Although Mark Cerny doesn't have a formal hardware background.
But which producer active these days isn't a master of both hardware and software?
The " Marble Madness " game he created at Atari was actually designed and built by himself.
In a sense, Cerny really did come from an arcade background, and even from Atari Games.
NovaArcade's predecessor was Atari Games, an arcade company.
This impeccable political background made Cerny feel right at home when he arrived at NovaArcade.
"Hello, Mr. Gary, Lin asked me to coordinate the work."
"Of course, of course!"
Gary was in an exceptionally good mood when he was with Cerny.
If he had to choose the person he would most like to work with, it would definitely be Mark Cerny.
Back in the Atari Games days, he often saw Mark Cerny shining brightly at the company.
At that time, however, he was just an unknown nobody, not capable of having a conversation on equal footing.
To be fair, Cerny's many game design philosophies at that time had a profound influence on Gary.
"Lin is planning to develop a rolling ball game similar to ' Marble Madness,' let's see if we can come up with some creative ways to make it interactive."
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Cerny briefly explained the situation to the other party.
After hearing his words, Gary slapped his forehead. "Hey, what a coincidence! Gerald wanted to see your machine before, so I went to the warehouse and picked up a few sets."
Although the reorganized NovaArcade lost a lot in terms of arcade heritage, popular arcade games like Marble Madness can actually be found secondhand in any arcade.
Gary led Cerny to the warehouse and stopped in front of several machines that were quite clean.
It was obvious that they cleaned it up a bit after getting it.
It has a very typical old-fashioned arcade style, full of the unique style of the 80s.
The 19-inch Electrohome G07 CRT television, nestled in a frame, has a slightly curved surface. Because it cannot be as thin as an LCD screen, this monitor alone takes up a lot of space.
And of course, there's that thick, black border—enough to hold several aircraft carriers.
However, these are problems that older arcade games cannot avoid.
Even now, they still use CRT picture tubes when producing arcade machines.
Aiming to achieve the size of an arcade-quality LCD panel is simply burning money.
That pitiful yield rate is simply unacceptable after factoring in the costs.
The control panel of " Marble Madness " features two trackballs, one red and one blue, clearly designed for two-player gameplay.
Cerny came closer and casually fiddled with the trackball a couple of times, momentarily lost in thought.
"Speaking of which—we were originally working on a game project based on Michael Jack's Thriller."
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He reminisced about the development of the arcade game, "But then that project was canceled, and Flanagan came to me to work on ' Marble Madness '."
Flanagan was also a software engineer at Atari Games and participated in the programming of " Marble Madness ".
Thinking about it carefully, the wishes they didn't fulfill back then have now been fulfilled by GAMENOVA.
MJ is now a partner of Gamenova.
"Ah, I remember, Kanong and Fuller were also helping with the music back then, and they were using Yamaha's best chips."
Although Gary was just a handyman at the beginning, he did have some knowledge of many of the company's operations.
The arcade board used in " Marble Madness " was Atari System 1, which was a very high-end configuration for its time.
Gary also tried rubbing the trackball on the panel and could feel a slight resistance; it wasn't completely free-rolling.
"I remember this trackball is motor-driven?"
"Oh, you knew that?"
Cerny glanced at him in surprise; this was quite a secret about Atari Games.
He gently shook his head.
"I'm sorry, although I really wanted to do that, the management didn't approve of the plan at the time, and it was ultimately canceled."
The final version of the " Marble Madness " arcade game actually used a conventional trackball without a motor.
This is something that Mark Cerny regrets.
The reason for wanting to make it motor-driven was that Cerny intended to use this method to provide different tactile feedback when going uphill and downhill.
If this thing could be made, it would be much more fun than simply swiping the ball.
The world of " Marble Madness " is an isometric projection, which gives it a sense of depth, but it's not actually ideal.
Due to the limited capabilities of System 1, Cerny could not fit a complete physics simulation into the game.
Instead, a racing format was introduced to somewhat mask the shortcomings of other aspects.
"It was canceled? I thought I wasn't perceptive enough to notice the difference in feel."
Gary nodded; he had naturally played this popular arcade game countless times.
"When I submitted the design proposal, Atari's design department told me that the design had structural flaws that would affect the stability and precision of operation, and was not feasible from an engineering perspective."
"That's a real shame. I really wanted to see just how amazing it would be if it could actually be made."
"Me too, that's why I came to find you."
Cerny's tone suddenly became lighter.
After their casual conversation, Cerny suddenly realized why Lin Lixin had entrusted this matter to him.
Hey, I really am the most suitable person to do this.
Atari Games is a company with average business performance. Although its arcade revenue is good, it's not at the point where it can afford to mess around.
But Gamenova is different.
"Go ahead and experiment; arcade games are our testing ground."
This is what Lin Lixin told him.
Now that I hear it, the meaning is very clear: they really intend to let him do whatever he wants and cause as much trouble as he wants.
"If Lin were to do this, he would never give up just because his technical skills aren't up to par."
Although Cerny hadn't worked with Lin Lixin for long, he was very familiar with Lin Lixin's, or rather, GAMENOVA's, way of doing things.
Mountains can be cut through, and rivers can be sculpted.
If the technology isn't up to par, then tackle it by any means necessary, regardless of cost.
If they can create something as absurd as " Ace Combat," what's so difficult about a simple motor-driven trackball?
"Regarding force feedback technology, Thrustmaster should have a similar patent, which we can refer to."
Cerny thought for a moment, and since he had decided to do it, he naturally had to mobilize all available resources as much as possible.
The vast amount of technology currently in Thrustmaster's hands can also be utilized.
Don't be fooled by the fact that steering wheels and flight sticks seem completely unrelated to trackballs; their force feedback actually incorporates motor technology.
The charm of arcade games lies precisely in the unique and immersive experience created by the ingenious combination of the game itself and electronic mechanisms.
This is also a key reason why, even in the later era of diverse video games, arcades, though declining, still firmly occupy their own niche.
In fact, the later version of " Hamsterball " was a PC game, or even a PC game from the digital distribution era.
However, its gameplay and pace are surprisingly well-suited to arcade platforms.
A game, if played quickly, usually lasts only ten or twenty seconds.
Even at the slowest, the time will run out in a minute.
This fast-paced rhythm perfectly matches the style of arcade games.
"The level design still needs more polishing, and of course, the party battle gameplay needs to be developed as well."
Lin Lixin meticulously organized the contents of " Hamsterball " as if they were his own treasures.
Unlike the pseudo-3D isometric projection of games like " Marble Madness," " Hamsterball," like the recent " Ace Combat," is a legitimate 3D game.
It can even fit in a relatively complete physical simulation.
Christopher has been tinkering with Bethesda for so long, it's time to put them to good use.
Having a physics engine and not having a physics engine are two completely different things.
The most obvious example is multiplayer mode.
When several players control their own Hamsterball and huddle together, the physics engine is able to simulate a relatively intuitive sense of collision.
This was something we wouldn't have dared to even imagine in the past.
"Multiplayer racing and sumo wrestling are both possibilities."
Lin Lixin also recorded this part.
Unlike development in the assembly language era, N Language is a highly object-oriented high-level language, especially in development.
In the realm of games, modular design is particularly well-suited.
Those modern design patterns can be used in advance.
His gaze fell on the arcade board on the table.
"Speaking of which— Cerny seems to be someone who advocates using higher-level languages for development as well?"
Unlike other Atari Games, Marble Madness was not developed using assembly C Language.
Atari included a dedicated C compiler in System 1.
At that time, Cerny was not yet twenty years old, but he had already mastered assembly language and had a glimpse into the future of software engineering.
According to Cerny's thinking at the time, the reason for using a high-level language was actually very simple.
It allows for faster design implementation, and problems can be quickly modified and retried.
Judging from his numerous development proposals, it's not hard to see that Mark Cerny is actually someone who isn't afraid of failure.
On the contrary, he is very keen to actively step into pitfalls and risks, and even hopes to step into as many pitfalls as possible.
Only in this way can he avoid those hidden pitfalls as much as possible during the subsequent formal development.
It would be a terrible thing if a game went smoothly from its initial idea to its actual release, without any problems being noticed.
This means it is either absolutely perfect, or it is a huge hidden danger full of unexploded mines.
However, this choice also brought regret to Cerny.
The most significant impact is naturally on the fact that C Language is far less efficient than assembly language.
At a time when most mainstream arcade games had already achieved 60Hz, " Marble Madness " could only achieve a frame rate of 30fps.
Early C compilers weren't intelligent enough, and their code quality couldn't compare to the handwritten assembly code of top programmers. However, this N
I personally oversaw the development of the language's compiler.
This thing is a monster created through the coordinated efforts of Lin Lixin, Carmack, Gerald, and Vivian.
When compared to GAMENOVA's own circuit boards, its capabilities are beyond imagination.
While it's still impossible to achieve true assembly-level performance optimization, it shouldn't be as drastic as the frame rate being halved in the past, like with Cerny.