Chapter 313: Chaos Units II
A typical home video game console is a predesigned piece of electronic hardware that is meant to be placed at a fixed location at one's home.
It is connected to a display like a television screen or computer monitor, and to an external power source...
Then, to play video games, players have to use one or more video game controllers.
These video gaming machines are considerably less powerful and less customizable than personal computers...
Albeit, designed to have advanced graphics abilities, however, they also have limited memory and storage space to keep the units affordable.
Of course, Alexander's very own Creed Chaos System has that usual typicality... just like every other home console out there.
However, it is also unlike everything else.
He had designated it with the name of 'Chaos' for a reason.
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As a demonstration to the intrigued people in the house... Alexander had to bring out the final Chaos unit prototype that he approved of.
If someone from the past timeline were to look at the main gaming box, they'd find that the Creed Chaos Unit's overall frame and design are strangely reminiscent of Hudson Soft's TurboGrafx-16 and Sega's Genesis.
The dark exterior and indention where the game cartridges should be placed... is a pretty apparent mix between the two when you look closely at it.
Given Alexander's track record... it came as no surprise that he plundered a pre-existing design from the old timeline... with a twist.
Even the game controller is a plundered design... with a twist.
The design of the Chaos game controller is a darkened version of the SNES controller... and had the red-green colored ABXY with extra LR buttons. Of course, there's the usual Start-Select combo.
For the twist and so that he would not infringe on Nintendo's patented D-pad design... Alexander had to go with the circular D-pad.
If anything, Alexander found this more of a plus than a crux. In his opinion, circular D-pads are superior compared to clover-esque D-pads.
It is closer to the joystick with not just the left-right-up-down capabilities... but with the extra directionalities when designed well.
In any case, the Creed Chaos System is a hybrid of other game consoles and incorporates most of their best features.
Noticeably, the Chaos units would have features and designs from the Turbo-Grafx, Genesis, and the SNES. All three are clearly from the 4th generation of game consoles.
But why? Couldn't he have gone with a mix of the NES and the Sega Master System?
Well, why do that when Alexander already decided to skip the 8-bit 3rd generation entirely?
Creed Games are set to jump to the 16+bit gaming a year earlier and totally upend the console progression that should have been.
Anyways, his current spectators are clueless about the magnitude that such a decision would make.
Alexander just plugged in what he should plug in... and showcased the software that will set his game system from the competition some more.
The display on the living room TV turned noticeably darker... and a chaotic dance of random red-green characters followed.
Chaos' boot-up animation plus chaotically-catchy music played.
C H A O S => C R E E D => C H A O S
And by the time it settled on CREED CHAOS... the word SYSTEM appeared.
"Tada... the Creed Chaos System." Alexander introduced it like an emotionless showman but the smile he had was a telltale sign of how proud he was of this accomplishment.
With his foreknowledge and skill, Graphics Group or Pixar's technicalities, with Chaos... it all culminated into the whole ensemble that the intrigued crowd was looking at.
Milla was excited, Miss Galina didn't know what to feel, Courteney was completely shocked, while Old Sullivan was prouder than his grandson... because of his grandson.
His old bones even had a camcorder out to record the whole thing.
This was his gift for Alex's 11th birthday... and to think that it became really handy at a much earlier time to preserve this occasion.
Disregarding his grandfather's weird tendencies, Alexander explained. "If all goes to plan, the dissatisfaction of Tetris players should more or less be quelled with this nifty little thing."
He pressed play in his controller... and the television jumped into the menu right away.
There's actually an account and password process which was another groundbreaking feature... but Alexander bypassed it for this demo.
On the menu, his wow-ed spectators found the display for the Tetris game right away... with the Tetrominoes art and the game title being pretty apparent.
"I cut the cartridge middleman and embedded Tetris in the system's software already." Alexander explained. "Their complaints of limited playtime should be nil if they get their hands on this."
Just as he was about to press play to enter the Tetris interface... Courteney noticed something and voiced out. "Wait. What's with the side bits and correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't that mean that there are two other games in there? It even says 1/3."
"The side bits is to shift to other games... and yes... I embedded two other games in here." Alexander explained like it was nothing but it was actually something.
He pressed right on the D-pad and Tetris swiped left for a new game display to swoop right in.
Instead of Tetris, it now showed a picture of a cat and a dog staring menacingly against each other... with Cat vsv Dog as the title. The floating text also changed from 1/3 to 2/3.
"Cat versus Dog!" Even Milla didn't know that Alexander had this game.
"Or Dog versus Cat." He clarified. "Hence the 'vsv' in the display. I wouldn't want to appear biased for the scuffle between dog lovers and cat lovers that this game might illicit."
It isn't exactly that dramatic when this game came out... but who knows what will happen with it being introduced in 1986.
His onlookers were unusually quiet though.
Must be speechlessness from the extra game surprise.
So, he just talked a bit to ease the awkwardness. "As for its gameplay, well... you guys surely remember how secretive Base Miramar was about their missile trajectory and flight simulation computers. I made a trajectory-based game to gamify what I could have seen."
No lie but Alexander really wanted to check those out... especially how exactly were they done in the 80s. Too bad, he didn't get a chance since the military was strict.
Of course, throwing garbage and dog bones is more of a joke than military level, but he wondered how they will react to this game plus the Top Gun game that he's currently trying to develop.
Anyways, his small talk didn't help his speechless crowd since they were still quiet.
Alexander just pressed the right of the D-pad again and Cat vsv Dog made way for the display of the Jumping Dino game to swoop right in.
It was of a pixelated T-Rex against a desert background. With 2/3 changing to 3/3.
"This game is simply about a jumping dinosaur and that's that." Alexander says so... but even without the modded version, the game is anything but.
Being the most basic game for Internet-less people aside, being played at about 270 million rounds on a monthly basis is... indicative of the Lonely T-Rex's strength.
"Erm... so let me get this right." Courteney hesitantly asked. "Aside from Tetris, you made two games as well?"
"Tetris was more on modifications and improvements on my part but... yeah." Alexander affirmed and continued. With these 3 games being bundled as a free built-in package for the CCS, it should help sell the system."
"Any questions?" This was a showcase, after all.
The crowd didn't have much. This was a topic they didn't know much about.
Besides, Alex's effort on these Chaos units was quite apparent, meticulous, and absurd... that they could only laud him for a job well done.
It must have taken a lot of dedication, planning, and time to get to this point.
"You weren't losing sleep for nothing." Miss Galina commented. She was the boy's guardian and had been quite guilty about not being able to stop him from overexerting himself.
That wasn't exactly the reason that he lost sleep. It was because of Chaos and Pixar's software... but he'll take it.
Of course, as supportive and proud Old Sullivan was... he had quite the question to ask. "Alex, why bundle these games as free when you lost sleep on them?"
"They are relatively simplistic games with novelty but aren't exactly that desirable in the long run." Alexander had his reasons. "If sold on a game cartridge basis, they would most likely not be that ludicrous at all."
"If anything, these are also practice games whose development process I can use to teach my game development employees."
"I also figured that I'll be able to make use of these practice games to beef up the Creed Chaos System's desirability." Alexander added. "After all, each Chaos unit is retailing for $200 and up against battle-ready and experienced competitors that are selling their consoles within the $140-150 range, so I'm not pulling my punches."
"That's great and all, however, you named the whole thing with a lot of chaos." Courteney wanted to help out and voiced her concern. "What parent would even want to buy that for their children?"
Yeah, that was a problem but... "It'll be fine."
"Besides, the current video game market is chaotic enough already." Alexander smiled confidently. "Wouldn't it be intriguing if it would be revived by something that has chaos in it?"
Being a 4th generation console, with a 3-game package, along with the Chaos features that he had yet to elaborate about.
There were just a lot of things about the Creed Chaos System that he could be confident about. It wasn't just 16-bit... it was 16+bit for a reason.
Of course, Alexander gave them a semi-full course on how advantageous this combination really is. Semi-full... because the origin and truth of Chaos was something that he wouldn't tell any other soul about.
The others had nothing else they could say after that.
If anything, they were back to speechlessness again.
The things that Alex talked about were just too obscure for their layman-ness to understand.
Without a doubt, these whole thing about Chaos units had messed up their minds for quite a while. That in itself... is quite shocking.