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论设备控制界面变化对游戏体验的影响

发布时间:2011-06-29 18:15:44 Tags:,,

作者:Chris Lepine

前几天我同来访的朋友喝咖啡谈天,他们带来了自己两岁半的儿子。孩子很无聊,想在房间里找些好玩的东西,于是我递给他一部早期的游戏机Game Boy,里面有《超级马里奥:大陆》这款游戏。我发现即便是蹒跚学步的孩子也可以在Game Boy上找到乐趣,他按动那些控制马里奥跑和跳跃的按键,听着那刺耳的四通道音乐。他怀着极大的兴趣从我手中接过Game Boy,像个老练的玩家那样把设备拿在手上。他盯着绿色的屏幕尖叫道:“马里奥!”我询问孩子的母亲他以前是否有过玩游戏的经历,她表示孩子很喜欢用他们的iPhone玩儿童游戏。

我将注意力转回孩子身上,他眉头紧锁地盯着Game Boy。试探性地伸出手指点击塑料屏幕,没有发生任何事情。他又点了另一个地方,还是没有变化。我伸手按下按键,马里奥跳了下。他以充满疑惑的眼神看着我,然后又开始尝试游戏。最后,我只得帮他把手指放到方向键和按键上,按动数次向他展示如何操作设备,于是他逐渐明白过来。

我瞬间意识到,现在我们所生活的这个时代里,以往标准的“方向键+按键”的布局已不再成为玩游戏的“标准”方法。伴随新一代玩家成长的是索尼、任天堂和Harmonix的移动控制界面和苹果的触控设备。上世纪80和90年代,键盘、鼠标或方向键无疑是人们最为熟悉的媒介界面。我很想知道,触屏界面近期的膨胀如何使玩家理解游戏的方法发生改变?

nes-iphone-super-mario-bros(from artfulgamer)

nes-iphone-super-mario-bros(from artfulgamer)

比如,我们能否将PC版本的《神秘岛》或《猴岛2》与其iPhone版本视为同类游戏?我们要以何为基础来区分这两种游戏的体验(游戏邦注:本文暂且不考虑二者在音质和分辨率上的差别)?“触摸”界面是否真正与使用鼠标的指向点击界面有所差别?下文或许有些繁琐,因为对这些问题我也没有确切的答案。

当我用标准NES/PS2/PS3/Xbox/GameCube布局控制器玩游戏时,所有手指的位置都恰到好处。假设我用NES玩游戏,右手拇指操作A键和B键,左手拇指控制方向键。我根本不会为此感到困惑,无需苦恼于操作。玩PS2和PS3游戏也是如此,手指各司其职。我一开始玩游戏,手指便不再属于自己。它们成为游戏的一部分,如同开口说话要用到嘴巴,它们控制马里奥在需要躲避Chain Chomp(游戏邦注:游戏中的怪物)或钻进绿色水管时做出相应动作。手指动作不再是个人体验的一部分,换句话说,手指已融入体验之中。如果我必须在做出动作前先规划控制方法,那么根本玩不来《超级马里奥3》。也就是说,《超级马里奥3》之类的游戏需要我们暂时忘记手指是身体的一部分,自然对游戏内容做出反应。打个比方,许多游戏需要玩家暂时成为钢琴家那类人物。

child-playing-video-games(from artfulgamer)

child-playing-video-games(from artfulgamer)

我们通常在冒险游戏中看到的鼠标控制界面所需技能有所不同。手掌必须明白鼠标的平面二维空间与屏幕虚拟空间之间的关联。我需要了解鼠标向前移动代表向上,向后移动代表向下。为让角色做某些事情,我必须将光标移动到恰当的位置上。在此类界面中,我仍旧“压制”着自己的手掌。从某种程度上来说,我的手掌消失了,光标也是隐形的,光标随手掌同时移动。手掌知晓光标需移至屏幕何处才能让Guybrush Threepwood捡起木槌。点击木槌之前,我无需暗示自己这是个木槌,我需要把它捡起来。对我来说,探索《猴岛2》的世界成了种很自然的行为。

但是对那些在玩游戏时需要我们与屏幕产生身体接触的触屏设备而言,情况有所不同。以《神秘岛》为例,尽管PC/Mac和iPhone版本的界面间或多或少存在相似性,但在后者中为了做出某些事情而不得不用指尖遮挡屏幕,这种控制方式使游戏产生微妙的改变。每当用手指点击屏幕时,总是会感受到冰冷玻璃屏幕施加的反作用力,而且会留下指纹。这是探讨触屏设备互动所应关注的焦点,手指无法轻易融入游戏背景中。与PC版本相比,我的手掌总是握着鼠标,手指永远都放在鼠标键熟悉的位置上。它们从未离开鼠标,而使鼠标成为身体的一部分。在iPod上,手指不时离开设备表面,在视野中移来移去。

这两类算不算相同的游戏呢?对我来说答案是否定的。虽然iPhone版本《神秘岛》很好地继承了原版游戏,但我始终无法轻易融入游戏世界中,因为不时就会将视线转移到自己的指尖上。我的感觉是,自己正在玩游戏,并非亲身经历。这种完全将自己移出游戏世界的感觉简直糟透了,它不断提醒我——我只是在iPod Touch上玩游戏而已,与我互动的是虚构出的世界。《神秘岛》的PC版本不会这样,当我点击某些东西时,感觉真正触及虚拟世界。

回到上文提及的趣事,朋友两岁半的儿子在体验他最喜欢的iPod Touch游戏时,能否把它当成“真实”世界?抑或他的体验与我相同,稍微有点不自然?这是触屏界面的内在问题,还是我们这些体验过暂时忽视身体某部位的人自身的问题?设计师如何看待游戏转向触屏这个巨大改变给可玩性体验带来的质变?他们可曾对此有所回应?你在触屏界面上的体验如何?这些游戏是否改变你的游戏体验?(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

The Changing Nature of Gaming Interfaces

Chris Lepine

The other day I was having coffee with friends who brought their 2 1/2 year old son over for a visit. He was bored, looking for anything to do in our (boring) house — so I handed him an original Game Boy with Super Mario Land 2. I figured that a toddler would enjoy smashing the Game Boy’s bulletproof buttons, making Mario run and jump, and hearing the ear-piercing four-channel music. He took the Game Boy from my hand with interest, and held onto it in the familiar way that all of us hold portables. He looked at the cabbage-green screen and squealed, “MARRIOO!” I asked his mother if he had played games before, and she said, “Oh yeah. He loves playing kiddie games on our iPhone.”

I turned back to her son, and he was frowning intently at the Game Boy. He reached out tentatively and pushed on the plastic screen. Nothing happened. He pushed again, in a different spot. Nothing. I reached over and pushed a button — Mario jumped. He looked at me with a puzzled expression, and turned back to the game. I eventually had to slide his fingers over to the D-Pad and buttons, pushed them down a few times to show him how it worked, and he started to “get it”.

I realized in that moment that we are now living in a time when the standard D-PAD + Buttons layout can no longer be assumed the “standard” way of playing a game. A new generation of players are growing up with motion-based interfaces from Sony (the upcoming Playstation Move), Nintendo (Wii MotionPlus, Balance Board), Harmonix (Rock Band), as well as touch based devices from Apple (iPod Touch/iPhone). Where the 1980s and 1990s almost always guaranteed a familiar mediating interface — whether it be a keyboard, mouse, or D-Pad — I wonder at how the recent explosion of alternative interfaces has changed the way gamers understand what a game is?

For instance, can we really say that Myst or Monkey Island 2 SE for PC are the “same games” as their iPhone variants? On what basis could we distinguish between our experience of playing the two (temporarily setting aside differences in sound quality, resolution, etc)? Is the “touch” aspect really that different from a point-n-click interface using the mouse? I’m going to waffle here, because I just don’t know. And here’s why:

When I play any game, using a standard NES/PS2/PS3/Xbox/GameCube controller layout — my fingers and thumbs find their places. If it’s a NES, my right thumb handles the A+B buttons while my left thumb takes care of the D-Pad. There are no moments of confusion, I never have to ask myself, “which button is it again?”. The same goes for the PS2 and PS3 games: my fingers know their business. As soon as I settle down to play the game, my fingers are no longer fingers to me. They are a part of the game — my fingers become something like my mouth when I am speaking — they spring into action when Mario needs to bound over a Chain Chomp or needs to go down a green pipe. My fingers never become a part of my foreground or focal experience — in other words, my fingers become repressed parts of my bodily experience. If I had to think about what I was going to do next before committing myself to the act, Super Mario 3 would become unplayable. In other words, games like Mario 3 require us to forget that we have fingers for a few moments in order to bring a natural flow into the game. Without getting too artsy or mixing metaphors, many games demand that the player become a pianist of a kind.

Mouse-based interfaces that we typically see in adventure games require a different kind of skilfulness. My hand has to learn to map the horizontal two-dimensional space of the mouse to an on-screen virtual space. I have to learn that forwards-is-up, and backwards-is-down, and that I have to move the cursor to the right position in order to make my character do something. In this kind of interface, I still “repress” my hand — at some point my hand disappears and the cursor becomes invisible to me. The cursor moves simultaneously with my hand. My hand knows where it needs to go on-screen in order to make Guybrush Threepwood pick up a wooden mallet. I don’t think to myself: there is a mallet, and I need to click ‘pick up’, then click on the mallet. Exploring the world of Monkey Island 2 becomes a natural gesture for me.

But can the same be said for touch-based devices that require us to make physical contact with the display in order to play the game? For instance, while the Myst interface is more or less the same between the PC/Mac and iPhone versions, the fact that I have to occlude some of the screen with my fingertip in order to “do” something changes the game subtly. Every time I reach forward and click on the screen with my finger I feel the cool glass push back at me, and I leave a fingerprint. There is something very focal in interacting with touch-based devices, because my finger does not fall into the background as easily. Compare that to the PC version: my hand is always on the mouse, my fingers always in their familiar positions on the mouse buttons. They never leave that surface, and the mouse becomes an extension of my body. On the iPod, my finger is constantly leaving the surface, popping in and out of my visual field.

But it’s the same game, right? Not for me. While the iPhone version of Myst is a wonderful port of the original game, I cannot quite dwell in the world simply because I cannot repress my awareness of my fingertips. I feel like I am playing a game. It is not quite bad enough to totally remove me from the world, but it is enough to remind me that yes — I am playing a game on my iPod Touch and this is a virtual/fictional world that I am interacting with. The PC version of Myst is nothing like that — when I click something I am reaching into the world and flipping a toggle switch.

Returning to my anecdote: does my friend’s 2 1/2 year old son experience his favourite iPod Touch game as a ‘real’ world? Or is his experience like mine — somewhat disembodied and self-conscious? Is this an inherent problem with touch-based interfaces, or do some of us already experience bodily repression that allows us to ignore our fingertips when we touch the display? How much have designers appreciated the qualitative change in gameplay experience as a result of the massive turn towards touch-based gaming, and have they done anything to respond to it? What are your experiences with touch-based (or even motion-based) interfaces; how do they change your experience of the game? (Source: The Artful Gamer)


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