Chapter Summaries

Lin Lixin offered Linus funding and support to develop his open-source operating system, seeing it as a future foundation for servers and mobile devices. He then called Schwarzenegger with an offer to appear in a new fighting game.

• Lin Lixin and Jensen Huang discussed designing a custom graphics card for GAMENOVA’s next-generation consoles.
• Carmack brought Linus to meet Lin Lixin, who offered to fund and support Linus’s operating-system work without taking ownership of it.
• Linus said he planned to make the operating system open source, and Lin Lixin explained its potential for game servers and future mobile devices.
• Lin Lixin suggested Linus speak with NEXUS about its version-control software and reflected on his history with Schwarzenegger.
• Lin Lixin called Schwarzenegger on the set of The Terminator 2 and asked whether he was interested in appearing in a new fighting game.

Lin Lixin decided to create Mortal Kombat, a new fighting game aimed at European and American players, after admitting that hardware limits had stalled his 3D ambitions. He brought Brandon Lee, Schwarzenegger, and Lucas together to develop a game shaped by American culture and Hollywood.

• Lin Lixin concluded that manufacturing limits prevented software optimization from pushing 3D games much further, so he planned to make less graphically demanding games.
• Brandon Lee arrived and asked whether Lin Lixin was making a fighting game, then asked if it would be a sequel to Street Fighter or The King of Fighters.
• Lin Lixin told Brandon Lee that the project would be an entirely new fighting-game IP and named it Mortal Kombat.
• Lin Lixin explained that Mortal Kombat would target European and American markets and that Hollywood would help give it an American identity.
• Schwarzenegger and Lucas arrived by boat as Lin Lixin prepared to explain the plan.

Lin Lixin gathered Schwarzenegger, Brandon Lee, and Lucas to explore casting and a filmmaking approach for a Mortal Kombat game. He proposed using live actors and rotoscoping for a 2D fighting game, then ended by introducing the series’ defining Fatality mechanic.

• Lin Lixin had Schwarzenegger pose bare-chested and considered him for the role of Johnny Cage.
• Lin Lixin asked whether Linda Hamilton was available to play Sonya Blade and considered Brandon Lee as a stand-in for a Bruce Lee tribute character.
• Brandon Lee asked how Lin Lixin planned to distinguish the game, and Lin explained that he wanted to bring Hollywood action blockbusters into video games.
• Lin Lixin rejected relying on prerecorded film clips or motion capture alone and proposed filming live actors, then converting their performances into game animation through rotoscoping.
• Lucas realized Lin Lixin intended to make the game 2D, and Lin cited smooth movement, visual clarity, and room for more clips as reasons.
• Lin Lixin introduced Fatality as the signature mechanic that would define Mortal Kombat.

Lin Lixin explained how Mortal Kombat’s Fatality Finishing Moves would intensify victory feedback and draw arcade spectators into playing. He left Lucas and the others anticipating a second mechanic he had prepared for the game.

• Lin Lixin explained that Fatality would let winners choose how to finish off their opponents, creating stronger feedback than traditional fighting games.
• Lin Lixin connected Mortal Kombat’s interactive Finishing Moves to Mahjong Academy’s H-button mechanic, which made players feel involved in characters undressing.
• Lin Lixin told Lucas that Fatality’s gore was secondary to immersion, spectator appeal, and commercial success.
• Lin Lixin asked Lucas what mattered most in an arcade game, then explained that attracting new players was even more important than keeping existing players feeding in coins.
• Lin Lixin said Fatality could make passersby stop and want to play, then hinted that he had prepared another mechanic central to Mortal Kombat.

Lin Lixin asked Brandon Lee to perform Mortal Kombat’s impossible-looking Flying Dragon Kick and Bicycle Kick for filming. Brandon Lee could not truly fly, but he demonstrated a rapid, precise Bicycle Kick while reclining on a chair, impressing Lin Lixin.

• Lin Lixin asked Brandon Lee to fly across the set with a Flying Dragon Kick, and Brandon Lee said he would perform the kick while postproduction handled the rest.
• Brandon Lee questioned how a person could do the Bicycle Kick without wires, and Lin Lixin explained that Mortal Kombat used exaggerated Hollywood-style martial arts.
• Lin Lixin brought over a chair and showed Brandon Lee how to recline on it to imitate riding a bicycle in midair.
• Brandon Lee stabilized himself on the chair and rapidly alternated his legs in a smooth, precise series of kicks.
• Lin Lixin praised Brandon Lee’s Bicycle Kick as perfect.

Lin Lixin coached Schwarzenegger to shed his stiff T-800 mannerisms and adopt Johnny Cage’s loose, cocky, and obnoxious style. After demonstrating Johnny’s ridiculous dance and charge-up move, Lin Lixin left Schwarzenegger to practice the character before filming.

• Lin Lixin noticed Schwarzenegger looked too tense in Johnny Cage’s costume and told him to forget his other screen roles.
• Schwarzenegger relaxed his posture, crossed his arms, leaned against a wall, and developed the slick, punchable air Lin Lixin wanted.
• Lin Lixin told Schwarzenegger to practice talking more and brought him to shoot test clips with a lightweight prop camera.
• Lin Lixin demonstrated Johnny Cage’s exaggerated dance and charge-up move, chanting “Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!”
• Schwarzenegger said the dance made Lin Lixin look punchable, and Lin Lixin explained that provoking a swing was the move’s purpose.

Lin Lixin and Mark Cerny assessed the hardware requirements for Mortal Kombat and realized that 3DO’s MADAM+CILO architecture suited the game’s FMV-heavy 2D design. They decided to study the architecture and build a cheaper arcade board tailored to the game, leaving GameNova poised to challenge EA.

• Mark Cerny reviewed the existing Nova Wonder board and concluded that modernizing it would require so many replacements that a new design made more sense.
• Lin Lixin listed Mortal Kombat’s needs, including FMV sequences, layered 2D rendering, live-action sprite animations, and CD-quality audio.
• Lin Lixin and Cerny recognized that Mortal Kombat’s requirements matched the Panasonic Real 3DO’s MADAM+CILO architecture.
• Lin Lixin decided to study 3DO’s design and strip away unnecessary performance to create a cost-effective arcade board for Mortal Kombat.

Lin Lixin settled the hardware plan for the Mortal Kombat arcade game and began arranging a DC Comics crossover. Jenette Kahn agreed to consider using Joker and Watchmen characters, while Jack Nicholson was already filming footage in Hollywood.

• Lin Lixin and his team chose the inexpensive Motorola 68030 and a specialized decoding ASIC for the Mortal Kombat arcade machine.
• As character assets for Johnny Cage and Liu Kang developed, the team saw Mortal Kombat’s distinct style of violence and American comic-book influence take shape.
• Lin Lixin asked DC Comics president Jenette Kahn to provide characters for Mortal Kombat, and she worried the game could harm DC’s reputation with its young audience.
• Jenette proposed using villains or Watchmen antiheroes instead of DC’s traditional superheroes, and Lin Lixin named Joker and Watchmen characters as possibilities.
• Jenette agreed to arrange board approval for Joker, while Lin Lixin revealed that Nicholson was already filming the requested footage in Hollywood.

Jenette watched the brutal Mortal Kombat filming and worried about the game’s prospects, though she recognized its bloody spectacle suited American tastes. As the game’s arcade machines shipped nationwide, distributor Jasper tried a sample cabinet and found its bizarre, catchy presentation hard to resist.

• Lucas directed Arnold’s violent fight scene, using a prop camera to smash a dummy while Jenette watched and reconsidered Mortal Kombat’s appeal.
• GameNova sent Mortal Kombat cabinets across the country, and distributors bought stock quickly despite operators’ reservations about the game’s gore and restricted rating.
• Jasper examined a thousand cabinets in his warehouse, noted the famous actors featured in the artwork, and arranged shipments to his clients.
• Jasper powered on a sample machine and watched its loud attract sequence, which mixed a looping electronic soundtrack with graphic character attacks.
• Jasper found himself repeating the machine’s shouted title and wanting to keep watching its preview.

Jasper tried Mortal Kombat and considered how its separate block button and Hollywood-action focus set it apart from Japanese fighting games. He began a computer match, impressed by the coherent character-select screen, though he noted that the original game's interface looked crude.

• Jasper put a coin into the Mortal Kombat machine and started the game.
• Jasper examined the controls and noted that Mortal Kombat used a separate block button rather than hold-back-to-block.
• Jasper contrasted Mortal Kombat's emphasis on dramatic action and Finishing Moves with Street Fighter's footsies and technical mind games.
• Jasper chose a one-on-one match against the computer instead of starting story mode.
• Jasper inspected the character-select screen and praised its visual cohesion, while observing that the original interface looked cheap and rough.

Jasper tried GameNova’s Mortal Kombat and was astonished by its roster of familiar Hollywood and comic-book characters, live-action visuals, and responsive controls. He began mashing buttons as Liu Kang and experienced the game’s forceful combat firsthand.

• Jasper spotted the Joker on the character selection screen and realized the game combined Hollywood, American comics, and GameNova’s properties.
• Jasper chose Liu Kang and set the AI to play Johnny Cage, whose camera-flashing entrance made him seem like a celebrity show-off.
• Jasper watched the fighters deliver pre-match dialogue, then discovered their live-action appearances carried over into a fully controllable match.
• Jasper tested the joystick and found he could move Liu Kang freely despite the game’s movie-like visuals.
• Jasper mashed buttons as Liu Kang, traded attacks with Johnny Cage, and was impressed by the dramatic impacts, screen shake, blood, and fiery flying kick.

Jasper introduced Robin to Mortal Kombat, and their match revealed the game’s Krushing Blow system when his Flying Dragon Kick struck Rambo. Robin discovered Rambo could recover health by eating bugs, then triggered a Krushing Blow that restored his health completely.

• Robin finished arranging shipping, and Jasper invited her to try Mortal Kombat after finishing a match as Liu Kang.
• Robin chose John Rambo, and Jasper chose Liu Kang for their first match together.
• Jasper struck Rambo with a maximum-range Flying Dragon Kick that triggered a Krushing Blow, shattering Rambo’s ribs in an X-ray close-up and taking a quarter of his health.
• Robin discovered that Rambo could stab and eat bugs to recover health, then repeatedly used the move while Jasper watched.
• After Rambo vomited, Robin tried eating another bug, triggering a slow-motion Krushing Blow that restored his health completely.

Mortal Kombat’s shocking finishing moves drew crowds and turned its age restrictions and criticism into free publicity. At 3DO, engineers recognized that GameNova had built the arcade board using an architecture reminiscent of MADAM-CILO, leaving Trip humiliated by the comparison.

• A Boston arcade crowd watched Johnny Cage repeatedly perform brutal finishing moves against Scorpion, while the game’s staged retakes added comic effect.
• The game’s ESRB-M restrictions and public attacks fueled curiosity, helping Mortal Kombat spread through arcades and attract its intended audience.
• 3DO’s engineering team examined the Mortal Kombat board and identified its custom chip, 68030 processor, and peripheral FPGAs.
• A supervisor told Trip that the board’s core architecture was basically similar to MADAM-CILO, with GameNova retaining only selected elements and adding its own technology.
• Trip felt anger and humiliation as he saw the board as a rebuke to 3DO, despite GameNova not having targeted the company.

After weighing GameNova’s finances and the cost of keeping its semiconductor technology competitive, Lin Lixin hit on virtual pets as a product that could unite the company’s hardware, software, and Pokémon ecosystem. He proposed the idea to Vivian and began outlining a device that could draw on GameNova’s factories, studios, and infrastructure.

• Lin Lixin reviewed the success of "Mortal Kombat" and concluded that the arcade game had become a major commercial hit.
• Lin Lixin assessed Japan’s declining economic bubble and judged that GameNova’s focus on talent rather than property and financial assets had insulated it from much of the damage.
• Lin Lixin examined an Athena chip and realized that GameNova would need expensive upgrades to its semiconductor facilities and equipment to keep pace with newer processors.
• Lin Lixin decided GameNova needed a product that could sell both hardware and software, then rushed to meet Vivian.
• Vivian showed Lin Lixin her pet rodent, and Lin Lixin proposed making a digital virtual pet inspired by "Tamagotchi".
• Lin Lixin identified Pokémon, GameNova’s display and battery production, memory chips, custom SoCs, and its Pokémon Center and ADSL network as pieces that could support the virtual pet device.

Lin Lixin explained to Vivian how GameNova would build a low-cost virtual pet using advanced mobile-device technology and attachment mechanics. Vivian learned the pet could die permanently if neglected, and Lin Lixin argued that dependence and separation anxiety would help players form a genuine bond with it.

• Vivian questioned whether Lin Lixin's virtual-pet idea would appeal to American consumers, and Lin Lixin proposed launching in Japan as well.
• Vivian suggested using GameNova's two-micron production line to keep the device cheap, but Lin Lixin chose 0.8 microns to make a smaller, more power-efficient SoC.
• Lin Lixin explained that the device would validate technologies for future mobile products, while Vivian warned they would need enough sales to cover development costs.
• Lin Lixin said the virtual pet would be an everyday necessity and described it as a low-cost alternative to real pets that still needed care and could die.
• Vivian objected that permanent death would restore the emotional burden of pet ownership, but Lin Lixin said dependence, separation anxiety, and reassurance would help create mutual attachment.

Lin Lixin visited Activision and found its developers debating a modern kitchen simulation based on Pressure Cooker. He praised the direction but put the idea on hold, then told David he had another project for him.

• Lin Lixin visited GameNova's first-party studio campus and asked Mike Morhaime whether Bullfrog had been causing trouble.
• Lin Lixin considered expanding GameNova's development space and dreamed of building an island studio cluster.
• Lin Lixin entered Activision's office and found David and Gary Kitchen arguing over a proposed kitchen simulation based on Pressure Cooker.
• Lin Lixin recognized the game's potential and said kitchen simulations could help fill the gap while GameNova's next-generation hardware was in development.
• Lin Lixin told the developers he would lead the kitchen simulation project later and said he needed David for another project.

Lin Lixin discussed GameNova’s virtual pet project with David, whose experience creating Little Computer People made him the ideal developer to lead it. David proposed using an 8-bit processor with Athena’s architecture and bank switching, and they headed to headquarters to pick up Will and work on upcoming projects.

• Lin Lixin explained that GameNova wanted to adapt Little Computer People into a small virtual pet device aimed at women and children, with simple minigames.
• David questioned whether the project needed a new 16-bit processor and suggested using an 8-bit chip with bank switching to expand its memory.
• Lin Lixin recognized that Athena’s architecture could support the project’s features on 8-bit hardware and praised David’s hardware knowledge.
• David told Lin Lixin that he had worked at National Semiconductor before leaving to make games for Atari.
• Lin Lixin and David agreed to stop at GameNova headquarters to pick up Will for the next-generation projects.

Lin Lixin, Vivian, and David reworked the virtual pet’s hardware design to balance compactness, cost, and game features. Vivian proposed printing static icons directly onto the LCD glass, and Lin decided to prepare the device for a summer showcase.

• Vivian suggested using a simpler MCU, but Lin Lixin said it could not support the minigames and features he wanted.
• David proposed a compromise between an SoC and an MCU, and Lin realized the team should finalize gameplay before designing the hardware.
• Lin identified the graphics chip as difficult to remove, and Vivian suggested printing stationary images onto the LCD glass so the screen only needed to draw simple indicators.
• Lin, David, and Will recognized that Vivian’s idea could improve the display while reducing power use and graphics-processing costs.
• Lin told the team to finish the device before June, then called Sam and said GameNova would attend the summer CES show.

Lin Lixin and Vivian arrived in Las Vegas for the Summer CES, where GameNova planned to unveil a new gadget. As the show opened and Fukuhara Kyoko explored the crowded booths, she heard a huge cheer coming from GameNova’s exhibit.

• Lin Lixin and Vivian stayed in a luxurious MGM Mirage suite after Wynn arranged their accommodation.
• Lin Lixin and Vivian reminisced about GameNova’s earlier CES appearance and discussed the possibility of holding a video game festival of their own.
• CES opened to a massive crowd, and Fukuhara Kyoko entered the exhibition determined to find something worthwhile.
• Kyoko explored Toshiba’s laptop display and Panasonic’s consumer electronics before a sudden cheer drew her attention.
• Kyoko saw GameNova’s logo and a new PokéPal brand logo above a large open space.

At CES, Vivian introduced GameNova’s new PokéPal, an egg-shaped Pokémon companion device designed for people who could not keep pets. The reveal showcased its small LCD screen and blue LED backlighting, while its purpose and features remained to be demonstrated.

• Fukuhara Kyoko pushed through the crowd at GameNova’s CES display, expecting to find a new Pokémon game.
• Vivian presented a Pokémon Egg in a glass case and asked the audience to remember their first pet.
• Television clips showed pets and a girl unable to adopt a dog because her household could not keep one, prompting Kyoko to relate the situation to life in Tokyo.
• Vivian said everyone could now have a companion, then turned the Egg around to reveal the PokéPal screen and three buttons.
• A camera showed the device on a nearby CRT television as the presentation highlighted its LCD screen and blue LED backlighting.