Legendary designer Sean Dabily, one of the three directors of World of Warcraft, laughed when he recalled the day in an interview with FOX, and then his face showed a rare look of reverence for the designer known for his arrogance.

His words changed from what he had said before, and suddenly became very respectful: "Yes, it was the first time I met 'Tyrant', and it's still so memorable when I think about it, you know?" He was nineteen years old when he made American Cubes, and he was a UCLA student at the time, and all of us were in disbelief! You know, all of us were fans of him at the time! ”

“Tyrant？ Yes, the nickname we gave Jester at the time, he was very nice to get along with and kind to talk when he wasn't working...... But when it comes to designing games, he's basically going his own way, anyone can talk freely when discussing design before development, and he listens very carefully, but after finalizing the design plan, he never allows any individual to put forward a different opinion, and he doesn't allow anyone to say, 'Sorry, I can't do it', and if you do, he won't hesitate to let you out...... He is a tyrant, a dictator in this regard! ”

"Arbitrary? NO, NO, NO, ACTUALLY, WE CALL HIM TYRANT, BUT IT'S JUST A JOKE IN PRIVATE, BUT IN FACT HE HAS A REAL EXTRA-NAME IN OUR MARS ENTERTAINMENT - YOU KNOW, HE'S A VERY SPECIAL DESIGNER, HE SEEMS TO HAVE A LOT OF IDEAS IN HIS HEAD, AND HE'S EVEN THE MOST SPECIAL ONE, MARC SENI CALLED HIM 'ALL-THE-BEST', AND THAT'S WHAT WE ALL CALLED HIM -- IT'S NOT A NICE RIDE, IT'S JUST A LITERAL MEANING: HE'S THE BEST, The best of all! ”

"Yes, yes! I was very influenced by him, he was my life coach, I knew everything I knew about how to design a game, he got to the bottom of the game when he was 19 years old, I still remember the scene, his talk was deafening to me, it was the game designer's bible. ”

"It's fair to say that I, and even every designer who comes out of Mars Entertainment, is his student, and every one of them is no exception!"

Let's go back to this early summer of 1984.

Jester and Mark Saini play Mario Bros., a still-screen playthrough game that is somewhat similar to Donkey Kong.

It's a great game, and although the gameplay hasn't departed from the still-screen game, Donkey Kong's definition of a static game, it still attracts a lot of attention in Japan with its graphics that are second to none in this era, smooth controls, and all kinds of fun elements.

I said earlier that this game is old-fashioned and not very popular, but I am not right.

"Mario Bros." really didn't make any revolutionary innovations, and it may be okay to say old-fashioned, but it's not hot...... Well, the same can be said in the United States, but in Japan, the game has caused a sales frenzy.

Because FC was so popular after its release that many stores sold out, many crazy gamers retreated to buying the game "Mario Bros. to talk about masturbation".

Hypnotize yourself, I also have FC!

This also created a strange phenomenon at the time, when FC only shipped more than a million copies, but Mario Bros. sold a full 1.6 million copies, resulting in a unique event in the history of gaming - the game sold more than consoles.

So the playability of this game is still there.

There are some games that you don't find interesting to play on your own, but it's especially interesting to watch others play.

When Jester and Mark Saini played Mario Bros., the thirty or so new employees gathered behind them.

even gossiped about his own construction, how to pass the test here.

FC is still a rarity for the vast majority of them.

"This game is good, it's in the style of Donkey Kong."

"Well, there are a lot of similarities with "Donkey Kong", but it seems to be more fun than "Donkey Kong"."

"I just saw the beginning of the Japanese, this is Ren Hell's game, their games are all in this style, fun, playable, interesting!"

"What! It's just that "Donkey Kong" has changed its skin, "Donkey Kong" has played enough, what's the meaning of this game, Ren Hell knows how to fry cold rice, and one day he will end up with Atari. ”

Comments like this are endless.

It wasn't until the end of the sixth level, when Jester's Mario was killed, that he laughed at Mark Saini and immediately closed the game.

Mark Seney saw Jester so shameless, and his eyelids rolled even more, his 2P can still play Louis!

At this time, when someone asked him curiously why he didn't play, Mark Seni was the first to speak.

"This is the designer of American Cubes and your boss, Jester Lee." Then he paused slightly, showing a malicious look, "He's only nineteen years old this year, and he's still studying at UCLA. ”

Then the audience burst into exclamations, and many people even looked at Jester Lee with suspicion.

They were a little unconvinced that a game as great as American Cubes could have been done by just a nineteen-year-old college student.

Jester could only look at Mark Seni helplessly and curse secretly.

Then he himself said: "I'm Jester Lee, as Mark just said, I'm the author of "American Cubes", in fact, this is just an idea that came out of a whim, many of you have more programming skills than me, I believe it can also be seen that this game is not too difficult in terms of technology." ”

What he said made the more than thirty people nod silently, "American Cubes" is indeed not technically difficult.

Many of them, despite their youth, are very experienced game designers, and they know that the gap between each game company in terms of technology is not particularly large at this time - the most important thing about the quality of a game is to look at its creativity, that is, the gameplay, not the technology.

After all, no one can make high-resolution images nowadays, and they can only simulate them to a limited extent on a two-dimensional plane.

And the game "American Cubes" is simply perfect in terms of creativity, gameplay, and even the setting of that easter egg.

Enough to be a textbook model for these game designers of them.

"You don't have to be so restrictive, we are a game company, not a professional law firm or a financial company, there are not so many rules - just sit down, I just want to have a brainstorm with you today and discuss how to make a good game."

Jester glanced around at everyone and began the topic he had prepared for a long time.

In fact, this question has been explored and summarized by all game designers since the birth of video games, but so far, no one has been able to come up with a widely accepted conclusion.

After he asked this question, everyone began to speak freely.

There were all sorts of remarks, but Jester didn't hear anything that got to the core, it was mostly clichés.

Listening to it a little boring, he slapped his face, and the audience fell silent, and moved their eyes to him.

"Then I'll just say a few words, and you can have some thoughts when I was working on American Cubes."

Jester waved his hand for everyone to sit down.

He stood up after playing the game just now, and he still feels quite tired.

He then opened his concluding remarks at the 2011 DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) summit in Las Vegas.

"I don't think a game can be a good game if it doesn't impress people with its most basic ideas."

Then, Jester continued.

"So, I think a good game has to have something that moves people -- it can be anything, the characters, the story, the gameplay, the graphics, even the music, and you have to make your people feel that it's worth my money, rather than having them think, 'Oh, I'm like paying fifty dollars for a piece of white gold-encrusted!'"

This made many people fall into deep thought, but there were also people with a confused look on their faces, including a young man with long brown hair and glasses, who was born and asked: "BOSS, my name is Will Wright, I used to be an architect, I want to ask, what you just said is very idealistic, is there anything materialistic?" ”

"Materialistic?"

Jester smiled when he heard this, then took a closer look at the young man named Will Wright, overlapping it with the image of one of the people he remembered, then he thought for a moment, and continued.

"I've got a little bit of an idea."

Jester then began to use his own words to shamelessly plagiarize the 'Saini theory' proposed by Mark Saini in later generations and considered the bible by countless game designers.

In the future, Mark Saini won the GDC Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honor for game designers, for this theory.

Of course, this will be called 'Jester Lee's methodology' in the future.

"Before I do that, I want to ask you a very fundamental question, are you making a game or designing a game?"

This question caused a lot of discussion among the thirty designers, who all understood that "making zuò" and "design" are completely different words, both superficial and internal.

Manufactured zuò, generally considered industrial products on the assembly line, they may be qualified, but they are the same and lack creativity.

Designs, on the other hand, are generally considered to be elaborate works of art, and they may be bizarre, but they are full of all kinds of whimsical ideas.

In other words, Jester's question is asking these designers what kind of mentality you are using to make a game.

Seeing that almost everyone was discussing in a whisper, but none of them came forward to answer their questions directly, even the original author of the question, Mark Saini, was silently thinking about something with his head down.

Jester wasn't in a hurry, just smiled slightly and continued his question.

"Then let me ask a more direct question, if you design a game that has been completed 90 percent of the time, and your feeling or the opinion given by the players who tried it out is 'not bad', if it is released immediately after the finishing touch, you can earn fan money, but the evaluation may not be too high, then the question is - do you want to redo this game and make this game a classic that can go down in history, or do you just sell it and earn back the R&D expenses first?"

As soon as Jester finished asking this question, the expressions on the faces of those designers instantly froze.