Debut as Swan Song?

"Changing the underlying layer means remaking it, maybe even rewriting the engine." The lead programmer spread both hands. "The current algorithms can't support real-time collision calculations for irregular geometric bodies like this. Unless—"

"Unless what?"

"Unless we make them into textures."

And so those cosmic fortresses that should have been grand and magnificent were forced to be downgraded from "battlefield facilities" into "

desktop wallpapers."

They were welded fast to the farthest end of the image. No matter how hard the player pushed the throttle, that A Baoa Qu always hung on the horizon, neither closer nor farther away, like a shoddy stage backdrop.

But that was not even the worst of it.

To make the screen look lively, the planners also suggested adding Federation and Zeon fleets firing at each other in the background.

The idea was plump and full; reality was so bony it jabbed.

Since it was a background texture, it had to obey the principles of perspective. Warships placed hundreds of kilometers away would be only a little bigger than mung beans on the screen.

The final result was simply a farce: on the distant backdrop, several rows of pixels blinked mechanically, with the occasional beam thinner than a strand of hair streaking past. There was no sense of pressure, no sense of depth; instead, it made this stretch of space seem even more absurd and empty.

"How about—we go ask Sega?" someone suggested in a low voice. "Since they can make something like Virtua Fighter, with such complicated throws in 3D scenes, writing collision logic for us shouldn't be hard."

"Shut up." Mitsui Chuta suddenly turned back, his eyes fierce enough to devour someone. "This is Bandai's face. If we can't even produce a presentable demo and have to beg Sega to patch it for