作者：David Ethan Kennerly

这篇文章所述绝不是游戏设计的哲学理论，但是这些观点可能会对有抱负的游戏设计师在开始工作之前、检查工作以及目标合理程度时有所帮助。

不要误认为自己是‘艺术师’。我们的目标是创造出更新和更有趣的游戏。艺术性不是我们的目标。——《最终幻想》角色设计师Tetsuya Nomura

趣味性和艺术性之间的讨论不绝于耳。这些参与者可能会从中得到乐趣，但是这两者的对立却不适合出现在游戏中。比如在MMORPG中，对Jessica Mulligan而言，趣味性包含艺术性，而对Raph Koster而言是艺术性包含趣味性。我将挑战这种对立观点。构建趣味性本身就是游戏的艺术。

Stephen King说过：把你的游戏设计桌放在角落里，每天提醒自己艺术支撑着生活，没有其他的方法了。在这篇文章的末尾，或许我们可以解开这种错误的对立谜团。重新考虑游戏、趣味和艺术层面之后，我们或许会发现Nomura和Costikyan的说法是正确的。

如果你想要编写21世纪的《Seven Lively Arts》的话，你首先会想到的形式显然是游戏。——Greg Costikyan

在开始解析之时，我们需要先将游戏视为独特的媒介。

独特的媒介

游戏与其他形式的艺术不同。如果要给游戏下个定义的话，存在一定目的，有玩家和规则，即可算是游戏。当然，游戏也可能是服务、世界或社区的一部分。为使得游戏不与所有运用了游戏理论的领域（游戏邦注：如经济、心理学、政治和实验分析）相混淆，我使用了“室内游戏”这个术语。

视频游戏《指环王：双塔奇兵》的音效设计师写道：“将游戏视为‘互动电影’是不恰当的，尽管有许多人这么做。很显然，游戏和电影是不同的媒体。这两种媒体创造所涉及的技术、过程和技能都各不相同而且不可互换。判断的度量也不同，这意味着许多能够成就优秀电影的属性可能铸造出劣质的游戏，反之亦然。”

多数电影和游戏的叙事也有着显著的差别，因为游戏中的故事并不来源于游戏本身，而是来源于玩家。叙事是种被动体验，人们看到事件而且心有所感，但是却无法做出行动，因为观众并非演员。而在游戏中，观众就是演员。这里存在目标冲突。叙事的作者必须控制演员的生活，而游戏设计师必须杜绝对玩家的控制。这也就解释了Will Wright向初出茅庐的游戏设计师提的首个意见：游戏是要让玩家感受到乐趣，而不是作者解决他们想要解决的叙事问题的平台。

部分问题在于，知识产权领域很少将优秀的故事和优秀的游戏联系起来。《龙与地下城》并非J.R.R. Tolkien的游戏媒介。《American McGee’s Alice》也并非Lewis Carroll的游戏媒介改编版本、。Reiner Knizia的合作桌游《指环王》即将面世，这款游戏保留了小说的精髓。但是，《指环王》看起来仍然更像是小说而不是优秀的游戏。

诸如《银河飞将》和《马里奥兄弟》等许多游戏向电影的转型都失败了，电影到游戏的转型也是如此，比如Atari的《E.T.》或《勇敢的心》。这些失败给我们的教训是：电影只能迎合观众，游戏只能满足玩家。如果想在游戏中寻找电影体验很艰难，反之亦然。尽管优秀的游戏能够让某些玩家产生很强烈的感觉，但是不可在游戏中追寻J.R.R. Tolkien或Lewis Carroll的身影。同样，我们在故事中也看不到Reiner Knizia、Sid Sackson或Harold S. Vanderbilt。

游戏设计师可以从其他媒介中借鉴灵感，但是无法借鉴技术或价值。比如，受电影中节奏启发与研究电影中的节奏并将其用在游戏中有很大的差别。如果我成功地借鉴了其他艺术形式，也只是灵感而已。如果没有理解这一点，可能会产生如下场景：

游戏开发变成马戏团，成本飞涨，用户很快就感到厌倦，对真正新游戏以及获得趣味的新方法的开发完全停止。——原任天堂总裁Yamauchi

优秀的游戏不会类似于其他媒介的优秀艺术。举个极端的例子：类似于《ChuChu Rocket》的电影有多好呢？这种做法会降低其他艺术形式的质量。它缺乏故事、深度以及抓人眼球的东西。

然而，它仍然是个优秀的游戏。游戏可以带来活跃并让人感到快乐的体验，正是玩家的存在让这种体验产生。

理解这些趣味性的类别能够扩展优秀游戏的范围。正如我们看到的那样，游戏设计师应当优先考虑趣味性。

从审视趣味性的角度来看从审视趣味性的角度来看，所有的艺术形式都是游戏设计师的艺术。——Oscar Wilde

当讨论起游戏设计的艺术性时，趣味性便是衡量的尺度，而不是现实性、新奇性、叙事性、哲学性、令人印象深刻的技术和视觉质量。

先让我们给这个术语下个定义。和许多普通的词汇一样，趣味性承载着各种各样的含义。在韩国，趣味性描述的是获得乐趣、娱乐并产生兴趣。美国人有时也会将某些此类词语结合起来。但是我的看法与传统观念不同。我觉得像在电影中在屏幕上看到爆炸并不有趣，但是在屏幕上创造出爆炸很有趣，就像在游戏中那样。我的意思是能够主动控制的趣味性，正如Patricia Marks Greenfield所述：“他们一致同意更喜欢游戏而不是电视。理由也很一致：（游戏可以让他们掌握）主动控制权。”所以，现如今以及这篇文章中所说的趣味性，指的是你可以通过每次行为直接影响结果带来的快感。

我对趣味性的理解同Sid Meier、Will Wright、Tetsuyu Nomura和Yamauchi相同，即互动性体验。在绘画、歌曲、电影、书籍或电视剧中，观众无法在剧情过程中改变结果。在优秀的游戏中，玩家可以通过每次行动来改变结果。

许多游戏设计师有着广泛的兴趣点。尽管对现实性的考虑、虚拟其他内容、多主人公的故事剧情这些对系统构建者来说很有趣，但是游戏设计的艺术就是创造出玩家觉得有趣的东西。在20世纪90年代中期，Sid Meier就在许多的采访中提到了这一点。比如，在接受Richard Rouse III的采访时，他说道：“在我们的游戏设计规则中，我们将游戏分为三个类别。有些游戏是设计师享受乐趣，有些游戏是电脑享受乐趣，有些游戏是玩家享受乐趣。我想我们应当制作的是让玩家享受乐趣的游戏。”

向玩家出售游戏的职业游戏设计师应当追随Sid Meier的步伐，尝试去设计其所述的第三类游戏。各类行业从业人员都对此表示认同。故事顾问Brad Kane说道：“最后要强调的是，游戏必须有趣，再有深度情感也无法拯救乏味的游戏。”

网络世界设计师Starr Long说道：“趣味性总是凌驾于现实性之上，毕竟这样才能算是真正的游戏。”

独立开发者Perry Board说道：“不要忘记玩家感受到的趣味性。你的整体目标就是提供乐趣。你做的所有事情都应该以此目标为中心。”

纸笔设计师Monte Cook、Jonathan Tweet和Skip Williams说道：“趣味性是强大的驱动力量，千万不可忘记。”

桌游设计师Reiner Knizia说道：“游戏只是人们享受乐趣的平台而已。”

趣味性并不一定通过优秀的游戏来呈现，但是优秀的游戏必须具有趣味性。

提升学习能力

人性已经得到了提升，当它得到提升之时，并非因为其原先冷静、负责和谨慎，而是因为其原先更好玩、反叛和不成熟。——Tom Robbins

将趣味性排除在外并不好。我们可以看到，趣味性是种宝贵的天性。

游戏的历史甚至超过人类存在的历史。年幼的哺乳动物会玩耍，但是它们没有特定的规则，因而不能称之为游戏。但是与观看电影相比，哺乳动物玩耍的行为与人类游戏行为的共同点更多。玩家行为甚至还能够与智力的进化联系起来。达尔文早期对进化的描述就类似于游戏。我们通常都会认识到，我们玩耍的本性就是为了追求趣味感。

如果是这样的话，那么趣味性就不是简单的东西。它演变出更为复杂的战略。花1分钟学习，花1辈子掌握，这条古老的谚语在游戏中同样适用，因为策略刚开始很简单，但是会发展得越来越复杂。科学和艺术的吸引力也正源于这种本性。趣味性是创造性的根源。爱因斯坦之所以开始学习数学，是因为他的叔叔将数学当成游戏介绍给他。费曼之所以能够获得诺贝尔奖，正是因为他从科学研究中找寻到乐趣。

在优秀的游戏中，趣味性能够与优秀的艺术相融合。这里的优秀艺术指的是本质上绝妙的艺术：优秀艺术是艺术的终极成品，或者是最完美的艺术。古有说法：“研究的越深便越觉得亚里士多德聪明。”在优秀的游戏中，玩家研究得越深，游戏就变得越有深度。一旦玩家知道了游戏中的完美战略，比如一字棋游戏，那么无论再玩多少次也找不出更好的战略。当游戏不会再让玩家有所收获时，游戏就不再有趣。当玩家在玩游戏时，也是个学习和特殊系统的教育过程。当找到完美方法时，就没有可供学习的新东西了。但是，在《Lost Cities》和《Go》等优秀游戏中，每次重复游玩都可以得到新的经验。找到新策略，发现老策略的不足之处。这种惊奇能够引导发现，也能够刺激科学和艺术向前发展。

因而，趣味性是游戏的艺术，这是个崇高的目标。优秀游戏能够让畅玩其中的玩家的心智能力呈螺旋上升。甚至连选择游玩战略的战略都得到了进步。游戏范围内的目标得以改变，使得人们学到某些东西。

人类境况

Paul Schwanz正在寻找某些比他在有些游戏中的体验更好的东西，他说道：“互动娱乐能够提供哪些堪比Steinbeck的《Of Mice and Men》、Coppola的《The Godfather》和莎士比亚的《哈姆雷特》的体验？”MMORPG创意总监Raph Koster持有相似的观点，他表示：“如果我们希望能够改革什么的话，那么为何不改变普通动画比游戏更能展示人类境况这个事实呢？”

优秀的游戏确实能够勾画出人类境况。有三个例子：《Spades》，7张扑克和象棋。

1、正如Steinbeck的经典之作《Of Mice and Men》，《Spades》是两个低阶级工人在美国经济大萧条时期左右发明的两人游戏。这款游戏已经被工人阶层的人玩了数十年之久，这些玩家所处的境地与Steinbeck所描绘的角色类似。在游戏中，合作者打赌他们可以赢得多少分，很像大萧条时期的境况。因此，我不认为自己在军中的好友在闲暇时间玩《Spades》是种巧合。优秀的《Spades》玩家学到了很多后工业时代服务业工人的情况。他们了解了自我评价以及团队行动比个人有着更高的价值。

2、7张扑克是美国生意场上排名倒数第二的游戏。扑克可以教导人们进行统计化的考量。电影《Pirates of the Silicon Valley》中声称比尔·盖茨在大学期间是扑克高手，这预示着他可以在商业上获得成功。

3、《哈姆雷特》和象棋的立足点是相同的。在玩象棋的过程中，人们可以意识到许多有关封建及后封建政治的状况。人类的生活体现在自由的移动中。每个玩家都将通过不断地移动其他棋子来使得自己的国王能够自由移动。

音乐师Sting希望游戏能够反映人类的境况。《文明》、象棋、《Settlers of Catan》和《Diplomacy》之类的游戏中都包含屠杀、谋杀、崇尚力量、土地侵犯和经济危机等元素。

优秀的游戏能够反映出人类境况，如果你相信以下说法：世界就类似于游戏，我们所有人都是玩家。我们的移动都是受到限制的，由此产生的后果无法挽救。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2003年6月22日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Toward a Philosophy of Game Design

David Ethan Kennerly

This is by no means the philosophy of game design, but these notions may help an aspiring game designer before he begins his work and in reviewing not just his work but the fitness of his goals.

What is the Sound of One Hand Designing?

“[Do not] mistake yourself for an ‘artist.’ Our goal is to create newer and more fun games. Art is not our goal.” Tetsuya Nomura, Final Fantasy character designerThe Entertainment versus Art debate flares perennially. These participants may be having fun, but the dichotomy is uniquely inappropriate to games. For example among MMORPGs, to Jessica Mulligan, fun subsumes art; whereas, to Raph Koster, art subsumes entertainment. I will challenge the dichotomy itself. Crafting fun is the art of the game.

To paraphrase Stephen King: Put your game design desk in the corner to remind yourself every day that Art supports Life, not the other way around. By the end of this article, we may disentangle the faulty dichotomy. After reconsidering what we think we know about a game, fun, and art we may come to discover that Nomura and Costikyan are correct:

“If you were to write a Seven Lively Arts for the 21st century, the form you’d have to mention first is clearly games.” Greg Costikyan

To begin disentangling, we need to come to terms with the game as a unique medium.

A Unique Medium

“Unfortunately, as similar as the two media are, the differences are real and compelling and the superficial similarities can actually make people LESS effective in new, game-oriented roles.” Warren Spector

Games are not like other forms of art. To define a game: if it uses points, has players and rules, it’s a game. Of course a game may be part of a service or a world or a community, too. To keep a game, as I use the term here, from being confused with all the disciplines that game theory has been applied to (economics, psychology, politics, empirical analysis), call it “a parlor game,” if the reader must. But Joe and Jane at the checkout counter call it a game.

As the sound designer for the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers video game wrote: “It is unproductive to think of games as ‘interactive movies,’ although many people tend to think of games in those terms. Let’s be clear: games and films are different media. The techniques, processes, and skills involved in the creation of each are unique and not interchangeable. The metrics by which each is judged are also different, meaning that many of the properties that make for a good film would lead to a lousy game, and vice versa.”

Narratives, which includes most films, and games differ dramatically, because games don’t tell stories, players tell stories. A narrative is a passive experience.

One watches and feels but does not do. The audience is not the actor. In a game, the audience is at once the actor, also. Herein is a conflict of purpose. The author of a narrative must control the lives of the actors. Whereas, the designer of a game must abdicate control. To paraphrase Will Wright’s first advice for a budding game designer: Games are about players having fun; not about writers solving the narrative problems they want to solve.

Part of the problem is that an intellectual property rarely links a fine narrative to a fine game. Dungeons & Dragons is not J.R.R. Tolkien-in-the-medium-of-a-game.

American McGee’s Alice is not an adaptation of Lewis Carroll-in-the-medium-of-a-game. Go or Eleusis, which are puzzling, logical, and playfully deep, offers better comparison to Lewis Carroll. Reiner Knizia came closer with his cooperative board game of “Lord of the Rings,” which retains the spirit of the novel. But still “Lord of the Rings” is more of a novelty than a fine game.

Many game-movie crossovers, such as Wing Commander or Mario Brothers, failed and so did movie-games, such as Atari’s E.T. or Braveheart. Their lesson: satisfy an audience for a movie, a player for a game. A bleak road lies before one who seeks a movie experience in a game or vice versa. Although the fine game invokes something powerful inside the willing player, don’t look for J.R.R. Tolkien or Lewis Carroll in a game. He’s not there. Equally, there’s no Reiner Knizia, Sid Sackson, or Harold S. Vanderbilt of narratives.

A game designer can borrow inspiration from another medium but not techniques or values. For example, being inspired by the pace in a movie is far from learning how to pace a game from studying pace in a movie. When I’ve successfully borrowed from other art forms, it was only the inspiration. To fail to understand this may create a scenario where:

“[G]ame development is turning into a circus, costs are skyrocketing, users get bored faster than ever before, and the development of truly new games — new ways of having fun — has all but stopped.” Mr. Yamauchi, President of Nintendo

A fine game does not resemble any other medium’s fine art. To give an extreme example: What fine movie resembles ChuChu Rocket? It defies the qualities of other arts.

It lacks story, depth, and eye candy. Yet it is still a fine game. Fun comes in different flavors: Chess, Kungfu Chess, ChuChu Rocket, Bust-a-Grove, Bomberman, Pacman, Lost Cities, or more. Each is an active, controlled, enjoyed experience. The player makes things happen.

Understanding these varieties of fun expands the scope of a fine game. As we shall see, the game designer should subordinate other qualities of the game to the quality of fun itself.

From the Point of View of Fun

“From the point of view of fun, the type of all the arts is the art of the game designer.” Paraphrase of Oscar Wilde

When discussing the art of game design, fun is the yardstick—not realism, not novelty, not narration, not philosophy, not impressive technology, nor visual quality.

Let’s define the term. Fun, like many common words, is overloaded with various meanings. In Korean, the same word describes having fun, being entertained, and being interested. Americans often combine some of these words, too. Bear with me if mine varies from the conventional. I mean not the fun of watching an explosion on screen, as in a movie, but the fun of creating an explosion on the screen, as in a game. I mean active, controlled fun, as Patricia Marks Greenfield wrote: “They were unanimous in preferring the games to television. They were also unanimous about the reason: active control.” So fun, for here and now, is enjoyment where you directly impact the outcome at every move.

I use the term fun as Sid Meier, Will Wright, Tetsuyu Nomura, and Yamauchi do, which excludes non-interactive experiences. In a painting, song, movie, book, or TV episode, the audience does not, within the course of the episode, alter the outcome of the episode. In a fine game, the player alters the outcome with every move.

Many game designers have broad interests. Yet while musing on realism, virtual this-and-that, multi-protagonist storytelling, is fun for system architects, the art of game design is to produce what is fun for the player. Sid Meier cleverly put it in several interviews since at least mid-1990s, if not earlier. For example, an interview with Richard Rouse III: “We have, amongst our rules of game design, the three categories of games. There are games where the designer’s having all the fun, games where the computer is having all the fun, and games where the player is having all the fun. And we think we ought to write games where the player is having all the fun.”

A professional game designer, who sells games to a player, ought to follow Sid Meier’s lead and attempt to design games of the third kind. Diverse industry professionals agree. From story consultant, Brad Kane: “Last, but not least – games must be fun. No amount of emotional depth will save a game that is boring.”

To online world designer, Starr Long: “Fun should always win over realism. These are games after all.”

To indie developer, Perry Board: “Don’t forget fun for the player. Your overall objective is to provide enjoyment. Everything you do should somehow be centered on that goal. ”

To pencil and paper designers, Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams: “[They are] all powerful motivators. So, of course, is fun. Never forget that last one.”

To board game designer, Reiner Knizia: “[The game] is just a platform for the people’s enjoyment.”

Invoking fun does not require a fine game, but a fine game does necessarily invoke fun.

An Upward Spiral

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

Tom Robbins

It would not do well to exclude fun, at least a few of its well-mannered incarnations, from sacred experiences. Fun, we shall see, is a precious instinct.

Game playing has roots older than the human species. Young mammals play. They don’t have specific rules, so they’re not games. But mammalian play behavior shares more in common with human game behavior than movie watching shares with playing a game. Play behavior may even be connected to the evolution of intelligence. Darwin’s early description of evolution resembles a game. We generally recognize our instinct to play as a feeling of fun.

If so, then fun is not low. It evolves sophisticated strategies. The old adage of a fine game, a minute to learn, a lifetime to master, is true because strategy begins simple and becomes complex. This same instinct is a compelling force toward science and art. Fun is a root of creativity. Einstein began math only after his uncle introduced him to it as a game of an investigator capturing a wily thief, wherein the solution was the capture. Discovering the nature of light in a gravitational field is not a simple pleasure, yet fun may have been its original fuel. Feynman won the Nobel Prize when he was pursuing a thesis that he described as the sort he enjoyed—he had fun at.

In the fine game, fun intersects fine art. By fine art, I mean basically great art: fine art is the final art, or the most perfect of the arts. There is a quotation:

“The more I study the smarter Aristotle gets.” In a fine game, the more the player studies the deeper the game gets. Once a player knows the perfect strategy in a game, such as tic-tac-toe, no amount of play will reveal a better strategy. When the game ceases to teach the player a new lesson, the game stops being fun. The mind engages in a process of learning, in an education about a special system when playing a game. When perfected, there is nothing new to learn. Whereas, in Lost Cities, Go, or any fine game, each iteration teaches a new lesson. New strategies unfold. Weaknesses in old strategies appear. This is a kind of wonder that precedes discovery. This shares the impetus of science and art.

So fun is the art of the game. It is a high goal. It is noble. It is not necessarily base. It is not necessarily a simple pleasure. Whosoever plays earnestly at a fine game ascends an upward spiral of intelligence. Even the strategies for choosing playing strategies evolve. The enabling goals within the span of the game themselves change. And once so involved, one is learning, “To be able to be caught up into the world of thought—that is to be educated.”

Playing the Human Condition

“He deals the cards to find the answer

The sacred geometry of chance

The hidden law of a probable outcome

The numbers lead a dance” Sting

Paul Schwanz was looking for something finer than the experiences he’s had in some games: “What does interactive entertainment have to offer that can be compared to

something like Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Coppola’s The Godfather, or Shakespeare’s Hamlet?” Raph Koster, a MMORPG creative director, held a similar opinion: “If we want to go on a crusade to fix something, how about we fix the fact that your average cartoon does a better job at portraying the human condition than our games do?”[26]

A fine game does portray the human condition. Here are three examples:

1. Spades.

2. Seven-card stud poker.

3. Chess.

1. Like Steinbeck’s classic, “Of Mice and Men”, Spades is a two-player struggle of the lower-class worker invented around the Depression Era in the US. It’s been enjoyed for many decades by working-class men in situations much like many of Steinbeck’s characters. In the game, the partners bid on what points they can make, not unlike such plights of the Depression—and post-industrial labor in general. I don’t think it was a coincidence that my Army mates, at multiple duty stations, played Spades during downtime. A good Spades player learns a lot about the condition of the post-industrial service-oriented laborer. He learns that self-evaluation and teamwork trump individual excellence.

2. Seven-card stud poker is the penultimate game of American Business. Poker teaches the art of statistical speculation and bluffing. The movie Pirates of the Silicon Valley was fond of depicting Bill Gates as a good poker player in college as foreshadow to his business success.

3. Hamlet and Chess share equal footing. In playing Chess one realizes much about the state of feudal and post-feudal politics. Human life exists in freedom of movement. Each player gradually negotiates, with each move, for freedom of movement of their Principal. Bishops are bound to devour members of their own dogma (be it black or white), while the plight of the majority, the Pawn, is that he has the least freedom of movement of them all.

The musician Sting hinted at a perspective on a game from which to gain insight into the human condition. One who goes beyond the narrative media’s mindset may watch “[t]he numbers lead a dance.” Sessions of Civilization (Sid Meier), Chess, Go, Settlers of Catan, and Diplomacy have included holocaust, murder, power addiction, territorial threats, and economic depression. To those inclined to perceive, the fine game reveals, “The hidden law of a probable outcome.”

A fine game gives insight into the human condition, if you believe: The world resembles a game, and all of us are players—our moves finite, our consequences irreversible. (Source: Fine Game Design)