作者：CHRIS TOTTEN

游戏设计作为一个学科与研究领域正处于其发展的交叉点。一方面，你会看到研究和创造游戏的人有着各种不同的背景知识，比如英语、建筑、经济、计算机科学、心理学和电影研究等。另一方面，许多学校开设了游戏设计、艺术和制作课程，培养有游戏设计学位的人。当然，所有这些都发生在以下文化环境中：游戏本身正努力确立其成为主流媒体的合法性。

各种背景的游戏制作者丰富了游戏设计。随着越来越多的人加入这个领域，游戏设计的知识基础逐渐成长，每个人都将自己独特的视角纳入游戏行业中。游戏确实可以从这些新的观点上受益，但是当人们开始专注于获得游戏设计本身的学位时，我们要如何避免这些成长的缩水？

根据游戏设计师Jesse Schell所述，多才多艺的游戏设计师应当具有动画、人类学、建筑学、创造性意见、业务运营、电影学、交流、创意写作、经济学、工程学、历史、管理、数学、音乐、心理学、公共演说、音效设计、技术写作和视觉艺术等方面的知识，这些内容已经大大超过学校所开设的课程。而游戏设计师需要掌握的最为重要的技能是能够终生不断学习。成为终生学习者的玩家和游戏设计师在设计和评论时有个令人难以置信的强大工具——互文性。

互文性是通过提及或来自其他作品的灵感而形成的媒体含义。在设计方面，它的形式是之前的作品能够充当你自己的项目的范例。当被视为代表性媒体时，游戏可以从其他的作品中学习，类似于书籍、电影和艺术作品的做法。在这篇文章中，我将描述对电子游戏外其他媒体的沉浸会如何给我们的设计带来巨大的好处。

非数字化游戏

risk-board-game(from boardgamebeast.com)

我们先来探索较为简单的例子：非数字化游戏。这个群体包括桌游、卡片游戏、角色扮演、收集类卡片游戏、聚会游戏、赌场游戏、户外游戏和运动。电子游戏是个新型媒介，其内涵仍处在发展中。每代玩家都有其心目中理想的优秀游戏玩法，这使得之前的游戏巨作被打上“过时”的标签，难以获取新的用户。但是，电子游戏仍是符合游戏理论的实体，也就是隶属于游戏和玩法的实体，因而可以用与非数字化游戏相同的方法来分析。

游戏已存在数千年之久，融入人类文化中。社会学家和历史学家已经发现游戏分析能够对历史文化的研究起到重大的帮助，因为游戏通常是用来展现或逃避人类社会中重要或不良的事物。尤其是桌游，其本身已成为商业性行业，因此可以成为电子游戏相当有价值的范例。

在诸多方面，桌游都堪称电子游戏之父，从玩法中带有的元素到媒介对我们的重要性。但是与其他游戏一样，桌游也是游戏学试题，它们也可以添加叙事背景和主题。桌游也已经发展到可以容纳各种成熟主题的程度，比如建造岛屿、能源网络管理和疾病控制等。

如果桌游是电子游戏之父的话，那么电子游戏可以被看成是大学新生，看过大量的法国存在主义文学，努力在女孩面前展示自己睿智的一面。确实，《Braid》和《Limbo》中的高文化修养游戏体验与《光环》和《使命召唤》等市场巨作是两个对立的极端，这种情况不应当出现。虽然电子游戏这些年有所提升，但是依然需要处理成长中可能遇到的问题。桌游可以为游戏设计师和玩家提供帮助。

玩过更多非数字化游戏后，那些对游戏设计感兴趣的人（游戏邦注：包括游戏设计师和玩家）就能够理解即便看似最为平淡的措施都可以营造出优秀的游戏玩法。对设计师而言，这种发现也有助于游戏项目非数字化原型的构建，确保最终产品的游戏玩法与设计师的最初愿景相符。对游戏评论员或狂热者而言，这种对非数字化游戏的研究能够让他们对目前市场上已经泛滥的“点击射击”类游戏之外的机制有更多的了解。

以《Zombies!!!》之类的桌游为例，虽然所涉主题并非电子游戏领域，却给人带来新的僵尸游戏体验，让人们觉得在对付不死的敌人时自己是多么的弱小。进入建筑寻找战利品有着巨大的风险，僵尸蜂拥而至会营造出巨大的紧张感。通过理解这些游戏的机制，玩家和游戏设计师可以对第一人称僵尸类射击游戏这种最为普遍的电子游戏进行深化，开始探讨人类所面临的状况和物种的生存问题。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年7月27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）

WORKING WITH INTERTEXTUALITY IN GAME DESIGN | PART 1: NON-DIGITAL GAMES

CHRIS TOTTEN

Game design as a discipline and field of study is at a crossroads. On one hand, you have people studying and creating games from a variety of backgrounds: English, architecture, economics, computer science, psychology, film studies, etc. On the other there are the bevy of schools that are adopting game design, art and production programs that produce graduates with degrees in the field of game design. All this, of course, is occurring in a cultural environment where games themselves struggle to establish legitimacy as mainstream media.

In many ways, the diversity of backgrounds among professionals and professors has given gaming one of the richest bodies of knowledge in design. This knowledge base only grows as more people enter or comment on the field, with each lending their own unique outlook on the gaming industry. Indeed, gaming benefits from each new perspective on the topic, so how do we avoid this growth diminishing as people earn degrees focused on game design itself?

According to game designer Jesse Schell, well-rounded game designers should have knowledge in animation, anthropology, architecture, brainstorming, business, cinematography, communication, creative writing, economics, engineering, history, management, mathematics, music, psychology, public speaking, sound design, technical writing and visual arts – certainly more knowledge than any one college curriculum can instill. This is where perhaps the most important skill a game designer can possess comes into play: the ability to be a lifelong learner. Gamers and game designers who become lifelong learners have an incredibly powerful tool at their design and commentary disposal, intertextuality.

Intertextuality is the shaping of media’s meanings through references or inspirations of other work. In design, it takes the form of precedents, previous works that serve as examples for your own projects. When viewed as representational media, gaming can learn from other works in the same way that books, films and works of art can do the same with one another. In this article, I will describe how immersing oneself in media outside of video games themselves can have immense benefit to the way we design and play.

Non-Digital Games

Let’s begin with a simple one: non-digital games. This group includes board games, card games, role-playing, collectable card games, party games, casino games, outdoor games and yes, even sports. Video games are a young medium and as such, the library of seminal “texts” that it contains is very much still in development. Each generation also has its own ideal of good gameplay, causing previous hits to be retroactively labeled as “overhyped” and flops to find new audiences. Video games, however, as ludological entities; that is, entities that pertain to the study of games and play; can be analyzed much in the same way that non-digital games are.

Games have been around for thousands of years and are an intrinsic part of human culture. Sociologists and historians have found game analysis to be incredibly helpful when studying historic cultures, since games are often made to practice what is important or escape what is unpleasant about a people’s society. Board games especially, as a commercial industry of their own, can become a valuable precedent for video games.

In many ways, board games are the father of video games, with elements of play carrying over from that medium to ours. While like other games, board games are ludological entities, they also have the ability to add narrative contexts and themes to this play that other game types, such as standard card games, cannot. Board games have also developed to the point where they take on a wide variety of mature (read: intellectually interesting, not full of gratuitous blood, gore, nudity and raunchy humor) subject matters, such as settling an island, pre-WWI politics, power-grid management, disease control and a plethora of others.

If board games are the father of video games, then video games can be said to be in the early college years when they are reading way too much French existential literature and trying to appear intellectual in front of girls. Indeed, the dichotomy between highbrow gaming experiences like Braid and Limbo (i.e. the existentialism and smarty pants behavior) and the mass-market games such as Halo and Call of Duty (i.e. video games doing beer bongs at frat parties) is one of extreme opposites – and it should not be. While this is certainly an improvement over gaming’s teenage years where it hid in its room and wallowed in rebellion for rebellion’s sake through titles such as Duke Nukem and Mortal Kombat, (author’s note: don’t get me wrong, I love these games) video games will need to eventually make the jump to tackling grown-up issues. Board games can teach game designers and gamers how that is possible.

By playing more non-digital games, those interested in game design, from both the commentor and creator’s point of view, can understand how even the most seemingly mundane actions can create good gameplay. For designers, this can also help in creating non-digital prototypes for game projects to ensure that gameplay of a final product matches the original vision of the designer. For game reviewers or enthusiasts, this focused study of all games non-digital can make them more aware of mechanics outside of the typical “point and shoot” games that now flood the market.

This gaming outside the box can make even teach us how to make the most gun-laden video game power trip that extra bit sublime. A board game like Zombies!!! for example, while tackling subject matter that is not above the realm of video games, provides a somewhat refreshing take on a typical zombie shooter by making the humans incredibly weak against their undead foes. Entering buildings to hunt for supplies becomes a huge risk and tension builds as zombies hordes flood the board, cutting off access to health, ammo and liberation. By understanding the mechanics of these games, can gamers and game designers push for even the most stereotypical of video games, the first person zombie shooter, to begin discussing the human condition and the survival of the species? (Source: Vidio Game Writers)