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集体讨论和营销不属于游戏设计范畴

发布时间:2011-09-22 12:08:50 Tags:,,,

作者:Adam Saltsman

最近大家似乎对“游戏设计”一词及其含义存在许多困惑。首先我先简要说明我为什么没把集体讨论或营销纳入游戏设计中。

game design from filesonic.com)

game design from filesonic.com)

集体讨论

集体讨论是指以书面、电子Word文件或电子图像文件形式详细陈述项目构思。这是项目的一部分,我们在此书写规则构思,或就游戏预期样式制作概念图(游戏邦注:集体讨论非常有趣,但其纯属推测,结果毫无价值)。集体讨论不是游戏设计。

原型设计

在游戏设计中,原型设计是指在创造全新趣味横生功能游戏过程中不断探索和验证游戏构思。原型设计是指我们已充分理解和发现构思价值,功能原型是现实生活的首个游戏设计,功能齐全的有趣原型从很多方面来看都非常重要。原型设计就是游戏设计。

游戏制作

游戏制作是创造游戏的过程,包括原型设计和润色。润色是指瞄准大众用户合理调试和修饰原型的过程,从很多方面来看这相当于营销。但基于游戏进行的各种细微整体调整都会产生巨大影响。我觉得原型设计不是先于润色的某个“阶段”,而是开发过程的平行环节。但我觉得游戏应投入30%时间建模,70%时间完善各种关系。游戏制作就是游戏设计,反之亦然。

营销

营销是指将游戏呈现给大众用户的过程。在我看来,营销不是游戏设计的一部分,这里我将陈述某些违法直觉和存在争议的看法。例如,提取《城堡粉碎战》之类热门Flash游戏的核心机制,改变其画面和控制装置是个营销过程,而非游戏设计。认为这些调整在真正意义上构成游戏设计,或以设计角度看值得表扬和鼓励的观点实在令我感到非常困惑。这些属于大众营销成就,值得学习和表扬,但并非游戏设计的典型例子。

最后,我不是要诋毁集体讨论或营销,但我觉得明白这点很重要:虽然二者同游戏设计相关,但同设计游戏的真正过程毫无关系。游戏设计(游戏邦注:或者是游戏制作)是测试、润色和融合游戏构思的过程,直到我们创造一个感官愉悦和富有粘性的互动机制。目前来看集体讨论和营销都和这些目前没有多大关系,因此无法视作设计过程的一部分。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Game Design: Brainstorming, Prototyping, Game Making & Marketing

by Adam Saltsman

Lately it seems like there is a lot of confusion over the term “game design” and what it means.  I wanted to quickly (headed out the door at the mo, so very quickly!!) explain why I don’t include brainstorming or marketing under the game design umbrella.  I may update this in the future based on feedback and further reflection, but in the meantime…

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the process of coming up with an elaborating on ideas for projects on paper, in digital word documents, or in digital graphics files.  This is the part of a project where we are writing down ideas about rules or doing concept art for what the game might look like.  Brainstorming is not game design.  Brainstorming is fun, but it is wholly speculative and the results are ultimately worthless.  Brainstorming is not game design.

Prototyping

Prototyping, in game design, is the ongoing process of exploring and validating ideas in the context of creating a functional and interesting new game.  Prototyping is the point when we can actually understand and see the value of our ideas, and a functional prototype is the first real, extant instance of a game’s design in the real world, and a functioning, interesting prototype is in many ways invaluable.  Prototyping is very much game design.

Game Making

Game making is the process of creating a game, and includes prototyping but also polishing.  Polish is the process of fine-tuning and dressing up the result of your prototypes for mass consumption, and is tantamount to marketing in many ways.  However, all those little holistic changes to the game make all the difference in the world.  I don’t believe that prototyping is a “phase” done before polish, but a parallel process throughout development.  However, I do believe that many games (most?) should be built on a 30% time spent prototyping, 70% time spent polishing type of relationship.  Game making is game design, and vice versa.

Marketing

The process of taking a game and presenting it to the world for mass consumption.  Marketing, for me, is not part of game design, and I extend this to include many things that are I think counter-intuitive or controversial.  For example, taking the core gameplay from a popular Flash game like Crush the Castle (30m plays!) and changing the graphics and controls is a process that I consider marketing, not game design.  Likewise, taking the core gameplay from a less popular Flash game like Radical Fishing and adding touch controls and changing the graphics is also marketing.  The idea that these adaptations constitute game design in any real sense, or are somehow worthy of praise and encouragement from a design perspective, utterly baffles me.  These are massive marketing achievements, and should be studied and praised as such, but these are not good examples of game design.

My point, in the end, is not to somehow denigrate brainstorming or marketing, but it is important to me that we understand that these things, while related to game design, don’t have much to do with the real process of designing games.  Game Design, or as I prefer to call it Game Making, is the process of testing, refining and cross-pollinating our ideas until we have created an interactive system that introduces both sense-pleasure and intellectual engagement.  Neither brainstorming nor marketing has enough to do with these goals to be legimitately considered part of the process in my mind, at this point in my life.(Source:gamasutra


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