Time flies, and after March, Pokeni rushed to work at full speed, and finally finished "The Witcher" in May.

The script and world view of this game were overhauled in February, and according to the evaluation of the art team at that time, it would take about half a year to do it.

I didn't expect that it had been done in less than 4 months.

Shinji Mikami played a key role in this, and it was precisely because of his coordination ability that he split and integrated some resources, saving a lot of art workload.

For example, although some art assets need to be redrawn, the character actions can be based on the same mechanics, and only need to match the corresponding new assets, and the new assets can be changed, but the size and textures can be as good as possible.

The program side also shared some of the work of the changes.

For example, a 2D architecture that supports [change picture] but adapts to the action.

For example, in the allocation and integration of art resources, a more reasonable allocation method is adopted......

According to Qing Zhiyuan's words, what the program team is doing now is equivalent to developing a game development engine based on the Sega MD console.

This is a great thing to do, and it will help the team save a lot of time on new projects, at least for some time to come.

And this [engine] is absolutely unique in its support for new game images, far exceeding this era.

Some people find it incredible, when did Pokeni's program ape become so strong?

But Qing Zhiyuan knows best in his heart -

It is not the technology of the programmed apes that restricts them, but the mind.

The development of science and technology is always "design" or "theory" first, and some things can't be done because you don't think of them, but once you understand the requirements and principles, it is much easier for the program to implement them.

For example, the Gaussian function, which is used a lot in art engines, has existed hundreds of years ago, but because the development of games or games is still very short, no one can think of it for the time being, and there is no related demand, so it will not appear.

But when Qing Zhiyuan proposes it, they will find that this thing is really easy to use, intuitively speaking, you want to make a certain color value in the texture larger, and according to a certain curve to make the transition distribution, then use a Gaussian function, after setting some parameters, you only need to adjust these parameters to easily get the effect you want.

Before that, these things were drawn by hand by art, not to mention the time it took too long, and the other might not be made in strict accordance with the requirements.

If something isn't right, it can lead to rework.

It's actually a waste of time.

The [instrumentalization] and [modularization] proposed by Qing Zhiyuan have greatly improved the efficiency of the team by allowing the program to share and support part of the art work in advance, so that the art team can focus on creation.

It is precisely because of this that "The Witcher" can have such a fast progress.

This shows that the overall strength of the POKENI team has reached a new level.

According to Qing Zhiyuan's theory, last year's pokeni was a piece of.

Of course, when the design and technology are all up, the biggest obstacle at present becomes [hardware]

Qing Zhiyuan was angry because of the hardware.

This Nima, the hardware in the 90s is really too far behind, if it is placed in 10 years, Qing Zhiyuan thinks that they can all be old man rings now.

As a result, the dark series is still tossed here, and it's a 2D version, and the textures are also very old, a little better than mosaics, but not much.

It completely makes the feeling of the Japanese future that Seichi Yuan wants.

Lao Xuan and Shinji Mikami are obviously not hanging on the mecha, so this game can be seen that although there is a sense of technology, it is more of a fist-to-flesh battle, a shattering killing effect, and a variety of strong destruction feedback.

Shinji Mikami can be said to be quite talented in this regard.

You can see this when this guy was doing Resident Evil.

Now after the baptism of Diablo, Mikami's destructive combat talent has fully awakened.

Qing Zhiyuan only hopes that the combination of these two people is not too dark.

He sometimes has to spend time doing psychological construction for them, mainly for the old void, lest this guy go from the original [fatalistic sadomasochism] to another [deep thought] extreme.

The game needs to have a high level of thought, but it does not mean that it makes a very depressing and dark product, the reality is not more and more profound, and you also have to consider the psychological tolerance of the players.

Don't care if people can't stand it, just give a critical hit.

The key is that if you go in this direction, Qing Zhiyuan is very afraid of the psychological distortion of Xuyuan Xuan.

Fortunately, in the end, the end of the witcher was not bad, Qing Zhiyuan ran down by himself, and so far this game, whether it is gameplay or good, the story and the depth of thought have been well guaranteed.

And in it, Qing Zhiyuan can deeply feel the style of Lao Xuan and Mikami.

It can be said that the integration is quite clever.

……

In March, Pokeni posted a job posting in a major newspaper.

[Game Test Engineer: 3 to 5 people.]

Responsible for quality control of the game, and report on the problems found in the game test at all stages of the game......

Educational requirements: high school graduate

Love the game and be familiar with the game

Computer/semiconductor majors are preferred

Salary: 20 to 400,000 yen/month】

Yes, in order to make the game version run smoothly, Qingzhiyuan also specially opened a new position in the company-

Game Testing Engineer.

Legendary QA (Quality Assurance), Quality Assurance Specialist.

Some companies call it QC (Quality Control), Quality Control Specialist.

In the P Society, Qing Zhiyuan still called them QA according to the habit of his previous life.

It sounds lofty, but it's hard to work —

It is equivalent to manual testing, everyone is equivalent to a real player in the game from beginning to end, not only to run the game according to the normal game process, but also to play the game according to abnormal routines, mainly to find hidden bugs in the game.

For example, in Diablo, there may be a situation where the monster cannot attack the player and the player can attack the monster due to the stuck point, and the value of the planned design is useless at this time.

QAs need to get these things out and record them and feed them back to the development team for them to make changes.

As for those games, the screen is blurred, the terrain is stuck, the terrain cannot be navigated, and the players' stats are overflowing...... These are the highest priority bugs and need to be fixed as soon as they are discovered, otherwise players will not be able to play the game.

At that time, the Atari game console was because there were too many bugs in an ET, and it was too shoddy, which led to the collapse of the North American game console market, so the quality problem cannot be ignored in game development.

Previously, in order to save money, Pokeni used the members of the project team to act as a test runner to find bugs and fix bugs.

Now that he has a certain amount of economic strength, Qingzhiyuan still decided to recruit a few specialized testers.

It can be said that the current Pokeni is at the forefront of the era in terms of professional differentiation.

This kind of professional differentiation has certain benefits, and the advantage is that [professional people do professional things].

The division of labor is a very important step in the industrialization process, which allows all the links to work efficiently, and everyone is sure to play a higher value in the field they are familiar with and good at.

But there are certain disadvantages.

The disadvantage is that there is a lack of connection, and members may have outstanding abilities in one area and shortcomings in other aspects.

The end result is that it's hard to produce a producer.

Because the producer has to think holistically, comprehensively consider all factors, have expertise and understand all aspects of the game

Therefore, Qingzhiyuan will ask the employees of P Company to learn more about other people, especially those colleagues who have little to do with themselves, in addition to making achievements in their own fields, and occasionally let the old employees in different fields give a small class to introduce and explain their work content.

……

When they saw Pokeni's [Game Test Engineer] job advertisement, many young people were stunned.

"Nani, you still have such a good job?"

"Not only can you play games, but you can also play games to earn money!"

"It seems that there are basically not many requirements, mainly because I like the game and am familiar with the game, so I am very suitable, and I have played more than 100 games."

"Wow, is there a happier profession in this world?"

"Yes, isn't there a [hotel sleep tester], [food critic] or something like that? Not only can you live in a high-end hotel and experience the life of a rich person, eat delicious food, but also make money, these are also very happy, right? ”

"But the bar for those professions is not low. The premise of becoming a foodie is that you really have a tongue with absolute taste and sharp words.

It's not as simple as P is asking for, right? ”

"Isn't playing games every day and getting paid for it the best job in the world? What's more, it's a game of P Society.

It's equivalent to the game before it is released, so we can play it for the first time, and Pokeni's games are known for their high quality!

Especially in terms of plot, if you can become a test engineer, isn't it equivalent to knowing the content of the script in advance? ”

"Hehe, you have to be able to apply!"

……

In this era, game QA has not yet become a very fixed and valued profession.

While many publishers have high requirements for the quality of their games, most game development companies don't feel the need to create this position, but rather through an insider-run approach like the one used by Pokeni before.

The earliest QA probably appeared in this era, but it was not called QA, and many companies set up positions to allow 1 or 2 people to experience the game from the player's point of view, so as to clear the blind spots in the developer's perspective.

To put it simply, as a game maker, you may be very familiar with the game and after all, it is a game developed by yourself, and there are some emotional factors in it, so that their judgment will be distorted, and they always prefer to give their games a good review.

But it's hard to say what the real situation is, and in this case, you need to have [Xiaobai] to test.

Then, in the subsequent development and changes, the requirements for the professionalism and scope of these testers became higher and higher, and finally evolved into professional QA after about 15 or 20 years.

They not only have to take on part of the player functions and give advice to the planner, but also have to control the quality of the product and conduct performance and function tests, which actually has a high threshold in the field of knowledge and professional standards, and it is not as easy as everyone imagined.

Now Qing Zhiyuan has taken it out separately and professionalized it.

As soon as Pokeni's job advertisement came out, it immediately sparked a wave of competitive recruitment.

There are a lot of people who have played the game, after all, this is the neon of the country of games.

Applicants submit tens of thousands of resumes every week.

And Koichi Tenge is one of them.

……

Little HR Akane Ayase didn't expect it to be so popular.

This is probably the first time she has encountered such a large workload, and she has never been so busy since serving as the HR of P Company.

After a series of screenings, 3 applicants were finally admitted from more than 10,000 applicants.

Among them is Koichi Tengen.

This guy is not only a game fan, but also a graduate of Dongda Semiconductor, and has a relatively in-depth understanding of the program, which perfectly meets the requirements of Qingzhiyuan.

On his first day, Tengen's face was filled with a happy smile, and at this moment, he seemed to be the luckiest lucky person in the world.

Pokeni, who can stand out from tens of thousands of competitors and is still his favorite, can earn money by playing the game......

Is there anything happier in the world than this?

……

But a month later, Tenggen Koichi regretted it.

"Ah~ It's been a real run away for me this time."

Doing what he likes to do is a happy thing, but repeating what he likes to do every day is not as happy as he imagined.

At the end of the day, the Witcher had a lot of bugs, and their testing team reported hundreds of bugs a week.

And when the program is closed, it has to be rechecked as a QA to see if these bugs are still there.

It is equivalent to eating a large lobster on the first day of coming to the company, which is very delicious, and there are many suggestions for improvement.

Who knows if I will be eating lobster every day in the future, and I will have to see if the chef has improved every day.

"I used to like to play games very much, but now I have to vomit when I play games." Another QA frowned.

Hearing his words, Tengen was also a little sick to his stomach.

"yes, who would have thought? This job is too different from what I imagined, right? ”

……

"But, thanks to you, the production of "The Witcher" is progressing quite well."

At this moment, Qing Zhiyuan, who was passing by next to him, took over their words and said with a smile.

Several people were taken aback, and quickly stood up and said respectfully, "President." ”

"There's no easy job in the world, is there?" Qing Zhiyuan laughed and comforted them, "Although it is hard, but because of you, the quality of our products is quite good."

The good news is that –

The Witcher is a game that will be available next month. ”

"Huh? Are you sure? ”

The eyes of the three QA boys lit up and they immediately became excited.

"The witcher is super fun. It's sure to be a big hit! Tengen clenched his fists.

The QA girl next to her rolled her eyes, "Hehe, why don't you vomit now?" ”

……

————————————————————————————

There is no update tonight

Thank you

See you tomorrow

(End of chapter)