Bloons Tower Defense
A rather unremarkable little game.
It didn't cause much of a stir from the day I logged into the platform.
After all, the entire project was released under Activision's name.
Without the promotional support of star producers like Gamenova and Lin Lixin, all it can truly rely on, besides trusting Activision's loyal fans, is its own high quality.
Fortunately, it does have this.
Simple and easy-to-learn gameplay, with a smooth and highly positive feedback loop.
It features a slightly challenging yet well-designed difficulty and progression curve.
Although the game looks rudimentary, it's surprisingly addictive.
It's perfect for playing a few rounds casually during your spare time.
Especially for office workers, this thing is a lifesaver.
It's even better than Papa's Pizzeria for slacking off at work. While Minesweeper and Spider Solitaire are classics, they can get boring after a while.
No game can keep you playing it forever without getting tired or bored.
It's possible that some die-hard fans can indeed play a game for thousands of hours.
However, over a long timescale, even the best works will eventually lose their initial appeal.
However...
The gaming industry never stands still.
As long as a similarly interesting new successor appears before that, that's enough.
Bloons Tower Defense has successfully taken over the mantle from casual games.
Unlike Papa's Pizzeria, its operational intensity is even a level lower.
In low-wave environments, players don't even need to do anything after placing the towers; they can simply leave them there to look at.
In a sense, it's completely an idle game.
But it's not as thorough as " Zork Idle." The dense and fast-paced positive feedback perfectly fills these fragmented rest periods.
And Papa's Pizzeria takes over the larger chunks of leisure time very well.
For a time, several unremarkable web-based mini-games became a popular and novel trend among netizens.
While mainstream media figures were still lavishing praise on " Mirror's Edge," touting it as the year's must-see.
These two unassuming little gadgets have quietly entered the lives of ordinary people.
Along with it came the concept of "web games" and its easy-to-remember domain name.
The players were thrilled.
But Activision has been having a really tough time lately.
The reason is simple: the workload of the distribution department exploded almost overnight.
Thanks to the unique nature and development process of novascript.
Developing simple interactive projects with it takes very little effort. And now it provides a perfect publishing platform for them.
Do we still need to think about what to do now?
Submit your work, of course!
Submit your work like crazy!
Honestly, with internet technology booming at this time...
Everyone eager to enter looked like they were carrying a sack of potatoes.
Whoever seizes the opportunity and successfully enters the market has the right to make a fortune with their sack of cash.
Every valid Google click and impression generates revenue for their accounts.
In the past, if a developer wanted to develop a game, just finding a reliable publisher would take a lot of effort.
Now everything has been simplified, simplified to the extreme.
All a developer needs to do is register an email address, send the information to Activision, and wait for a reply.
WTF? Never before has this been such a wonderful start!
This means that developing video games is no longer a high-barrier-to-entry process.
If you can write some basic scripts, you are qualified to use your creativity to create works.
Of course, the corresponding workload was naturally transferred to Activision's distribution department.
In just one week, Activision has announced at least three rounds of recruitment for its distribution department.
They even expanded the number of relevant positions at the foundation, temporarily recruiting a group of interns.
Even so, there is currently a severe shortage of manpower.
As for Lin Lixin?
Naturally, they simply packed up and ran away after the project was completed.
Our Commander Lin naturally needs to focus his energy on the game.
Let David and the others worry about this themselves.
"... It's about time."
Sitting in his temporary office in Los Angeles, Southern California, Lin Lixin casually flipped through the calendar.
It's that time of year again for the gaming world's annual Spring Festival Gala: Black Friday.
That is, the Christmas season.
Based on this year's Thanksgiving date, the entire Christmas season will roughly last for a month, from the end of November to the end of December.
"The development department doesn't have much time, but... it's enough."
In previous years, it would have been impossible to create a world-shattering masterpiece in less than two months.
But this year's technically impressive game, Mirror's Edge, has already been released ahead of schedule.
They could easily focus on gameplay and design some great games that, while perhaps not visually stunning, are incredibly fun to play.
For today's increasingly sophisticated art teams, such projects do not consume a particularly large amount of time.
As for what the final episode of the year will be about... the answer was actually decided at the beginning of the year.
1991 was destined to be a year of great change. So much happened that year.
Looking at the world, besides the Gulf War, a major turning point that reshaped the international landscape, another shocking yet predictable event was about to occur on December 25, 1991, Christmas Day.
On December 8, the Agreement of the Commonwealth of Independent States was secretly signed.
On December 21, 11 republics announced their membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
On December 25th, the world's former pole slowly collapsed.
Thus ended the Cold War, which had lasted for nearly half a century.
As a game producer, Lin Lixin had no choice and did not want to get involved in this kind of thing.
But Gamenova can make a game.
"""First""release"d""e""q""i""x""s".""o""r""g"
Consider this a way to commemorate this historic moment.
Well... consider this a farewell to the elder brother.
Thinking of this, Lin Lixin stood up and walked out of Activision's office building. "Sir, how was your day?"
Mike Morhaime happened to walk by in the "square".
Upon seeing Lin Lixin appear, a look of surprise crossed his face, and he quickly greeted him.
"That's great, how about you guys? I see your performance reports for this period are pretty good."
Lin Lixin nodded and walked over to the other person with his drink cup.
"As you know, it's the same old routine: doing some outsourcing to hone my skills, learning new technologies, and preparing for the Diablo DLC..."
Mike pursed his lips and began to deliver his performance report with seriousness.
Blizzard Studio is not as large as Activision.
It is roughly composed of three parts.
The two brothers who Westwood worked at Westwood Studios, along with some of the excellent developers recruited over the years;
The original Blizzard trio and the expanded team of developers;
And a graphics team that is gradually being improved. Although not the largest, it is still one of the top studios under Gamenova.
They have quite a few excellent IPs in their portfolio.
Not to mention his arcade experience, he can be considered an all-around player.
"After practicing for so long, it's time to put your skills to the test in a real match."
Lin Lixin mentioned it casually.
His tone, however, remained as calm and unperturbed as usual.
But to Mike, it was a deafening revelation.
"A new game?!"
"Hmm... I guess so, but strictly speaking, it's a sequel."
" Rock N' Roll Racing? Diablo? Or...?"
" Command & Conquer "
Lin Lixin didn't keep anyone in suspense and simply revealed the answer: what work he would use to send off his elder brother was actually not something he needed to consider at all.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
To date, it is one of the most influential, most widely popular, and greatest RTS games in gaming history.
It is neither Dune II, which defined RTS games, nor Warcraft, which laid the foundation for the modern gaming world.
Historically, it has only received scores of 84 on Metacritic and 8.5 on Gamespot.
It's not bad, but it's definitely not a masterpiece either.
But this very work once became representative of the RTS concept.
Especially for China players, those born in that era may not have heard of the equally great Age of Empire, but they must have heard of Red Alert 2.
Even if you've never played it, you've definitely heard the name countless times.
" Command & Conquer?!"
Upon hearing this, Mike's excitement intensified.
This is one of Blizzard's representative works today, and it's also the first time Blizzard has released a full-fledged main title on such a large scale since Rock N' Roll Racing. It's also the world's first video game to truly feature live-action cutscenes in full-motion video.
For the entire history of games, it not only laid the foundation for RTS games, but also had a profound impact on both the technical and design aspects.
"Should we contact Mr. Lucas immediately and start filming as soon as possible?"
He also recalled that when they were working on " Command & Conquer: Dawn of the Kyber Crystal," Lin Lixin brought in the " Star Wars " crew to help promote their fledgling small studio.
The game even made it to a Star Wars fan club event, where it met with a group of fans.
The scene was truly breathtaking.
Even today, it remains an excellent example of cross-industry collaboration between film IPs and games.
"Of course, we need to prepare for filming, but it's not Star Wars, Mike. We're going to create a separate, independent universe."
Lin Lixin nodded, but then added an explanation.
The relationship between the IPs " Red Alert" and " Command & Conquer " is actually quite complex.
It belongs to the Command & Conquer franchise, but it is an independent world completely different from the canon, that is, the Tiberium worldview.
Although both made cameo appearances, their works are indeed independent in their own right. "This time it's an alternate history, Mike, I mean... a Cold War story."