him, maybe this is true love.

Lin Yan bought a lot of fruits and came home, and when Father Lin saw that he had bought so many fruits, he verbally criticized him for a long time, saying that he was a loser, after all, fruit is a very luxurious thing in Tokyo. The fruit that Daddy Lin eats the most may be citrus, because Japan's own citrus is rare and expensive, and if it is not rare, it will naturally not be so expensive.

"Boy, there is a letter from you, which was sent just now, you can open it and take a look." Father Lin handed Lin Yan a letter.

Lin Yan opened it and saw that it was a notice from the science fiction magazine, and Lin Yan was notified to prepare a new story and participate in the next link.

So, Lin Yan went back upstairs and began to write a new story based on the fruits he had just seen in the fruit market. However, he himself doesn't know why onions are considered fruits. He eats onions, but only fully ripe onions, because such onions do not have that strange taste.

……

"Sir, this is the pyramid of literature." Jeff? Carson carefully watched his boss's reaction. He is in charge of the Parallel World Research Department, and is well aware that his research direction has gone the wrong way. It's not easy to make a successful pitch.

Mr. Truman's face was gloomy, and his eyebrows were like two scrambled caterpillars, "nothing more than a broken glass shelf stuffed with paper." ”

Jeff flipped the stack of paper in his hand up and down, "It's not just paper, sir, it's a virtual imprint of an entire civilization." We will subvert chaos theory and evolutionary biology, and even religion. He gave the manuscript to Mr. Truman.

Mr. Truman flipped the page, and his mood seemed to become more unpleasant, "A manuscript? If I wanted a novel, I would hire a writer, not an engineer. If I give this to the review committee, they will immediately withdraw the investment. Are you kidding me? ”

"Sir, because of this, we will no longer need their approval."

"Let's be clear."

"Okay," Jeff said with a deep breath, "have you heard of the infinite monkey theorem?" Well, if you put a monkey in front of a typewriter, if it's long enough, it will eventually write all of Shakespeare's works. ”

"Getting to the point."

"The problem with the infinity monkey theorem is that it simply can't be implemented. In order to obtain valuable results, the time scales required are almost endless. Even if you can invest that time, where will the typewriters and paper you need come from? The worst part is how to extract the gold from the sand and pick out the few essences? ”

Mr. Truman rubbed his temples, "Don't just talk about the problem, Carson, how to solve it?" ”

"Okay," said Jeff, "with parallel worlds that can be accelerated on a time scale, we don't need to limit ourselves to monkeys." We can adjust the speed of time so fast that we can tell the drift of continents at the moment of a heartbeat. We send a group of monkeys with genetic memories to find the best work. Of course, it took some time for them to evolve writing skills, and it took even longer to invent paper. But after a day in our world, the works they find will be sent away. ”

"If all the works of a civilization are here, why is there only so little?" Mr. Truman was still angry, but he listened. This is a good sign.

"Genetic memory only makes them give away what they think is the best. This is the so-called literary pyramid, and the top-level works are better than anything you've ever seen because their civilization is superior to ours. ”

"Their civilization? There will be no civilization for monkeys. ”

"They have evolved further, sir. Each time we conduct an experiment, we are able to draw the entire line of human evolution in a single day! At the beginning of each trial, we had the apes start from scratch. You'd think that every world would end up being completely different, and that some of the birds would evolve into the dominant species. Chaos theory dictates this. However, apart from a few nuances, the result is essentially the same as in our real world every time. ”

Jeff paused to examine his boss's reaction, but couldn't tell whether Mr. Truman's silence was a sign of interest or anger. So he moved on.

"What's even more incredible is this manuscript. Every time the paper holder fills, there is always a novel with the same name near the top, "The Onion Universe". The content of the stories is different, but they are all somewhat related. Individually, each work is excellent, and can even be described as great; Combined, however, they form a harmonious picture, in which the works echo each other, harmoniously elegant, and modulated. ”

"Uh-huh." Mr. Truman tapped his chin, "What are these novels about?" ”

"Each one is about the existence of parallel worlds. The layers of the world are like an onion peeled open, but there is never an end to it. In parallel worlds, these novels also take on many different forms, some straightforward and some profound. Whatever you're looking for in a novel, it's all about that.

"It's as if such stories are embedded in the genetic code of humanity, and each world carries only one fragment of it. If you want to prove that there are gods, maybe this is the evidence. Just as most writers create a masterpiece that surpasses the others, these masterpieces of parallel worlds stand out as masterpieces of humanity. ”

"It doesn't sound reliable at all."

"Please give us a chance, sir, you won't regret it."

Mr. Truman glared at him fiercely, "You'd better make some real progress and don't just talk nonsense here." Otherwise, you'll have to find another job on the weekend! ”

When Truman returned to his office, he was surprised to find that he still had the manuscript in his hand. He hesitated, but still didn't throw it in the wastebasket. It might be more interesting than solo chess, Carson wouldn't have known about it. He closed the office door.

The next morning, when he got up from his chair, even his back was protesting that he had been reading novels all night. Carson was right, it was the best work he had ever read. He hasn't stayed up late to read novels since his college days. He needed to go home and get some rest, but before he left, he left the manuscript on his assistant's desk and left a note, "Find a suitable publisher as soon as possible and mail this manuscript over." ”

The assistant editor read the manuscript when he was almost out of work, and he finished it late at night. He didn't feel tired at all, he was thrilled to find a good work, and he had to do something.

He copied the manuscript and wrote on the original: "We're going to get rich!! And then put it on the editor's desk. The copy was put into an envelope and then stuffed into a slit in the wall. He didn't know why he was doing it, or where the slit led - it was strange that he had been working in this office for twenty years. This behavior is not conscious, more like a conditioned reflex. After a few moments, he put the matter behind him.

……

Still shamelessly plagiarized the novel in his head, Lin Yan finished writing and stuffed a few pieces of manuscript paper into the envelope. I started to write my own "rebirth notebook". (To be continued.) )