America: The Godfather of Game Development

Chapter 67 The Yellow Electric Mouse

"Battery archive??"

Gerald looked at what Lin Lixin had written, his head full of question marks.

He knew about batteries, but how could such a thing have any save function?

Data in computers is essentially composed of binary data consisting of 0s and 1s. To store it, there must be at least a structure that can represent the high and low bits.

A high level represents 1, and a low level represents 0; this is a very common approach.

The question is, how do you store it using batteries?

Using battery conductivity as the basis? But that can only store one bit of data, right?

"That's right."

Lin Lixin smiled. This technology is exactly what Game Boy uses.

Simple yet ingenious, and very elegant.

"Think about it, what's the biggest problem we're facing in terms of storage right now?"

"Do we need to use a floppy disk?"

"That's true, but not entirely." Lin Lixin nodded. "Floppy disks aren't the only devices capable of reading and writing data."

He reached out and wrote the letters "RAM" on the whiteboard.

RAM, or RAM, stands for Random Access Memory.

Unlike the ROM used in their game cartridges, RAM, while having write capabilities, also has a fatal flaw.

"But... RAM data disappears when the power is off, right? This is completely contrary to what we want."

After hearing Lin Lixin's explanation, Gerald's doubts were not dispelled; instead, they became even more questionable.

If simply replacing the memory would solve the problem, why would we have gone through all this trouble?

"Why don't we just keep the power on?"

"Huh?"

While Gerrard looked bewildered, Lin Lixin reached into his pocket and rummaged around for a while, then suddenly pulled out a small round piece the size of a fingertip.

This is a button battery.

The moment Gerald saw it, he felt as if a membrane in his brain had been ruptured with a "whoosh," and inspiration poured out like a floodgate opening after three days of constipation and the sudden release of a ton of croton seeds.

"JesusChrist! Genius! Absolutely amazing! It's so simple!"

Yes, I should have thought of that sooner. As long as SRAM is powered on, it can be considered equivalent to a storage device.

Gerald then realized that he seemed to be getting stuck on a rut.

He was obsessed with finding a truly readable and writable high-capacity permanent storage medium, but he overlooked the fact that in reality, players often don't need something so extreme.

How long does a button battery last?

Three years, five years?

By then, many gamers will have already switched to other consoles or even started using the next generation of consoles.

Even if they are still obsessed with the current game, all they need to do is replace a battery.

Cheap and reliable, that's what he needs!

"That's all for now, but this is just a concept. It will depend on you, Mr. Gerald, to put it into actual application."

Lin Lixin left the battery on the table.

"As for NovaPocket's launch title, I've already prepared it."

Admittedly, even without floppy disks, the maximum size that can be achieved using the previous spliced ​​ROM is only around 256KB.

But the game he wants to make still has a chance if we squeeze out the capacity.

The final step in the whitewashing trilogy, and also the real trump card, is Pokémon.

The original Pokémon game was a whopping 1MB in size, which is an exaggerated size comparable to a floppy disk by today's standards.

But the problem is...

Its developer, GAME FREAK, has never been a company that makes a living from technology.

This is a group of doujinshi (fan-made magazines) that started by making magazines.

Without Shigeru Miyamoto's technical support, Pokémon would never have been born.

This gave Lin Lixin a lot of room to maneuver.

With some effort put into compression and optimization, saving more than half the capacity doesn't seem impossible.

This is a genius developer who can fit an entire city model directly into the game without breaking it down.

……

Pokémon is a work that transcends its time, but at its core, it is not complicated.

It's more like it's merging a bunch of existing concepts together and finding the most suitable positioning for itself.

The core gameplay revolves around collecting, nurturing, and trading, perfectly catering to all ages and genders.

Boys like to train powerful Pokémon to defeat others and become the strongest Pokémon trainers.

Girls like to collect cute elves and treat them as their true companions.

Lin Lixin now has a method to complete the Pokémon battle code with one click, which can save a lot of development time to do other work.

Two hours later.

"Take care, boss! Come visit again sometime!"

With a lingering look in Kanheim's eyes, Lin Lixin, carrying a floppy disk containing a copy of the combat code from "Might and Magic," waved to him and got into the car for the return trip.

Turn-based games are all the same once you understand one.

Even though Might and Magic and Pokémon seem completely unrelated, this code can still be reused.

……

"Carmack, you do this part."

Lin Lixin handed over the prepared proposal and the code he had just received to Carmack.

"Lin! You actually used someone else's code! Why didn't you just let me write it!"

"...If you can write something better, remember to send a copy to Kanheim."

Lin Lixin had almost gotten used to his strong-willed demeanor.

Ignoring the irritated Carmack, Lin Lixin sat down at the table, picked up a paintbrush, and haphazardly painted a yellow mouse.

"hiss……"

Lin Lixin clicked his tongue.

Oh no, why is it drawn so abstractly?

Upon opening his attribute panel, Lin Lixin realized that he seemed to have neglected to practice his graphics skills.

The music attribute, which was originally the lowest, was raised to almost the same level as the other attributes after the last development of Street Fighter.

However, this graphics technology has never been effectively improved.

I have some graphics-related skills that I acquired a long time ago, but those skills are for improving computer graphics and are completely useless when it comes to actual hand-drawn original artwork.

Even in the first generation, there were a total of 151 Pokémon.

With his current drawing skills, if he were to take full responsibility for the project, what he would create wouldn't be Pokémon, but some kind of 18+ dungeon crawler Stranger Things fanfic.

Should I start gaining experience now?

It's feasible, but it would be quite troublesome to have him draw all 151 Pokémon completely and accurately.

Technological advancements do not necessarily mean that memories will become clearer.

So now there are only two options.

One option is to simply draw a few of the most popular and memorable Pokémon, and then freely create original designs for the rest.

And the second path...

Lin Lixin looked up and glanced at the busy crowd.

"By the way... does anyone here speak Japanese?"