Snake
Simon handed out several copies he already prepared beforehand.
"The setting of the game is very simple. Use the game handle to control the direction of the snake up, down, left, and right, and look for something to eat. You will get certain points for each bite you take, and the snake's body will grow longer as it eats. The longer the body, the harder it is to play. The bigger you get, you can't touch the wall, bite your own body, and you can't bite your own tail. When you reach a certain score, you can pass the level and then continue to play the next level."
"This setting is a bit interesting." Woz said after reading the document.
This document not only describes the settings, gameplay and rules of the game, but also describes the difficulty behind it. It also uses graphics to describe it. Woz thought that having a long body in a small box and you cannot touch the surroundings nor touch yourself is not that difficult.
Woz asked: "So, this greedy snake will not speed up in the later stage?"
"No, it will always be the same speed. Let the players use their brains to see how to choose the direction. This will be more interesting." Simon nodded and said.
The biggest fun point of Snake is how to avoid collisions as the body grows in the later stage. This depends not only on reaction speed, but also on brains. When turning, you have to think clearly about how to turn in the next few steps. Otherwise, one mistake would be suicide.
When this kind of error occurs, the user will also reflect on which step he went wrong before, and will have more desire to play another round. This is the attraction that an arcade should have, rather than adding more balls like table tennis and using just speed to eliminate players.
"That's true, but the algorithm here is more complicated. It's not difficult to design a game like this, but to design it so that users fail within the time we set, we need to coordinate the algorithm." Woz thought for a while and expressed his concern.
"Actually, you don't need to worry too much about this. When the snake's body is too long, it will easily fail no matter what. As long as we try to put the food near the snake's body, it will be too easy to hit." Simon said calmly. Although in later generations he rarely played Snake, he played a lot of similar games. It is a normal operation to use a bait to induce players to fail. In this way, if the player succeeds, the satisfaction will be greatly improved. If the player fails, , you are very likely to be in a hurry to play another game.
Of course, this is more suitable for level-breaking games, such as games like Mario, Contra, and even Tetris. The gameplay and screen settings of Snake are destined to be far less attractive than the former. However, for people in the 1970s who have never seen the world, such new games are enough to make them have a lot of fun.
"That's okay, it's much simpler." Woz nodded. Placing food near the snake's body can greatly increase the risk of collision. In this way, the algorithm required for the game is much simpler, which can reduce the risk of collision. His workload can also save a lot of chip costs.
"When will the design be ready, the first version?" Simon asked.
"It is estimated that it will take about half a month. I need to design the game first, and then find a way to design the control motherboard with the lowest number of chips." Woz thought for a while and said.
"Okay, there is no need to be so urgent. Reducing the number of chips is the most important." Simon nodded and said. Arcade machines are very important, but you can still afford to wait for half a month. At present, the most important thing is to ensure the quality of the game and the cost of the chips. The team needed to find a balance between those two things.
"OK, I will get this done as soon as possible, but I will need to hire more people to help me design the arcade and build a production line." Woz promised.
"Don't worry, everyone present will help you hire engineers and programmers. I will personally help you with coding and designing the game and you can mainly focus on doing the design for the chips. The arcade machine is not very complicated at all. We can outsource most of the parts and just build them together in our factory. The only real technical difficulties are the chip design and the games. Even most of the games are pretty easy to develop and rely heavily on creativity."
Simon took a look at the seven university graduates who were curiously listening to the conversation between Woz and himself. Claire was happily watching through the game plan and game art. She was already thinking about ideas on how to do the marketing plan for the games and how to sell the games to the customers.
While Tanja and Dennis were thinking about how to quickly hire the needed personal for Woz and how to structure the company in the future.
"I think everybody roughly understands what to do. Jim and Clyde I need you to focus on the exclusive patents for the arcade machine, snake game and the chip design. You will help my sister with filing for all the international patents possible. Olivia and Allision you will take care of the financial aspect and contact me if there are any problems."
Dennis and Tanja didn't wait for Simon to give them any instructions and were already starting to talk to the people present on what they should do. Woz gave them some names of people he knew about to hire for the company and Tanja would fill the rest with the help of headhunters.
The first step of the arcade machine is almost ready. The rest is to wait for Woz to develop the software and hardware before officially entering this unlimited market.
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