Greenskin Divine Power, Salamander
Lin Lixin summoned the system panel and carefully considered his current situation.
[User]: Lin Lixin (Jesse) [Attributes]: [Software development]: 21 [Scriptwriting]: 2 [Graphic design]: 3 [Music composition]: 2 [Hardware technology]: 5 [Available attribute points]: 10 [Skills]: [Omitted] [Items]: Skill gift pack x1
These people had delivered a full 10 points to him. It was a truly unexpected windfall.
His gaze swept over his attributes. Aside from the newly added [Hardware technology], he could clearly see that software, graphics, and music had each increased by 1 point.
"Looks like the development process improves my skills, too."
Lin Lixin was very pleased with this discovery. It seemed that as long as he kept honing himself, he could eventually become a towering figure of his generation.
Lin Lixin simply divided the 10 attribute points evenly between software and hardware.
His gaze moved down, and the new skill gift pack among his items caught his attention.
After all this time, Lin Lixin had come to realize that compared with attribute points, which were difficult to obtain and offered no obvious returns, the effects of skills were genuinely powerful.
Every skill he had obtained so far had played a pivotal role.
Naturally, he was full of anticipation for this gift pack.
If he could roll some super cheat that instantly maxed out his hardware skills, he could even go straight into making home consoles.
[Ding!] [Skill acquired]: [Power of My Imagination (arcade)]: [With the blessing of greenskin divine power, you can identify hidden problems in arcade machines and clearly distinguish the damage they have sustained.]
"Huh?"
Lin Lixin had not expected a skill specifically suited to arcade machines.
He looked toward the Tetris arcade machine in front of him, which people were fiercely vying to play. With a slight stir of his thoughts, markers that only he could see appeared.
"Well, damn. Odin's Eye? Or an Animus Scan?"
The presentation was unexpectedly familiar. Aside from the highlighted problem areas, everything else had its brightness and saturation lowered to make it easier for him to inspect.
Quite a few problems had been marked on that arcade machine.
That was hardly surprising. After all, it was a secondhand machine that had sat abandoned for quite some time.
Besides the most obvious issue of the aging picture tube, the redundant capacitors seemed to have some problems too, while the vulnerable components on the circuit board had all been wiped out.
The fact that this thing could still function normally was truly thanks to the crude chips and circuitry of this era.
"This skill... is surprisingly powerful."
Lin Lixin withdrew his gaze, immediately realizing its importance.
An arcade machine's market price started at around 1,500. With this skill, he could easily buy up discarded arcade machines in bulk, repair them, and resell them for substantial profits.
But when he told Sam about his plan to earn some extra money repairing arcade machines, Sam was not particularly receptive. He even expressed strong opposition.
"Jesse! You're wasting your talent!" he shouted. "Repairing arcade machines? God, why don't you just take over that arcade on the corner? You'd definitely make a fortune!"
"I'd like to." Lin Lixin rolled his eyes at him and patted his pocket. "What am I supposed to rent it with? Do you think those commercial banks would approve my loan application?"
Lin Lixin had been coveting that arcade on the corner for a long time.
If he could get his hands on it, then with Tetris and his next scrolling game, it would practically be a hen that laid golden eggs!
But renting the place would require an upfront payment of at least $5,000, even by a conservative estimate.
He was just an ordinary Chinese international student, without even a steady job, much less any presentable collateral.
On top of that, the financial industry's attitude toward video games had taken a sharp turn for the worse after the Atari Shock. A loan was certainly beyond Lin Lixin's reach.
"Bro..." Sam waved a hand and tossed out a seemingly philosophical line. "Any problem money can solve isn't a problem."
He stood right up, patted his chest, and assured Lin Lixin, "As long as you can make another game that's no worse than Tetris, I can at least cover the first month's rent!"
Sam had already worked out his little calculations.
Just look. Look at that long line of players outside the door.
Although this arcade machine had cost him $800, just think: if a line like that lasted until dark, a conservative estimate put the day's earnings at several dozen dollars.
He had already emptied the coin box once that morning, and he vividly remembered the weight that had nearly rocked the machine over.
He would recoup his investment in less than a month.
He was absolutely going to be this angel investor!
Without giving Lin Lixin a chance to refuse, Sam announced that he was going to have a detailed discussion with the arcade's owner and print out the copyright documents while he was at it. Then he swaggered out the door, leaving Lin Lixin with nothing but a system notification chime.
[Ding!] [Timed quest]: Investor's Recognition (6d23h59m59s) [Description]: Develop an excellent work that earns recognition and win the investor's favor! [Reward]: All attributes +5 [On-time reward]: Skill gift pack x1
"Seven days should be enough."
Watching the countdown tick down second by second on the panel, Lin Lixin made some rough calculations and sat down in front of the C64.
He had long since decided what his new game would be.
Scrolling technology was undoubtedly one of the most important visual technologies in the early video game industry.
Without it, a game's map could never be larger than the screen in front of the player.
Even adventure games, such as "E.T.," could only create larger maps by switching scenes.
The arrival of scrolling technology ended the era of static maps and opened an entirely new path for visual presentation.
"Super Mario," "Contra," "Xevious," "Crazy Climber"...
This technology truly set the world in motion, and it was also a crucial asset that allowed Nintendo to carve its way through this era.
Super Mario pushed this technology to its limits. An entire, complete side-scrolling platforming level-an experience like that would have been unimaginable before.
And the game Lin Lixin chose... was, of course, neither of those two masterpieces, Super Mario or Contra.
Instead, it was "Salamander."
A 2D shoot 'em up released by Konami in 1987, it used scrolling technology to become an across-the-board upgrade over Space Invaders in one fell swoop, taking up the baton for a new era of shooting games.
Later high-speed bullet hell games such as "Raiden" could essentially all be considered its descendants.
Its suitability for arcades might well rival that of Super Mario and Contra, and the workload was within an acceptable range too.
The only problem was...
"Xevious."
This arcade game, released by Namco in 1982, had long since snatched the title of "the first vertically scrolling shooter in history."
It was also this very game that had led Nintendo to adopt scrolling technology so widely.
Achieving good results in a field that had already been tilled would not be easy.