I think I understand what you mean.
Sam picked up a piece from the chessboard and moved it two squares forward. "It's much easier to understand if you use a chessboard to explain it to me."
"Essentially, it's a board game wargaming simulation with RPG elements added, right?"
I must say, that's a really good idea.
At its core, video games actually inherit a lot of content from traditional forms of entertainment.
Just like the wildly popular D&D digital version, which evolved from the board game.
The chessboard itself is already a representative of strategy games.
Bringing it to video games, the convenience brought by computers allows the originally rigid chessboard to burst forth with endless variations.
Sam then picked up another piece labeled "Lord" and placed it in front of the piece labeled "Warrior" on Lin Lixin's side.
"Let me think... According to the rules, you're within my attack range, so I can attack you directly, right?"
Having gained Lin Lixin's approval, he flipped through the draft paper beside him, "Then I'll have Roy equip a rapier and attack your 'warrior' Lot."
The weapon wielded by Lot, controlled by Lin Lixin, is a steel axe. According to the rules, when Sam fights him using a sword, he can enjoy double the power due to the advantage of the weapon.
"Brilliant, that's it! That's what I meant by us being able to reuse the Pokémon code."
Lin Lixin casually tossed a D100 die and deducted a portion of Lot's health from his notes.
Sam nodded thoughtfully.
"The type matchup between the spear, axe, and sword uses the same algorithm as the type matchup in Pokémon, right?"
His gaze swept across the chessboard, confirming he had no more pieces to play this round, then he rang the bell on the table. "Alright, your turn."
"It does use that system, but it's more than that. Essentially, its combat system is still turn-based, so we can actually reuse most of our code."
Lin Lixin had always had an idea about this, but he had never had the opportunity to implement it due to the lack of uniformity in hardware and various messy interface specifications.
" Sam, imagine this: as we develop more games in the future, we'll have ready-made modules for most gameplay elements, and we'll already have code implemented for various mechanics."
Sam's attention was drawn away from the chessboard by Lin Lixin's words, and he began to think about the situation he described.
"You want to build a resource library so that game development becomes something like a jigsaw puzzle?"
If it can really be done, that would be a wonderful thing.
If a health bar is needed, add a health bar module; if Backpack is needed, add a Backpack module.
"That's right, but I prefer to call it a game engine."
In the era before the concept of game engines emerged, game development often involved a lot of meaningless repetitive work.
For example, all games on NovaBo have a file guide.
Every time they develop a new game, they need to rewrite this completely identical part.
In addition, the game title screens are basically not differentiated at all, so just creating a simple game opening takes up a lot of their time.
"However, we've been really busy lately. Once Carmack and the others have sorted out OpenGL, we should be able to start work."
Lin Lixin's eyes scanned the chessboard, and finally he picked up a Pegasus Knight from the corner.
"Although you brought my Lot to low health, you also exposed your own weakness."
With the Pegasus Knight's mobility, he leaped directly to the nun, whose doors were wide open because Roy had been transferred.
"No!!!"
Sam let out a bloodcurdling scream.
This nun named Elen turned the tide of the battle just now, using her healing skills to bring the thief back from the brink of death.
If he hadn't been bewitched, and hadn't wanted to cut that arrogant Lot in half, how could he have abandoned protecting Elen!
How could you do this to my beloved—?
Sam picked up the chess piece, his hands trembling, and held it tightly in his palm. "I'm so sorry, my Elen!!!"
"See, that's what I meant: we don't need too much text to meticulously craft a character."
Lin Lixin shrugged and continued to control his character without any mercy, having two cavalrymen wielding silver spears attack from both sides, directly beating Sam's ace Roy to death.
Without Roy and Elen, Sam's formation collapsed immediately, leaving a lone archer standing in the wilderness, and the thief was only a step away from Lin Lixin's main force.
"It's useless."
Sam, left with no other option, knocked over all his pieces, signaling his surrender.
Although he lost, after a few games, Sam had completely grasped the amazing aspects of this game.
After all, just simulating it on the chessboard is already so interesting.
"Then let's start construction as soon as possible! I can't wait."
Due to its limited complexity, the chessboard simulation couldn't incorporate the whole bunch of fun-sounding mechanics that Lin Lixin mentioned, leaving Sam itching with anticipation.
According to reports, the game map will also feature a terrain system that is crucial to combat.
Each cell will have completely different geographical conditions.
On the plains, a unit only needs 1 movement point to move one tile, while in forests it costs 2 points, and in mountains it costs even more.
This single mechanism is enough to make the battlefield change in an instant.
Whether it's planning the character's movement route, calculating the distance for pursuit and retreat, or even seizing villages and blocking key passes, all of these will become part of the strategy.
One wrong move and the whole game is lost.
Not to mention the terrain itself's ability to modify various character combat attributes such as evasion and defense.
These are things they can hardly simulate on this monotonous chessboard.
"You have to wait, whether you can't wait or not, unless you can finish the Japan port of Pokémon today."
"Isn't that what we're doing? -- Speaking of which, why don't we add a multilingual feature to the game? Or put all the text in a separate index or something?"
Sam pursed his lips and revised the translation submitted by GameFreak section by section, referring to the document.
"Right? Well said, this job is yours."
Lin Lixin paused in his work of organizing documents.
This is definitely content worth creating.
With the growth of GAMENOVA's business and the consolidation of its domestic market in the United States, going global is an unavoidable topic.
Even if they don't expand into the Japan market, they will definitely go to Europe.
French, Italy, German, Spain ----
It would be incredibly time-consuming to rewrite all this hard-coded text for each language version.
Previously, because there was no need for overseas expansion and in order to save development time, Lin Lixin had not implemented this feature.