Chapter 60. When Did President Learned Programming?
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"Eh?"
He didn't expect it to be like this…
"Don't believe me?" Tsuda stared into his eyes.
"No."
Kiyoshi Yuuma shook his head. "It's just that knowing this makes you feel even more precious and endearing."
"What do you mean?" Tsuda lowered her head, shy.
In Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, there is a description like this:
It was night, and you could hear the gloomy sound of flowing water.
There was an old-fashioned sluice gate with a large handle that could open or close it.
It wasn't a big river, just a small stream, most of the surface covered by water plants.
Everything around was pitch dark; if you turned off your flashlight, you might not even see your own ankles.
Hundreds of fireflies danced above the sluice gate, their light reflecting on the water like sparks burning in the dark.
At that moment, the lights in the room were off, with only the moonlight coming through the window.
And inexplicably, Kiyoshi Yuuma saw in front of him the river and the fireflies dancing above the water's surface.
…
The first sunrise of the New Year is highly valued in Japan. People pray to the rising sun, wishing for good luck in the year ahead.
Especially on high mountain peaks, the first ray of sunlight is called "Goraikou," a rare and symbolic image.
Kiyoshi Yuuma opened his eyes and looked at the sleeping Tsuda Nao's beautiful face.
He couldn't help but feel a stirring in his heart.
This was probably—
His own Goraikou.
…
Meanwhile, back at Kiyoshi Yuuma's home.
The two girls rubbed their eyes and crawled out of their futons.
The sunlight streamed in, illuminating the room brightly.
"Huh? What happened yesterday? How did I end up sleeping here?" Ayase Akane frowned.
"Um… I don't really remember either. I just remember having a little drink," Mika Ishino said, holding her slightly sore forehead.
After a few seconds, the two looked around, then exchanged glances.
"Where's the President?!"
…
January 4th, 1991.
After the New Year holiday, Pokeni officially resumed work.
As a tradition, Kiyoshi Yuuma took the employees to Sensō-ji to pray, asking the gods for blessings and hoping the company's games would sell well this year.
The company would thrive.
Interestingly, Japanese people were quite superstitious about this.
Kiyoshi Yuuma had long stopped believing in gods or spirits, yet the employees acted as if it were a serious matter.
…
On the first day back, everyone still seemed immersed in the holiday mood, not in the mood to work.
Kiyoshi Yuuma didn't say much; this was a normal post-holiday reaction.
That evening, he organized a company dinner, joined by two new faces: Shirakawa Atsushi and Mikami Shinji.
The new employees were obviously full of energy.
During the dinner, the main topic was what the company would do in the future and what each of them could contribute.
Kiyoshi Yuuma waved his hand, signaling no need to rush.
"You'll know tomorrow."
…
The next morning, Kiyoshi Yuuma called a meeting with the employees.
The agenda: the two previously planned game projects.
"The first game will continue in the galgame genre. This time, Urobuchi Gen will be the main script planner. The game is called Heart of the Mermaid."
Heart of the Mermaid wasn't a complex project; development difficulty was low.
It was basically a text-based flow.
Similar to point-and-click choices, selecting options would influence subsequent story paths.
In a sense, this game was the company's true first text-based romance game, also known as a visual novel.
"The project producer is still Tsubaki Furuhara."
Hearing Tsubaki Furuhara's name, everyone couldn't help but cover their mouths and laugh.
"This time, Mikami-san will join the project," Kiyoshi Yuuma said, looking at Mikami Shinji.
"Yes!" he replied, clearly excited.
Honestly, he didn't think he had much game development talent; he had failed the previous written tests multiple times.
But since President Kiyoshi gave him a chance, Mikami Shinji knew he had to give his all.
Kiyoshi Yuuma also had his considerations.
Geniuses aren't born overnight. Even someone with Mikami's potential couldn't immediately become a producer.
Starting from the basics, Kiyoshi Yuuma would guide him through one or two projects, allowing him to grow.
Then, later, he could take on a project independently.
…
The second game would naturally be the company's flagship project, Kiyoshi Yuuma's ambitious work:
Diablo
Though slightly different from the previous Diablo series.
This time, Kiyoshi Yuuma wanted most of the bosses to look a bit more feminine.
If things went badly, they could pivot immediately.
But Kiyoshi Yuuma believed failure was unlikely.
During this period, Kiyoshi Yuuma had been working overtime at the company every day, in fact, preparing the Diablo project proposal.
He sent the proposal to the main meeting participants, then drew on the blackboard while explaining the game mechanics.
"Eh?" After hearing Kiyoshi Yuuma's explanation, Akanishi Ken frowned, concerned. "We don't even have a foundation for developing a real-time combat game."
Indeed.
Currently, the market mainly had turn-based games.
Real-time combat games weren't nonexistent, but they required managing a huge amount of information and decisions simultaneously.
Especially a real-time combat game at the level of Diablo.
The computational load on the program would be enormous.
It's not in the same magnitude as all the turn-based games.
…
"This issue isn't actually that difficult; we can figure it out together later," Kiyoshi Yuuma said.
When it comes to real-time games, even Super Mario could be considered a side-scrolling real-time game—but Diablo is far, far more complex.
"Understood, President," Akanishi Ken nodded.
Yet inwardly, he was full of doubt. The President sounded convincing, but he wasn't a programmer.
In the end, wouldn't it still fall to them?
Kiyoshi Yuuma clarified that the hardest part wasn't the so-called real-time combat.
The combat system build was complex, yes, but if handled properly, it wasn't insurmountable.
"The real difficulty in this game lies in the AI," Kiyoshi Yuuma said.
"Eh? AI?" Akanishi Ken was slightly taken aback, surprised to hear such clear pronunciation from a Japanese person.
This AI wasn't like the later ChatGPT-type artificial intelligence; it referred mainly to the intelligence of in-game monsters.
In a sense, it could be described as "behavior strategy."
For example, when would monsters attack the player? If they came in groups, how would they coordinate?
Different monsters had different behavior patterns and strategies.
For instance, social or pack-based monsters might all attack if one is targeted.
Lower-intelligence monsters, like skeletons, had simpler and more independent patterns, so their support effects were weaker.
Even seemingly decorative objects—like swings hanging from trees in Diablo—would sway when players approached. This was the AI of the "swing" object in action.
Of course, all these were set according to design needs, varying by level and difficulty.
"Hmm… indeed," Akanishi Ken said, arms crossed, thinking carefully. "If we want this game to be done well, AI is absolutely critical. This top-down real-time game has far more content to handle than a side-scrolling game."
"Moreover, player actions aren't fixed. The President wants to achieve maze freedom and modular assembly, which is already a terrifying challenge," added another programmer, Sasaki Bunta.
At this time, there was no detailed distinction between client and server work; everyone was simply a programmer.
It wasn't until the internet became widespread, servers were introduced, and local vs. server distinctions were made that front-end vs. back-end differences gradually appeared.
Indeed, as they said, making Diablo properly was no easy task.
There were too many things to consider, and since they'd never done something like this, even predicting future problems was difficult.
But that was fine; Kiyoshi Yuuma said as long as he was clear, that was enough.
Was he joking?
He had led large projects before and developed advanced game engines.
These concepts were ingrained in his mind; he could explain them for three days straight without trouble.
All he had to do was organize the requirement documents and development workflows; programmers could implement them blindly according to his plans.
In short, programming isn't difficult because of writing code—it's difficult because of figuring out what is needed and how to implement it.
Once that's clear, there's nothing to fear.
…
"Oh, and during development, I hope there won't be any hard coding," Kiyoshi Yuuma said.
"Ha?!" Chief programmer Akanishi Ken looked puzzled. "If we don't hard code, how do we develop it?"
Hard coding didn't mean literally "hard-core"; it meant implementing game content directly via fixed code.
Although doing everything through code minimized the final file size or cartridge size, it sacrificed scalability.
A simple analogy:
Creating a robot.
Hard coding is like soldering a robot together directly from the blueprint.
Another approach is to make the parts first, then assemble the robot from them.
Kiyoshi Yuuma wanted the program to develop tools that designers could use.
Designers would then use these tools to create levels and all game content.
Programmers would only maintain the tools, not the game content. This separation benefited both programmers and designers.
This tool would eventually become the so-called "editor."
Kiyoshi Yuuma spoke passionately in the meeting.
The programmers below were stunned.
[What? This really is the President and not some monster possessed by a strange entity?]
[How could a visual artist think of all this programming stuff?]
Most importantly, what Kiyoshi Yuuma described was advanced, like a key opening doors in everyone's minds.
It was as if the whole world had been renewed.
…
At that moment, the programmers were thoroughly impressed.
The President's thinking was meticulous, forward-looking, and his understanding of code was deeper than anything they'd seen.
It far exceeded their imagination.
Terrifying.
Akanishi Ken was completely stunned.
Terrifying.
When did the President study programming?
No, studying programming alone couldn't account for this.
Many of his concepts, like monster AI, the editor, and the later-proposed behavior tree, didn't exist anywhere else.
It was hard to imagine a visual artist breaking down programming logic to this level.
Terrifying.
Truly terrifying.
…
Kiyoshi Yuuma discussed for a long time, giving everyone a clearer idea.
"Yes, yes. If we can really get to this point," Akanishi Ken's eyes sparkled, "then we're essentially providing a tool to build worlds. This tool can fully realize the President's vision."
"No, it's more than that. In the future, it could have immense scalability."
Wonderful.
What a genius-level design!
And for the programmers, it was a huge benefit.
Before, any design change meant rewriting nearly all the code—time-consuming, exhausting, and frustrating.
Conflicts between designers and programmers had escalated for years.
Now it's good. Programmers only needed to develop the tools; designers could make adjustments on their own.
Programmers could free themselves from tedious implementation and focus on optimization.
What could be better than this?
"Yes, exactly," Kiyoshi Yuuma said. "But doing this will inevitably make the file size larger than expected. We need to prepare for future optimization."
"Understood, President!"