作者：Ian Schreiber

你在这个课程的第一天花了15分钟的时间制作了一款游戏。但是这却不是一款好游戏。而根据这时候你对于流状态，反馈环路以及决策类型的理解，你便知道为何这不是一款好游戏了。在那之后你又制作了几款游戏，有些会让你感到骄傲，而有些却只会让你失望。（请点击此处阅读本系列第1、第2、第3、第4、第5、第6、第7、第8、第9、第10、第12、第13、第14、第15、第16、第17、第18课程内容）

但是不管怎样，至少你知道了如何制作游戏，你已经拥有了制作游戏所需的知识和理论。

我们将在下个月制作一款新游戏。如果你还是一名学生，一个月时间对你来说也许太长了，而且你也会发现时间流逝的速度之快。如果你是一名稍有经验的游戏开发者，1个月时间对你来说也许就太短了，但是我却保证你肯定能够合理安排时间的。不要担心，你们一定能够在整个创造过程中受益匪浅，而你也无需一下子就完成所有的工作。

game-design-schools(from gamedesignschools411.com)

设计项目：概述

我称之为“文件夹项目”，是指学生们能够将自己创造的游戏装进游戏设计的文件夹中，去展示他们的游戏设计才能。根据你所处的情境和职业目标，也许你会愿意这么做。

这个游戏设计项目的宗旨是帮助学生在形成概念到完成游戏整个过程中获得相关经验，因为这并不是基于任何现有的设计创意（如你之前在这个课程中创造的游戏，或者你脑海中所形成的想法）。你有很多时间，甚至余下的整个生命都可以用来开发游戏！所以你可以尽情地去拓展你的项目。而现在，你所需要做的便是开始设计游戏。

过程

根据教学大纲的内容，整个项目的过程如下：

首先，创造核心游戏理念。即使是任何有意义的方法也很难实现这种理念，可以说，它们只是游戏创造前阶段的“种子”。你必须选择一种游戏理念作为你在设计项目中的基本内容。

其次，你将创造游戏的核心机制。即使你已经完成了所有的细节内容，也不能算是彻底完成了游戏，除非你已经可以开始亲自体验游戏了（虽然你还需要补充一些游戏规则）。你将要亲自玩自己的游戏，并反复进行游戏直到完成一系列游戏规则。

然后，你将会邀请一些好朋友，亲戚，知己等加入你的游戏。与它们分享你设计的游戏，并与他们一起游戏，接受他们的反馈。而这个步骤主要是衡量你的游戏是否有趣（游戏邦注：如果游戏缺少乐趣，你便需要重新采纳另一个理念，或者修改当前的理念并再次尝试）。如果在一开始就察觉到游戏缺少乐趣，那么你最好尽快摒弃这一理念，不要再浪费时间去尝试这些没有结果的无用功。游戏想法虽然廉价，但是执行力却非常可贵，所以适时的行动非常重要。

当你拥有了游戏核心并且与你的设计目标相一致时，你便可以开始探索游戏细节了。确保你带给玩家的游戏体验是完整的，而且无需设计者在旁边进行解说或控制。确保游戏拥有一套完整的规则，即使玩家不知道下一步该怎么做也不会因此陷进一个死胡同中。你应该让一些从未看过游戏的新玩家去测试游戏，并观察他们怎么做。

如果你对自己的游戏非常有自信，那么你便可以使用“盲测”，即设计者不出现在测试现场的游戏测试。你可以要求一些同意帮助你进行测试的人去玩游戏，并给予你反馈意见。这就像是现实中的市场状况，即当玩家购买了一款游戏但是却不能与游戏设计者直接沟通时，他们便不得不以自己的理解去玩游戏。

当你完成了游戏中的所有细节后，你便需要开始完善一些小漏洞。确保游戏的平衡，即合理设置游戏中的各种策略，并且让所有玩家都有赢得胜利的同等机会。

最后，当游戏几乎大功告成而游戏机制也趋于稳定时，你便需要考虑游戏的“用户界面”问题，即那些能够让游戏更加亲近玩家，让玩家更容易了解游戏的视觉设计因素。

一旦所有工作都完成后，你便需要花点时间去检查所有物理元素，按照游戏的最终状态进行最后的校对和完善。

你必须牢记，游戏设计是一个迭代过程，所以你随时都有可能需要回到之前的阶段而重新开始一些工作。这样做并没有什么不好，而且这也是为何你需要尽早扼杀那些没有价值的理念的原因。如果你是在第一周就意识到需要重新开始设计，那么一切都不算太迟。

创意生成

“课程4”中便提到了许多关于构思创意的方法。可以从核心美学，核心机制，材料或者其它资源以及各种叙述中寻找灵感。

如果你能够想出更多游戏理念，你便越能够越轻松地设计出优秀的游戏。

设计项目的限制因素

当然了，我可以毫无保留地向你们公开整个设计项目，但是为了鼓励你们开始创造游戏，我决定列出一些限制因素。你们需要记住，限制因素也是你最亲密的朋友。

如果你在参加这个课程之前从未设计过一款完整的游戏，那么你就更应该仔细阅读这些限制因素。不论你是创造桌面（棋类）游戏，卡片游戏或者置放指示片游戏（这就意味着这些游戏的物理元素中都必须包含有棋子，卡片以及置放指示片）。这些游戏不只要包含一个以上的这些元素，同时也需要包含一些额外元素（如骰子等）。你可以自己选择任何主题，只要这个主题具有独创性，即不会侵犯任何现有的知识产权。简而言之，如果你的作品侵犯了他人的商标或版权，那么请你果断摒弃它。也许在你的职业生涯中将会遇到许多涉及别人知识产权的情况，但现在你应该趁此机会创造出属于自己的知识产权。

playtests_game_prototype(from mapandcounters.blogspot.com)

我将列出两个对你有帮助的限制因素。首先，你并不是在创造一款智力问答游戏，或者其它需要依赖于大量内容的游戏，如《打破沙锅问底》（游戏邦注：一种问答游戏），《看图说词》，《Apples to Apples》（一款英文字配对游戏）或者《大脑测试》等。这些游戏的目的都是将玩家的视线限制在一个层面上；即你必须回答出足够的智力问答才能够获得卡片，而这时候你便缺少足够的时间去体验游戏机制。卡片交换游戏（如《万智牌：旅法师对决》以及《宠物小精灵TCG》）也属于这类型的游戏，因为它们都要求玩家花大把的时间去收集更多卡片。

其次，在很多游戏形式中你并不能使用“掷骰与移动”游戏机制。如此有几点原因。首先，这种机制的使用频率实在太过于频繁。而且《大富翁》已经是这类型游戏的最佳代表了，所以你便很难摆脱对于这款游戏的模仿了。就像《Chutes & Ladders》等多数游戏都把“掷骰与移动”当成游戏的核心元素。其次，游戏机制在每一个回合中都能为玩家做出重要的决策，而玩家自己却不行。如果一款游戏蓄意地区分了玩家与游戏结果，那么玩家将会认为游戏不再有趣而不愿意继续玩游戏。

如果你已经设计出了一些成品游戏但是却仍未察觉到自己是名优秀的游戏设计者，那么你便可以参考这些限制因素。以下的一些限制因素也将会对你有所帮助，这是关于你所关心的游戏设计领域中的一些选择：

设计一款带有很多嵌入式叙述框，能够让玩家在游戏中进行交流的游戏。在桌面游戏中，你不得不思考如何做才能通过玩家的行动去描述一个故事，以及如何整合叙述内容和游戏机制。如果你对角色扮演游戏或者其它以讲故事为核心的游戏感兴趣，那么这一点都很适合。创造一款针对于2名以上玩家的纯粹合作式桌面游戏，而游戏中任何一名玩家的胜负都由团队所决定。这其实是一种挑战，因为当玩家并不能相互对立竞争时，游戏就必须提供一种完全相反的系统。合作式游戏存在的一个问题便是较有技巧的玩家总是能够指挥其余玩家（尽管这是一种需要所有人共同配合的游戏），从而导致出现MDA Aesthetic模式，即玩家会因为不满其他玩家的命令或指挥而对游戏感到厌烦。而如果你对游戏的社交性感兴趣的话，这点便是不错的选择。

制作不对称的双人玩家对抗游戏：在游戏的一开始玩家便拥有不平等的资源，地位，能力等等，但是尽管他们拥有如此多的不同，也不会破坏游戏的平衡性。虽然我们不难去设计这些游戏的核心规则，但是如何保持这些规则的平衡便是一个很难的任务。如果你对游戏设计和游戏平衡的技巧和衡量感兴趣，那就尝试着去做看看吧。

创造一款能够教授中学水平任何课程知识的游戏。你自己决定是要设置一些特定内容或者一些广泛的内容。但是关于这种类型游戏的挑战就在于，玩家都希望尝试一款有趣的游戏而不是以教育为题材的游戏。如果你对一些“严肃游戏”（游戏邦注：即一些带有目的性而非纯粹出于娱乐的游戏）感兴趣，那么你便可以尝试这种游戏。

如果你已经设计了许多具有专业水平的游戏，而你也认为自己是一名非常有经验的游戏设计者，那么你便可以参考以下限制因素。忽视上述内容。你必须将“掷骰和移动”机制当成主要的游戏活动而创造出你的桌面游戏。并不断完善它。

很多游戏都在使用这种机制。它能够区分出玩家在游戏中的决策与行动，因此对于那些希望游戏能够带有一种新鲜感或创造性的游戏设计者来说真的是一个非常大的挑战。但是我敢保证，如果你能够做好这一点，你便能够成功地应对各种挑战。

如果我并不想要制作桌面游戏那该怎么办？

对于那些喜欢桌面游戏并非常乐意着手制作这类型游戏的人来说，他们真的非常幸运。

但是相对的，也有很多人更喜欢制作电子游戏。我想提醒你们的是，在制作电子游戏的过程中，你必须将大量的时间用于游戏美工和编程过程中，所以如果你真心想要学习游戏设计，最好选择那种能够让你投入更多时间于设计中的游戏。不论你设计的是硬纸板游戏还是编码游戏，游戏设计的原则和概念都是关于游戏，所以如果你掌握了电子游戏的设计技巧，你便可以将其运用于桌面游戏的制作中。

也有些人喜欢创造桌面角色扮演游戏。我想提醒你的是，我们总是很难去评估角色扮演游戏的设计，因为有技巧的游戏管理员和玩家总是能够挽救一款糟糕的系统（但是毫无经验的玩家也可以摧毁一个非常优秀的系统）。如此导致我们更难去评估游戏测试，所以先尝试桌面游戏便是个很好的选择。在过去几年里，桌面游戏与角色扮演游戏之间的界限变得越来越模糊了，如侧重于叙述的桌面游戏《Android》以及侧重于游戏机制的角色扮演游戏《D&D 4th Edition》。

也许你们在现实世界中还有一些其它的限制因素。也许你会为了避免不必要的开支而不愿意花钱去创造游戏原型。也许你住在一个偏远的地区，缺少足够的原型材料，只能用仅有的材料去创造你的游戏。也许你没有太多时间专注于游戏中，所以你只能够设计一款较短的游戏（以便你能够在短时间内完成游戏测试和迭代）。如果你在现实生活中找到一些对你的游戏有影响的限制因素，你应该真正把它当成这个项目中非常重要的一部分。设计者不应该抱怨资源不足，相反地，他们应该利用所拥有的一切资源努力制作出最棒的游戏。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2009年8月3日，所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。（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）

Level 11: Design Project Overview

You made a game on the first day of this course. It took you all of 15 minutes. It probably wasn’t very good. At this point, with your current understanding of flow states, feedback loops and kinds of decisions, you can probably isolate the reasons why it wasn’t very good.

You made a few other games after that one. You might be proud of some of them, and embarrassed of others. Looking back, you might find one that you were proud of that you now realize could have been better. Or maybe not.

At any rate, you know how to make games.

So, let’s make a good game. You have all the knowledge and theory you need.

We will spend the next month making a game. If you’re a student, that may sound like an incredibly long time to you, and you will be surprised at how fast it flies by. If you’re a little more experienced, it may sound like an unreasonably short time, but I promise you will manage. Do not fear; we will take things one step at a time, through the entire process. You will not have to complete everything all at once. (Nor should you. That is not how games are made.)

Readings

Read the following:

Challenges for Game Designers, Chapter 11 (Targeting a Market). We have discussed the importance designing for the player (as opposed to the designer) earlier in this course. This chapter goes into more detail, giving some considerations when designing a game for target-demographic or mass-market appeal.

Design Project: an Overview

In my classroom courses, I call this a portfolio project – a game that will ultimately go into the student’s game design portfolio as a way of showing their skill at game design. You may consider doing this as well, depending on your situation and your career goals.

The purpose of the Design Project is to gain some experience in taking a game through the entire process from concept to completion. Because of this, do not simply start with an existing design (such as an earlier game you created in this course, or an idea you’ve had floating around in your head for awhile). You have plenty of time – the entire rest of your life! – to take your existing projects further. For now, get some practice at all of the stages of designing a game.

The Process

As you might guess from the syllabus, the process we will follow is going to go something like this:

First, generate some core ideas for games. These do not have to be fleshed out in any meaningful way, they are just “seeds” that can serve as starting points. You will choose one to serve as the basis for your Design Project.

Next, you will create the core mechanics of the game. The game does not yet have to be complete with all details fleshed out, but it does have to be at the point where you can start playing it with yourself (even if you have to make up a lot of the rules as you go along). You’ll play your own game in private, working on it until the point where you have a complete set of rules.

After that you will bring in some close friends, family, confidantes, or other participants of this course. Share your project with them, play the game with them, and get feedback. The key here is to figure out if the core of the game is fun at all (if it is not, you can start over with one of your other ideas or else modify your current one and try again). If it doesn’t start out feeling like there is some magical fun quality to the play, that feeling is unlikely to materialize later – it is far better to abandon an idea early and try again than to waste a large amount of time on something that is just not going to work. Ideas are cheap, implementation is expensive; act accordingly.

When you have the core of the game working and it is meeting its design goals, it will be time to get into the details. Make sure the game can be played to completion, without the designer being present to answer questions or make on-the-fly rulings. Get to the point where the game has a complete set of rules, with no dead-ends or holes that cause the game to stop when the players can’t figure out what happens next. You’ll playtest with new players who have not seen the game before, and observe them from a distance to see what they do.

Once you are confident that your game is solid, you’ll explore “blindtesting” – a playtest where you are not present at all. You’ll give your game to some other people who will agree to test it and provide feedback. This most closely simulates actual market conditions, where a person buying a game does not have direct contact with the game’s designer, and they must figure out how to play it for themselves.

After all of the details are complete in your game, it is time to tweak the small things. Make sure the game is balanced – that is, that there are no strategy exploits that are too powerful, and that all players feel like they have a reasonable chance of success.

Lastly, as the game nears completion and the mechanics become solidified, you’ll consider the “user interface” of your game – the visual design of the physical components that will make the game as pleasant, easy to learn and easy to play as possible.

Once everything is set, you’ll spend a short amount of time on the craft of the physical components, making the artwork and assembling the components in their final form.

Keep in mind that game design is an iterative process, and that at any point in the process you may find a reason to return to earlier steps to redo something. This is fine, and it is to be expected. This is also the reason why it is better to kill an idea early than to abandon it late. If you find that you have to start over from scratch, you’ll have more time remaining if you start over in the first week (as opposed to restarting the project in the last week).

Idea Generation

Recall from Level 4 that there are many ways to start conceiving of ideas. Start with core aesthetics, or a core mechanic. Start with materials from other sources. Start with a narrative. And so on.

Today, start generating some ideas. Look in the world around you. What systems do you see that would make great games? Carry a notebook with you wherever you go in the next few days, and write down every idea that occurs to you, no matter how silly it may seem.

The more you generate ideas, the easier it gets.

Design Project Constraints

I could leave this entire project open-ended, but in order to get you started I’m going to give you some constraints. Remember, constraints are your friends.

If you’ve never designed a complete game before this course, follow this set of constraints. Create a board game, card game, or tile-laying game (that is, it must either have a board, cards, or tiles as physical components). It may have more than one of these components, and it may involve additional components beyond these (such as dice or pawns). You may choose any theme you want, as long as it is original – do not use an existing IP (intellectual property). In short, if your work would violate someone else’s trademark or copyright, don’t do it. You will undoubtedly work with other people’s IP at various points in your own career; take the opportunity now to do something original with your own IP.

I’m going to place two more restrictions to help you. First, you may not make a trivia game, or any other game that relies on large amounts of content (such as Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, Apples to Apples, or Cranium). This is purely for the purpose of keeping your scope limited; if you have to generate 250 cards with unique trivia questions on them, it will leave you far less time for playtesting the game mechanics. I would put Trading Card Games (like Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon TCG) in this category as well, since it requires so much time to create a large number of cards.

Second, you may not use “roll-and-move” mechanics in any form. Do not throw dice and then move a pawn around the track. Do not use a spinner or a teetotum or card draws or any other random-number-generating device to determine what a player does on their turn. There are several reasons for this prohibition. First, the mechanic is highly overused, and it is practically impossible for you to make a game that will not feel like a clone of Monopoly, Trouble, Sorry!, Chutes & Ladders, or any of the other myriad games that rely on this as their core mechanic. Second, the mechanic essentially makes the key decision each turn for the player, so the game is making interesting decisions but the player is not. By divorcing player intentionality from the game’s outcome, you usually end up with a game that is not particularly fun to play (no matter how fun it is to design).

If you have designed one or more complete games before but still do not feel like you are a strong game designer, follow this set of constraints. Follow all of the Green Circle constraints above. In addition, add one of the following constraints. This is your choice, based entirely on your area of interest within game design:

Design your game such that it has a strong embedded narrative that is interactive in some way. You will have to think of ways to tell a story through the player actions of a board game, and how to integrate narrative and game mechanics. If you are interested primarily in RPGs or other forms of storytelling, do this.
Create a purely cooperative board game for two or more players, so that everyone wins or loses as a team. This is challenging for several reasons. The game must provide systems that are the opposition, since the players do not provide opposition to each other. Cooperative games generally have a problem where a single skilled player can direct all of the other players (since everyone is cooperating, after all), leading to an MDA Aesthetic where most of the players are bored because they are just being told what to do by another player. If you are interested in the social dynamics of games, choose this.

Make a two-player head-to-head game with asymmetry: the players start with unequal resources, positions, capabilities, and so on… and yet they are balanced even though they are quite different. These games are not so hard to design the core rules for, but they are very difficult to balance. If you are interested in the technical and mathematical side of game design and game balance, try this.

Create a game to teach any topic that is normally taught at the high school (pre-college) level. It is up to you whether to teach a narrow, specific fact or a broad concept. The challenge here, of course, is to start with a fun game and not have the focus on education get in the way of that. If you’re interested in “serious games” (games that have a purpose other than pure entertainment), then do this project.

If you have designed multiple games professionally and you consider yourself highly experienced, follow this set of constraints. Ignore everything above. You must create a board game that uses a “roll-and-move” mechanic as the primary gameplay activity. But make it good.

This mechanic is highly overused in games. It also creates a separation between the player’s decisions and the actions that the player takes on the board. It is therefore extremely challenging to design a game that uses this mechanic in a way that feels fresh, original, and compelling. But I’m sure if you have reached this point in your career, you are up to the challenge.

What If I Don’t Want To Make a Board Game?

Some of you expressed a strong interest in board games and are excited to get started. Don’t let me keep you. Realize that you are in the lucky minority.

Some of you are still more interested in making video games. I’ll remind you that the vast majority of your time making a video game will be spent creating art assets and writing programming code, and if you want to learn game design then you should choose an activity where the bulk of your time is spent designing the game. The principles and concepts of game design are mostly the same, whether you work in cardboard or code, so if you’ve got the skills to design video games you should be able to use those same skills to make a board game.

Some of you expressed interest in creating tabletop role-playing games. I’ll remind you that evaluating the design of an RPG is tricky, since a sufficiently skilled GM and players can salvage a weak system (or, sufficiently inexperienced players can ruin a perfectly good system). This will make playtesting far more difficult to evaluate, so you will find it useful to practice on a board game project first. Note that the line between board game and RPG has blurred in the past few years, given narrative-heavy board games like Android and mechanics-heavy RPGs like D&D 4th Edition.

Some of you might have additional real-world constraints. You might be on a budget, and so you can’t spend more than a certain amount of money on your prototype. You might live in a remote location where prototyping materials are scarce, and you’ll have to make do with what you have. You might have less time than usual to devote to your project, in which case you’ll need to design a game that has a short play time (so that you can playtest and iterate more frequently in less time). If you have constraints from your life that affect this project, consider those to be part of the project. A designer should not complain that they lack the resources to make the game they want; rather, they should find a way to make the best game possible with the resources they have.

Homeplay

I ask three things of you:

Start generating ideas for your Design Project now, based on the constraints above. As I mentioned earlier, keep them in a notebook or some other place where they will not get lost, and that you keep with you constantly so that you can write down your ideas as you think of them.

By Wednesday, August 5, noon GMT: look over your ideas and post your three favorites on the forum. Note that this is a day earlier than usual, in order to give time for feedback.

By Thursday, August 6, noon GMT: read the posts of two other people at your same skill level, and provide constructive comments on their ideas. If you posted in Blue Square or Black Diamond, also critique three others at a skill level below yours. If you see posts with no responses, reply to those first, so that everyone can have at least some feedback.

You may also use Twitter (with the #GDCU tag) to ask for immediate feedback of ideas as they occur to you.（source:gamedesignconcepts）