In the spring of 2006, at the headquarters of Gastar Electronic Entertainnt in Tokyo, Japan, the entire team of the Seventh Developnt Group occasionally glanced toward the door of their office area, seemingly waiting for sothing.
Group leader Shizuka Yabuki was an experienced veteran and one of Gastar's most accomplished employees. He was leading the core team working on the tal Gear project.
At this mont, they were all waiting for Takayuki to arrive in person.
After nearly three to four months of intense developnt, they had finally completed the first playable demo of tal Gear.
Yabuki was the first to relay this good news to Takayuki.
Takayuki imdiately replied that he would co the next day to check out their progress.
So, throughout the day, everyone in the team seed a bit distracted, constantly thinking about Takayuki's arrival.
...
...
The first playable demo was actually quite simple.
The primary goal was to show Takayuki the overall gaplay, including stealth, tactical actions, and executing enemies after silently eliminating them.
All these elents combined would create a unique chemistry.
As for the demo's modeling, they had used general engine assets from the library.
Since the final art style of the ga hadn't been fully determined yet, once the demo passed Takayuki's test, they would revisit this issue.
Click.
The door opened, and Takayuki quickly walked in.
Yabuki imdiately approached him.
"President, you've arrived!"
Takayuki, looking eager, asked, "Is the demo ready? Where is it? I want to see it now."
"Uh, of course," Yabuki replied, a bit flustered, before imdiately signaling for the team to bring out the demo.
Soon, a cart containing a GSX console and a small TV was pushed in, displaying the completed tal Gear demo.
In the original first generation of the ga, tal Gear was quite rudintary, as it was from the Famicom era.
In fact, aside from the core gaplay and the story, most of it had been completely remade by Takayuki.
So even though Takayuki didn't impose many developnt restrictions, he saw this as a great opportunity for his team to build ga developnt experience.
Now, the demo was showcasing graphics equivalent to the PS4-era gas, which was already impressive.
"President, although you didn't ask for too many things, we've co up with so thods to assist developnt, such as the global motion capture system we just developed in the motion capture lab. The entire environnt is set to be a motion capture area, and we've already walked through the stealth and assassination process in the ga using real actors," Yabuki said proudly.
"And our cara work has been professionally designed; the visual effects are on par with conventional films."
Yabuki was very proud. Takayuki had given them a lot of freedom this ti, which had its pros and cons.
The downside was that without Takayuki's guidance, they couldn't be sure if their path was the right one.
But the upside was that they had a chance to imagine freely how to develop a stealth ga.
Now, this was the result they had submitted.
Takayuki nodded, his eyes fixed on the screen. He grabbed the controller and started the ga.
The first character displayed was a generic face from the engine's asset library.
Takayuki quickly replaced it with Snake's appearance.
Then, as the cara moved, the player could see the surrounding area, which was about 200 square ters, resembling a corridor of so underground facility.
Not far from Snake was a patrolling soldier.
Takayuki moved the controller, and the character stealthily moved out from a hidden corner and quietly approached the soldier from behind.
The character's movents were a little stiff, but this wasn't a big issue. It could be fine-tuned later to make it more imrsive.
At this mont, Takayuki nodded slightly. At least the opening was as he had imagined.
Everyone watching Takayuki's nod let out a collective sigh of relief.
So of the people standing in the back had even shown a relaxed smile, clearly thinking that the first part of the demo had passed.
Next, Takayuki controlled the character to eliminate the patrolling soldier.
The entire sequence of actions was swift and decisive, quickly taking down the enemy.
The patrolling soldier imdiately fell to the ground.
Takayuki then made the character spin around in place, as if searching for sothing, crouching awkwardly. His actions were confusing to watch.
Yabuki was puzzled and asked, "President, what are you trying to do here? Are you aiming for a specific feature?"
He didn't quite understand Takayuki's intention.
Takayuki suddenly realized he had made a mistake...
Whenever he played this kind of ga and successfully executed an enemy, he liked to perform this action.
In gas like CSGO, doing this after taking out an enemy would be considered a major taunt.
But with AI, he didn't need to worry so much.
Takayuki hadn't realized how imrsed he had beco in the ga, nearly forgetting that he was no longer the sa person from his past.
Takayuki cleared his throat twice and said, "Oh, it's nothing. I just noticed that you guys forgot to add a feature for moving the body after execution."
"Moving the body?" Yabuki asked.
Takayuki replied, "Think about it. If other patrolling soldiers find a body, they'll naturally beco more alert. This would force players to figure out how to deal with the body, which greatly enhances the ga's realism."
Yabuki nodded in understanding, "You're right, President. I didn't think of that."
Imdiately, soone started taking notes.
Takayuki no longer needed to focus on the technical details of the ga programming.
Just like a director doesn't need to discuss every visual effect detail, Takayuki now just needed to provide the outco and let the team handle the rest.
The issues Takayuki pointed out were based on his past experiences with stealth gas.
He continued controlling the character, guiding it to another cover. Behind the cover, Takayuki crouched down to avoid being spotted by the soldiers ahead.
Then, Takayuki pointed at the screen and said, "Look here, for example, this hidden crate. To make it easier for players to imrse themselves in the ga, we can set this crate as an anchor point. As players approach it and press a specific button, they can automatically crouch behind it, like an adhesion function."
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