"Crunch"
Lin Lixin casually grabbed a round candy that was a mix of red and yellow and popped it into his mouth.
With a gentle bite, the Jelly Belly bursts out from under the hard shell, filling your mouth with a delightful aroma.
" Sam, want to play a round? I heard sugar can make your brain more active for a short time."
He grabbed a handful and was about to throw it to Sam was standing nearby.
Upon hearing these words, Sam immediately looked terrified and waved his hands frantically to avoid them.
When ordering a custom-made candy, especially for a large company like theirs, it's impossible to just produce a few pieces on a small scale.
After hearing about Lin Lixin Jelly Belly immediately started its production line and temporarily produced a few batches.
The result was that several warehouses temporarily rented by GAMENOVA were filled with containers of candy.
There were several boxes piled up in the company; there were so many that we couldn't possibly eat them all. We could even build a north-facing house with some left over.
Sugar is delicious, but even the most sugar-loving person can't resist spending all their time in it.
Sam is really about to throw up from eating it all.
Seeing that Sam wasn't responding, Lin Lixin shrugged, fiddling with the candy box with one hand while rapidly typing on the keyboard with the other.
"Bang!" Lin Lixin slammed down the last key, then clapped his hands and casually wiped his hands on Sam's body.
"Done!"
No matter how ingenious the design of Cut the Rope may be, from a programming perspective it's still the same old thing.
Perhaps the most complex part is this 2D physics system.
However, this part was already resolved when the Hill Climb Racing project was underway.
Christopher packaged the proven technology into a complete plugin library.
Lin Lixin only needs to use it casually to save a lot of time from reinventing the wheel.
"I've got the first three levels sorted out. Shall I run a demo to test it out?"
Sam was operating a brand new NeXT-Computer, dragging the mouse along.
This machine is even more powerful than the IBM workstations we used before.
In particular, the native support for the NeXTSTEP visual operating system greatly simplifies the porting process.
Otherwise, every time I want to design something, I have to figure out how to get the N Language interpreter running first.
The development of NeXTSTEP involved a large number of people, including Lin Lixin, Carmack, and Vivian, making it much more convenient to use than Microsoft's Windows and MS-DOS.
The high resolution, especially in the thousands, makes level design particularly enjoyable.
Lin Lixin nodded and said, "Okay, let's try it first, and we'll fix it if there are any problems."
Although a large portion of the art assets are still in the hands of Game Freak and Industrial Light & Magic, which is helping Nickelodeon.
However, running a simple test demo shouldn't be a problem at this stage.
Humm----
Lin Lixin dragged the joystick, precisely cutting the rope and popping the Bubbles at the right spot, allowing the candy to land precisely on OmNom, which was still just a texture.
Although touchscreens are still a complete fantasy at this stage, specially designed joystick controls can provide players with a sufficiently smooth experience through automatic attraction and prediction of player behavior.
As the candy comes into contact with OmNom, the handheld console emits a monotonous beeping sound, indicating that they have successfully completed the level.
A confirmation window immediately popped up on the screen, before the UI stickers were even applied. Just click it to proceed to the next level.
It's simple, but it has everything you need.
"How about it?"
Although it was just a few simple tutorial levels at the beginning, Sam was quite confident, looking at Lin Lixin expectantly, hoping to hear some praise.
But Lin Lixin remained silent, his brow furrowed.
That's a bit strange.
Lin Lixin couldn't pinpoint the problem immediately, but it was clear that the game's current experience was far from satisfactory.
There were problems everywhere, to the point that he couldn't even clearly analyze the specific symptoms.
"The game mechanics are fine, and we can ignore the art and sound effects for now—so what's the problem?"
This rudimentary demo seemed to fall short of Lin Lixin's expectations.
It lacks a driving force that makes people want to keep playing.
"Is there a problem with my level design?"
Sam's heart tightened, and he focused his attention on the newly appeared level, analyzing its situation with complete concentration.
"Yes and no."
Lin Lixin was also focused on this checkpoint.
Sam is indeed a very quick learner.
He is now able to use emergent design effectively to create many clever and fun little levels.
But it was precisely this point that gave Lin Lixin that strange sense of unease.
confused!
Having too many choices actually limited his thinking, causing him to feel a strange sense of fatigue whenever he faced a new challenge, making him lose interest in continuing to solve the puzzle.
"Oh, I know!"
Lin Lixin's eyes widened suddenly, and he slapped his thigh ( Sam's thigh) hard, only then realizing what was missing. "The stars! How could we forget about them!"
What star?
Sam asked in confusion, his voice trembling slightly.
"Collectibles—to make the objectives of a level more diverse, adding optional collectibles is the best approach."
When he mentioned "optional," Lin Lixin deliberately held up a finger and made a quotation mark gesture.
Previously, Lin Lixin had been busy with the peripheral development of OmNom and the implementation of the core game mechanics, and the level design was entirely handed over to Sam. This caused Lin Lixin to inadvertently overlook this crucial mechanic.
Having figured this out, Lin Lixin didn't waste any more time and quickly returned to his PC to start typing out the new feature.
Before long, the new version of the map editor was completed.
Although it's called a new version, it's actually almost identical to the old version.
The only difference is that each level now has an additional requirement to set stars.
Three stars that the designer can move freely will be automatically generated on the map.
What is this thing used for?
Every designer familiar with game design knows this very well.
Like the coins in Super Mario, it's a collectible item used to keep players interested.
At the same time—it's actually part of the tutorial.
"Ah, I understand."
Sam immediately understood Lin Lixin's meaning and began adjusting the star design for each level. "Stars can be used to give players hints, which are essentially 'clues' for the officially designated routes, right?"
Sometimes, the way the developers expect players to complete a level can be clearly seen from the design of the collectibles.
There is indeed a group of people in this world who are not particularly fond of emergent design.
They prefer clear and specific goals.
The existence of stars perfectly fulfills their needs.
Besides, stars also have a very cunning and sly function----