"Look, this is a 3D open world. From the player's perspective, the world feels incredibly fascinating and imrsive. But in reality, from a developer's point of view, the goal is to deceive the player's eyes — to make them believe in the authenticity of the world."
On one of the floors housing a ga developnt team, Takayuki personally acted as a tour guide, explaining the basics of ga design to the three girls who had made a surprise visit.
There weren't many people that Tsukino Aya paid special attention to.
And it seed Takayuki shared a kind of unspoken resonance with her — when he noticed how much attention Tsukino Aya gave to the three girls, he imdiately sensed that they were different from ordinary people.
And that turned out to be true.
The three girls were already showing a deep interest in ga developnt, though they also appeared a bit hesitant — afraid they wouldn't be able to make a good ga.
That was understandable. Now that Takayuki had gradually built a more industrialized system around video ga developnt, it was no longer sothing a single person or a small group could easily complete — with the exception of indie gas.
Just like the film industry, large-scale productions were what truly captured public attention. Sure, indie films with small budgets could occasionally make a splash, but they rarely created the kind of global sensation that major productions did.
...
...
These three girls were starting their journey with video gas at a ti when the industry had already matured.
The gas they played were all large-scale productions that required entire teams to develop, which naturally made them feel a bit intimidated.
But it wasn't easy to find even a few girls interested in ga developnt — and Takayuki didn't want these three to be discouraged because of a misunderstanding about how ga developnt worked.
So he took the initiative to act as their guide — or rather, as a teacher.
It was an extrely rare opportunity to have Takayuki personally explain and instruct.
Even industry veterans — including competitors — would jump at the chance to get guidance from him, no matter the cost.
Takayuki then brought the three girls to one of the ga developnt team's working areas to give them a live demonstration.
He sat down at a computer and pulled up the developnt interface for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Ti.
In the dev view, the vast, imrsive Hyrule world — complete with day-night cycles — was revealed to be nothing more than a thin texture layer.
By adjusting the code, the main character Link could freely run or ride horseback across that paper-thin surface.
"It's not that we can't make more realistic scenes. It's just unnecessary. Using up resources on areas the player can't even see is a luxury. Today's consoles can't handle perfectly realistic open worlds, so we have to compress resources wherever possible and allocate them to areas that do matter."
Aiko and Oto-chan stared at the screen, eyes wide, waves of realization stirring in their hearts.
They had never had anyone teach them how ga developnt really worked.
Up to this point, books on ga developnt were incomplete and mostly covered how to use simple assembly languages or other basic programming to create 2D-style gas.
But 3D ga developnt was still cutting-edge in this era. Only a few studios and companies had the capability — and for three high school girls, it was virtually impossible to access these kinds of behind-the-scenes details.
Yet Takayuki was showing it to them without holding anything back. That gave the girls a completely new understanding of ga developnt.
They realized — maybe it wasn't as impossible as they had first imagined.
"But don't underestimate this thin layer of texture," Takayuki continued. "To prevent characters from falling through the world due to programming bugs and ruining the player's experience, we have to build all sorts of limitations. One of them is sothing we call an 'invisible wall' — a boundary the player simply can't pass."
"Of course, invisible walls are kind of an old-school trick. We've developed better thods. For example, take this ga."
Takayuki opened another ga — Final Fantasy VIII, which hadn't been released yet. The three girls were likely the first outsiders to ever see its actual in-developnt content.
Naturally, Takayuki wasn't going to show them everything. So things had to remain secret.
He moved the dev character to the edge of the map.
"Here, we've added a self-destruct countdown function. If a player crosses the boundary, a tir pops up. When it hits zero, the player is instantly killed — no matter their equipnt. This thod fits the ga's worldbuilding, and players accept it much more readily than invisible walls."
"Oh, I see!" Aiko said, excited. "That really does feel easier to accept. I was just thinking — couldn't you also use things like towering mountains or dangerous monsters to block the player from going beyond the map?"
Aiko was quick-witted and imdiately grasped Takayuki's thinking about invisible walls.
It might've been a small detail, but often, it's precisely these countless little touches that make a ga feel so magical.
Takayuki smiled and nodded. "You're great at extrapolating — exactly. As long as it feels reasonable to the player, it works."
At that mont, Hazumi, who had been silent for a long ti, finally spoke up:
"Mr. Takayuki... I want to ask. Isn't it still really hard to make a ga like this? Doesn't it take a lot of people?"
Takayuki nodded. "Absolutely. The more detailed a ga is, the more people it takes to bring it to life. Every little detail represents soone's ti and effort. In the end, this world is governed by equivalent exchange, isn't it?"
The three girls nodded together. Hazumi added a bit gloomily:
"But... there are only three of us. Maybe we'll never be able to create a ga world like that."
Takayuki paused, then smiled:
"Ga developnt isn't sothing you finish in one leap. The fact that you already have the desire to make gas is a great start. What you should do next is focus on your studies — and try building sothing simpler. Sothing like a basic mini-ga you'd find in WarioWare. I like to call those kinds of gas... '4399'."
"4399?" the three girls said in unison, confused.
But in this world, no one understood the reference. The unfamiliar na only added an air of mystery to Takayuki's phrasing.
Tsukino Aya, standing to the side, was already used to this. Takayuki had a habit of suddenly coming up with strange nas and categories for gas. "4399" was nothing new to her.
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