Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch - Chapter 194
Chapter 194: Chapter 192 “Speed Chase” , initiate!
Translator: 549690339
In the blink of an eye, two more days had passed, and a new month, a new week, had begun.
Lincoln had unusually arrived early at Dream Cloud Studio, ready to hold a meeting and officially kick off the production of “Speed Chase”.
However, probably due to his principle of clocking in and out on time being too effectively embraced, only Cheryl was in the office at that time.
Not minding, he greeted her and went to his own office, as the meeting would be held in the virtual world anyway.
Sitting in the office, he was not only considering the upcoming meeting but also pondering the arrangement of the visual and auditory aids.
The scene of him putting the vision auxiliary device on the little girl at the Experience Store on Saturday had left a deep impression on him.
Because she had been born blind, her eyes looked fine and were even extremely pretty and bright, but they lacked focus and thus were a bit lackluster.
After putting on the auxiliary device, the little girl’s eyes immediately widened and curiously looked around as if they had become the healthy eyes of a normal person.
However, Lincoln knew very well that this was an illusion.
The movement of the eyeballs was a subconscious action that the brain was making after being deceived. In fact, it’s the HD camera on the headband, simultaneously rotating, that had a real effect.
The proof was clear: the little girl’s eyes widened, while adorable, on closer inspection, she appeared slightly cross-eyed.
—This was because the little girl’s height, head width, eye spacing, and other factors were completely different from Lincoln’s.
And the initial parameters of the device were designed based on Lincoln’s body during the testing phase.
When the little girl put it on, though it worked smoothly and achieved the effect of restoring vision, slight deviations in focus and viewing angle were inevitable.
However, this was within Lincoln’s expectations. The adjustment of the temple and nose pad was required even when fitting eyeglasses, let alone more complex visual aids.
Space for adjustments had been left on the headband early on, unless the head was too small or too large — to the level of ‘Big Head Son and Little Head Father’ — then, no matter how much you adjust, it wouldn’t be good enough. Otherwise, for normal humans, the skull’s size falls within the adjustable range after about the age of five, which can achieve the best effects.
While patiently adjusting the radius and the position and angle of the camera on the headband for the little girl, Lincoln was also recording the key parameters.
At the same time, he felt relieved that they didn’t have to go through such a troublesome process when selling the equipment to those with normal vision for AR games later on, otherwise it would be too much of a hassle to sell.
Normal players, after buying the device, just have to focus on the specific aperture appearing in the field of view according to the built-in software, which can help the camera auto-calibrate, no need for such manual hassle.
The radius of the headband can also be manually adjusted according to the scale provided by the system.
Moreover, in Lincoln’s original concept, visual and auditory aids, including future AR devices, could all be made into various types of accessories such as hats, headbands, sports bands, and so on.
But when the actual product was made and tested, he discovered: such an idea was too idealistic.
If you don’t want issues such as cross-eyed, upward-rolling eyes, and strabismus to occur after long-term usage, the angle and position of the camera must be extremely precise.
Even for people with normal vision, it would be very uncomfortable to use if the focus of their natural sight and the focus of the camera on the device were not the same.
Forcing oneself to adapt would possibly lead to astigmatism and strabismus in the long run, or even a decrease in vision.
So, in the end, he simply gave up that flamboyant idea and chose the simplest method — still making it a headband!
We just stick with the headband, let it be whatever it wants to be!
Also, the headband had a significant advantage — it was easier to manufacture in a standardized assembly line, with a rapid preparation process!
In contrast, those flamboyant ideas, apart from looking good, were all troublesome, and were decisively rejected by Lincoln in the end.
After spending quite some time carefully adjusting the device for the litter girl seeing her seemingly lively eyes, even knowing this was an illusion, Lincoln still felt extremely satisfied.
The little girl’s mother, the moment her daughter witnessed the light of the real world and let out her first cry of surprise, had already started to tear up, hand over her mouth.
When Lincoln finished and the daughter looked around in surprise, finally settling her gaze on her mother, the mother was so teary-eyed that she could hardly speak.
The little girl, seeing her mother’s tears, was clearly very happy, yet she started crying too.
In the end, mother and daughter cried together, sobbing uncontrollably.
Seeing the mother and daughter crying together, Lincoln was left speechless in embarrassment.
He wished to leave and give them some space, yet he had some things to explain, so he just braced himself, waiting for them to finish letting out all their pent-up emotions.
When the mother had composed herself, she thanked Lincoln profusely.
Without saying much, Lincoln opened the small bag he had brought and introduced them to the contents.
“This is a wireless charger. Both the headband and the portable processing core can be charged with this. The core can also be charged using a wired interface, so it should cover daily use.”
Lincoln picked up the portable processing core and introduced it to them. “Actually, it’s somewhat like a miniaturized Mirage Console. But to facilitate carrying it around, its size has been minimized as much as possible, so its performance is not very strong, and it doesn’t have a storage unit.”
“Perhaps in the future, there will be some external storage add-ons. It’s not fully functional at the moment, but I hope you guys don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” the little girl’s mother dismissed it, shaking her head incessantly. “As long as Vivian can see the world, I’m content. Thank you! Thank you so much!”
With her emotions running high, the mother of the little girl tried to kneel down to kowtow to Lincoln, startling him and causing him to quickly help her up.
After patiently comforting her and seeing her off, he was finally at peace.
This matter deeply moved him, prompting him to skip his work-free Sunday and instead, he approached a professional headhunting company to help find a reliable manager.
After the meeting, he still needed to head over to the factory to meet with Zhou Jingzheng to discuss the creation of an independent production line.
Having these thoughts, he checked the time. The employees should have arrived by now, so he sent a message in the group chat:
“Gather up, meeting time!”
The main topic of the meeting was to officially start a new game project “Speed Chase”!
To facilitate the following activities, Lincoln chose to hold a full staff meeting.
The first step of the meeting, a tradition of Dream Cloud’s game development process, was-
Watching a film together!
After watching the film, everyone should gain a generally understanding of the game’s main story and selling points.
But just having a film is not enough to adapt it into a game, it requires a lot of hard work and dedication.
Lincoln will guide everyone in the direction and focus of the game’s development, and participate in the production of key content.
Because “Speed Chase” and “Assassins’ Alliance” have quite a few similarities:
they both take place in a modern city environment and involve gunfights, racing, explosions, and chasing…
If there isn’t enough innovation, the two games could easily seem repetitive and lead to players experiencing aesthetic fatigue.
However, when modifying the combat scenes in the “Speed Chase” film, Lincoln had already grasped the biggest difference between “Speed Chase” and “Assassins’ Alliance”.
He also had a clear idea of how to build the overall style of “Speed Chase” based on this selling point.
If he had to describe the style of this game in one word, Lincoln would call it Vice City!
