New Racing Game
Tetsuya Mizuguchi scratched his head. "That's where we're stuck. The physics of drifting through corners in rally racing is captivating, but street racing offers a stronger sense of immersion. The two factions in the development team have been arguing for two days, and neither can convince the other."
"Why do we have to make it a multiple-choice question?" Takuya countered.
He stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and pointed to the intricate network of elevated highways in Tokyo outside. "I've seen <Wangan Mid>..."
NIGHT>?
"Of course I've seen it!" Tetsuya Mizuguchi's eyes lit up, and the other lead planners behind him nodded in agreement.
That manga is practically a must-have for car enthusiasts. The "Devil Z" speeding at 300 km/h on the Capital Expressway Shuto Expressway at night—just thinking about it gets your adrenaline pumping.
"Weaving through dense traffic at breakneck speed, that heart-pounding feeling is something a closed track can't give you." Takuya turned around and leaned against the glass. "But that's not enough. Simply dodging cars and running laps gets boring after a while. Since it's a game, we have to give players some challenges, or rather—some excitement."
Tetsuya Mizuguchi instinctively pulled out his notebook. "You mean increasing the complexity of road conditions?"
"No, I mean increasing the competition." Takuya smiled and gestured. "Imagine you're speeding down the highway in an illegally modified sports car, and suddenly your rearview mirror flashes red and blue lights, and sirens blare. At this point, your goal is no longer the finish line, but how to use traffic, side streets, and even other vehicles to shake off those patrol cars that are like mad dogs behind you."
The meeting room fell silent instantly, followed by rapid breathing.
"Chase... Chase mode?" Tetsuya Mizuguchi's voice trembled slightly, but it was with excitement.
"Exactly. It can even be the other way around." Takuya spread his hands. "Why can players only be fugitives? Let them drive Lamborghini with police livery and ram into those speeding bastards. Isn't the thrill of this 'legal violence' more satisfying than simply being number one?"
This direct attack pierced through the development team's psychological defenses.
The young people's expressions changed from surprise to ecstatic joy, looking like wolves that hadn't eaten for three days suddenly seeing a feast fit for an emperor.
"This—this is amazing!" The guy in charge of level design was so excited he almost broke his pen. "We can make regular races on closed tracks, underground races at high speeds at night, and even a police chase mode! If we could also incorporate the feel of drifting on muddy terrain like in rally racing—"
"Stop, stop, stop." Takuya, seeing these guys already spouting empty promises, had to pour some cold water on their enthusiasm. "Their ideas are great, but reality is harsh. A CD-ROM may have a capacity of 650 MB, but it can't withstand your extravagant spending."
He tapped the table, drawing everyone's attention back. "High-precision car models, complex track data, and even compressed CD audio tracks—these all consume a lot of storage space. Especially if we're making open-world street environments, the amount of textures increases exponentially. You have to make trade-offs to ensure that players get the richest possible gaming experience without sacrificing the core gameplay. I only want one disc. No matter how many modes you cram in, all content and modes must be confined to one disc. Otherwise, changing cars or tracks will require changing discs, which would be a terrible experience."
Tetsuya Mizuguchi took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
He scribbled rapidly in his notebook, his brow furrowing and relaxing intermittently, clearly his brain was working at lightning speed, calculating the balance between choices.
"Understood." After a moment, Tetsuya Mizuguchi closed his notebook, stood up, and bowed deeply. "We will reassess resource allocation. While we may have to cut some unrealistic fantasies, we want the core gameplay—all of it!"
Watching the group of young people rush out of the office as if they were carrying gold bricks, Takuya smiled and shook his head.
This greed is exactly the driving force Sega needs right now.
After Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his team visited, no development team came again for a whole week.
Just when Nakayama Takuya thought the other development teams were going to stubbornly stick to their own ideas and try to come up with a project proposal on their own, another development team finally came to visit.
The team that came in was the Pokémon spin-off series.
The person leading the group was a producer with a round face, Ogasawara Eiji.
Ever since they created Pokémon Adventure on the Mega Drive, this group of people seems to have unlocked their full potential, specializing in developing all sorts of Pokémon games during the lull in mainstream RPG sequels. And every time, they manage to charm players of all ages, firmly securing their position Sega's top "children's game" title.
"Executive Director, this is our next-generation plan." Ogasawara Eiji placed the proposal on the table.
Takuya glanced at the cover, and his eyebrows instantly rose.
Paper Pokémon Adventure.
These words immediately awakened his memories of his past life.
He didn't even need to open the book; the image of the plumber in the red hat transforming into a paper doll and crawling around in the picture book world already appeared in his mind.
This time, however, the main character is Pikachu.
"Tell me your ideas," Takuya said, flipping through the proposal.
"It's like this, Managing Director." Seeing that Takumi Nakayama Takuya hadn't simply thrown the proposal back at them, Ogasawara Eiji grew bolder. "We went to the Hardware Development Department to see Cerny. He showed us the projected data for the new console. While the new console's 3D performance is powerful, if it's used to build a fully 3D Pokémon world, the current polygon count—to be honest, it's a bit alarming."
He pulled a test image out of the folder.
The image shows a Bulbasaur pieced together from rough polygons, its sharp edges making it look like a green geometric monster, completely lacking the rounded cuteness of the original artwork.
"If we put this out, parents will complain that it scares the kids," Ogasawara Eiji smile. "So we thought, since we can't get the roundness right with 3D models, we might as well not make 3D models at all."
Nakayama Takuya raised an eyebrow and pointed to a concept image in the proposal. "So you just flattened them?"
"Yes! Flatten them!" Ogasawara Eiji gestured excitedly. "The scenes are true 3D, with depth of field, perspective, and lighting. But all the characters are made from high-precision 2D hand-drawn materials, processed to have a paper-cut effect. This avoids the 'blocky faces' caused by insufficient polygons, and also maximizes the 2D sprite processing capabilities that Sega hardware excels at."
Takuya looked at the concept art.
In the 3D constructed space, a 2D paper-cut forest is lush and green, with sunlight filtering through the leaves and casting dappled shadows. In the center of the image, a paper-shaped Pikachu stands sideways with a slight white edge, much like a pop-up picture book for children.