An hour later, a "soldier" made up of crude blocks of color began moving across the screen.
When he pressed the assigned fire button, a single pixel shot out.
On the right side, three enemies composed of simple loops moved stiffly back and forth.
When Ethan tried to move the protagonist forward, the scrolling background immediately produced severe tearing and flickering.
Even the movement of the enemies and bullets became choppy.
Gerald frowned slightly as he watched the entire development process from beginning to end.
With his technical expertise, there were actually parts he couldn't fully understand.
But he could tell that Ethan had implemented a great deal of aggressive optimization.
"Just like this, Mr. Lawson."
Ethan stopped typing and turned to look at Gerald.
"This is what the game I want to make looks like on the C64. Even if it were moved to an arcade machine, it would only be slightly better. It still falls far short of the effect I want."
The mainstream arcade boards currently on the market typically used the Zilog Z80 processor.
This 3–6 MHz CPU completely outclassed the MOS 6510 and 6502 processors running at around 1 MHz, the chips used in the C64.
Gerald pondered for a while before beginning to search for alternative solutions.
"What about reducing the number of bullets?
Lower the number of enemies and projectiles, simplify the background, combine the background and midground to a certain extent, then use a single scrolling layer with raster interrupts to create the illusion?"
"No, Mr. Lawson." Ethan immediately shook his head. "You know that if that were enough, I wouldn't have come to ask for your help."
Ethan closed the software and sketched a rough concept drawing on paper.
In his memory, Contra had never been a compromiser.
It was a masterpiece created at exactly the right moment with top-tier technology.
"America needs a truly shocking game to restore players' confidence."
Gerald's gaze fell upon the extremely crude concept sketch. After a long silence, he stared into Ethan's eyes and said, "I understand. Give me some time."
...
Before leaving, Gerald took the initiative to extend his hand and shake Ethan's.
Gerald had found a direction worth striving towards once again and rekindled his passion for video games.
And Ethan had gained the support of what might be one of the finest electrical engineers in the world.
That evening, Sam also returned from the contract manufacturer with good news.
"It's settled. $1600 per unit. If our shipment volume increases later, the cost can be reduced even further."
He looked extremely excited. Especially after thinking about the staggering $2,500 retail price Ethan had quoted him, Sam felt his blood rushing straight to his head.
No wonder Ethan never looked excited when they counted the coins in the cash boxes. Instead, he always sighed at him with the expression of a father looking at an underachieving son.
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This was what real money making looked like!
After subtracting shipping costs and miscellaneous expenses, they could still earn more than a thousand dollars on every machine!
"Good work, Sam." Ethan patted him on the shoulder. "We're going to need a lot of money. The faster it comes in, the better."
Contra would be the key to reviving the market.
It would also be the key to taking aim at Nintendo.
No amount of investment in this project would be too much.
Turning his head, Ethan's gaze accidentally landed on a Star Wars videotape lying on the bed.
"Huh... wait? I almost forgot about that!"
His eyes suddenly lit up.
Pushing Sam aside, he rushed into his bedroom.
Besides game cartridges, Sam's bookshelf was packed with all sorts of other entertainment products.
For example, movie videotapes.
The two protagonists that appeared in Contra weren't characters Konami had invented out of thin air.
Each of them had a real-life inspiration.
Ethan quickly searched through the videotapes and soon found what he was looking for.
First Blood.
Released on October 22, 1982, this action film was one of the defining works of the tough guy genre.
At the same time, it gave the world one of the most iconic action heroes in history, John Rambo.
The actor who portrayed him was Sylvester Stallone.
Sam followed Ethan into the room and looked at him curiously as he rummaged through the videotapes.
Holding up the tape in his hand, Ethan asked, "Sam, if I wanted Stallone to endorse our new game, how much would it cost?"
"Huh?!"
Sam nearly choked on his own saliva.
"St-Stallone? Ethan, he's one of Hollywood's highest paid action stars..."
Forget getting him to endorse a game, even arranging a meeting with him would be difficult.
"The starting price would probably be around three million dollars, and there's no way he'd agree to endorse a despised industry like video games."
"That expensive?"
Ethan clicked his tongue in surprise, though after thinking about it, it made sense.
Rambo was such an iconic character that even people from different places still remembered him vividly.
First Blood's influence across the world was self-evident.
Wanting a Hollywood superstar to endorse a video game really had been too naive.
The last company to try something like that had been Atari, which spent a fortune acquiring the E.T. license and had since been nailed to the pillar of shame.
"Alright, forget I said anything."
Ethan shrugged and returned the videotape to the shelf.
If Rambo's appearance fee was that expensive, then the inspiration for Player Two, Arnold, surely wouldn't be any cheaper...
Wait!
Ethan froze.
He immediately searched through the shelf again from top to bottom but came up empty-handed.
Turning back to Sam, he spoke with obvious excitement.
"Sam, don't you have any movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger?"
"Schwarzenegger?"
Sam scratched his head. The name sounded vaguely familiar.
"Let me think. Schwarzenegger... Schwar... Ah, I remember."
He rummaged through his treasured videotapes and pulled out one with Conan the Barbarian written on the cover.
"It should be him, right? I think he's a bodybuilder? I heard a new Conan movie starring him is coming out in a couple of days."
Ethan took the videotape and looked at the familiar yet still somewhat youthful face on the cover.
His heartbeat skipped a beat.
Stallone was already a red hot action superstar, but in 1984 Schwarzenegger was still in the rising stage of his acting career.
Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer had cemented his muscular strongman image in the minds of audiences.
But most importantly...
On October 26, 1984, a film called The Terminator was going to be released.
"Sam, what if I wanted Mr. Schwarzenegger to endorse my game?"
"Hmm... I'd estimate somewhere between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand dollars."
After receiving the answer he wanted, Ethan's mood immediately brightened.
It seemed he had found the perfect celebrity for Contra.
The compatibility between the Arnold and Contra was more than enough to drop a bombshell into the stagnant local video game market that had become a pool of dead water.