ROSGT Chapter 37: King of Fighters is the Avengers of Arcade Games!
Volume 1
Chapter 37: King of Fighters is the Avengers of Arcade Games!
"The first fighting game I want to develop is called—"
After discussing the distribution of benefits, they got down to business. With a serious expression, Ye Chui said, "—Kung Fu!"
"Kung Fu?" Fang Xi quickly asked, "Chua, is the game's name Kung Fu? Is it about a kung fu battle?"
"You could say that," Ye Chui explained. "The player controls a kung fu master and continually fights against other fighters. That's the main storyline of the game."
"How will the player control the kung fu master?" Fang Nan asked curiously, looking like a curious baby. "Ordinary software systems would struggle to handle such operations. I’ve heard the military researched some virtual sensing technology that can connect a person’s senses to a virtual world, but there’s no way our studio could handle something like that."
"It doesn’t need to be that complicated," Ye Chui said, shaking his head with a smile. "Keep it simple. The game screen can be entirely horizontal, and the player’s control of the kung fu master is limited to moving left and right, crouching, jumping, and performing basic punches and kicks."
"Controlling a virtual character to jump, crouch, punch, and kick?" Jian Fan objected again. "What’s fun about that?"
But Fang Xi, deep in thought, said, "Seriously, this game might actually be interesting..."
"Hmph!" Jian Fan was unhappy again. Previously, when they were developing software, this fat guy always liked to oppose him. Now, Ye Chui had come up with such a lousy idea, and this fat guy was agreeing!
But anyway, Jian Fan didn’t really care whether the game would succeed or not, since he was on a fixed salary.
So he said to Ye Chui, "You decide. How do we start?"
"Let’s start by creating a framework database, with two game characters fighting against each other, causing physical impacts when they collide..." Ye Chui continued to explain.
The framework database he mentioned could be considered the embryonic form of a game engine.
This is both the hardest and the simplest part of a game.
It’s hard because this world doesn’t have such a thing, and Ye Chui had to create it from scratch.
It’s simple because once this thing is created, developing similar games in the future will be easy. Just apply the game engine and create various character models and storylines.
Ye Chui estimated that developing the first game would take about a month, mainly spent on this.
Once the engine is done, developing the next similar game would only take a few days.
Character models and storylines are easy for Ye Chui.
You could say that with the engine, developing similar games would be like a production line.
Under Ye Chui’s supervision and guidance, Jian Fan’s studio began the development work.
Kung Fu was the first arcade fighting game Ye Chui had ever played.
The controls for this game were very simple. The player could only perform a few basic attack actions with the game character, but it caused quite a stir because it was very pioneering at the time.
Without Kung Fu, later games like Street Fighter and King of Fighters might never have appeared.
"We’ll develop this Kung Fu game first, then upgrade the engine to include special moves, and develop Street Fighter, then Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury... and finally King of Fighters," Ye Chui silently thought about his plan.
King of Fighters is certainly the most important, but before developing it, he had to develop Street Fighter and a few other games, which had special significance to him.
King of Fighters is the pinnacle of 2D arcade fighting games, the king of arcades.
But its birth requires passing through several key stages.
First is Kung Fu, which established the fighting game model.
Then the famous Street Fighter, which innovatively introduced special moves, light and heavy punches, defense, and health bars, forming the basic concepts of fighting games.
Then Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury became very popular, promoting these concepts further.
And then, King of Fighters emerged.
King of Fighters perfectly inherited and promoted the fighting concepts established by Street Fighter, while also innovating team battles and exciting combos. Most importantly, the characters in King of Fighters were a collection of characters from Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, and other games.
—It could almost be said that King of Fighters is the Avengers of arcade games!
Of course, if Ye Chui directly released King of Fighters at the beginning, it would surely cause a sensation, but it would be missing something...
Moreover, although Art of Fighting and Street Fighter were slightly inferior to King of Fighters, they were also classic games. Ye Chui felt it was necessary to produce these masterpieces so that everyone could play them.
In addition, the game engine needed to be upgraded step by step, so Ye Chui believed that developing step by step was the most effective approach.
In the process, Ye Chui didn’t mind also creating other classic arcade fighting games, like Samurai Shodown and Mortal Kombat.
And after developing several classic King of Fighters series, the 2D fighting game field would be pretty much concluded. Then Ye Chui would consider developing other types of games...
"Chua, what do you think of these character designs?" At noon, the fat guy Fang Xi brought over a few character designs he had made for Ye Chui to see.
In the studio, Fang Xi’s job was drawing, and he had some talent in this area. It only took him half a day to finalize a few character designs.
Ye Chui glanced at the drawings Fang Xi handed him and frowned slightly. "The character designs are good, but... don’t they lack a bit of dominance?"
"Dominance?" Fang Xi was puzzled.
"Yes, you see, the characters you drew look good, but they’re too thin..."
Ye Chui’s voice suddenly stopped because he realized that this world was different from his original one. In almost every game character, there were either bulging muscles or explosive figures, while Fang Xi’s designs were entirely realistic. Ye Chui naturally felt something was wrong at first glance.
Understanding the key issue, Ye Chui said to Fang Xi, "Modify these designs to make their muscles fuller, and for this female character... make her design more sexy."
"Chua, isn’t this female karate master sexy enough? Look at this figure, it’s no worse than my sister’s." Fang Xi whispered, glancing at Fang Nan, who was sitting like a proper lady, developing code—not crossing her legs was quite scary!
Hearing Fang Xi’s words, Ye Chui did think Fang Xi’s female karate master’s figure was similar to Fang Nan’s. In the real world, she’d definitely be a top-notch sexy beauty.
But this is the game world. Haven’t you noticed that all modern games are full of big-breasted girls?
So Ye Chui lightly coughed and whispered to Fang Xi, "Since it’s in a game, it doesn’t have to follow the real world. For this female character, double her chest size, make her hips and thighs larger, and see if you can add some jiggle physics to the model."
"Chua, that’s too perverted!" Fang Xi immediately said, then he smiled. "But I like it."
Then he buried his head and started modifying. This time it only took him half an hour to complete the new character designs and handed them to Ye Chui eagerly.
Ye Chui glanced at them and couldn’t help but nod in satisfaction.
In the original version of Kung Fu, the pixels were so low that you could only vaguely make out the characters’ movements. But that was because the technology at the time couldn’t support high-definition character images.
Now it’s different. Ye Chui could make it high-definition, and the character designs became especially important.
Flipping through several character design drawings, when Ye Chui finally saw the modified female karate master design, he couldn’t help but want to give Fang Xi thirty-two likes.
He really understood the essence of it!
That figure, if it moved, would be so sexy, let alone practicing karate...
Fang Xi definitely had a talent in this area.
Suddenly, Ye Chui thought of something and looked at Fang Xi. "Fang Xi, have you ever thought about drawing manga?"
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The first game being developed is an obscure one called Kung Fu. Cannonball knows some people might be skeptical, so here’s a little spoiler: the first game Ye Chui actually develops won't be Kung Fu but another one, due to some unforeseen events... As for Kung Fu, honestly, Cannonball isn't very familiar with it. I vaguely remember playing it as a kid, but the impression isn’t strong, and I couldn’t find much information online. Let’s just think of Kung Fu as a game where a kung fu master challenges fighters from various schools. Also, the title might be a bit clickbaity, but I couldn’t resist. King of Fighters is indeed the Avengers of arcade games, right? Just imagine, after Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury become huge hits, the main characters from these games then form King of Fighters—wouldn't that cause a massive sensation? Lastly, I’m asking for votes and favorites. Cannonball knows it’s not great, but for the sake of this novel’s future, I have no choice. The editor didn’t give a recommendation, so for word count reasons, I had to do it this way.