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独立游戏开发者克服沮丧情绪的5种方法

发布时间:2011-12-10 14:13:05 Tags:,,,

作者:Dan Fabulich

沮丧情绪在独立游戏开发者中很常见。独自开发大型创意项目是个巨大的情感挑战。独立游戏开发者需要长时间的工作,而且往往是独自工作。你不断直面自己的艺术软肋,怀疑是否能够完成这个项目。即便能够完成项目,也会对是否有人欣赏自己的作品表示担心。

当沮丧情绪在创作过程期间产生时,你很容易进入一种致命的恶性循环:缺乏创造力使得你更加沮丧,而沮丧又会进一步削弱你的创造力。你完全看不到项目有趣或令人兴奋的一面。

Michael Todd在今年的GDC大会上介绍了自己同沮丧情绪抗争的经历,基所用的多数方式适用于任何创意领域的工作者。我知道有许多小说家在努力出版自己的首部小说时也会出现这种状况,他们应该也能够从这些方法中受益。用ChoiceScript编写游戏内容与撰写小说几乎没有差别。同样,这些方法或许也适用于自己作曲的音乐师或创业的企业家。总之,任何面临创造力下降情况的人都可以从中受益。

depressed(from scloho1.blogspot.com)

depressed(from scloho1.blogspot.com)

1、专注于高回报性项目

具体地说,是指专注于那些制作起来很有趣或者项目很让你感到兴奋的项目。你越喜欢想法,就越能够将项目坚持到底。当开发的是高回报性项目时,本质上来说你设计的是自己,努力地维持你每天对开发的兴趣。毕竟“完成项目这种事一年可能只会出现一次,但是工作是你每天都要做的事情。”

Michael之所以选择成为独立游戏开发者,是因为他想要找到个能让自己快乐的工作。如果从事的是按部就班的常规工作,你不可能对上级说:“不好意思,接下来几个月我会很抑郁,所以我只能为那些我真正喜欢的想法而工作,所有其他的工作都只能先暂停。”

但是优秀的想法并不总是具有高回报性,高回报性项目应该也能够立即给予积极的反馈。Michael将“完成”和“进展”项目区分开来。在“完成”项目中,你需要制作游戏中的所有项目然后将它们拼接起来,随后才能够判断制作的内容是否良好。在“进展”项目中,你的起点是某些直接可玩的东西,只是通过迭代将整个项目做得更好。当你感到沮丧时,应当选择这些“进展”项目,避开“完成”项目。

直接考虑游戏玩法,不要过多地纠缠于无聊的细节或润色。立即对你的游戏进行测试,理想情况下可以使用真正的玩家。获得反馈的时间越短,项目的回报性越强。

但要注意的是,有些持续时间较长的“完成”项目(游戏邦注:它们只包含少部分有趣成分和大量乏味成分)通常也可以视为“进展”项目,对于此类项目,只需要制作那些有趣的部分就可以了。我们没有完成整个项目的食欲,只需要先吃甜点就可以。

2、无需过于追求完美,把握项目愿景

当你沮丧之时,很容易失去自己的项目愿景。当你的工作是创造乐趣但是沮丧耗尽了所有事情中的乐趣时,很容易让人开始对自己的想法产生怀疑。

所以,你应当有更多的愿景!找些人来玩玩你的游戏。他们可以让你回想起游戏中的哪些部分是有趣的,让你可以将这些部分进一步深化。

你也可以向其他设计师提出问题。设计师乐于向别人提供自己的意见。向其他设计师展示你正在制作的游戏,询问如何解决你在设计中遇到的问题。多数情况下,其他设计师会告诉你某些担心是毫无必要的,游戏并没有太大的问题。有些情况下,他们会提出自己的想法,帮助你修改问题。

避免苛求完美的另一种方法是多玩几款表现平平的游戏。在Steam、XBLIG或Newgrounds上体验数款测试游戏。当然,体验的游戏越平庸越好!如果这些平台上的每款游戏都足以让玩家体验到乐趣,或许你就会发现自己的游戏其实并没有那么糟糕!

3、制作开发时间较短的项目

开始新项目往往会出现下述情况:在项目的前10%,你的想法是“这是个很棒的想法!”但是这种感觉很快就烟消云散,在项目接下来的50%工作中,你依然认同想法,但是热情度已经有所下降。项目进展到接下来的20%,你开始对想法感到厌倦。“这个想法真得很有趣吗?我是不是在自欺欺人?”在项目最后的20%中,你开始憎恨这个想法。你的想法是:“我非常讨厌这个游戏。”

选择开发时间较短的项目可以让你将更多的时间投入于对项目潜力依然充满激情的阶段,这样你讨厌自己想法的时间就会比较少。理想情况下,你可以在对游戏概念感到厌倦之前,先试试运行游戏原型。

这并不意味着你需要刻意去选择那些开发时间较短的项目。如果你无法对项目产生激情,即便你能够在1到2天之内就完成项目开发,它对你来说也不具有什么回报性。

4、检测工作时间

Michael使用ProcrastiTracker来自动监测你在各种软件中所耗费的时间,比如在Firefox上花了4小时,在Visual Studio上花了8小时等等。你无需去手动操作计时器。

了解工作时间也能够对本文提到的其他多数减压方式提供间接支持。让你知道项目是否能够在短时间内完成?你是否过于紧张地工作?还是过于放松?

5、设计与你能力相符的游戏

列举出你喜欢的工作和讨厌的工作。比如,Michael讨厌与制作纹理相关的工作,因而他设计了大量只有轮廓的游戏。

每个人都有套与众不同的资源,即便你没有出众的技能,你或许也有自己的兴趣或好友,要善于扬长避短。

变沮丧为灵感

你制作的每款游戏都是自己的写照。开发团队在制作游戏时需要进行上千个选择。如果单个开发者在短时间内制作出一款游戏,他所有的情感都凝结在这个完成的项目中。

优秀的艺术来源于强大的情感,即便有时这些情感并非积极的。例如,在音乐界,有许多悲伤的歌曲,也有许多高兴的歌曲。

作为独立开发者,这种情感力量便是你的游戏优势,它的价值胜过其他那些预算数百万美元并由大型团队制作的游戏。

游戏邦注:本文发稿于2011年3月5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

Five Tactics for Designing Games While Depressed

Dan Fabulich

I was at the Game Developer Conference this week in San Francisco; on Monday, Michael Todd (@thegamedesigner) gave a short presentation about his personal battle with depression. It was the best presentation I’ve seen all year, and I’d like to use this space to blog my notes about it.

Depression is common among independent game developers. Working on a large creative project all by yourself is a huge emotional challenge. Indie game developers work notoriously long hours, often in isolation. You’re constantly facing the outer limits of your artistic ability; doubting that you can even finish the project; wondering whether anyone else will see what’s cool about the game, even if you do finish it.

When depression strikes during the creative process, you can enter a death spiral of unproductivity: lack of productivity makes you more depressed, which makes you less productive. You stop being able to see what’s interesting or exciting or fun about anything.

Most of Michael’s techniques will work for anyone in any creative field. I know too many novelists struggling to publish their first novel who could really benefit from techniques like these. (And writing a game in ChoiceScript is not so different from writing a novel. Episode 1 of Choice of the Vampire is over 160,000 words long!) The same applies to musicians who compose their own stuff, or entrepreneurs launching a startup. Anyone in an unproductive slump can benefit from Michael’s strategy.

1) Focus on Highly Rewarding Projects

Specifically, this means projects that are fun to work on, or an idea that you’re excited about. The more you like the idea, the easier it is to remember that it’s worth sticking through to the end. When working on highly rewarding projects, you’re essentially designing for yourself, working on what maintains your day-to-day interest in development. “Finishing a project happens only once a year; going to work is every day of your life.”

(Michael chose to work as an independent game developer because he wanted — needed — to find a job in which he could be happy. At a traditional job, it’s generally not an option to say, “Sorry, I’m going to be depressed for the next month, so I’ll only be able to work on ideas that I really love; all other work will have to wait.”)

But great ideas aren’t always highly rewarding — highly rewarding projects should also give you instant positive feedback. Michael distinguishes between “complete” and “progressive” projects. In a “complete” project, you need to have all of the puzzle pieces finished and put together before you can really see whether it’s any good. In a “progressive” project, you start with something that’s immediately playable, and iterate on that project over and over. When depressed, work on these “progressive” projects, and avoid “complete” projects.

Get directly to the gameplay, without getting bogged down on boring details or polish. Test your game immediately, ideally with real players. The sooner the feedback, the more rewarding the project.

But beware; it can be easy to take a long “complete” project (with a few fun parts and a lot of long boring parts) and make it look “progressive,” simply by working on the fun parts right away. That’s just eating your dessert first; you won’t have an appetite for completing the project, which may only cause you to crash harder later.

2) Stop Being a Perfectionist: Get Some Perspective

When you’re depressed, it’s easy to lose perspective on your work. When your job is to create fun but depression has drained the fun out of everything you do, it’s easy to start thinking that your brilliant idea actually sucks.

So get more perspectives! Find other people to play your game. They can remind you of what parts of your game are actually fun, allowing you to hone in on that.

You can also ask other designers questions. (We love it when people ask us for advice!) Show them the game you’re working on, and ask how to solve a problem you see in the design. Much of the time, another designer will be able to tell you that you’re worrying about nothing; there is no problem. And some of the time, they’ll have an idea that can fix your problem.

Another way you can avoid perfectionism is to play a few games. Go play some demos on Steam, XBLIG or Newgrounds. (The crappier, the better!) Someone thought that each and every one of those games was good enough for other people to play and enjoy. Maybe your game isn’t so bad after all!

3) Work on Shorter Projects

Starting a new project often has a clear arc: in the first 10% of the project, you’re thinking, “This is an awesome idea! Yeah!” But that soon wears off; for the next 50% of the project, you’re still excited, but not quite as enthusiastic. In the next 20% of the project, you start to get bored with the idea. “Is this idea even any fun? Was I fooling myself?” And in the last 20% of the project, you’ve come to loathe it. “I fucking hate this game.”

Choosing shorter projects helps you spend more time in the phase where you’re still excited about the potential, and less time hating what you do. Ideally, you can get a working prototype up and running before you get bored of the concept.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean you should work on a short project simply because it’s short. If you’re not excited by the idea, then the project won’t be rewarding, even if you can finish it in a day or two.

4) Measure Work Hours

Michael uses ProcrastiTracker, which automatically measures how much time you spend in various applications: 4 hours spent in Firefox, 8 hours spent in Visual Studio, and so forth. No need to manually click on your timer. (Anybody know of an equivalent tool for Mac or Linux?)

Staying conscious of your work hours indirectly supports most of the other techniques as well. Was that project as short as you thought it was? How fast are you iterating? Are you working too hard? Not hard enough?

5) Design a Game to Suit Your Abilities

Put together a list of which parts of the job you love, and which parts you hate. Michael, for example, hates working with textures, so he designs a lot of games with bare silhouettes.

Everybody has a unique set of resources; even if you don’t have an unusual skill, you probably have an unusual interest, or influences, or friends. Even your dislikes and areas of incompetence can provide rare creative constraints, from which great work can ultimately emerge.

Turn Depression into Inspiration

Every game you make is an image of yourself. A game is a thousand tiny choices made by the development team. When a single developer makes a game in a short time, in a single mood, it crystallizes the emotion in the finished product.

After all, great art comes from powerful emotions, even (perhaps especially) when those emotions aren’t positive. Compare a few songs about heartache with a few songs about being happily in love.

This emotional power is why, as an individual, your games can be more effective than games written by large teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Upbeat, casual social games and AAA console titles may rake in a lot of cash, but “the next great work of art will not come from PopCap or EA.”

Depression can be an opportunity to do something you didn’t know you could do, something that no one has ever done before. (Source: Choice of Games)


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