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分享冒险游戏的21点设计要诀

发布时间:2011-12-20 17:50:12 Tags:,,,

作者:Bill Tiller & Larry Ahern

1. 在呈现攻克渠道前展示游戏障碍。

在指引玩家寻找解决方案前清楚定义游戏难题。若关卡目标是拯救公主,在游戏开始时通过影片向玩家呈现将公主带到其城堡的恶棍。当界面具有操作性时,显然玩家需要进入城堡,拯救公主。“如何拯救”就是游戏的主要内容。

2. 不要让玩家角色变得筋疲力竭。

让目标位置保持较近距离,或设置到达目标位置的捷径。删除单调乏味的元素。当画面呈现角色进行外部调查时,他们会将内容编辑成传递必要信息的关键要素。通过端口或捷径(游戏邦注:跳过到达关键路径前角色穿梭城镇的20分钟无关紧要内容)进行互动。同样,若玩家持续解决关于某道具的谜题,不要让他重复相同解决方案,除非其中存在潜在变化。

3. 确保玩家在没有解决谜题的情况下也享受其中。

确保当玩家对谜题感到速手无策时,他们还有其他内容可以操作,其他东西可以浏览。这些内容可以是迷你游戏,互动玩具,也可以是同NPC的互动对话、冒险,抑或是查看生活中的活跃元素,感受游戏世界的气息。

4. 奖励解决主要谜题的玩家动态活动、新空间或新能量。

玩家希望富有成就感,所以不要在角色找到改变游戏进程的物件时,只是给予他们同样运用过度的延伸动画。若这是重要操作,应该要有相应的戏剧化动画回馈,或者也许是供玩家探索的新领域,或实体空间,或互动空间。其他奖励模式包括融入奖励的分数机制,有待解锁的新可玩角色,奖励等级,角色新外观,或访问幕后情境,能够进一步审视游戏的“构造”元素。

5. 呈现角色操作的影响。

若玩家挫败恶棍计划,呈现这给恶棍带来的影响。若玩家切断建筑电源,展示这会给里面住户带来什么影响。若玩家说出可怕诅咒,呈现死亡和破坏画面。一定要让玩家目睹这带来的破坏性,遭受诅咒幸存者的报复。

6. 向玩家呈现微妙但有趣的清晰线索,让玩家能够竭尽所能地解决谜题。

不要尝试制作任何极限难题。这些游戏的谜题极富挑战性,设计师未在其中给予任何帮助。通往解决方案的路线应富有趣味,玩家或直接切入,因为此路径非常明确,或不确定其中方向,被迫进行搜索。这些路径都要富有趣味,通常这就是呈现空间特点和细节的地方。确保充分利用这点。

7. 变化游戏谜题类型和风格,保持新鲜感。

重复会带来枯燥感,会令玩家放弃游戏。但若谜题非比寻常,出乎意料,玩家就会深陷其中,停留更久。不妨大胆运用街机或平台风格的谜题,只要它们不会过难,确保那些不喜欢这类谜题的玩家能够绕过这些内容。

8. 通过创造戏剧效果和共感让玩家投入情感。

我们理解Luke Skywalker,因为我们都讨厌帮父母做无聊杂活,更愿意探索世界,进行冒险。我们理解他,他的梦想,及他所面对的沉闷现实。然后当他叔叔、婶婶被杀时,我们真心替他感到难过,强烈希望他能够复仇。在《猴岛的秘密》,Guybrush Threepwood只是想要变成海盗,游戏的开端已经很不错,但当故事发展至Guybrush恋上Elaine,同Fester Shinetop发生冲突时,更是趣味横生。游戏的戏剧化情节是:恶棍试图淹死Guybrush,企图挟持Elaine,同其结婚。

The Secret of Monkey Island from ipadown.com

The Secret of Monkey Island from ipadown.com

9. 让玩家同恶棍互动。

不要让恶棍在开始时犯下糟糕罪行,然后始终躲在隐蔽处,等待玩家找到他。设计各种包含紧张感的对质。恶棍应就英雄的前进做出反应,试着阻止他或减缓他的进程,他们的冲突应该要逐步发展。这并不意味着玩家需要每隔5分钟就同坏人聊天,但要有对抗、反应、曲折和逆转等,以及同助手及密友进行互动。

10. 通过有趣情境、NPC及对话将基本谜题变成富有趣味的玩法。

若你有标准加锁内容和核心谜题,至少要让握有钥匙的角色别具一格,令人愉快。例如,《猴岛的秘密》中的voodoo村民总是采用食人族模式,他们会想要吃掉玩家,但最近他们变成素食主义者,旨在限制他们的胆固醇摄取量。

11. 设计谜题和位置,将小型一次性动画最小化。

动画成本很高,所以不妨将动画预算留给奖励设计及玩家会多次看到的游戏活动。

12. 使用电影语言。

以编辑电影或电视节目的方式编辑游戏。我们采用的视觉语言是电视和电影传递给我们的熟悉风格,其在过去100年来逐步完善。同用户沟通是最简单、最高效的方式。例如,若玩家跟随NPC至某位置,途中没有机会进行互动,那么不要总是呈现他们行走的画面(游戏邦注:观看他人行走非常枯燥乏味)。相反,运用电影编辑技巧——“剪辑”,立即将角色送至目的地。玩家会明白发生什么情况,能够填充其中空白,知晓此操作缺乏意义。关于电影语言的规则很多,但详述需要花费很长篇幅。

13. 听取他人意见,挑选符合自己目标的好点子。

虽然很多游戏的封面只有一个名字,但这并不意味着此人自己想出所有点子,也不代表他自己完成冒险游戏中的7000—1万行对话。多数制作团队都包含设计师、编剧、创作者、美工以及献谋献策的测试者。团队领导者的职责是提取、激发、鼓励、培养及引导这些构思,然后保留那些符合游戏形象的概念,将那些不符内容弃置一旁。

14. 设计游戏时提前规划,实际看待预期目标。

顺利完成小型稳固项目要好过树立无法实现的宏伟目标。我自己年轻时,就曾犯过这样的错误,也多次看到电影专业的学生过于高估自己,作品最终未能完成。而那些制作简短但优质内容的电影人常常会在后来得到更多预算,继续实现自己的宏伟蓝图。

15. 不要给予玩家他们无法访问的内容。

游戏最有趣之处莫过于动作发生的地方或前进目的地。不要在背景中呈现会分散注意、令人感到困惑的内容,除非你最终打算让玩家同这些内容互动。

16. 不要低估音乐、配音和音效的重要性。

音乐设定游戏气氛和情绪状态。音效让画面栩栩如生。优质角色配音相当重要。特别要注意的是主角的设定。具有恼人因而不相称配音的不当角色就会破坏一款本能够成功的作品。而优质角色选择能够让原本就表现很好的作品更上一层楼。

17. 游戏关乎愿望实现,所以不要让玩法变得平庸,或像工作一样。

The Sims fromhotdl.com

The Sims fromhotdl.com

玩家不希望回想起自己的生活,他希望在简短的游戏体验中进行某些有趣操作,不论是拯救世界,还是扮演他人角色。有些游戏让玩家扮演英雄,而有些游戏,如《模拟人生》则围绕更平凡的活动,但玩家得以在游戏中变换角色,进行现实生活所无法实现的操作。这就是愿望满足。这也正是该游戏不会推出所谓的“模拟人生:上班途中 ”这种扩充内容的原因。

18. 设计清晰、令人信服且能够控制的关卡。

若玩家在游戏开始就问“我要做什么?”那么你就面临严重问题。不论是将玩家带入冒险活动的引导者,还是角色请求帮助,或是将其置于危险境地,游戏都要明确将玩家带入正确方向。《猴子岛》游戏总是设有善良的Voodoo Lady提醒玩家游戏目标。令人信服说明内容要清晰且富有逻辑。所以若我给予老人神圣的树根,他就会告诉我城堡的秘密通道。这非常直截了当。但若是我得将其推向某木头,这样他的手臂就会意外碰到过道的秘密门闩,那么情况就会有些令人困惑。玩家为什么不能自己推动控制杆?玩家如何知晓会出现这种情况,然后一开始就进行此尝试?确保目标能够控制?在《Full Throttle》,为逃离Mellonweed城镇,Ben需要获得3样东西:汽油、切碎机的新叉子以及焊灯。这是能够控制的关卡。但Ben还需要获得链条润滑脂、前照灯的电灯泡、火花塞和催化转换器等。这也许就有些复杂及难以控制。最后,玩家会开始忘记他们处在哪个关卡,厌烦于没有获得实际进展。

19. 不要给单个谜题设置众多解决方案,浪费玩家的金钱。

若你将两种解决方案都设置成动画,玩家也许只会看其中一种,但购买游戏时他们需要支付两种内容。但要给予失败尝试相应回馈——这是创建角色的绝佳机会。若存在多数玩家都会尝试的明显解决方案(游戏邦注:而这不是正确解决方案),确保让失败角色的画面富有趣味性。若角色只是站在那儿,然后说:“这行不通”,没有提供正确答案,玩家定会非常抓狂。

20. 不要给予玩家能够轻松用于解决众多谜题的工具(例如,枪、炸药和焊灯)。

制作瞄准特定谜题的道具。同时,确保在虚拟情境中,玩家无法享有这些道具符合常理。在《Full Throttle 》,设计师清楚让Ben持有焊灯就是允许他进入废弃场和汽油塔,这通常会带来很大骚动。所以为防止这种现象,只要玩家发现焊灯,游戏就会切换至Mo商店,呈现Ben将其交出,用于辅助修理任务的画面。玩家就没有机会运用焊灯解决谜题。

21. 趣味横生。

若你无法在自己的游戏中获得享受,那么玩家多半也不会享受其中。若你享受其中操作,喜欢自己制作的内容,那么这些都会体现在最终作品中。(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

21 Adventure game design tips

by Bill Tiller, Larry Ahern

Over the past nine years Larry Ahern and I have worked with many different adventure game designers and on many adventure games. We both contributed heavily to the game designs for all those projects. Larry even got to co designed The Curse of Monkey Island with Jonathan Ackly. During those projects we have learned a lot about the genre including these basic adventure game design ‘rules’, or you could just consider them ‘strong suggestions’. The word ‘rules’ seem a bit strong for such a flexible genre as adventure games. Also many of these ‘rules’ can be applied successfully to other game genres as well.

- Bill Tiller

1. Show the barrier before you show the way to overcome it.

Clearly define the problem before you send the player looking for solutions. If the goal of the level is to save the princess, use a cinematic at the beginning showing the villain carrying her off to his castle. When the section becomes playable, it’s very clear that the player needs to get into the castle and save her. The “how” part is the game.

2.Don’t wear out the player character’s shoes.

Keep locations close or make shortcuts to get to those locations. Edit out the tedium. When films portray characters doing legwork, they edit it down to key points that convey the necessary information. Make that interactive via portals or shortcuts that bypass the uneventful 20-minute walk across town to the crucial clue. Also, if a player solves a puzzle for one item in a sequence, don’t make him repeat the same solution for the remaining items unless there’s some potential for variation (just cut away to the conclusion).

3.Keep the player entertained even when they are not solving puzzles.

Make sure there are other things for the player to do and see when the puzzles have them stumped. This can range from mini-games, to interactive toys, to interactive dialogues with NPC’s, to exploration, to viewing active elements of your living, breathing game world.

4. Reward the player with animated sequences, new areas, or new powers for solving major puzzles.

Players want to feel a sense of accomplishment, so don’t just show them the same overused reach animation when the character finds an object that changes the course of the game. If it’s a big deal, there should be a resulting dramatic animation payoff and then possibly some new territory, both physically and interactively, to explore. Other reward ideas include a point system with bonuses, new playable characters to unlock, bonus levels, new physical appearances for player characters, or access to behind-the-scenes or ‘making of’ materials for viewing after the game.

5.Show the consequences of the Player Character’s actions.

If he foils a villain’s plans, show how it affects the villain. If a player cuts off the power to a building, show how that affects the people inside. If the player releases a hideous voodoo curse, leaving a swath of death and destruction in its wake, by all means let the player visit that swath and suffer at the hands of the curse’s survivors!

6.Provide subtle but entertaining and clear clues to give the player a fighting chance at solving the puzzles.

Don’t try to create any ultimate stumpers. Puzzles in these games are challenging enough without a little help from the designer. The path to a solution should be fun, whether the player rushes down it because the way is immediately clear to them, or whether they’re unsure of the direction and are forced to search around a bit. There should be fun in the tangents and detours, and often this is where much of the character and detail of your world exist. Take advantage of it.

7.Vary the puzzle types and styles throughout the game to keep things fresh.

Repetition is boring and can discourage people from playing your game. But if the puzzles are unusual and unexpected, players will be intrigued and stick with your game much longer. Don’t be afraid to use arcade or platform style puzzles too, as long as they aren’t too hard and can be bypassed by those who don’t like this style of puzzle.

8. Make the player care by creating drama and empathy.

We all relate to Luke Skywalker because we hate doing boring chores for our parents and would rather go off exploring the world and seeking adventure. We empathize with him and his dreams vs. the reality of his tedious existence. Then when his aunt and uncle are killed we really feel bad for him and want him to have revenge more then ever. In The Secret of Monkey Island, Guybrush Threepwood just wants to be a pirate. That’s good enough for starters, but the game really gets interesting when he falls for Elaine and comes into conflict with Fester Shinetop. The drama kicks in when the villain attempts to drown Guybrush in order to kidnap and marry Elaine himself.

9. Let players interact with the villain.

Don’t have him commit a terrible crime at the beginning, then sit in his hideout until the end of the game waiting for the player to come to him. Design multiple confrontations that build in intensity. The villain should react to the hero’s progress, trying to stop him or slow him down, and their conflict should evolve. This doesn’t necessarily mean that players need to chat with the bad guy every 5 minutes (too much access destroys the illusion of threat), but there should be confrontations, reactions, twists, turns, reversals and the like, as well as interactions with his lieutenants and cronies.

10) Use interesting situations, NPC’s and dialogue to transform even your most rudimentary puzzles into entertaining gameplay.

If you have a standard lock and key puzzle, at least make the person with the key unusual and entertaining. For example, the voodoo villagers in The Secret of Monkey Island took the cannibal stereotype and turned it on its head-they wanted to eat you, but had recently become vegetarians in order to limit their cholesterol intake.

11.Design puzzles and locations to minimize small, single-use animations.

Animation is expensive, so save your animation budget for rewards and sequences that the player will see multiple times.

12. Use the language of film.

Edit the game the way a film or TV show is edited. Our visual language is a familiar style taught to us through TV and film and perfected over the last 100 years. It is the clearest most effective way to speak to your audience. For example, if the player is following an NPC to a certain location with no opportunity to interact en route, then don’t show them walking all the way over there. Watching people walk is boring. Instead, use a film editing trick called a ‘cut’, to instantly transport them to their destination. Players understand what happened and can fill in the blanks, as well as realize that action’s lack of significance. There are a lot more rules about film language but it would take another article to list them all. I suggest anyone who wants to learn these get a book on the subject or take a class at a local junior college.

13.Listen to everyone’s ideas and pick out the good ones that match your vision.

Despite the fact that many games have one person’s name on the cover, it most certainly doesn’t mean that that person came up with every idea themselves. Nor usually does it mean he wrote all 7,000 to 10,000 lines of dialogue typical to an adventure game. Most production staffs include designers, scripters, writers, artists, and testers that help come up with all the ideas. It’s the team leader’s job to elicit, inspire, encourage, nurture and direct these ideas (along with a healthy dose of his own), and then keep the ones that fit with his image of the game, and set aside the ones that don’t.

14.Plan ahead when designing your game, and be realistic about what you can achieve.

Completing a small, solid project is better than having a grand vision never realized. I’ve done the latter myself when I was younger, and have seen many a film student’s work go unfinished after realizing he’d bitten off more than he could chew. Meanwhile, filmmakers who did work that was short but brilliant were often rewarded with bigger budgets the next time and went on to create their grand vision.

15. Don’t tease the player with things they can’t access.

The most interesting place in the game should be right where the action is, or where it’s going. Do not show anything in the background that is too distracting, confusing, or intriguing unless you are going to let the player interact with it eventually.

16. Don’t underestimate the importance of music, voice acting, and sound effects.

Music sets the mood and the emotional state for your game. Sound effects make your images come to life. Great character voices are so very important. Be especially careful whom you cast as your main characters. A miscast lead character with an irritating or otherwise inappropriate voice can ruin an otherwise successful game. Great casting choices, on the other hand, elevate a pretty good game to a higher level.

17) Games are about wish fulfillment, so don’t let the gameplay feel mundane or like work.

The player doesn’t want to be reminded of his life, he wants to do something exciting for the short period of time he is playing your game, whether it’s saving the world or just wearing someone else’s shoes for awhile. Some games let you play the hero, while others, such as The Sims revolve around more mundane activity, but players get to be someone else and do things they couldn’t or wouldn’t do in real life. That is the aspect of wish fulfillment. You’ll notice that there is no expansion pack called The Sims: Commute to Work.

18.Make the quests clear, cogent and manageable.

If the player asks at the beginning of the game “what do I do?” you have a serious problem. Whether it’s a mentor sending players toward the adventure, a character’s plea for help, or putting the player character’s butt on the line, something needs to clearly propel them in the right direction. In the Monkey Island games there is always the good ole’ Voodoo Lady to remind the player of his goals. Cogency means clear and logical. So, if I give the old man a sacred root he will tell me about the secret entrance to the castle. That is pretty straight forward. But if I have to push him over a log so his arm accidentally triggers the secret latch to the passageway, then things are getting a little muddled and confusing. Why can’t the player push the lever himself? How is the player supposed to know that this is going to happen in order to be motivated to try it in the first place? Make sure the goal is manageable. In Full Throttle, in order to escape the town of Mellonweed Ben has to get three things: gas, new forks for his chopper, and a blowtorch. This is a manageable quest. But let’s say for a moment that Ben also needed to get grease for his chain, light bulbs for his head light, spark plugs, a catalytic converter etc. That might be too much, and too hard to manage. Eventually, players will start to forget which quest they are actually on and get bored with the lack of real progress.

19.Don’t waste the players’ money with multiple solutions to a single puzzle.

If you animate both solutions the player is probably only going to see one of those animations, but he paid for both when he bought the game. However, do provide payoffs for failed attempts-this is a great chance to build character. If there are obvious (but incorrect) solutions that most players will try, make sure there are some entertaining animations of the Player Character failing. Players will be bored out of their minds if your character stands there and says, “That won’t work” to all but the correct answer.

20.Never give the player a tool that can too easily be used to solve a number of puzzles (e.g. a gun, some dynamite, a blowtorch).

Make the items very puzzle specific-unique to that problem. Also, make sure it seems somewhat reasonable within the fiction that items like these wouldn’t be available to your character (you wouldn’t want a game whose central character was a mobster, if you are going to have him solving lots of obscure lock-and-key puzzles. He’d most likely have a gun). In Full Throttle the designers knew allowing Ben to hold onto the blowtorch would let him get into the junkyard and the gas tower, and generally cause a big ruckus. So to prevent this, as soon as the player finds the blowtorch, the game cuts to Mo’s shop and plays a cinematic of Ben handing it over to help with the repairs. There was never an opportunity for the player to use the blowtorch to solve puzzles.

21.Have fun.

If you aren’t having fun with your game, most likely your players won’t either. If you enjoy what you’re doing and like the work you’re producing, it will probably show in the final product.(Source:adventuredevelopers


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