Sam didn't sleep well that night.
Whenever he thinks of that cardboard box that sat in the company, he feels a tingling itch in his heart, wishing that dawn would break quickly.
The more I try to fall asleep, the more my mind is stirred.
"Damn it, I can't take it anymore, I can't take it anymore."
Sam reluctantly picked up his modified, extended-battery Nintendo Switch and casually opened Hill Climb Racing.
The next day, when Lin Lixin arrived at the company, Sam was already waiting there.
He eventually retrieved the cardboard box himself.
"You're awake! Come on, I've created a new level, come and play!"
Seeing that Lin Lixin had finally arrived at the company, he then loudly pulled Lin Lixin over to him.
Lin Lixin peeked inside and saw that Sam had stuffed in a few springs and a simple cardboard rail for securing it.
He seems to be having a lot of fun.
And it seems to actually be quite difficult.
"Ahem, yes, I really want to play, but we need to get right into the actual development today."
Lin Lixin, feigning a busy demeanor, quickly walked to his PC.
"Hey, don't do that! I've been working on this for hours!"
Upon discovering that Lin Lixin was planning to escape, Sam was not about to let him go so easily.
He keeps saying he's busy with development, but is there anyone more knowledgeable than Lin Lixin about his abilities?
If Lin really wanted to catch up on the deadline, he probably would have been working overtime here last night, and by the time I arrived today, the demo would probably already be finished.
"I said—don't you think it's more convenient to design levels directly using the level editor?"
Lin Lixin sighed helplessly, then casually pointed in a direction as if teasing a child, "Look, cut that one, then cut this one a second later, and finally this one."
Well, perhaps Sam does have a real talent for level design.
But who is Lin Lixin?
Ever since he finished studying Nintendo's " Pinball," he can now roughly estimate these simple physics calculations at a glance.
Could that ability to increase the efficiency of physics learning be something so inconvenient?
Even if it's several times more complicated, it's just a matter of glancing at it twice.
Sam watched as the coin landed precisely in the paper cup, and immediately deflated.
He silently opened the glass display case, put the thing back on, and then came to Lin Lixin.
"Speaking of which, you just mentioned a level editor?"
"Yeah, otherwise why would I hire you as a mascot?"
Lin Lixin rolled his eyes at him.
However, Sam is actually surprisingly talented in level design.
He still remembers the time when the two of them were working on the Legend of Zelda and Metal Gear.
It's important to know that even the original the Legend of Zelda had a very large world.
Metal Gear even has hundreds of levels.
A large part of this was left to Sam's responsibility.
At that time, Lin Lixin usually only needed to describe his needs and write a rough plan for Sam, and he could then figure out how to design a whole bunch of fancy levels.
Moreover, the quality is quite good, and it has a good reputation among players.
Unfortunately, as the game grew larger and the player base expanded, there were fewer opportunities to divide roles as before.
Now that he's entered the realm of casual games, he unexpectedly has another opportunity to showcase his talents.
"Look, changing the position of the thumbtacks, shortening the cotton thread, and moving the paper cups on the cardboard box—aren't these all part of level design?"
Lin Lixin explained to Sam as he typed on the keyboard.
Besides simply amusing my friends, there were indeed many experimental considerations behind creating this cardboard toy.
"Similar to the level editing tools used in Metal Gear? Or the level editors in Fire Emblem?"
Sam had been with them all along, so he was used to these things.
"None of those."
Lin Lixin shook his head. "We can create a drag-and-drop visual map designer."
Back in the Metal Gear era, while they already had the ability to quickly design levels, that technology was originally designed for geeks like Lin Lixin and Sam.
It's easy to use, but that's relative to geeks who are used to dealing with PCs.
Levels could be designed with just a few short instructions, something unimaginable in the early 1980s.
However, with the existence of fully visual game development engines like NovaEngine nowadays, that level of ground-based programming is somewhat rudimentary.
Taking this opportunity, Lin Lixin decided to try and see if he could create a true drag-and-drop design using the floating-point operations that a 16-bit machine could barely achieve.
"Ah, so you're planning to let all players design their own levels? Like how we messed around with that broken cardboard box."
Sam immediately understood what Lin Lixin was planning to do.
This isn't the first time they've done something like this.
How to make a proven and excellent technology available to the general public and truly bring it to the market so that all players can enjoy it has always been an important issue for them.
Just like the clothing design in the Sims.
This system was the first technology to be validated in Temple Run.
"Wait, but it can't—uh, how should I put it? It can't connect to the internet, right?"
Sam frowned.
NovaSwift is great in every way, but the inability to connect to the internet is a real pain.
This makes it impossible for many games that are clearly better suited for mobile devices to run on it.
Just like Pixel War.
"Yes, that's true."
Lin Lixin nodded.
In the pre-internet era, mobile devices had many limitations.
Even if he spent more money developing cellular networks and borrowed the technology from Motorola's early mobile phones, he still couldn't make the NS...
It offers an excellent online experience, similar to NX.
But they don't actually need to do that.
"NS may indeed lack internet connectivity, but it has well continued the tradition of NP."
Lin Lixin chuckled and casually picked up a prototype.
The sidebar features a communication cable interface that is identical to that of the NP.
You can connect it to other NS devices simply by using the same cable.
"You can trade Pokémon, so why can't you trade them in stages?"
Simply save the file and import it into the other person's machine via a communication protocol, and you can share the level, right?
If this level-sharing system works smoothly, Cut the Rope might even become a key driver for the Switch's monthly sales to surpass those of the Nintendo Switch.
One person tells ten, ten tell a hundred; every well-designed community checkpoint becomes an important part of this viral transmission chain.