GAMENOVA, reception room.
"Mr. Honig, I never expected that the state education department would be interested in a small video game company like ours."
Lin Lixin gestured to Sam to prepare coffee and tea.
The visitor was Bill Honig, the chief of the California Department of Education.
In this loosely federal state, he is considered the highest-ranking administrative official in charge of California's local education department.
Bill Honig gently put down his briefcase, glanced around the reception room, and then sat down somewhat awkwardly.
Compared to GAMENOVA, a true business giant that holds significant influence throughout the United States, his own status was really of little value.
"Mr. Lin, I apologize for the intrusion and for disturbing you. I have been following your and GAMENOVA's actions."
Honig bowed slightly in politeness, displaying a humble attitude.
Whether this was just a show or it was truly his personality, at least Lin Lixin found his actions very pleasing.
"It's such a big holiday, I thought only Sam and I didn't get a day off."
Lin Lixin smiled, exchanged a casual pleasantry, and then cut straight to the point, "I bet Mr. Honig didn't come here just to inquire about our annual report, did he?"
Lin Lixin didn't really remember this California superintendent of public education.
After all, he's not exactly a figure in the gaming industry.
However, after learning that the other party was coming to see him, he still conducted a brief background check.
This is a rather radical education reformer who has strongly promoted several education reform proposals just this year.
This includes Order No. 98, which raises the minimum level of financial support for education.
Bill Honig was a key figure in the curriculum reforms, in particular.
How to shift from rote memorization to understanding-based learning, and to fun and engaging education, is the problem they are currently working to solve.
"Of course, of course."
Honig nodded repeatedly. "To be honest, I did see—or rather, I played— Angry Birds from Gamenova, which is why I decided to pay a visit."
Upon hearing this, Lin Lixin raised an eyebrow, already having a guess as to what he was here for.
Sure enough, after a brief pause, Honig reached into his briefcase, took out a document, and gently placed it on the table.
"Mr. Lin, believe me, as California's Superintendent of Public Schools, I've seen plenty of terrible software that uses the 'edutainment' label to create something awful."
As the wealthiest state in the US, California's Treasury is a highly coveted prize that everyone wants a piece of.
Hearing about the proposed reforms to integrate education with entertainment, many software companies have jumped on the bandwagon.
In order to implement this policy, they did indeed seek out many partners to test the waters.
Our first partner was Davidson & Associates.
Honig showed the contents of the document to Lin Lixin.
It was a DOS program with a rudimentary interface and graphics, a messy and aesthetically unappealing program, so much so that you couldn't even tell what it was for at a glance.
"This is the result they delivered."
Honig sighed helplessly. "Frankly, it's a complete waste of money. I tried the software, and for me, it's not even as fun as reading a book directly."
Davidson & Associates--
Lin Lixin narrowed his eyes slightly.
Although he didn't know much about the Ministry of Education, he did have some impression of this company.
This company has some connection to them, or more precisely, to the Blizzard trio who are currently focusing on their training in Southern California.
According to the original timeline, Mike Morhaime and his two colleagues would not have been able to set up Blizzard until 1991.
Of course, its original name was " Silicon & Synapse ", but it was later officially changed to Blizzard because everyone felt that the name was meaningless.
By 1994, three years later, Blizzard had already produced quite a few early works and was already somewhat well-known.
In an era where the Feeding Frenzy eat the small fish, it wasn't long before someone set their sights on this young startup.
The person who made the move was naturally Davidson & Associates.
In the same year, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was officially released.
However, just the following year, the big fish, Davidson & Associates, was devoured by an even bigger fish.
PC gaming giant Sierra acquired Davidson & Associates as a whole.
"Find a publishing company to make the game—you've got guts."
"Haha----"
Honig gave an awkward laugh.
He doesn't know anything about these things; these are things that the people in charge of bidding and tendering are responsible for.
Looking back now, I realize I was really badly scammed.
"Later we contacted Broderbund, and the result... I'm sure Mr. Lin can guess."
Good heavens----
This is also a heavyweight, another giant in the PC game publishing industry.
Honig seemed to finally realize how outrageous the person he had hired was, and his expression was incredibly awkward.
Looking at him like this, Lin Lixin chuckled softly.
"So, Mr. Honig means he wants Angry Birds to do this?"
"Yes----"
Bill Honig nodded.
"GAMENOVA manages to get hundreds of millions of players willing to figure out the physics principles, even though they've been simplified in many ways."
"This is simply an absolute miracle."
"If we can use this to motivate students to actively study parabolas and angles, that would be the best course."
Having gotten through to him, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The fact that Lin Lixin was willing to bring up this matter means that it's not necessarily impossible to reach an agreement.
"Mr. Lin, we have no intention of having GAMENOVA make any changes that would damage Angry Birds, but I do want it to be—more flexible."
How so?
"Could we design a mechanism that allows teachers and students to freely design levels—or something like that?"
He cautiously probed, glancing furtively at Lin Lixin, intending to quickly distance himself and apologize if anything went wrong.
Upon hearing this question, Lin Lixin paused for a moment, exchanged a glance with Sam, and then suddenly burst into laughter.
"That's it? I thought you were planning to commission us to develop an educational version or something."
"Uh, yes, Mr. Lin, as long as this mechanism exists, it will be fine."
Honig didn't understand, but he nodded nonetheless.
"If that's the case, I think we should sign the documents as soon as possible, because we can get what you need today."
"Huh? Today?"
Honig was startled.
What kind of work efficiency is this?
He clearly remembered that when he arrived, Sam had given him a special tour.
During this major holiday, most of the development department staff have gone home to enjoy their own lives. Apart from the necessary office staff and security personnel, only Lin Lixin, Sam, and Carmack are present in the entire company.
With just a few people, what can they possibly accomplish?
"What, you think it's too slow? If you're in a hurry, you can wait a few minutes. You can also just take the demo with you when you get back."
" Sam, bring the things over here."
Sam nodded, went straight to the development department, pulled out a disc, and then quickly returned to the reception room.
Level editor? It's been a standard feature in GAMENOVA games ever since they started having levels!
"Oh my god----"
Bill Honig never imagined in his life that a company could be this efficient.
There was no dawdling or wasted words.
From the moment I entered this reception room, things proceeded smoothly and quickly.
"Thank you so much for your help, Mr. Lin! Now—shall we talk about the benefits?"
"No need."
Lin Lixin waved his hand, "This project is sponsored by GAMENOVA, let's do it through charity. We'll arrange for the factory to provide you with a batch of pre-testing equipment later."
This kind of cooperation is a complete revolving door; there's no reason not to do it.
Being able to get closer to the California state government would be very beneficial for future project planning and could also reduce a lot of unnecessary trouble.
For example, the official endorsement from non-profit organizations such as the ESRB and W3C.
After seeing Bill Honig off, Lin Lixin returned to his work.
Gerald is quite old; he certainly can't stay at his post for a few more days like the younger guys.
With the mindset that he had nothing better to do, Lin Lixin simply took the initiative to pick up the touch screen project again.
On his desk sat a NovaSwift development machine used for testing.
He has now attached the resistive touchscreen to it.
Same old routine, just forcibly connect the ribbon cable with a jumper wire.
With a simple design, a small piece of software can be put into testing.
Transformation between screen coordinates and spatial coordinates – matrices –
While testing, Lin Lixin quickly corrected the data on the computer.
The process is not complicated; the main purpose is to match the points on the screen with those in the game.
This thing is essentially an external board that's attached to an existing LCD screen, so positioning it is actually a bit tricky.
Of course, this is the easiest of the many bottlenecks that touchscreen technology faces to solve.
Ten minutes later.
Lin Lixin stopped what he was doing and shook his hands, which had become somewhat stiff.
"Dude—this is completely impractical!"
Even if the positioning problem is solved, or even the light transmission problem is solved, this thing still has no practical value.
The biggest drawback of resistive touchscreens is that they require extremely strong force.
You have to tap hard with your fingertip for the screen to give you feedback from time to time.
This experience is far from silky smooth; it's not even as smooth as a hand.
Seeing his expression, Sam simply took a toothpick from the drawer and tossed it over.
"Duh, can't you use tools? We can just make a stylus later."
"Ha?"
Lin Lixin caught the toothpick, somewhat bewildered.
Using a toothpick to scratch the touchscreen? Won't that just break it?
"Hiss... wait a minute?"
I just swiped it around a couple of times, and to my surprise, it actually worked!
It's at least better than him poking at it with his finger.
But why is that?
In my memory, for a touchscreen to respond, even when using a pen, it had to be a dedicated conductive stylus.
It often requires the use of fingers to operate.
"----It's not a resistive touchscreen, it's a capacitive touchscreen!"