Strongest Game Architect Chapter 1
MingYan sat at one end of the long table, waiting for the judgment of the teachers present.
The discussion proceeded unhurriedly.
“For this design work, I can only give 40 points, one of the reasons being that the degree of completion is still considered alright and the workload is higher for an undergraduate student.”
“Teacher Zhou, is this evaluation not too harsh?”
“Why is it harsh? It’s strictly graded according to the grading scale. Realism, 0 points, I do not see how this kind of world composed entirely of pixel cubes can provide players with even a miniscule amount of real-world experience; interactivity, I give about 60 points, for an otherworldly architecture student to do human-computer interaction to this extend, it is enough; entertainment, I give 50 points, I do not see any fun in this game for the time being, only able to carry out endless demolition and assembling of cubes according to their own imagination to build a small house that resembles a coffin – My description may have been a little harsh, but can everyone derive any pleasure from playing this?”
One of the five teachers in the room shook his head, put down his VR glasses, and quit the game.
However, at the end of the long table, the youngest teacher was still inside the game, and he did not participate in the discussion.
Ming Yan, as a student, was quietly watching before it was time to be asked questions.
The teachers were still discussing.
“Sociality, although it is not visible at the moment, but this kind of player-created game should be able to have the pleasure of sharing ……”
“Tell me about it, your ‘coffin-like little house’, now has more than a hundred likes ……”
“Ahem, don’t interrupt! On this topic, I can give him 60 points. I’ll leave the remaining few small topics for now. In short, the problem with this graduation design work is huge, and the ‘bias’ factor is quite serious. Student Ming Yan has the skills, determination and perseverance, but unfortunately is too focused on taking a wrong path. The essence of a game should be to provide players with a realistic experience!”
After these words, the room was quiet for a short while, and this teacher had a pained expression on his face.
MingYan, however, finally spoke up.
He said, “Teacher Zhou, I think the essence of a game is a series of meaningful choices.”
(“A game is a series of meaningful choices.” — Sid Meier, game designer of the Civilization series.)
Several teachers’ brows furrowed, as they have no good angle to criticize this deviant student for a moment of time.
And at that moment, the young teacher in the corner suddenly stood up and gleefully moved around saying, “I’m done, hahahahahaha! Look, look!”
The crowd was startled and turned their heads to look.
The young teacher took off his VR glasses and projected his own image onto the center of the long table, showing a 3D real-time projection of a villa.
The villa was made up of “pixel” squares that looked like Lego blocks. It is three stories high, although there is no detail and interior, but the whole shape is decent, very modern with a minimalist style, and from a distance, it also resembles a fairy tale cottage standing beside the river.
In any case, it is definitely a far cry from Teacher Zhou’s “coffin hut”, which makes the latter’s old face can’t help but tinged red.
“It’s too interesting!” The young teacher’s face was filled with a flush of excitement, he did not participate in the discussion just now, seemingly because he was completely immersed.
He merrily paced around and introduced to the others, “Although my house is still relatively simple now, it’s enough for me to safely dig my mining tunnel. I plan to build a fish farm here, and then underneath I can put a submarine hut that’s built with glass.
“Next to the hill I’m going to put a super huge windmill! Reclaiming a part for a flower field, as i have seen many kinds of flowers in this game.
“Ah yes, go back I have to dig sand and burn glass, collect a little more of those beautiful quartz decorations, God, I can’t wait to go home and continue to play!”
A smile appeared on MingYan’s face as he said, “Thank you for your compliments, this game is not my idea, all i did was just implement the framework and made the VR design based on the original idea, so it is a B class specific implementation type of graduation design. There are only ten colors of dyes in the game for the time being, since I am slow to draw the decals alone, but I expect to make up to 32 colors in the future.”
“In other words, my hut can be dyed in all colors?” The young teacher laughed out loud. “Bravo! This is a genius idea, the pixel style graphics perfectly created a sense of fairy tale, and greatly reduced the need for the body. I can imagine, if we enter the online era, multiplayer teamwork can potentially build a castle, or even a city, that will be the true unlimited possibilities!”
“Ahem, Mr. Hurst,” a teacher couldn’t help but remind, “we’re in the student’s (thesis) oral defense, I hope you can offer a more realistic insight. In any case, it’s still an unlikely phenomenon that a single student’s work will be able to induce the interference of a large-scale team.”
Hurst sat down with intent, observing his house lovingly and looking a bit like he wanted to implement his house remodeling plan immediately.
Then he smacked his lips for a moment and said, “Yes, I’m still too emotional in my earlier evaluation, I’m really very sorry.”
Several of the more qualified teachers nodded their heads.
Then Hurst picked up his pen, held up the form in front of him, and said excitedly,
“Authenticity, 90 points! I’ve seen the whole world in my eyes! Interactivity, 70 points, which is really not the strength of the architecture specialization. Entertainment, 10,000 points!!! One hundred billion points!!! I can’t write any more compliments on this table! ……”
Everyone: “……”
“Oh, by the way, did you name your game yet?” Hurst suddenly looked up at Ming Yan, “It’s going to be a great game, I have a hunch.”
Ming Yan said, “It’s called ‘My World, Minecraft.”
A knowing smile appeared at the corner of Hurst’s mouth, “‘Minecraft’ ah …… we all know it will be a popular world.”
……
The graduation oral defense went by quickly as each person could only have a total of thirty minutes to present the game and defend.
After Ming Yan left the lecture hall, the students waiting outside came up to greet him politely.
The rich boy, Cleary, came up and asked in a fake way, “Oh, did your oral defense turn out okay? That quirky cube game didn’t freak out the teacher, did it?”
“Cleary, you better talk with respect.” The student that has a better relationship with Mingyan spoke up.
Cleary ignored him, but said to Ming Yan, “Theoretical learning is good, but in the end it is necessary to practice. The game otherworldly architecture profession is ultimately the learning of the rich, for you, a civilian student, even if the usual grades are good, it is impossible to afford any one other world. So the best way out for you is still to work for me, even with good grades, what else can you do when you get out of school?”
“Cleary!” Someone got a little angry.
But MingYan was not angry, he calmly patted Cleary’s chest and said, “You’re right, money is the hard reason. But I’ll be rich soon.”
Cleary covered his stomach and laughed, saying, “Just by yourself? And your fractured game theory? A game without authenticity is a piece of mud, and your crooked ways have no future! If you give up before it’s too late, maybe I can even ask my dad to send you an offer to come and work for me as one of my four secretaries for good.”
Ming Yan didn’t reply, but finished packing the materials he brought with him, and then headed out of the door.
After eating dinner in the cafeteria, Mingyan went to the library and found a seat.
He silently opened his computer and began to update <Minecraft> v1.32.
Except for the first concept, the entire game, the systems’ framework, art style and all, was designed by MingYan himself.
He did not forget the external – hang, so he simply just did it all himself.
And the production of VR games is definitely worlds apart from computer games.
Although the game is still called <Minecraft>, even if he lets a person from Blue Star plays it, it is estimated that it will still take a while for them to realize its connection with the computer version.
And all these systems probably need another two or three days of work to develop and complete.
Until after it was completely dark, Mingyan went straight home.
His adoptive parents were already getting ready for bed.
After all, he was already mentally mature before he was adopted and understood that the couple’s adoption of him was mostly for profit.
— Mingyan was dug up by the Research Institute. Dug out from the frozen wreckage of the Blue Star, as if it were a fossil.
That Research Institute of Blue Star History and Species, not only have they arranged this couple to foster him, but they also allowed him to enter the Royal Academy.
MingYan was quite grateful to them, but still didn’t quite like the life of being called back sometimes to take samples.
The Sunrise Alliance, where MingYan is now located, spans six large star clusters, and these six provinces under the jurisdiction of the Alliance government are among the top advanced civilizations in the galaxy, having long since developed the technology for inter-dimensional travel.
And here, the Sixth Star Province – a large province that has just joined the Grand Alliance and where the various regions have not yet been completely united together.
The Sunrise government had forcibly promoted some otherworldly games in the early years.
In those other worlds called “games”, the players said that they were playing, but in fact they were actually fighting and killing in other worlds to bring more world resources to the Alliance.
As you can imagine, a huge demand equals a huge market, and a huge market gives rise to a large number of producers.
Today, not to mention the development of otherworldly games of major companies, every one of Sunrise Alliance’s schools have also introduced a game related study field.
MingYan is now in a profession called “otherworldly architecture”, if it were to be compared to the Blue Star game industry, it would be almost equivalent to a”game planner”.
Recently, this class of undergraduates is about to graduate, and each of them has finished the oral defense of their graduation design.
An otherworldly entrance is very expensive, civilian-born specialised students basically do not have the opportunity to transform a real otherworld, so their graduation design is really just strategizing on a piece of paper.
–That is, to create a VR game on a virtual terminal to show their design blueprint for the Otherworld.
Ming Yan has played those games. They might as well be real battlefield simulators, not fun, and can not be considered as “games”.
The Star people may understand the development of otherworlds.
But Ming Yan understood games.
