This weekend was not entirely a carnival for the players.
At the same Time, while Yamada Masaharu was playing the game, countless competitors of Pokeni were also carefully studying their new game.
From initially looking down on it and despising it, they gradually transformed their views to, "How amazing, how terrifying."
Miyamoto Masafumi, the President of Square, also spent the two days and one night of the weekend, struggling in the world of The Witcher, engaged in arduous battles.
When he guided Erwin through the beginner's tutorial, ascending the spiral staircase in the cave, Miyamoto Masafumi's eyes almost popped out.
"Wait a minute."
"What is all this?"
The reason for his shock was that when he first walked this section of the spiral staircase, he hadn't noticed any changes, only that the walk was exceptionally comfortable and smooth.
It was halfway through that he suddenly realized the entire scene's position had changed.
In reality, the position hadn't changed; it was because the in-scene camera was also rotating along with his movement.
In a fixed 45-degree top-down perspective game, such a natural transition was truly unexpected.
Seeing this, a terrifying thought emerged in Miyamoto Masafumi's mind—
How did Pokeni achieve this?
He controlled Erwin, then walked down the stairs from top to bottom, reversing his path, and with his steps, the game's camera also slowly rotated.
At first, it was clockwise, but now it turned counter-clockwise.
Completely incomprehensible!!!
Miyamoto Masafumi folded his arms, stopped, and stared blankly at the screen.
How to describe this feeling?
It was like you were filming a movie and playing the male protagonist in it, with a Director outside, watching you through the main camera.
There were many cameras, each controlled by a dedicated person.
Then, through the Director's arrangement, you would always appear in the most suitable and comfortable camera's view.
This perspective adjustment was truly too comfortable.
Miyamoto Masafumi had originally thought that walking forwards and backward would expose some flaws in the game, because if it couldn't be done so intelligently, bugs would easily appear.
But unexpectedly, no matter how he moved, how he turned, or even used displacement skills, the camera could perfectly keep up.
He used a skill to directly leap a long distance from the top of the stairs, and the camera also sped up accordingly…
At this point, Miyamoto Masafumi's train of thought was completely unable to keep up.
Originally, one might guess that Pokeni might have used some kind of multi-camera setup, or that the camera had some complex rules written into it.
Now it seemed that was not the case.
Pokeni's black technology, who could understand it?
In reality, what Miyamoto Masafumi didn't know was that the camera rules here were actually quite simple; it was a regional camera developed by Pokeni's development team according to Aoki Haruhi's vision, simultaneously paired with other fixed cameras, allowing planners to adjust them by priority.
Initially, it wasn't as comfortable as Miyamoto Masafumi experienced; the reason he could play so smoothly now was entirely due to the efforts of the planners in the The Witcher project team.
It was the planners, including Miyazaki Hidetaka, who ran it over and over, debugged it again and again, and only then achieved this effect.
It was equivalent to adjusting it through effort and Time, based on having black technology tools.
Miyamoto Masafumi's feeling was not wrong, because Aoki Haruhi's requirement for this game was almost equivalent to having Miyazaki Hidetaka, the Director, watching over it and coordinating all the cameras throughout, just to produce a sufficiently excellent film.
All these efforts were worth it; Miyamoto Masafumi's own experience now could explain everything.
…
Miyamoto Masafumi was truly shocked throughout his playthrough of "The Witcher: Devil's Egg," not only by Pokeni's camera system but also by the monster design.
In terms of monster collision, Pokeni's design was also exceptionally good, making his entire game experience incredibly smooth.
Larger monsters occupied more space, smaller ones less, and there were real physical collisions between them, unlike the previous The Witcher or Diablo, where they completely overlapped, allowing players to pull a large group of monsters at once and then clear them all.
In other words, in this game, you needed to adopt smarter strategies.
Pokeni's exploration and creativity in 3D action game were truly breathtaking.
Moreover, Pokeni's utilization of three-dimensional space in this game was too efficient, wasn't it?
He navigated many mazes, from top to bottom, almost utilizing all available space.
You would go up one staircase only to find that the exit of the cave was the entrance to another path.
At this point, you would need to jump down from the cave entrance and then proceed up or down along the other path.
If you failed to understand the Producer's design intent and thought it was a dead end, you might get stuck in place for a long Time.
The entire game's terrain was fully utilized, transforming into a three-dimensional maze.
Yes, it was a three-dimensional maze, not a two-dimensional one.
For a two-dimensional maze, you could deduce the path on paper using a flat map.
If one path was blocked, you would try another, and eventually find the way.
But for a three-dimensional one, multiple paths might actually have common intersections, and these intersections would overlap, like a complex overpass; it would be very difficult to find the correct path without much exploration.
Sometimes, it even required activating mechanisms to make certain paths accessible.
In the game, Miyamoto Masafumi would often see stone doors carved with strange patterns, and at such Times, he would have to find a key or a mechanism to open them.
For collectors, playing Miyazaki Hidetaka's game was maddening.
Miyamoto Masafumi had exactly this experience.
Just playing it made him feel like his brain capacity wasn't enough; sometimes, he even had to find a piece of paper to draw, not only a top-down view but also to mark the dependency relationships between upper and lower levels.
Because it was a three-dimensional spatial structure.
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but admire Pokeni's level designers.
What kind of abnormal people were these, to be able to conceive such a maze design pattern?
It was already complex enough to play; he couldn't imagine how they designed it in the first place.
In fact, in terms of design, it was much easier than the player's experience.
Because when Miyazaki Hidetaka designed levels, he would think globally, planning from a God's perspective; all mazes would be abstracted into pathways, designed by Miyazaki Hidetaka and then handed over to the level planners for refinement.
After refinement, it would then be given to the art department for production.
It was precisely because Miyazaki, this young man, had an extraordinary way of thinking and unique level design philosophy that many artists were driven crazy by him.
Creating one level for Miyazaki Hidetaka took more Time and effort than creating three levels for Shinji Mikami.
Previously, Pokeni's game was equivalent to painting.
With Miyazaki Hidetaka, it became building houses.
Which do you think is easier, painting or architecture?
To make the game well, Ayase Akane actually specifically recruited several architectural draftsmen for the the witcher 2 team.
Because they had to calculate floor heights, wall thicknesses, object space, player strategy space…
At this point, it was no longer an artistic domain but had transformed into mathematics.
A pile of numbers, constant calculations, made Miyazaki Hidetaka exceptionally enjoy himself, but it also caused great suffering for the art students.
Some art students even complained to Aoki Haruhi about making his levels, but they were eventually appeased by the President.
However, for the team, when the game was produced and the finished product was realized, the sense of accomplishment was actually overflowing, and confidence immediately soared.
This was also the unprecedented change that the witcher 2 brought to the Pokeni team.
…
Miyamoto Masafumi played the witcher 2, and the more he played, the more shocking it became.
Because the game's design philosophy, various methods, and black technology were truly too unique; it was unlike any game he had played before.
Pokeni truly did not follow the usual path and repeatedly surpassed itself.
The game also progressed step by step from simple to increasingly complex.
This complexity was not a disparagement; for Miyamoto Masafumi, it was a compliment.
Making a game complex is actually very easy, and creating new things is also very easy; just find kindergarten children, and they can do both.
However, for a game whose design itself is sufficiently complex, with complex mechanisms and complex systems… yet it can be made to feel not complex to people, even natural, with a joy of exploration within it—that is truly remarkable.
Complexity isn't just complexity for its own sake; it's a meticulously designed complexity, the digital aesthetic of engineering, the complexity of a spaceship exploring the universe, yet with an appearance that evokes a sense of trans-dimensional technology…
Such a thing can actually be described as a work of art.
It's an industrial work of art from the late 20th century.
Miyamoto Masafumi could only describe it that way.
He even wondered what kind of terrifying products Pokeni could create in the future; The Witcher: Devil's Egg had already elevated game mechanics to this level. In Miyamoto Masafumi's opinion, making improvements at the fundamental level after this would be a very difficult task.
At most, it would be through technological means, the continuous progress of hardware, to iterate on the graphics and quality within the game, and nothing more.
He couldn't think of anything more.
The insiders had reached a dead end.
This was probably the most accurate portrayal of Miyamoto Masafumi's feelings at the moment.
Pokeni was a company that could not be defeated, or even caught up with, on a technical level.
It was too terrifying.
Was the Producer more impressive, or was the Director more impressive?
Thinking about it carefully, it was very likely because the Director was more impressive.
After all, Shinji Mikami was the Director of this game, and his famous work was also Diablo. The predecessor of The Witcher was also developed by Shinji Mikami, so in Miyamoto Masafumi's view, it was highly probable that Shinji Mikami led the game.
In that case, Miyazaki Hidetaka should just be an executor.
However, little did he know, it was quite the opposite. During the production of The Witcher: Devil's Egg, Shinji Mikami was swamped with princess mononoke, and had virtually no Time to manage The Witcher: Devil's Egg.
Moreover, the president also required him to give young Miyazaki enough room to play while maintaining quality, allowing him to grow fully during the game production process.
In other words, during the development of this game, Shinji Mikami basically adopted a hands-off approach towards Miyazaki Hidetaka, letting him mess around as he pleased, as Shinji Mikami himself didn't have that much Time or energy to manage him.
However, to some extent, it was also thanks to Shinji Mikami's "hands-off" approach that this game radiated a different kind of brilliance.
Miyazaki Hidetaka's own brilliance.
The bosses in the game were naturally beyond words, astonishing Miyamoto Masafumi and making him curious—
The small monsters in the game were also designed quite interestingly.
Many small monsters would quietly hide in dark corners, and when you weren't paying attention, they would sneak up behind you and hit you with a blunt object.
And the combination of scene and gameplay design was truly amazing.
This was fully demonstrated from the very beginning, upon exiting the cave and starting on the plank road leading to Ice Wolf Fortress.
Players could not only climb and jump using the Demon's Claw, but also attach Eve to themselves, letting Eve carry them through the air.
This instantly increased the number of usable characters in the game from one to two.
Later, after General Rogue joined, the team size became three people.
Although this was a single-player action game, Miyamoto Masafumi experienced a different sense of team cooperation within it.
This surprised and delighted him, as a designer who greatly enjoyed strategic elements.
Because in his opinion, action games almost had no room for cooperation; strategy was more about researching one's own skill combinations, equipment combinations, and so on.
This Time, in The Witcher, one could not only interact with teammates (NPCs) but also attach to them, and by imitating teammates' abilities, greatly enhance the male protagonist's combat capabilities and fighting methods at any Time.
In other words, the dimension of combat expanded from one person to three, making the entire changeable dimensional space incredibly vast.
Previously, Miyamoto Masafumi had racked his brain discussing with his company members for a long Time, yet he couldn't construct such a game model. He never expected Pokeni to achieve it with such ease.
What should he say?
As expected of you, Pokeni.
Miyamoto Masafumi felt both happy and frustrated.
He was happy because he could learn new things from another company.
He was frustrated because Pokeni's black technology could only be glimpsed and speculated upon from the outside; there were many aspects of its implementation that he simply couldn't figure out, no matter how hard he tried.
Unless you could poach a few core developers from Pokeni, otherwise…
Miyamoto Masafumi felt that in this life, Square would find it too difficult to catch up with Pokeni in the game field.
Huh?
Why did I use the word "catch up"?
Miyamoto Masafumi looked up, thinking for a moment.
Wasn't Pokeni far behind us back then?
How did they get ahead now?
When did they become so powerful?
Completely incomprehensible.
…
"Completely incomprehensible."
Besides Miyamoto Masafumi, there were many others who couldn't understand.
Miyamoto Shigeru, the legendary Producer of Nintendo, was one of them.
He sat at home, arms crossed, lost in thought.
Pokeni was like cheating, suddenly leaping to the forefront of game development in the entire game industry.
Once upon a Time, it was just an obscure small company.
Who would have thought that Pokeni now hid so much black technology?
"The behavior pattern of this monster is too powerful, isn't it?"
When he saw the lizardmen hanging on the walls, Miyamoto Shigeru got goosebumps all over.
Pokeni's game had reached the pinnacle of atmosphere in the current game field.
This game, which leaned more towards a realistic Japanese manga style, pushed the attributes of Diablo to the extreme, giving players an extremely strong immersive experience during gameplay.
The most terrifying thing was that the eerie feeling conveyed to the player through the in-game scenes, monsters, and music… felt completely natural.
It was too natural.
It was too comfortable.
So comfortable it gave him goosebumps.
It would even make people feel a chill down their spine because of this immersion.
Every emotion the game wanted to convey to the players was accurately transmitted, permeating Miyamoto Shigeru's skin.
It seeped through his pores, all the way to his heart, shocking him to the point of tingling scalp.
Miyamoto Shigeru often found himself startled while playing, and sometimes he would be moved by the plot, feeling immense empathy for the characters' tragic experiences.
Looking back, he would think—
Pokeni really did a fantastic job.
To achieve such a degree, Pokeni was simply amazing.
…
"Completely incomprehensible." Kojima Hideo of Konami also looked bewildered.
With monsters climbing on walls and fake lizardmen blending into the environment, Kojima Hideo couldn't distinguish which was real and which would suddenly jump out.
Moreover, the monsters all had their own attack and action logic. Although not that intelligent, their behavioral strategies already made you feel the pinnacle of this Time.
This was probably the most a game could achieve.
Kojima Hideo thought.
Pokeni's technical means were simply terrifying.
They had become a black box within the game; you could only guess how they did it based on the performance.
But, how exactly they did it, was completely unknown.
Kojima Hideo even felt that, through his calculations and drawings, he still couldn't derive a perfect enough answer to explain every detail in Pokeni's the witcher 2 game.
…
These were all relatively senior Producers in the game industry, those who produced large-scale games. They all felt that Pokeni's games contained countless black technologies.
And for the entire game industry, each of these black technologies was a treasure.
Each one, if revealed, would be enough to shock the world.
As for some small companies, or game people without much experience in producing large-scale games, this was even more incomprehensible.
If even you top students, who usually score over 90 on exams, can't figure it out.
How could we, who usually barely pass exams and struggle to make a living, ever glimpse the essence of Pokeni?
In other words, in the eyes of Pokeni, in the eyes of Aoki Haruhi—
Everyone present was a game underachiever.
Isn't that right? Someone from the future, carrying excellent design solutions accumulated over 30 years by generations, wouldn't he easily crush these old bones academically?
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