作者：David Sushil

在德锐大学教授游戏和模拟编程数年之后，我发现入门级的学生会重复犯下某些错误。这完全没关系，设计游戏本就是很困难的事情，需要经验、深层次的批判性想法和大量的测试等。

在这篇文章中，我将阐述学生最容易犯的3个错误。如果你正在学习游戏开发，知道这些问题可以帮助你在早期的学习中突飞猛进。如果你也是个授课人，或许你也会有同样的感受。

新手易犯的3个游戏设计错误

1、冲动地将大量题材塞入一款游戏中

2、认为游戏环境中的所有东西都可以作为武器

3、过分地关注故事元素

这些也是我最常犯下的错误，它们体现了各技能层次的设计师共有的天真和激动。

1、跨题材问题

一款游戏中有多少种题材才足够呢？简单地说，这取决于游戏本身，但是我认为2个就够了，3个也是可以的，只要你明白自己要怎么做就行。

优秀的厨师需要知道某道菜肴要用到多少种食材。某些食材可以搭配，比如罗勒和牛至，但是有些食材不能搭配，比如大蒜和肉桂。而且，你选择何种食材取决于你要烹制何种菜肴。如果你只是将所有食材混在一起，那么这种菜最后的味道可能让人不敢恭维。

比如，在解谜游戏中添加动作元素是种可取的做法，但是在动作游戏中添加解谜元素或许就不甚恰当。为什么呢？解谜游戏玩家认为他们所面临的是时间的挑战，添加某些动作元素完全可以接受，因为这可以提升趣味性。但是动作游戏玩家希望他们的游戏有较快的节奏，错误的解谜元素可能让射击或街机游戏失败。想象下，如果在《虚拟竞技场》战斗的过程中需要解开魔方之类的谜题，那种感觉确实很不妙。

想想看，创造出富有吸引力的跨题材体验的商业游戏并不多。《PuzzleQuest》可能算是个例外。但是在此道上成功的游戏极为罕见。

puzzle_quest(from valusoft.com)

而且，玩家通常只钟爱某种题材。即时战略玩家可能并不会喜欢第一人称射击游戏，反之亦然。因而这两种题材的混合游戏很有可能不受双方玩家的待见。

跨题材设计很困难。你需要对各题材有充分的理解，才能够明白何时将二者重叠以及如何进行融合。

2、认为任何东西都可以成为武器

哇，这听起来感觉很不错！我能用Jell-O来杀死敌人吗？或者用喷发定型剂？

正是因为上述这些问题，才使得这种想法成为游戏开发中的错误。如果你告诉玩家他们可以用游戏中的任何东西来充当武器，他们就会尝试去使用所有的东西，而最终很有可能只是失望。

对所有游戏设计师来说，这可能是个很有价值的想法和目标，但是由于可能产生的技术和预算问题，我们还不能这么做。

假设我们将在某个动作冒险游戏中执行此类系统。每个可能在战斗中被用到的道具都可以造成伤害。道具可能造成的伤害值的基础是储存在资产中的数值。对于游戏的每件道具来说，设计师都需要对其做出合理的数值设定并且不断测试。游戏中的每个扫把、桌椅、花瓶和牛奶瓶都必须与某个数值联系起来，以便决定它们能够对敌人造成多少伤害。这显然会给开发团队带来很繁重的工作。

那么玩家拾取道具的情况又要如何处理呢？玩家要抓住道具的哪个部分？这个问题需要通过大量的物品和玩家角色模型才能够解决。

如果这还称不上是问题的话，那么想想玩家使用如下道具作为武器：厨房道具、棒球棒、钢制折叠椅、24英寸电视机和铁链。角色挥舞每件道具的姿势各不相同，因而每个角色模型都需要添加动画效果。而且在使用电视机等道具时，道具的重量必须考虑在内，这使得设计过程更加复杂。在1分钟内挥舞电视机的次数显然不如厨房刀具的次数多。

这种想法只是个空谈的目标，根本无法实现。

3、过分侧重故事元素

许多第一年学设计的学生容易将叙事元素同游戏玩法混淆起来。犯下这种错误可以理解，因为电脑和视频游戏在数年间发展迅速。看看行业所发布的游戏广告就清楚了。

许多人希望以角色、情境和故事为卖点来销售产品，而不是特别的游戏玩法。你只需要看看那些基于第三方IP的Wii游戏就知道这种情况有多严重。

市场营销方式导致学生们易将故事元素同游戏玩法混同起来，但是优秀的故事并非游戏的核心。

每款游戏的核心都是其机制，也就是玩家可以在游戏中做的事情。如果有强大的核心机制，那么即便没有故事游戏依然有趣。想想上世纪80年代的那些流行游戏，比如《超级马里奥兄弟》和《俄罗斯方块》。这些游戏的叙事元素都极其有限。尽管它们缺乏故事性，但是依然有趣。

Tetris(from savageorganizing.blogspot)

提供足够的游戏背景是个棘手的问题，如果学生们希望成为成功设计师的话，他们更适宜将注意力放在更加抽象的游戏上。抽象游戏的设计轻松且简单，其简单化的特点正它在全球都能收获粉丝的原因。通过学习抽象游戏中的基本机制，学生们可以为今后的设计工作奠定良好的基础。

故事元素最棒的作用在于，它们能够为玩家在游戏中的行为提供背景。故事应当能够回答这个问题：“为何我正在做这件事情？”让甜美的蛋糕更加美味的是奶油。比如，如果没有GLaDOS的画外音，《传送门》依然是款有趣的游戏。但是加上故事内容之后，它就变成了一款年度最佳游戏。

而且，故事还能够为游戏增加情感份量，提升其与玩家的关联性。《最终幻想》系列便是绝妙的范例。如果没有情感驱动，这些游戏依然是相当棒的角色扮演游戏。但是精心编排的故事能够为武器、角色、情境和战斗提供背景，使该系列成为顶尖级的专属游戏。从这个层面上来说，故事能够回答的问题是：“为何我会在乎这款游戏？”

当学生游戏开发者说自己游戏的基础是故事时，他们往往忽略了游戏最本质的内涵。对于经验并不丰富的设计师而言，先树立牢固的游戏机制更为重要，而不是游戏的故事性。

从他人的错误中学习

学生们犯下这些错误是合情合理的。现在他们稍微偏离了方向，将重心放在战斗、故事和多题材融合上。或许一段时间后，这些是普遍采用的设计方法，但是现在最好能够予以避免。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2008年5月13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，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Three Novice Mistakes in Game Design

David Sushil

Over the past few years teaching game and simulation programming at DeVry University, I’ve noticed a handful of design mistakes that entry-level students make over and over again. And that’s fine. Putting together a solid design for a game is difficult. It requires experience, deep critical thought, and extensive testing, among other things.

I’ve compiled my three favorite mistakes here. If you are a student of game development, just knowing that these three faux pas exist (and are repeat offenders) can help you advance much more rapidly in your early education. If you are an educator, perhaps you’ve shared these same observations.

Three Novice Mistakes of Game Design

1. The impulse to cram as many genres as possible into a game

2. The need to make everything in a game environment into a weapon

3. Focusing on story to a disproportionate extent.

These are my favorite mistakes because they betray an innocence and excitement about games that designers of all skill levels share.

1. The Cross-Genre Extravaganza

How many genres are enough for one game? The simple answer is it depends on the game, but I’d venture a guess that two is fine, and three may be okay as well, provided you know what you’re doing.

Like a great chef, you have to know what ingredients are appropriate for a particular dish. Think about each genre as a flavor. Some flavors go well together, like basil and oregano, while others don’t, like garlic and cinnamon. Furthermore, the flavors you choose from depend very much on what kind of dish you’re cooking. If you just slam every spice at your disposal into a pot, your final meal won’t taste right.

For example, it’s fine to add action elements to a puzzle game, but adding puzzle elements to an action game can be dicey. Why? Puzzle gamers expect their challenges might be timed; adding some action is perfectly acceptable because it enhances the fun. But action gamers expect their games to be fast-paced, and the wrong kind of puzzle elements can bring any shooter or arcade game to a grinding halt. Imagine having to solve a Rubik’s Cube in the middle of an Unreal Tournament battle.

Think of how few commercial games have managed to create compelling cross-genre experiences. PuzzleQuest may be the one shining outlier. Success stories are few and far between.

Also, players often enjoy only certain genres. A real-time strategy gamer may not like playing first-person shooters, and vice versa. So an RTS-FPS hybrid runs the risk of alienating fans of both genres.

The Cross-Genre Extravaganza is a narrow strait to navigate. It takes a solid understanding of genres to know where they overlap and by how much.

2. You Can Use Anything as a Weapon

Wow, sounds great! Can I kill enemies with Jell-O? What about hairspray?

As silly as those questions might sound, they get to the heart of why this idea is too lofty for game development. If you tell your players that they can use anything as a weapon, they’ll try and use everything as a weapon, and most likely end up disappointed.

The spirit of the idea is one of true physical realism, something that has yet to be accomplished in game design. It’s a worthy goal for all game designers, but the simple fact of the matter is, for reasons both technological and monetary, we’re not there yet.

Imagine for a moment that we’re going to implement such a system in an action-adventure game. Every item that could potentially be used in combat has to yield damage. The amount of damage an item can cause is based on a value stored in its properties. For every item in the game, a number has to be decided upon and rigorously tested. Every broom, office chair, vase, and milk bottle in your game must be linked to a point value reflecting how much damage it can cause an enemy or the environment. That could become quite a tall order for a development team to fill.

What about mounting the object to the player so he or she can wield it? Well, where on the item will the player grasp it? This problem is usually solved with invisible mount points on both the object model and the player character model that work like positive and negative magnets. But again, for each item in the game, someone has to manually decide where those mount points will be.

If that doesn’t sound like a problem yet, then consider the different ways you might hold the following objects as weapons: a kitchen knife, a baseball bat, a steel folding chair, a 24-inch television set, and a length of chain. Some of these items have one mount point, while others have two. The posture of the character wielding each item also varies dramatically, thus adding to the number of animations needed for each character model. And with the television set, the weight of the item might come into play, adding even more complexity to the design process. How many times a minute can you swing a television set as opposed to a kitchen knife?

The point is being able to use anything as a weapon is one of those ideas that looks great on paper, but is as of now an unrealistic goal.

3. It’s Based on a Story

So many first year students confuse storytelling with gameplay. It’s an understandable mistake, especially when you consider how epic computer and video games have become in the last few generations. Look at the kinds of advertisements the industry puts out to promote its games.

Overwhelmingly, they focus on characters, situations, and stories to sell the product, as opposed to specific gameplay elements. To confuse the issue even more, one need only to look at the library of games for the Wii based on third-party IP to see this story obsession in action: The Ant Bully, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Happy Feet, to name a few cringe-worthy examples.

It’s no wonder then that students confuse storytelling with gameplay — it’s the sizzle in the steak that advertisers know they can sell. But a good story does not a game make.

At the heart of every game is a group of core mechanics, the things the player can do in the game. With a strong enough set of central mechanics, a game is still fun even without a story. Think back to some popular games from the 1980s: Centipede, Yar’s Revenge, Super Mario Bros., Tetris. These games have limited narrative elements, if any at all. Yet despite a profound lack of story, they’re still fun.

Providing an adequate context can be a tricky thing, and students would be better suited to focus on more abstract games if they wish to become successful designers. Abstract games like checkers and mancala are so effortless and elegant in their design, and that simplicity has contributed to their near universal appeal throughout history. By studying the fundamental mechanics in abstract games, students can ensure a solid foundation upon which to build their epic tales. A thousand years from now, game players may not understand what it means to be an Italian plumber, but they’ll still be playing chess and go. Put another way, which game do you think has the best chance of survival over the next hundred years, Halo or sudoku?

Stories work best is in their ability to provide a context for what the player does. The story should answer the question, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?” It’s the frosting that makes good cake even more delicious. For example, without GLaDOS’ clever voiceovers, Portal is still a fun game. Throw in that extra layer of storytelling, and suddenly you’ve got a game of the year.

Furthermore, story can add an emotional weight to a game, making it more relevant to players. The Final Fantasy series is an excellent example. Without the emotionally driven, high fantasy tales at the heart of these games, they are still decent enough role-playing games. But the well-crafted stories that provide a context for the weapons, characters, stats, and combat have created a top-notch franchise. In this way, story answers the question, “Why do I care?”

When student game developers say their game is “based on a story,” they’re usually neglecting what makes a game a game. For fledgling designers, it’s far more important to start with solid mechanics, as opposed to stories.

Learning From Other’s Mistakes

Students make very reasonable mistakes. All of them are committed out of a genuine love for the things they enjoy about games: combat, story, the differences in genres. In time, perhaps these ideas might become commonplace, but for now, they are pitfalls best avoided. (Source: Game Career Guide)