I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 538 - 175: The Fall of the Godfather of Gaming! (Worldview Completion - , Skip if Disliked)_1

Chapter 538: Chapter 175: The Fall of the Godfather of Gaming! (Worldview Completion Chapter, Skip if Disliked)_1

It was as if he knew there was a thief eavesdropping in the bedroom behind him.

Ke Jun leaned his body slightly backward, resting on the sofa.

Then, he lit a cigarette and began to talk about the past.

————

Blue Star.

The last decade, the late ’70s.

As a Huaxia Nation and Neon Country university exchange student, Ke Xiangyang successfully completed his studies at East Finance University.

But he did not stay in Neon to continue his studies; instead, he resolutely chose to return to his home country.

College students were still very rare in that era.

Especially those who returned from studying abroad in Neon before the economic bubble burst.

Ke Xiangyang received significant attention from the local government in Jianglin and was enrolled in their system without the need for exams.

They hoped he could contribute to the development of Jianglin.

However, Ke Xiangyang, who had a strong aversion to the ways of the workplace, made no progress after three years at his job.

He gradually grew tired of the monotonous day-to-day lifestyle,

and, having developed an interest in the newly popularizing computers during his university years, Ke Xiangyang quickly taught himself programming.

One day, while staring blankly at a computer, a sudden inspiration struck him.

If there were so many interactive forms of entertainment offline, such as chess, card games, table tennis, badminton, and so on,

couldn’t he create something similar online to relieve the boredom in his tedious environment?

And quite quickly, after a week of repeated attempts and constant improvements with his coding,

the first ever real electronic game in Blue Star’s history was born!

The name of the game was very simple.

Badminton Game

And to look at the design of the entire game from today’s perspective, it was quite rudimentary.

The game had no UI (user interface) guide.

Once you clicked start, it would display a sequence of green numbers comprised of 1s and 0s on a black background.

Your character was a stick figure outlined with 1s, while the opposing robot was a 0.

The net of the badminton court was also formed from 0s.

Furthermore, the computer AI would serve the ball as soon as the game started.

If you weren’t careful, you might lose a point as soon as you opened the game.

Beyond that, the gameplay, when viewed in the present, was also quite dull.

A best-of-five sets, three wins required, with characters that couldn’t even move.

It was just a matter of hitting the space bar lightly when the shuttlecock came flying over.

Moreover, at the creation of the game, since there were no precedents to follow, Ke Xiangyang hadn’t thought much about it.

The AI he programmed was unbeatable, always able to precisely return the shuttlecock.

Yet, this simple little game astonished a colleague who happened by it.

The game itself might not have been very fun, but the mere fact that a computer could play games was shocking enough.

Before this, to everyone, computers were just seen as:

Tools specifically for office use, to compile data and statistics, like a big abacus for complex calculations.

Playing an entertaining game on a computer truly dumbfounded his colleagues.

Under the insistence of his colleagues, Ke Xiangyang quickly copied his Badminton Game for a few male co-workers.

A few days later, he received some suggestions from them.

’Can you make it so I can serve first? Every time I start the game, the opponent serves immediately, and I really can’t react in time.’

’Can you make the computer’s programming a bit dumber? It doesn’t feel good to play for a long time and never win. Can you make it so the AI occasionally makes a mistake, but don’t tell me when it will happen, so that I can feel... um, surprise? Joy? — when I win.’

’Can you add more sets of actions? Like juggling, smashing, etc., and maybe adjust the scoring as well.’

If this were to happen in the present, there would be a specific term to define these colleagues’ behavior — beta testing.

And Ke Xiangyang took their suggestions to heart, making iterative improvements to the game.

Although Badminton Game hadn’t seen much improvement in graphics, the gameplay had clearly evolved.

He added a UI start screen so that when players were ready and clicked start, the game would truly begin.

Besides, he added the intensity of swings on the advice of his colleagues, with low, medium, and high levels.

Even though it still didn’t match the graphics, and the on-screen character still swung something that looked like a stick,

at least players had more options to choose from.

At the same time, Ke Xiangyang also realized

that whether it was offline games or this electronic game he had created,

emotional feedback was always the ultimate pursuit of players.

A game that was impossible to win would naturally lose its appeal over time.

Therefore, he refined the computer AI, setting levels for beginners, ordinary, intermediate, and advanced difficulties.

The beginner-level AI had the highest error rate,

while the advanced-level AI had only a 5% error rate.

After this series of optimizations, his colleagues started to like this ’electronic game’ even more.

In an era where even beepers hadn’t been invented yet, having such an electronic form of entertainment to pass the time and provide a pleasant sensation when winning against the computer made the game popular in the office for a while.

Then, a colleague suggested to Ke Xiangyang.

He thought Ke Xiangyang could try patenting the game and selling it to make extra money.

’Everyone says the game will definitely be popular.’