Bruce Lee, Fighting Games

"Sam, don't think. Name three Chinese people you know."

Sam opened his mouth, his mind spinning wildly, then struggled to squeeze out a few words:

"Bruce Lee... uh, uh... Lin Lixin, Ho Kwok Yuen."

Lin Lixin rubbed his brow. He had never expected that one day he would rank behind him.

But this also indirectly showed just how terrifying Bruce Lee's influence in North America was.

Even people who knew nothing about the mysterious powers of the East had the name "Bruce Lee" in their minds, and it even consistently held first place.

Even Lin Lixin, who had lived and worked with Sam for so long, had failed to take first place in his subconscious.

As they chatted and joked, Brandon Lee finished reading the game proposal Lin Lixin had handed him. For a moment, he actually had no idea how to express himself.

"A fighting game... it's practically a martial arts duel on a game console."

Brandon Lee now fully understood why Lin Lixin had specifically sought his help.

This character named "Fei Long" was clearly a fighter designed with his father as the model.

And as the successor who had received martial arts training from his dad since childhood, he naturally knew everything about Bruce Lee better than anyone.

Brandon Lee's gaze remained fixed on Fei Long's character design proposal.

After a long while, he abruptly raised his head and looked at Lin Lixin with a serious gaze.

"Mr. Lin, I don't know what this game will ultimately look like, but we can make an agreement."

"An agreement?"

Lin Lixin paused slightly, but he already had a guess in mind.

"If this game really turns out to be as fun as you wrote in the document, then we won't need any 'Fei Long.'"

Brandon Lee tapped Fei Long's name with his finger and said, enunciating every word,

"You can use the name 'Bruce Lee.' I'll try to get my mother to agree."

[Ding!]

[Quest issued]: Brandon Lee's approval

[Description]: Develop an excellent work that earns approval

[Reward]: All attributes +20

[Additional objective]: Persuade Brandon Lee's mother through the quality of the game itself.

[Additional reward]: Skill gift pack x1

Lin Lixin's breath caught, and he nodded solemnly.

Brandon Lee was clearly very interested in this proposal; that was why he had offered such astonishing terms.

This made Lin Lixin feel considerably more pressure.

Looking at the requirement for that additional objective, he immediately felt a headache coming on.

Unlike an open-minded, progressive young man like Brandon Lee, his mother Linda would be much trickier.

Never mind video games, a "scam" currently reviled by society at large-even shooting films or writing books would struggle to win her approval.

As Lin Lixin recalled, she had spent almost her entire life fighting people she disapproved of who rode on Bruce Lee's popularity.

Since development had yet to see even the first stroke of the character for eight, Brandon Lee could not help much by staying. After exchanging contact details, he hurried off.

Watching Lin Lixin continually type notes on the keyboard, Sam leaned over curiously.

"Speaking of which, how do you plan to design this 'fighting game'? Make a souped-up version of Kung-Fu Master?"

He had played Kung-Fu Master earlier and knew roughly what it was about.

It was simply controlling a character to keep defeating enemies attacking from both sides.

Its gameplay was very similar to Contra's, except it had been changed to a martial arts theme about challenging martial arts schools.

Its biggest flourish was simply that the protagonist had several sets of moves, such as low kicks and knee strikes, with different ways of fighting different enemies.

To put it bluntly, in Sam's eyes, this still fell within the scope of a "reskin." It was nothing new.

"No, we're not making a beat 'em up this time. We're making a game of outplaying each other."

"What does that mean?"

"Simply put, rock-paper-scissors."

Ignoring Sam's bewilderment, Lin Lixin turned and got straight to work on the screen.

The packaged N Language greatly accelerated his development progress.

In a single day, he cobbled together a gameplay framework from scratch.

Burn it, load it onto the machine.

Sam picked up the control panel Lin Lixin handed him and stared blankly at the two little pixel characters on the screen.

They looked like temporary reused assets pulled from Contra.

"This... is the 'fighting game' you were talking about?"

He saw a health bar at either end of the top of the screen. This was clearly a versus game.

Whoever emptied the other side's health first would win.

Although he could understand this thing at a glance, Sam could not figure out what could possibly be fun about it.

"Why do I feel like... two little pixel characters fighting each other... isn't even as fun as a beat 'em up?"

A huge bunch of low-level small-fry monsters could at least give him the thrill of slicing through them like melons and vegetables.

"Come on, give it a try."

Lin Lixin kept tapping buttons on the control panel, and his pixel character moved up and down accordingly, jumping one moment and crouching the next.

Still skeptical, Sam copied Lin Lixin and began trying out the controls.

"Ready? Here I come."

After giving him a warning, Lin Lixin directly controlled his character to close in on Sam with a short hop, then crouched with precise timing, actually dodging Sam's mid-level kick.

Then came a three-hit combo. Although the animation was extremely crude, the screen shake and the character flashing as it took hits gave Sam a sensation he had never experienced before.

It was a very multifaceted sensation that he had previously only experienced in martial arts films.

Impact.

"Just now... I clearly threw a kick just now, and you dodged it by crouching?"

Sam recalled Lin Lixin's slick crouch just now, unsure whether it was a bug or an intentional design.

"Exactly. That's the 'rock-paper-scissors' I was talking about."

There was clearly no point explaining terms like footsies, neutral, or counter hits to Sam right now.

But there was one thing that anyone could understand and deeply love, whether they had played before or not.

"Special move! Flying kick!"

Lin Lixin rapidly tapped in a sequence of commands. His character suddenly burst with black light, then knocked Sam's character flat with a kick, emptying his health bar.

After more than ten minutes, Sam finally figured out how the game worked, his expression brimming with excitement.

"If we make this into an arcade game, it'll sell like crazy! It was practically born for arcades!"

Sam had never seen a game as perfectly suited to arcades as this Street Fighter before him.

Even smash hits like Contra and Metal Gear did not have the same strong affinity as Street Fighter.

Whether in terms of gameplay or commercial potential, this game was astonishing.

"What we need to do now is make more characters and design different skills, moves, and fighting styles for each of them."

Lin Lixin smiled. Thanks to the existence of Micro-Nova, their current graphics performance could support such an astonishing work.

Sam swallowed with difficulty, finally understanding why Lin Lixin had gone out of his way to find Brandon Lee.