After finishing the novel, the next day Lin Baicheng asked the factory security guards to move the large computer from his home to the factory.
He was preparing to continue developing the game at the factory while also checking on how things were going there.
Factory director Liu Yihui reported the current situation to Lin Baicheng. Although Lin had instructed the factory to stop seeking licenses from game companies to assemble new arcade machines, since it had only been a few days since he acquired the factory, the operations weren't affected. The workers continued assembling old arcade machines, and sales were still bringing in money.
However, because Lin had recently hired nearly ten new employees, the factory's expenses had risen sharply. If things continued this way, the factory wouldn't be making much profit.
Following Lin's orders, Liu Yihui took money from Lin Shufang and purchased materials for assembling 100 arcade machines. The raw materials alone cost nearly HK$300,000 — meaning that each arcade machine's material cost alone was about HK$3,000, not counting R&D, labor, and utilities.
For an arcade machine, the most important part was the electronic circuit board. It was similar to a personal computer's motherboard — equipped with a CPU, ROM, RAM, video memory, and I/O interfaces. Without it, an arcade machine was just an empty shell.
Considering the cost of computers at that time, one could imagine how expensive an arcade machine would be to make.
What made things worse was that each circuit board could only run one game, not multiple titles.
Lin only had a few hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars left, so he didn't dare to buy too many materials — there were many other expenses to cover.
The post-production of the game itself wouldn't cost much; the biggest expense was the copyright registration. He hired lawyers to apply for copyrights in various countries with relevant laws, which cost a fortune. Fortunately, many nations had mutual copyright recognition, so the lawyers didn't need to handle every country separately.
Then there was promotion, especially overseas marketing — whether it was shipping the machines abroad or sending employees overseas, everything cost money.
In other words, if this game didn't succeed, Lin would suffer heavy losses — and he wouldn't have funds to develop a new game anytime soon.
After listening to Liu's report, Lin nodded in satisfaction.
"Old Liu, the factory's performance under your management hasn't disappointed me."
He now fully recognized Liu Yihui's capability. As long as Liu didn't make any major mistakes, Lin wouldn't replace him.
"I'll keep working hard," Liu said immediately, knowing his position as factory director was now secure.
Lin then instructed, "From today, don't take on any more orders. Once the current ones are completed, start assembling 100 empty arcade cabinets. My game is nearly finished — once the post-production is done, we'll be ready to sell our new game."
"Yes, President Lin," Liu replied.
After chatting a bit more, Lin left the office with Liu. Liu went off to handle other matters, while Lin went to find the security captain, Wu Jianjun, to gather all the guards — he wanted to meet them in person.
Although Lin hadn't been to the factory recently, Liu had already screened the newly hired guards, so Lin had some idea who they were.
All of them were veterans, standing straight as pines, exuding discipline and vigor.
Lin greeted each of them, praised their work, described the company's bright future — promising raises once profits came in — and emphasized the importance of security: protecting both the employees and company property.
Even though Lin had never been a boss or leader before, he knew how to "draw the big picture" — talk of future rewards and motivation. And in this case, it wasn't an empty promise. Once the game became a hit, he fully intended to give everyone a raise.
After meeting the guards, Lin toured the workshop, greeted workers, chatted with them briefly, and then returned to his office to continue game development.
Over the next few days, Lin came to the factory daily. Besides programming, he spent time familiarizing himself with the staff — making sure everyone recognized who the new boss was and who paid their wages.
He didn't intend to become close friends with them — there was no need — but he wanted them to know him and respect him.
After several days of hard work, Lin finally completed the game "Hong Kong Blocks" (香江方块) on his computer.
He then had the factory management test it, and everyone praised the gameplay. Even Liu Yihui and the others began to feel optimistic about the company's future.
Next, Lin went to a recording studio to handle the music and voice work, completing the game's final post-production.
Since Hong Kong Blocks didn't require much audio work, the post-production was done in a single day.
Back at the factory, Lin copied the game onto a prepared circuit board, then installed it into one of the newly built arcade cabinets — creating the very first Hong Kong Blocks arcade machine. The empty machine already had a monitor, sound system, and controls; installing the circuit board made it fully functional.
Naturally, the first machine had to be tested — not only for gameplay, but also for any bugs that needed fixing.
This time, the testers weren't just managers — every employee got to play and share their feedback.
Fortunately, Lin had adjusted the difficulty carefully. Unless a player was an expert, they couldn't last ten minutes. That was intentional — arcade machines were meant to make money for arcade owners. If players could play for too long on a single coin, those owners wouldn't profit — and if they couldn't profit, they wouldn't buy more machines.
After testing, everyone said the game was fun — though Lin wasn't sure if they genuinely thought so or were just being polite because he was the boss.
He didn't mind either way. He planned to release the game regardless. What mattered most were the bug reports, which he took note of for fixes.
Even though the game was finished, it wasn't ready for full-scale production yet. Lin still needed to develop coin-insertion detection software and encryption software to protect the game's code.
While the copyright applications were being filed, that alone wouldn't stop piracy — only strong encryption could truly protect his interests.
Given Lin's advanced computer skills, the encryption software he developed would be impossible to crack using the technology of that era. To the computer engineers of the current time, his methods were practically black technology — decades ahead of them.