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分析游戏设计标准之美学布局

发布时间:2011-10-15 15:27:12 Tags:,,,,

作者:Brice Morrison

是否有人会关注角色是穿着银色护甲还是橙色的披风?军队在欧洲和亚洲战斗有何差别?拯救世界和拯救自己真正喜欢的人和游戏之间是否有区别?

事实上,这些元素确实会对游戏产生影响,而且影响还很大。画面、音效和感觉构成了游戏的核心体验,这是游戏其他部分所无法比拟的。正是它们使得游戏成为了一种真正的艺术形式而不是单纯的科学产物,正是它们让游戏显得更接近戏剧而不是算数,恰似绘画艺术而不是几何绘图。这些艺术内涵就像是游戏的皮肤、脸和外在表象,是世界在审视游戏时看到的内容。

以下是游戏设计标准之美学布局的相关内容。

Aesthetic Layout(from thegameprodigy)

Aesthetic Layout(from thegameprodigy)

美学布局的组成要素

硬核玩家甚至某些游戏开发者时常会将游戏当成纯粹的机制化系统。这可以理解,因为上述人群通常都玩过大量的游戏,他们已经成为了这个领域的专家。他们可以分析和解剖游戏,透过游戏的表象将其花里胡哨的外观分解成最基本的齿轮和机油。我们游戏设计标准中探讨的所有系统,包括基础机制奖惩系统长期动机,都属于此类齿轮。一旦他们能够将这些内容分析清楚,那么就可以尽其所能操作这些齿轮,得到他们想要的东西。

这个过程被游戏开发者称为“最小最大化”。最小最大化过程就是利用最小的经历让游戏获得最大化的好处。玩家和游戏开发者是这个方面的专家,他们可以迅速地理解整个游戏,然后寻找并执行可选的路径来达成目标。这种老式的思维模式可以追溯到当年的街机游戏,当时游戏的核心体验便是征服挑战并获得最高分。使用最小最大化策略并没有过错,将游戏设计当作系统来看待可以创造出有趣的最小最大化情形。

但是,游戏所具有的不仅仅是机制和系统。美学布局便能够赋予游戏技巧、格调和典雅,决定角色的模样、跳跃或奔跑时的音效以及油画或刚强超现实主义的背景,过场动画和系列电影,故事和情节主线,游戏盒子的外包装。执行恰当的美学设计能够让优秀的游戏受到关注并且被用户所铭记。设计不佳的美学甚至会毁掉整个游戏的体验。

游戏的美学布局由许多关键的子部分组成。前3大子部分可以在几乎所有的传统电子游戏中看到,那就是视觉效果设计、音效设计和内容。第4个子部分也存在于所有的游戏中,但是多数传统主机的PC游戏并没有过多地考虑这个方面,那就是互动设计。

视觉效果设计

游戏的视觉效果设计很容易理解,但是却很难掌握。视觉效果就是游戏的外观,包括图像、颜色、屏幕上或者玩家手中卡片上的图画。由于人类对视觉的依赖性最强,所以游戏的视觉效果至关重要。这是将出现在海报、广告和零售盒包装上的最为主要的游戏层面。船长的脸部和随风飞舞的头发的细节、水面上的闪光或者耀眼的太阳光,这些都属于游戏视觉效果设计的一部分。额外添加某些内容完全不会影响到游戏可玩性,却能够以重要但间接的方法丰富玩家的游戏体验,比如《使命召唤》中从头顶上飞过的飞机。

现在,游戏在这个层面上比过去要好得多,这需要归功于过去三十年来技术上的进步和那些富有开拓精神的艺术总监。在上世纪90年代,当时流行的是Super Nintendo和初代Playstation,开发者们追寻的是在游戏中呈现完美的现实主义,他们的目标是制作出完全吻合现实生活的游戏。这十年来,上述目标已经几乎在Xbox 360和Playstation 3上实现,开发者们便开始自寻其路,形成自己的风格。

《Farmville》之类在线网页游戏精通的是高清卡通画图像,让玩家觉得舒适而且易于理解。《Spelunky》等独立游戏追求的是90年代像素艺术的改良版本,勾起那些童年体验过任天堂游戏的成年人的回忆。《Okami》或《塞尔达传说:风之杖》等游戏专注的是提供高程式化的效果,让玩家产生诧异感。所有的这些视觉效果设计都支持了相应游戏的核心体验,为其他开发者提供了可以模仿或者超越的高质量范例。

游戏的视觉效果设计能够传达出大量信息,比如哪些人会玩游戏以及这些玩家对游戏的期望。网页游戏容易理解并且有着简单的规则,但是它们或许无法让那些追寻《战争机器》等超现实主义感的玩家产生兴趣。因而,将这类游戏的艺术风格现实化完全是在浪费精力,在决定视觉效果设计风格时,明白游戏将吸引哪类玩家非常重要。对许多玩家而言,这个子部分的质量非常重要,尤其是第一印象。即便游戏的剩余部分很不错,但是如果视觉效果的质量越过了玩家所能够接受的底线,他们也很难会想去尝试游戏。视觉效果设计是能最快让游戏显得过时的因素。

音效设计

游戏的音效和音乐很重要。观察过电影行业之后,游戏行业迅速明白,音乐能够被用来引发玩家在游戏中的情感和沉浸。勇敢的英雄骑马奔向敌人时,配乐应当是管弦乐和小号。更富娱乐性的游戏或许会使用充满童稚的音乐,比如游戏《Wii Play: Tanks》,让玩家回到他们的童年。诸如《生化危机》之类的游戏选择使用动态音轨,改变音乐依赖于屏幕上的动作的情况。在玩家在黑暗幽静的街道上游曳时,听到的是令人紧张的低沉音乐。而当怪物从墙边冒出时,音乐就会变得急促快速。通过美学布局的音效设计,所有的这些选项都为核心体验提供了支持。

wii play_tanks(from forums.toucharcade.com)

wii play_tanks(from forums.toucharcade.com)

除了背景音乐之外,游戏的音效也起到重要的作用。仍以《Wii Play: Tanks》为例,任天堂本来可以将小坦克的音效设计成第一人称射击游戏中那种庞然大物的音效。但是他们却选择将它们的音效制成类似于那种上发条的玩具。这个看似并不重要的改变针对的恰恰是游戏的目标受众,这种设计会让那些想要驾驶真正坦克的玩家离开游戏,而加深了那些想要再次体验塑料车辆的玩家的体验。

需要花较长时间来玩的游戏可能不需要背景音乐,但是含有故事情节的游戏时常会使用背景音乐和音效来提升游戏效果。而且,视觉效果和音效设计能够相辅相成,用来表现某个事件的发生,比如当玩家受到伤害时屏幕会变成红色同时会听到砰砰的心跳声。这些都是开发者和音效设计师需要考虑的做法。

内容

游戏的内容包括角色、故事、场景和关卡设计。从开发层面上来说,内容通常被视为由设计师和制作者(游戏邦注:而不是工程师)负责的游戏部分。无论是推翻邪恶的Ganondorf还是寻找已经遗失很久的珍宝,游戏的故事主线确属于美学布局中内容的一部分。就像美学布局的其他层面一样,内容有时并不会对游戏的机制化系统构成任何影响,只是帮助寻找出那些真正对游戏感兴趣的人。以中世纪为背景的角色扮演游戏或许并不会满足那些选择以现代高中为背景的同类游戏的玩家的诉求。

开发者能够以自己喜好的方式将游戏的故事和角色成分插入游戏中。游戏是构建在规则和玩家的行动(游戏邦注:这些是游戏的基础机制和P&R系统)之上,但是玩家的游戏体验就与游戏内容相关。每个关卡提供新内容,这是玩家之前并未见过的场景。游戏故事、角色和情节的重要性完全取决于开发者。有些玩家偏向于最小最大化,他们会跳过所有的故事情节。或者,开发者可以像《Braid》那样把故事情节分离成可选项。内容对玩家的重要性由开发团队来决定。

互动设计

美学布局的最后一个子部分是互动设计,也就是玩家同游戏互动的方法和技术。无论是通过按键、移动、模拟操纵杆、网球拍还是其他已经被发明出来的设备,玩家与游戏进行互动的方式不仅是美学布局中最重要的层面,也是整个游戏设计标准中最重要的层面。

多数视频游戏使用手持控制器来玩,但是我们这里所定义的标准适用于所有游戏,而不仅仅是视频游戏。玩家用来同游戏进行互动的器具和设备属于游戏美学布局的一部分。这些设备能够发挥何种作用取决于基础机制,玩家所做的动作的结果取决于奖惩系统,但是设备本身也能够起到决定性的作用。

正如我们已经说过的那样,有着两个操纵杆、一个方向盘和数个按键的传统游戏控制器只是游戏互动设计的形式之一。任天堂的Wii遥控器便是个不同的互动方式,玩家需要的只是将遥控器对准电视即可。与传统视频游戏互动设计相差更远的是足球类的运动游戏,玩家踢的是真的球,而且在场地上进行互动。另一个范例是《Poker》,玩家在游戏中交换和接收卡片,使用特别的手势来回应叫牌或者盖牌等动作。在这些情形中,互动设计都会影响到玩家与游戏及其他玩家的互动体验。

这些设备和系统给予游戏非同寻常的美学感受。游戏开发者需要决定游戏将采用何种互动设计,了解这样的选择会如何提升或损害游戏的核心体验。仅仅使用控制设备是远远不够的,因为这种趣味性显得并不充实,比如,玩家每次开门时都需要使用Wii遥控器。开发者需要思考和揣摩的是,自己所做出的美学选择会对玩家的体验产生何种影响。

美学布局对玩家的重要性

game design canvas(from thegameprodigy)

game design canvas(from thegameprodigy)

就吸引玩家尝试游戏这个层面而言,美学布局是我们所谈论的游戏设计标准中最为重要的成分。在游戏开发方面(游戏邦注:尤其是设计和编程方面)有丰富经验的人往往会忽视游戏中图像和音效的重要性。但是,忽视美学布局的重要性,往往是自食其果。比如,许多独立开发者倾尽心血创造有着复杂和创造性基本机制的游戏。但是,他们并没有考虑、调查甚至想到过游戏的图像、音乐和音效。正因为开发者的这种做法,最终会导致某些本来可能觉得游戏富有吸引力的玩家无法接受游戏。

你可以看到音乐唱片行业也有着类似的情况。在美国,乡村音乐在南部之外的州郡并不流行。许多人声称,他们听过所有种类的音乐,除了乡村音乐。尽管出现这种情况的原因多种多样,但是这种市场的分裂性是显而易见的。如果听众听到他认为是乡村音乐的歌曲,就会自动把设备关掉。但是如果是他们更为熟悉的音乐,他们就乐于接受。

录音艺术师理解这种情况。将歌曲打上“乡村音乐”的标签会对歌曲的市场潜力产生影响。因而,成功的艺术师会在创作歌曲时对选项极为关注。他们会预先决定歌曲将进驻哪个市场,然后挑选合适的创作方法。

结果,你时常会看到,流行音乐的主流和乡村版本之间的几乎没有差别。有时只是将背景器乐从班卓琴(游戏邦注:乡村乐器)变为电吉他(游戏邦注:主流乐器)。这边是两个版本的歌曲间唯一的差别之处,但是这种微小的改变便能够产生很大的影响力。有些人听到班卓琴的版本之后,在数秒之内便会认为他们不会从这首歌曲中获得乐趣。他们会完全抛弃这首音乐。但是,同首歌曲的电吉他版本就会被当成其他流行歌曲来对待,这些人可能会认为自己也能像其他流行歌曲那样喜欢上这首歌曲。

回到游戏行业中,开发者关注美学布局对游戏认知产生的影响必然会使游戏受益。如果可玩性独特的游戏因为美学布局的不佳而不受玩家待见,这完全是个悲剧。比如,某个游戏的目标用户是老年妇女,但是却使用上世纪90年代的中古场景的RPG游戏图像。

结语

美学布局对开发者来说至关重要,因为它能够决定游戏的用户。图像、音效、故事和输入设备虽然看似与游戏设计的其余部分并不相干,却能够显著地决定某个玩家是否将接受游戏。而且,这也是艺术师在游戏上打上自己烙印的机会,可以将这种简单的电脑游戏转变成艺术巨作。通过这些元素的使用,游戏开发者可以开始构建和完成他们的艺术作品,供全世界玩家进行互动。

游戏邦注:原文发表于2009年,所涉数据及时间均以此为准。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

The Game Design Canvas: Aesthetic Layout

Brice Morrison

Who cares if the main character is wearing silver armor or an orange cloak? Does it really matter if your military troop is fighting in Europe or Asia? There can’t be any difference between a game about saving the world, and one your one true love, right?

It does matter. In fact it matters a great deal. The sights and sounds and feeling contribute to the Core Experience of a game like no other part of the game can. They are what make games a true art form instead of pure science, they are what make games closer to theater than arithmetic, painting than to geometry. These artistic strokes are the skin that the world will see view the game, its face, its exterior.

Welcome to the fifth and final component of the Game Design Canvas: the Aesthetic Layout.

The Bells and Whistles

Hardcore gamers, and even some game developers, often tend to think of games exclusively as mechanical systems. This is expected, because these types of people have typically played so many games that they’ve become experts. Trained to analyze and dissect, they see through the smoke and boil the game down from bells and whistles to gears and oil. All of the other systems we’ve talked about within the Game Design Canvas, the Base Mechanics, the Punishment and Reward Systems, and the Long Term Incentive, are all of these gears. And once they see under the hood, they manipulate the gears as much as possible to get what they want.

This process is called “min-maxing” by game developers. Min-maxing is exerting the minimal amount of effort to get the maximum benefit in a game. Gamers and game developers are experts at this; they quickly understand the game and then find and implement the optimal path to win. It’s an old-school mentality that dates back to coin-op games, when the Core Experience of a game was to master the challenge and get the highest score. There’s nothing wrong with min-maxing, or viewing game design as systems that create interesting min-maxing situations.

However, there are some aspects of games that are more than mechanics and systems. This final component of the Canvas is what gives the finesse, the real style, the elegance to a game. What the characters look like, how they sound when the jump or run, the backdrop in oil painting or in gritty photorealism. The pixel art of the items, or the solemn music as the player approaches the temple. The cutscenes and movie sequences, the story and plotline, the cover of the game’s box. Well executed Aesthetics are extra bang that gets a great title noticed and remembered. Poor executed Aesthetics are the downfall of otherwise incredible experiences.

A game’s Aesthetic Layout is made up of several key subsections. The first three subsections are found in almost all traditional video games: Visual Design, Audio Design, and Content. The fourth subsection also appears in all games, but most traditional console and PC titles don’t think too much about it: Interaction Design.

Visual Design

The Visual Design of a game is easy to understand and difficult to master. It is how the game looks: the graphics, the sights, the colors, and pixels on the screen or on the cards in the player’s hand. Since humans rely on sight more than any other sense, the visual design of a game is vitally important. It is the most prominent aspect of the game that will appear on posters, advertisements, and the back of the retail box. The details of the captain’s face and wind-blown hair, the sparkles on the water, or the shine of a solar flare, these are the parts of a game’s visual design. Little extras that don’t affect the gameplay at all, such as airplanes flying overhead in Call of Duty, add to the player’s gameplay in an important yet indirect way.

Nowadays, this aspect of games is much more open ended than in the past, fueled by advances in technology as well as pioneering art directors through the past three decades. During the 90’s, the age of Super Nintendo and the first Playstation, developers sought after the holy grail of perfect realism in games: the goal was to make a game that would be indistinguishable from real life. In the most recent decade, since that goal is nearly achieved on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, developers have been able to branch out a bit more and flex their own style.

Online web games such as Farmville often specialize in high-resolution cartoony images that feel comfortable and easy to understand. Independent games like Spelunky stick to modified versions of 90’s pixel art in order to give the experience of childhood nostalgia for those who grew up on Nintendo. Artistic titles such as Okami or Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker focus on highly stylized effects to give the player a sense of wonder. All of these Visual Designs support the Core Experience of their corresponding games, and maintain a high quality bar for other developers to match or exceed.

The Visual Design of a game says a lot about who will be playing it and what they will expect. Web games are easy to understand and have simple rules, but they won’t interest someone who is seeking a game of gritty realism like Gears of War. Thus, it would be a waste of effort to make its art style photorealistic; it’s important to know who will be playing a game when deciding on its Visual Design. The level of quality of this subsection is important to many players and obvious from the first glance. Even if the rest of the game is quite solid, players will be reluctant to try out a game if it doesn’t pass their minimum standard of visual design quality. Visual design is the fastest way that games become dated.

Audio Design

The sounds and music of a game are important. Taking cues from the film industry, games quickly learned that music could be used to great effect to evoke emotion and immersion in a game. A soundtrack to the valiant hero galloping towards apparent doom is certainly better experienced with epic strings and trumpets. A more playful game may use a bippity-boppity child-like music, such as Wii Play: Tanks, bringing the player back to their youth. Other games such as Resident Evil choose to have dynamic music tracks, changing depending on the action on screen. Nervous, low music when roaming the dark streets, and frenzied, fast music when monsters burst through the walls. All of these choices support the Core Experience through the Aesthetic Layout’s Audio Design.

In addition to background music, a game’s audio sound effects play a great role on conveying the world. Again, in Wii Play: Tanks, Nintendo could have made the tiny tanks sound like the hulking juggernauts of first person shooters. But instead they gave them sound effects akin to wind-up toys. This seemingly insignificant touch focuses the target audience of the game, taking it away from people who want to drive a real tank and towards those who want to relive their long gone action figures and plastic vehicles.

Games that are meant to be played over long periods of time probably don’t want to have background music, while games that are meant to be told through story often use background music and sounds to great effect. Additionally, both Visual and Audio Design can aid the other parts of the Game Design Canvas by signifying when events occur, such as a red screen and beeping heart upon receiving damage. These are the choices that developers or audio artists need to make.

Content

The Content of the game is the actual characters, the story, the setting and level design. On the development side, the content is usually thought of as the parts of the game actually input into the code not by engineers, but by designers and producers. A game’s plot line, whether it is about the overthrow of the evil Ganondorf or the pursuit of a long lost treasure, is part of the Aesthetic Layout’s Content. This Content sometimes don’t affect the game’s Mechanical systems in any way, yet like other aspects of the Aesthetic Layout, help to narrow who is interested in a game title and who is not. An RPG that is set in medieval times would not appeal to those who may actually play the same game were it set in modern day high school.

The story and character components of game can be inserted into the game however the developer likes. A game is built on top of rules and actions that the player performs (The Base Mechanics and P&R Systems), but from there they make their way through the game’s content. Each level provides new content; a situation that the player hasn’t seen before. Exactly how important the game’s story, characters, and plot are is up the developer. Some players like to min-max and skip through all of the story. Or the developer may choose to simply partition the plot to optional text such as in Braid. Exactly how important the Content is to the player is decided upon by the team.

Interaction Design

The final subsection of the Aesthetic Layout is Interaction Design, which are the methods and technologies that the player actually interacts with the game. Whether through button, motion, analog stick, a tennis racquet, or some other device that has yet to be invented, how the player actually interacts with the game is arguably the most important aspect not just of the Aesthetic Layout, but of the entire Game Design Canvas.

Most video games are played with a handheld controller on a television, but the Canvas includes all games, not just video games. The actual instruments and devices that the player uses to interact with the game are part of the game’s Aesthetic Layout. Exactly what these devices do is up to the Base Mechanics, and exactly what the consequences of those actions are is up to the Punishment and Reward Systems, but the actual devices themselves is decided here.

As we’ve already said, the classic gaming controller, with two joysticks, a directional pad, and buttons, is only one form of Interaction Design for games. Nintendo’s Wii remote is an example of a different one, where the player is required to point the remote at the television or wave it around. Further still from traditional video games is the sport of soccer, where the player is actually kicking a ball and making contact on a field. Another example is Poker, where the player deals and receives cards and has specific hand gestures that correspond to actions such as a call or fold. These are all situations where the Interaction Design affects the player’s experience of interacting with the game as well as other players.

Each of these devices and systems give the game a different Aesthetic feel. It’s up to the developer to decide what kind of Interaction Design they want their game to have, and how that choice enhances or detracts from the game’s Core Experience. It’s not enough to use a device just because it seems “fun” in a vacuum, for example, asking the player to turn the Wii remote every time the player needs to open a door. The developer needs to think and realize what that Aesthetic choice is actually doing to the player’s experience.

Importance of Aesthetic Layout to Players

The Aesthetic Layout is the most important component of the Game Design Canvas in terms of getting players to just try your game out. People with extensive experience in game development, especially design and engineering, tend to ignore the importance of graphics and sound in a game. But they ignore the importance of the Aesthetic Layout at their own risk. Many independent developers, for example, pour their heart and soul into creating games with incredibly complex and innovative Base Mechanics. However, they neglect to consider, research, or even think about the game’s graphics, music, or sound style. It’s an afterthought, an area not deemed worthy of much innovation, and just copying everyone else is good enough. Unbeknownst to the developer, this ends up limiting the reception of the game to a small subset of the possible players who would truly find the game appealing.

If you’ll be willing to take a detour from games, one analogy that is applicable here can be found in the music recording industry. Country music, at least in the United States, has a bit of a stigma outside of the southern states. Many people frequently claim that they “Listen to all kinds of music…except country.” While the reasons for this are varied, the market split is very identifiable. If listeners hear a song that they believe is country, then they will automatically be turned off. However if it is of another genre that they’re more familiar with, they’ll be open to it.

Record labels and recording artists understand this. Having a song labeled as “country” has very real effects on the song’s mainstream potential. Thus, successful artists are very aware of the choices they’re making when producing a song. They will have decided beforehand what market they want the song to perform well in, and then accommodate in the track.

As a result, you’ll often hear subtle, seemingly meaningless differences in the mainstream and country versions of a popular song. It can be as simple as replacing a background instrument from a banjo (country) to an electric guitar (mainstream pop). This is the only change in the song, and yet this small change has severe implications. Listeners who hear the version with the banjo will, within seconds, deny the possibility that they might enjoy the song. They are completely closed off to it. However hearing the same song with the electric guitar is treated like any other pop song, and they evaluate the song fairly like they would any other pop song.

So back to the games industry, it would be beneficial to developers to be aware of the limiting (or expanding) effects that aesthetic layout alone can have on a game’s reception. It’s a tragedy to see a game with unique Gameplay not even be considered by players because the Aesthetic Layout was goofed. For example, a game that would appeal to older women, but has the graphics of a 90’s medieval RPG.

Painting Worlds and Inviting Players

The Aesthetic Layout is incredibly important for developers to think about, because it determines a game’s audience. The images and sound, story and input devices, though seemingly divorced from the rest of the game’s design, greatly affect who will be open minded about a game and who will never give it a chance. Additionally, it is the artist’s chance to leave their mark on a game, to take something that is just a simple computer program and liken it to a masterpiece painting. By nurturing these elements to their fullest, game developers can begin to construct and complete their works of art for the world to interact with. (Source: The Game Prodigy)


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