Chapter Summaries

Lin Lixin assembled a team to build a dedicated engine for “Need for Speed” and found that Carmack’s prototype was powerful but too tightly coupled to one game for a large team or future sequels. He considered how to make the engine more suitable for collaborative development and spotted Michael Abrash as a potential addition.

• Russell agreed to support Lin Lixin’s plans after hearing about a digital design pipeline and a digital-twin racing game, and Lin Lixin left General Motors with a Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1.
• Lin Lixin called Carmack and Will to begin a new engine, then summoned Ben Gokey, Christopher’s physics team, and Yuji Naka to join the project.
• Carmack produced a rough engine prototype in half an hour, and Lin Lixin recognized his approach as building a highly optimized engine around a specific game.
• Lin Lixin warned Carmack that the prototype’s rigid design would hinder teamwork and make future sequels difficult to develop.
• Lin Lixin noticed Michael Abrash’s book on assembly optimization and considered recruiting the Microsoft programmer for his graphics and engineering expertise.

Lin Lixin recruited Michael Abrash to join Carmack’s new Nova-Engine team, arguing that Abrash’s game-programming background and optimization expertise suited its needs. Abrash accepted, but Carmack challenged him to prove his skills in a technical debate.

• Lin Lixin traveled to Redmond with Carmack to meet Michael Abrash and directly offered him a role optimizing the team’s engine.
• Lin Lixin explained that Abrash’s game-programming experience and past work with assembly made him the right choice for the new team.
• Abrash accepted the invitation, eager to return to game development and take on a challenge that could push him beyond his professional bottleneck.
• Carmack questioned Abrash’s practical abilities and began debating him about using BSP to build a high-speed 3D space.
• Lin Lixin listened as Abrash and Carmack argued technical details, viewing Abrash as someone who could refine Carmack’s innovations through optimization.

GAMENOVA reorganized its graphics operations into NOVA-ENGINE and NOVA-GRAPHICS, then revealed the powerful NovaRadeon-9000. Lin Lixin returned to Need for Speed’s sound studio, where Hans Zimmer was refining dynamic car audio from track and engine recordings.

• Lin Lixin established NOVA-ENGINE under GAMENOVA, placing Carmack, Ben Gokey, Michael Abrash, Yuji Naka, and Bethesda’s operations within the new subsidiary.
• Micro-Nova spun off its graphics chip operations, and its graphics card division joined NE to form NOVA-GRAPHICS, which took over graphics research and OpenGL development.
• NOVA-GRAPHICS announced the NovaRadeon-9000, featuring a 128-bit memory bus, up to 4 MB of video memory, and a tentative July 4, 1990 release date.
• Lin Lixin returned to Hans Zimmer’s sound effects studio to oversee Need for Speed’s car-audio sampling on a closed track.
• Hans Zimmer explained that his team was combining synthesized audio, stationary engine recordings, and track recordings into parameter-driven sounds, and Lin Lixin approved a rough sample.

Lin Lixin unveiled GameNova’s new game, Need for Speed, with a trailer that revealed realistic 3D supercar racing. The chapter ended with a showcase of cars racing toward the game’s title, as players saw the graphics that the Nova Radeon 9000 could power.

• Lucasfilm and Bethesda moved to California while the project team built car models and tested data, and Carmack led the creation of a dedicated engine.
• Gaming journalists gathered at GameNova headquarters, where Steve inferred from the automotive press and recent manufacturer deals that the new game involved cars.
• Lin Lixin arrived and announced GameNova’s new game, then premiered its promotional video that evening.
• The trailer paired Tom Cruise and Anthony Edwards with a Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 and a Porsche 911 Turbo, ending their exchange with the line, “I feel the need... for speed!”
• The footage shifted into gameplay and revealed fully 3D cars, cockpit interiors, a racetrack, and multiple supercars racing toward the Need for Speed logo.

GameNova announced Need for Speed for NeXTSTEP, DOS, and Windows, alongside the Nova Radeon 9000 and upgraded Hermes Pro hardware. Lin Lixin said the company supported Wintel to reach more players, while privately aiming to sell graphics cards and grow Nexus network services rather than fight an unwinnable platform war.

• GameNova revealed Need for Speed as a broadly compatible PC racing game requiring OpenGL, and promoted the Nova Radeon 9000 as its high-end graphics card.
• Dell updated its Hermes lineup with the customizable Hermes Pro and offered an external graphics enclosure for existing PCs and compatible processors.
• Consumers rushed to preorder the Nova Radeon 9000 despite having little practical need for it, and Lin Lixin urged them to spend rationally while endorsing its visual experience.
• Steve asked Lin whether adding DOS support meant Hermes had lost the market competition, and Lin replied that GameNova only wanted to improve players' gaming experience.
• Lin privately chose Wintel compatibility to expand graphics-card sales and Nexus network services, while avoiding a premature battle over ARM and Hermes.

Nineteen-year-old Gordon won a community race and received a GameNova graphics card and a copy of Need for Speed. At his stepfather’s urging, he installed the game on a laptop, and its live-action racing intro began.

• Gordon raced a modified Chevrolet in a California community event and won despite the car’s damaged engine.
• Gordon’s stepfather promised to repair the car and encouraged him to accept his prizes.
• Gordon received a 4 MB Nova Radeon 9000 graphics card, while the top three finishers received Need for Speed deluxe sets.
• Gordon’s stepfather set up the graphics card with a Hermes laptop in the family garage and had Gordon install Need for Speed.
• Gordon launched the game, and a racing montage made entirely of live-action footage appeared on the screen.

Gordon explored Need for Speed’s detailed car encyclopedia before starting a race, then was stunned by its realistic full-3D graphics. The chapter left him about to experience the game’s racing itself.

• GAMENOVA filmed high-speed live-action footage on closed roads after rejecting Lucas’s proposal to simulate speed with camera tricks.
• Gordon browsed Need for Speed’s vehicle selection and discovered extensive specifications, narration, technical details, histories, and videos for each car.
• Gordon spent nearly an hour exploring the cars before his stepfather reminded him to play a race.
• Gordon selected a fictional mountain-road track and was amazed by the game’s full 3D perspective, detailed car model, and layered textures.

Lin Lixin reflected on how EA and DSI developed Need for Speed, whose CPU optimization and realistic driving features showed the potential of GAMENOVA’s graphics card. Gordon tested the game, switched to manual transmission, and raced toward a commanding lead.

• Lin Lixin considered DSI’s racing-game experience and EA’s acquisition of the studio as the foundation for Need for Speed.
• Lin Lixin noted that the original Need for Speed ran on a CPU, even on an 80386, and saw its optimization as a model for GAMENOVA’s newly established NE.
• Gordon drove a Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 in Need for Speed and discovered that he had to shift into gear before the car would move.
• Gordon overtook several cars but found automatic transmission too limiting, so he paused and switched to manual transmission.
• Gordon mastered the gears and corners, neared the point of lapping the other racers, and felt the need for speed.

The chapter explained how Need for Speed used precomputed data and visual tricks to create convincing speed on limited hardware, while Gordon and his stepfather enjoyed the game. It then described the R360’s arcade debut and left Konami president Kagemasa Kozuki feeling that GAMENOVA had repeatedly taken the opportunities and games his company might have pursued.

• Lin Lixin explained how Need for Speed combined engineering data, low-polygon models, optic flow, roadside detail, and motion blur to simulate high-speed racing.
• Gordon won a race in Need for Speed, and his stepfather suggested buying a steering-wheel kit and a new Hermes for network racing.
• Gordon discovered that the game included a Camaro resembling his family’s car, delighting his stepfather.
• The NovaRadeon 9000 helped Sega and Namco bring G-LOC: Air Battle to the R360, whose machines appeared in amusement parks and convention centers despite competition from Ace Combat.
• Kagemasa Kozuki wondered why Hideo Kojima had left Konami and lamented that GAMENOVA kept releasing games and arcade projects that crowded out Konami’s opportunities.

Lin Lixin visited Industrial Light & Magic and saw its new material library, which prompted him to recognize Richard Vander Wende as a future art director for Riven. He decided GAMENOVA should adapt Myst for its Christmas lineup, using prerendered assets to create an ambitious PC game.

• George Lucas showed Lin Lixin a modeled Holy Grail and demonstrated Industrial Light & Magic's material library project, led by Richard Vander Wende.
• Lin Lixin discussed the realistic textures and learned that Industrial Light & Magic had organized its CG workflow around multilayer texture mapping and reusable materials.
• Lin Lixin recognized Richard as the future art director of Riven and recalled Myst's sales, visual approach, and role in accelerating CD-ROM adoption.
• Lin Lixin considered GAMENOVA's empty second-half release schedule and decided that Myst could be its major Christmas project.
• Lin Lixin told Lucas that he had a good idea for using prerendered assets in a game.

Lin Lixin proposed making an adventure game based on Raiders of the Lost Ark, prompting him to realize that his altered timeline had helped erase LucasArts and adventure games’ golden age. He called Jon Van Caneghem to rally him behind reviving the genre, leaving Lucasfilm’s staff inspired by Lin’s apparent devotion.

• Lin Lixin explained how early PC limitations and keyboard-based play had given rise to text adventure games.
• Lucas mistook Lin’s proposal for a dating game before Lin clarified that he wanted an adventure game based on Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Lucas warned that adventure games were declining and argued that an action RPG would better capture the films’ adventure.
• Lin Lixin realized that GameNova’s alliance with Lucasfilm had helped prevent LucasArts from emerging and had hastened the genre’s decline.
• Lin Lixin called Jon Van Caneghem at Infocom and asked whether restoring adventure games to their former glory stirred anything in him.
• Lucasfilm’s staff admired Lin Lixin’s apparent commitment to adventure game players.

Lin Lixin pitched an Indiana Jones-themed adaptation of Myst to George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Infocom developers, emphasizing exploration and puzzles over action. The group began to see how an interactive film could work, while Lin Lixin argued that Myst’s freedom from combat and time pressure was central to its appeal.

• Lin Lixin outlined a story in which Indiana Jones discovered a manuscript about the D’ni Civilization and traveled through Myst to uncover its history.
• George Lucas recognized the project as an interactive Raiders of the Lost Ark and considered how computer graphics and interaction could deepen immersion.
• Lin Lixin explained that players should experience the story in first person rather than watch Indiana Jones’s adventures from a spectator’s perspective.
• Steven Spielberg worried that first-person play would leave Harrison off-screen and suggested adding dangerous traps to create urgency.
• Lin Lixin rejected an action-focused approach, explaining that players should explore Myst at their own pace without combat, deadlines, or forced progression.

Lin Lixin discussed how Myst’s puzzles should emerge naturally from the civilization and world around them, and Lucas and Spielberg agreed with his approach. He then proposed building a film and game production base across several Sacramento River deltas, a plan Lucas thought might be feasible.

• Lin Lixin explained how Myst’s interconnected puzzles made its world feel coherent, unlike puzzles that were awkwardly added to prolong other games.
• Lucas and Spielberg described designing a civilization first and deriving its mechanisms and puzzles from its environment and way of life.
• Lin Lixin proposed acquiring a suitably sized river delta to gather material and build sets, rather than buying an expensive ocean island.
• Lin Lixin suggested creating a production base across six or seven deltas, and Lucas estimated that the project might cost around a hundred million dollars.
• Lucas called the proposed base a digital entertainment industrial park and recognized that it could be feasible.

Lin Lixin and Lucas oversaw the start of work on Myst’s island filming base while discussing the challenge of fitting the game’s extensive live-action content onto a disc. Lin Lixin identified a software optimization that could reduce the optical drive’s slow, scattered reading, and began explaining how to reorganize the game’s files.

• Lin Lixin and his team secured a legally approved archipelago site, and contractors began transporting equipment and supplies there.
• Lucasfilm’s props crew dressed a deserted island with sets and stored Raiders of the Lost Ark props while the larger construction project got underway.
• Lucas and Lin Lixin discussed Myst’s enormous volume of footage and assets, noting that GameNova’s compression technology could fit the content onto a disc.
• Lin Lixin explained that slow optical-drive read speeds were the real bottleneck, since the game’s large data needs exceeded the available cache.
• After watching workers organize equipment, Lin Lixin realized they could optimize the game by rearranging resource files into compact, scene-based packages.

Lin Lixin discovered that GameNova’s aggressive file optimization was causing problems for Myst on CD-ROMs, then disabled the system and visited the production island to check on the sets and rendering work. The Myst island was taking shape, while the modeling team continued rendering images that would take hours each to complete.

• Lin Lixin inspected Myst’s unpacked files and traced the CD-ROM problem to the engine’s asset-fragmenting file optimization.
• Lin Lixin turned off the compilation tool’s file optimization system to address the problem without changing the original code.
• Lin Lixin visited the production island, checked the ruins and observatory sets, and noted that crowds of fans were watching from the Sacramento Riverbank.
• Richard Vander Wende showed Lin Lixin the modeling team’s rendering progress and estimated that the current batch of images would finish the next day.

As development of Myst passed the halfway point, Lin Lixin, Lucas, and Spielberg tested its still-image exploration and confronted the limits of CD-ROM storage. Spielberg proposed splitting scenes into layers to create parallax animation, and Lin Lixin recognized a way to add movement without overwhelming the game’s capacity.

• After reports of activity on the Delta Islands drew crowds, Lin scholars speculated that GameNova was making an adventure game, and Harrison Ford’s appearance strengthened their theory.
• Lucas brought the principal cast of Raiders of the Lost Ark 3 to the islands to film live-action footage for Myst and its promotional videos.
• Lin Lixin’s team completed modeling most of Myst’s static images and began preparing to add dynamic elements.
• Lucas tested the scene-changing system with Lin Lixin and Spielberg, while the three discussed how CD-ROM limits prevented them from adding full-motion transitions.
• Spielberg suggested using layered scenes and differential parallax animation, and Lin Lixin immediately understood the idea.

Lin Lixin solved Myst’s movement problem with parallax animation and expanded the game’s multimedia toolkit. He then announced GameNova’s Indiana Jones adventure project at a press conference and revealed its title and hardware tie-ins.

• Lin Lixin realized that parallax animation could create a convincing sense of motion by scaling and shifting scene elements, then had the modeling team recompile a demo.
• Lucas tested the demo, and the three saw that trees appeared to approach and pass by smoothly as the player moved.
• Lin Lixin wrote a dynamic multimedia system, while the staff spent August learning the new toolkit and Infocom, led by Caneghem, completed its work.
• Lin Lixin arranged a press conference on the riverbank and announced that GameNova was making an adventure game with Lucas and Harrison.
• Lin Lixin presented the project as Myst, also known as Indiana Jones and the Linking Book, and promoted a Raiders of the Lost Ark-branded CD-ROM drive and Thrustmaster NMD mouse.

Ron worried that GameNova's image-driven Myst would abandon the imagination and storytelling he valued in adventure games, though he planned to watch its trailer and try the game. The promotional video began with Indiana Jones surveying the Sacramento River Delta from an off-road pickup.

• A newspaper article criticizing Myst as a destructive deconstruction of adventure games enraged Ron, who argued that adventure games needed text to build their worlds and characters.
• Ron acknowledged GameNova's record and the appeal of its games but feared Myst would become a flashy interactive movie rather than a true adventure game.
• A bystander argued that exploration and puzzle-solving made Myst an adventure, but Ron and another listener dismissed his comparison as describing an action game.
• Ron settled in to watch GameNova's promotional video, expecting to buy Myst even if it differed from his preferred style of adventure game.
• At eight o'clock, the trailer opened with Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, riding in a pickup and looking toward the Sacramento River Delta, where a parchment map marked the valley.

GameNova’s trailer introduced Myst through Indiana Jones discovering a moving book that transported him to a restored island, leaving Ron intrigued but uncertain because the promotion showed no gameplay and the game had minimal system requirements. On Columbus Day, Ron bought the special edition and inserted its disc into his computer.

• Indiana Jones and Henry Jones investigated reports of the mysterious D’ni civilization near the Sacramento River Delta.
• Indiana Jones found a book labeled “Myst” in the island ruins and was transported through its moving sea image to the island’s restored state.
• GameNova revealed Myst’s release date, price, platforms, and preorder details in a cinematic trailer.
• Ron admired the trailer but questioned how Myst could deliver impressive visuals without requiring a graphics card or showing gameplay.
• On Columbus Day, Ron placed the special-edition Myst disc in his NX CD-ROM drive.

Ron began Myst by opening the Linking Book and entering the island, where the first-person view revealed a wooden walkway, a sunken ship, stone steps, and a gear-shaped structure. The chapter left him at the island’s edge, ready to explore.

• The game opened in darkness as an antique Linking Book fell from the sky beneath a starry sky.
• Ron clicked the book, saw the title Myst, and opened it.
• The book’s photograph transported Ron to a wooden walkway on the island.
• Ron saw a toppled mast beside the walkway, stone steps leading uphill, and a gear-shaped structure on the hilltop.