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解析游戏定义及其趣味组成要素

发布时间:2011-12-20 20:12:07 Tags:,,,,

作者:Greg Costikyan

目前市场上存在各种类型的游戏,比如电脑游戏、网络游戏、街机游戏、邮件和电子邮件游戏、战争游戏、卡片游戏、RPG桌游和自由模式游戏等。当然,还有彩弹游戏、虚拟现实游戏、运动和赛马等,这些都是游戏。

那么,这些游戏之间是否存在共同点呢?什么是游戏?你要如何分辨优秀游戏和差劲游戏呢?

所有人都可能会在体验过游戏后产生“这是款优秀游戏”的想法。但是,这就好比在你翻过书本最后一页后感慨道:“这是本不错的书。”想法或许是正确的,但这并不能帮助你写出更好的书。

作为游戏设计师,我们需要找到方法来分析游戏,努力理解它们,理解游戏中发挥作用的内容,理解是哪些东西让游戏变得有趣。

我们需要一种至关重要的语言。因为这是种新形式的语言,所以需要我们去发明。

什么是游戏?

游戏不是谜题

在《The Art of Computer Game Design》中,Chris Crawford将自己认为的“游戏”与“谜题”相对比。谜题是静态的,它们向“玩家”呈现的是可以通过线索的帮助得到解决的逻辑结构。相比之下,“游戏”不是静态的,会随玩家的动作而改变。

有些谜题显然符合上述特征,没有人会认为纵横填字谜题是款“游戏”。但是,根据Crawford的说法,有些“游戏”只是谜题而已,比如由Lebling和Blank制作的《Zork》。解决谜题是该游戏的惟一目标:寻找对象并用特别方式来使用它们,让游戏状态发生希望得到的改变。没有对手,没有角色扮演,没有需要管理的资源,胜利是解决谜题的惟一结果。

事实上,《Zork》并非完全静态,角色在场景中转移,各场景中允许采取的动作各不相同,存货随动作改变。从整体上来看,如果纵横填字谜是100%谜题的话,那么《Zork》就是90%的谜题和10%的游戏混合体。

几乎每款游戏都带有某种程度的解谜成分,甚至纯军事策略游戏也要求玩家解决谜题,比如如何用手上的单位开展最优化的攻击。要完全消除解谜成分,那么就需要游戏中几乎全是探索内容,比如带有做决定和探索等游戏元素的CD-ROM互动故事书《Grandma and Me》。点击屏幕上的物体会产生有趣的音效和动画,但是没有可供“解决”的东西,事实上该产品毫无策略性可言。

简而言之,谜题是静态的,而游戏是互动的。

游戏不是玩具

根据Will Wright的说法,他的《模拟城市》并非游戏,而是玩具。我们可以认为Wright提供的只是个球,它可能有许许多多的有趣用途,需要你去探索。你可以拍打、旋转、抛掷和运球。而且,如果你愿意的话,你可以将其用在游戏中,比如足球和篮球比赛等。但是游戏的本质并非玩具,而是覆盖于玩具之外的一套玩家确定的目标。

SimCity(from highpointtwo.blogspot.com)

SimCity(from highpointtwo.blogspot.com)

 

《模拟城市》也是如此。与许多电脑游戏相同的是,它创造出玩家可以操控的世界,但是游戏缺乏目标使之看起来不像真正的游戏。你或许会为自己选择一个目标,比如努力构建起没有贫民区的城市。但是《模拟城市》游戏本身没有胜利条件,没有目标,它是个软件玩具。

玩具是互动的,但是游戏需要有目标。

游戏不是故事

游戏设计中经常会提到故事这种互动文学,角色扮演可以创造出故事。游戏与故事有关,这种想法深深扎根于设计师的心中。这种想法理应受到挑战。

线性化是故事的本质。尽管许多角色可能会苦苦思索所需做出的决定,但是我们每次阅读故事所看到的决定都是不变的,而且结果往往也是相同的。事实上,这正是故事的力量所在,作者精心地选择了角色、事件、决定和结果来构建最强大的故事。如果角色做了其他的决定,故事或许就不会那么有趣。

游戏的本质是非线性化。游戏的结局与玩家所做的决定有关。玩家在不同游戏中做出不同选择完全是合理的。如果你制作的游戏更像是故事,也就是说更为线性化并且可供玩家做出的选择较少,那么游戏性就会受到影响。

你之所以会购买书籍或观看电影,是因为其中有着绝妙的故事。但是如果设计师告诉你“我不希望你们做出其他选择,因为这会破坏游戏中的故事”,你会有何反应?他的想法或许是正确的,只是不适合这个行业。游戏不是在讲述故事。

游戏往往可以成功借鉴小说中的元素。角色扮演游戏需要以角色为基础,电脑冒险和LARP(游戏邦注:全称为“真人角色扮演”)游戏往往需要通过情节来推动。增加叙事紧张感对许多游戏来说也是种相当有用的做法。但是,如果过于注重故事情节,就会限制到玩家动作和做其他决定的自由。

该领域中的超文本小说运动显得很有趣。超文本本质上并非线性化,因而传统叙事完全不适用于超文本作品。超文本小说作者和传统故事作者一样努力探索人类存在的本质,但是其使用的方式允许多观点、时间跳跃和读者架构体验的存在。超文本小说有些方面与游戏设计相同,有些方面与传统叙事相同。如果超文本小说将来会取得艺术上的成功,那么助其一臂之力的是新的叙事形式,而这种形式很难将其称之为“故事”。

故事是线性的,而游戏不是。

游戏需要参与

在传统的艺术形式呈现中,受众是被动的。当你欣赏绘画作品时,你可能会感受到其中的想法,你可能还会感受到艺术家表达意愿之外的东西,但是在体验的构建上,你的职责显得微不足道,因为负责绘画的是艺术家。你只是在被动接受。

当你去观看电影、电视或戏剧的时候,你只是坐在位置上看和听而已。你可以对作品有某种程度的解读,但是依然只是受众而已。你只是在被动接受。艺术是由其他人创造的。

当你在阅读书籍时,场景和画面在你的脑中构建,而不是在书本纸张上。但是,你仍然只是在被动接受作者的言辞而已。

趾高气扬的艺术师耻于将自己的才华与平民分享,这种做法显然过于专横。文艺复兴已经过去200年之久,为何我们仍然要采用有着如此贵族气息的形式呢?我们需要与时俱进的形式,允许普通人创造出自有艺术体验的形式。

于是,我们有了游戏。游戏有一定的规则,但是玩家使用这些规则可以创造出属于自己的结果。这就像是John Cage的音乐,他为其他音乐师编写主题。游戏正是如此,设计师负责提供主题,而音乐由玩家来谱写。

传统艺术形式的呈现对象是被动受众,游戏却需要玩家积极的参与。

那么,什么是游戏呢?

游戏是参与者做出决定,通过游戏象征来管理资源以实现目标的艺术形式,这里的参与者就是游戏玩家。

做出决定

我用这个术语来替代“互动”。我们被告知的事情是,未来处处充满互动。

电灯开关也算是种互动。你打开开关,电灯随之打开。你关闭开关,电灯也就关闭。这就是互动。但是这种互动并不有趣。

所有的游戏都是互动,游戏状态会随玩家的动作而改变。如果不会发生这种关联性改变的话,那么就不称之为游戏,只能算作是谜题。

但是互动本身并没有价值。互动必须有目标。

假设我们有个可以互动的产品,某个时刻我们面临选择:既可以选择A,也可以选择B。

那么,什么条件下选择A比较好呢?或者说B在某些条件下是否有可能比A更好?选择中需要考虑哪些因素?需要管理哪些资源?最终目标是什么?

这样看来,我们讨论的并非“互动”,我们正在讨论的是做出决定。

游戏之所以可以成为游戏,是因为玩家需要在体验过程中做出决定。以象棋为例,让游戏富有吸引力的层面很少,没有模拟元素,没有角色扮演,连颜色的种类都很少。但是,象棋的精华在于玩家双方需要做出决定。规则和目标都很清晰,要获得胜利,你需要思考的不仅仅是当下的移动。在玩家决定方面的精妙设计是象棋获得成功的原因所在。

玩家在游戏中的动作是什么呢?根据媒介的不同,玩家动作也有所不同。根据游戏的不同,玩家需要投骰子、与好友交流或敲打键盘。但是在每款游戏中,他都在做出决定。

玩家每时每刻都在考虑游戏状态,这种游戏状态可能是他在屏幕上看到的东西,可能是游戏刚刚告诉他的信息,抑或是对棋盘上棋子的位置安排。然后,他考虑自己的目标以及可用的游戏资源。还需要考虑他的对手,以及他必须与之战斗的力量。他努力通过这些来做出最好的决定和动作。

这个过程的关键是什么呢?目标,对手,资源管理和信息。

那么在游戏中,玩家究竟做出的是何决定呢?

目标

《模拟城市》没有目标,它还算是游戏吗?

不,正如设计师所声称的那样,它只是个玩具。

那么,长期维持兴趣的惟一方法就是通过设定目标将其转变为游戏,也就是找到自己的目标。尽可能地构建最大型的都市,让城市居民对你的仰慕达到最大化,构建单纯依靠公共交通作为运输手段的城市。无论你选择的是何种目标,你已经通过此举将其转变为游戏。

即便如此,软件并不会支持你的目标。它在设计时并没有考虑你的目标。尝试用没有具体目标的软件来实现你的目标,可能遭遇到难以想象的困难。

因为游戏没有目标,所以《模拟城市》很容易让玩家厌烦。相比之下,Sid Meier和Bruce Shelley的《文明》这款模仿前者的游戏有着明确的目标,因而更为吸引玩家。

文明(from direct2drive.com)

文明(from direct2drive.com)

你可能会说:“那角色扮演游戏又怎样呢?此类游戏也没有胜利条件。”

确实,这类游戏没有胜利条件。但是,它们有目标,游戏中有数量众多的目标可供玩家选择。完成GM刚刚强加给你的探索任务,重新建设帝国以避免文明最终的覆灭,获得心灵上的完美升华。

假如某些原因导致玩家失去了目标,他们在短时间内很快找到新目标。否则,他们就只能百无聊赖地坐在酒馆中抱怨游戏的无聊,直到看到兽人出现并努力想办法将其击败。

于是,他们有了这个目标。

如果你没有目标的话,那么你的决定就是毫无意义的。选择A和选择B没有区别,打出这张牌和打出那张牌效果相同。

要让决定产生影响,要让游戏变得有意义,你需要有努力的方向,也就是目标。

玩家的目标是什么呢?游戏能够支撑多个不同目标的存在?玩家可以使用哪些工具来实现他们的不同目标呢?

对手

有些游戏的竞争性过强。为何我们不能制作“协作游戏”呢?

“协作游戏”往往极具吸引力,我可以为此而放弃《格斗之王》。

但是,我们是否真正理解了竞争?

可以说是,也可以说不是。许多玩家确实怀揣有将他人击败的想法,象棋玩家在这方面表现得尤为明显,但是,真正的有趣之处在于通过抗争实现目标。

以上句子中,最重要的词是:抗争。

假设有款游戏叫做《Plucky Little England》,模拟了第二次世界大战中法国陨落后英国面临的态势。你的目标是维持自由和民主,打败敌对势力。你可以选择的做法有:投降或与抗争希特勒的侵略。

如果你选择B,那么游戏会祝贺你获得胜利!

你获得了胜利,是否会对此感到满意呢?

当然,我们丝毫感受不到胜利的喜悦。这种胜利来得太容易,不是吗?没有任何抗争的过程。

在玩家面对面的双人游戏中,你的对手就是对立面,你要抗争他,游戏中有的是直接竞争。这是形成对立的最佳方法。意志坚定的人类对手是最难以克服的对手。但是直接竞争并非形成对立的惟一方法。

我们来看看小说的架构。标准叙事模型如下:角色A有个目标。他遇到了障碍B、C、D和E。他与这些障碍抗争,并在此过程中不断成长。最终,他解决了最后一个最为艰巨的障碍。

这些障碍都需要是敌人等真实对手吗?尽管设计良好的敌人算是最佳的障碍,但是游戏并不一定需要这些内容。大自然的力量、脾气不好的岳母和英雄自己的缺陷也都可以成为障碍。

游戏中也是如此。

在多数RPG中,“对手”包括非玩家角色,游戏希望你能够同其他玩家合作。在许多电脑游戏中,“对手”包括某些你必须解决的谜题。在LARP中,“对手”往往是找到拥有你所需线索、道具和特殊能力的玩家所历经的重重困难。在多数单人游戏中,你的“对手”是随机元素,或者一套你需要应付的半随机算法。

无论你为玩家设定了何种目标,都必须让玩家通过努力才能实现目标。让玩家相互对立是种可行方法,但不限于此。即便玩家在游戏中已经有对手,加入其他障碍也能够增加游戏的丰富性和情感吸引力。

期望“协作游戏”就等同于期望游戏抗争的结束。但这种游戏可能永远不会出现。生命的历程就是人类需要与各种障碍抗争来获得生存和发展。抗争永无休止。游戏失去了抗争就等同于死亡。

那么,提供对手的是什么呢?是什么让游戏具有抗争性呢?

资源管理

毫无意义的决定并不有趣,还记得上文所举的《Plucky Little England》吗?

玩家所做的并不能算是真正意义上的决定,难道不是吗?

我们来看看Robert Harris的《Talisman》。你需要在每个回合投掷骰子,点数决定移动步数。你可以围绕着轨道向左或向右移动。

这看起来比传统的轨道游戏要好点,其中含有选择的成分。但是99%的格子间并没有差别,或者说只有很小的差别。玩家的选择是毫无意义的。

让选择产生意义的方法是给予玩家可以管理的资源。“资源”可以是任何东西,包括装甲车、供应点、卡片、经验点、咒语、封地所有权、女角色的爱慕之情、金钱、食物、声誉和信息等。

如果游戏拥有1种以上的“资源”,那么决定就会变得更为复杂。如果我做了这个决定,我可以获得金钱和经验值,但是这样莉莎还会爱我吗?如果我去偷食物,固然有可以吃的东西,但是我也有可能被抓住,被砍掉手。如果我反对瓦鲁瓦,国王会分给我封地,但是教皇可能会将我逐出教会,使我在道德问题上陷入危机。

不仅存在复杂的决定,还存在有趣的决定。玩家对在有趣的游戏中做出有趣的决定。

资源必须在游戏中起到作用,如果上述例子中的道德问题是个毫无意义的东西,那么即便被逐出教会也无关紧要。但是,如果道德问题在游戏中有一定的作用,比如会影响到仆从的忠诚度或军队招募的难易度,那么玩家就需要进行更为细致的考量。“资源管理”意味着为追求目标而管理游戏元素。避免在游戏中出现丝毫不会对胜败产生影响的“资源”。

玩家管理的是何种资源?资源多样性是否充足到玩家需要在做决定时进行交易?资源是否让决定变得有趣?

游戏象征

你通过游戏象征影响游戏中的动作。游戏象征是所有你可以直接操控的实体。

在桌游中,棋子是游戏象征。在卡牌游戏中,卡牌就是游戏象征。在角色扮演游戏中,角色是游戏象征。在运动游戏中,你自己便是游戏象征。

“资源”和“象征”之间有何区别呢?资源指你必须有效管理来实现目标的东西,象征是你管理它们的方法。在桌面战争游戏中,攻击强度是资源,你的对抗是象征。在角色扮演游戏中,金钱是资源,使用金钱的角色是象征。

象征为何重要呢?因为如果你没有游戏象征,最终得到的是玩家无法输入大量内容的系统。Will Wright和Fred Haslam的《模拟地球》便是个例证。在《模拟地球》中,你设定某些参数后,看着游戏自动进行下去。你能做的事情非常少,没有可供操控的象征,没有可供管理的资源。所能改变的只是些许参数而已。这种游戏玩法并不是十分有趣。

为了让玩家产生出他可以在游戏过程中控制自己命运的感觉,你需要游戏象征。象征的数量越少,就必须越细节化地设计。角色扮演游戏只给予玩家单个象征,却布置了极为细节化的象征规则,这并非偶然之举。

玩家的象征是什么?这些象征有什么能力?它们可以使用哪些资源?是什么让它们显得有趣?

信息

不止一个电脑游戏设计师在谈话中告诉我他的游戏模拟的东西多么棒,但是我只能回答:“真的吗?你是怎么发现的?我丝毫感觉不到。”

假设在你制作的电脑战争游戏中,天气会影响到移动和防御。如果你不告诉玩家天气会产生影响,那么他们如何才能感受到这是种精妙的设计呢?如果玩家不知道,这种设计就不会影响到玩家的行为和决定。

或者你告诉玩家天气能够产生影响,但是玩家无法在游戏中分辨某时某刻的天气状况,比如下雨或下雪。那么,还是同样的问题,要如何让玩家认同这是种很棒的设计呢?

或者他能够分辨出天气状况而且他确实知道会对战斗产生影响,但是他不知道天气会造成何种影响,比如是让所有人的移动速度减半,还是只减慢在田地中移动的单位而不影响在路面行走的单位。这种设计尽管比上述要好,但仍不全面。

界面必须向玩家提供相关信息。而且,玩家必须拥有做出明智决定的足够信息。

这并不意味着玩家必须知道所有内容,隐藏信息也是非常有用的。在单位真正参与战斗之前不了解他们的实力,这是合理的,但是如果是这种情况,必须让玩家知道单位能力的大概范围。不知道如果尝试翻牌的话会得到哪些牌,这是合理的设计,但是必须要让玩家知道翻到所需牌的概率。

除此之外,界面不可提供过多的信息,尤其是那些基于时间的游戏。如果天气、补给状况、指挥官情绪、军队的疲劳程度等会影响到我下个决定的记过,而我必须在接下来5秒的时间内做出决定,通过下拉菜单和查看屏幕需要5分钟的时间才能够找到所有的相关信息,那么这些信息的提供依然是无用的。即便我可以了解到这些信息,但是我无法根据它们来做出合理的决定。

我们来看看电脑冒险游戏,此类游戏往往在信息呈现上出现偏差。“要通过Gate of Thanatos,你需要用帽针来开锁。你可以在图书馆的地板上找到帽针。帽针长3像素,宽2像素,如果你的视力不错,就可以看到它,位于第12块和第13块地板之间,距屏幕上方约3英寸。你错过了吗?”

是的,我的确错过了。在冒险游戏中,不应当设置如此难的寻找所需物品的过程,也不应当设置因为3小时前的错误决定而导致你无法获得胜利。当然,谜题的解决方案也不应当是主观或荒谬的。

接下来我们来看看自由形式游戏。在自由形式游戏中,玩家往往有个目标,需要找到许多东西才能够实现这个目标,我们将它们假设为A、B和C。自由形式游戏设计师最好确保A、B和C确实在游戏中存在,无论是其他角色知晓其位置,还是在游戏中流通的卡片上,反正它们必须存在。否则,玩家就没有实现目标的机会,而这样的游戏并不有趣。

基于玩家需要做出的决定,他们需要何种信息呢?游戏是否在玩家需要的时候提供恰当的信息?普通玩家能否弄清楚他们所需的信息以及获得的途径?

强化游戏的其他内容

外交

如果没有努力没有对手,那么目标的实现是毫无意义的,但这并不意味着所有的决定都必须是零和的。只要涉及多个玩家,如果游戏中含有外交内容,那么游戏势必会得到加强。

游戏许可玩家互相帮助的外交,这种帮助可能是直接的,比如联合起来对付共同的敌人。并非所有的多人游戏都会这么设计,比如Charles B. Darrow的《大富翁》中就不存在能够帮助或妨碍他人的有效方法。“我们一起把Joe消灭”或“你是个新手,我会帮你脱离困境”这种想法是毫无意义的,因为不存在可以采用的有效做法。

有些游戏允许外交,但是对此进行部分限制。在Lawrence Harris的《轴心国与同盟国》中,玩家可以在有限的程度互相帮助,但是所有人自游戏开始后不能改变自己的阵营,所以外交并非游戏中的关键成分。

axis-allies(from pc.gamespy.com)

axis-allies(from pc.gamespy.com)

 

鼓励外交的方法之一是提供多个目标。如果你的目标是寻找约柜(游戏邦注:指的是一个神秘的柜子,据说里面藏有两块石版,这石版就是由摩西从山上带下来的十诫,藏在古代犹太教的圣殿里面),而我想要杀戮纳粹分子,同时约柜目前在纳粹分子手上,那么我们可以合作实现各自的目标。或许我们的联盟会在法国抵抗军获得约柜后土崩瓦解,我们开始变得对立,但事实上,正是这种状态变化使游戏变得更为有趣。

但是,当玩家之间是直接对立关系时,游戏也可以鼓励外交。最棒的外交游戏当然是Calhammer的《外交家》,游戏中的胜利往往属于最棒的外交家而不是最棒的战略家。游戏中的“支持”命令极为关键,某个玩家的军队可以在战斗中为其他玩家提供援助,游戏鼓励玩家结盟。

联盟不会永久地持续下去,这是必然的。俄罗斯和奥地利可以结盟来消灭土耳其,但是他们两者间只能有一个赢家。最终,结盟的两者势必会互相攻伐。

所以,玩家需要找到盟友,保全他们的安全,说服敌人改弦易辙。如果同盟国之间开始产生利益冲突,那么外交便终止。

电脑游戏多数是单人游戏,这样他们只能容许玩家同NPC和电脑对手开展外交,通常情况下这并不会十分游戏。网络游戏本质上带有外交性,而随着网络游戏变得越来越流行,我们会发现多数电脑设计社区的开发者完全忽视了这点。举个例子,当互动电视网络计划者谈及游戏时,他们几乎只谈论下载卡盒游戏(游戏邦注:如任天堂和世嘉的游戏)的可能性。他们之所以这样做,完全是出于商业原因:玩家每年在卡盒游戏上花费的资金达到数十亿,他们希望能够在这方面有所动作。他们似乎并没有意识到网络能够承载全然不同的游戏类型,同样也有获得数十亿营业额的潜力,这才是真正的商业机遇。

玩家要如何帮助或妨碍他人?他们做出此等动作有和动机?他们能够交易哪些资源?

色彩

《大富翁》是款有关房地产开发的游戏。这样说对吗?

这显然是不对的,真正的房地产开发者会对这种说法嗤之以鼻。有关房地产开发的游戏需要建设贷款、房地产企业联合组织和工会运作以及行贿市政监管员等方面的规则。《大富翁》与房地产开发并无关联。你可以采用同样的规则,更换棋盘、棋子和卡片,它就可以变成太空探索之类的游戏。

monopoly(from slidetoplay.com)

monopoly(from slidetoplay.com)

 

《大富翁》并非真正的房地产开发游戏,但是它有着房地产游戏的色彩:资产、小型塑料房屋和旅馆、金钱。而这是游戏吸引力的重要组成部分。

色彩能够在游戏中起到很大作用,模拟第二次世界大战的《轴心国与同盟国》事实上并不卓著。但是,就其色彩而言,游戏中有数百万的小型飞机、战舰和坦克,发出隆隆声的骰子,渲染出整个世界正处在战争中。游戏几乎只靠色彩来运转。

壮丽的场景、细节化和地域感能够显著增加游戏的情感诉求。

这个方面并非游戏之所以能够被称为游戏的原因,Nova的原版《轴心国与同盟国》事实上与Milton Bradley的版本相同。只是前者使用的是粗糙的纸质地图,计数器相当难看,而且包装盒也很丑陋。我只看过一次就把它放在一边。

然而,Milton Bradley的版本用了许多小的塑料棋子,这吸引玩家们不断去体验游戏。尽管两者算是相同的游戏,但后者的色彩要好得多。

游戏如何展现其场景的气氛、环境和盛况呢?你能够采取何种方式让游戏显得更具色彩化?

模拟

许多游戏中并没有模拟成分。东方游戏围棋用的只是些放在格子中的小石头而已。这显得十分抽象。John Horton Conway的《Life》,尽管游戏名称让人浮想联翩,但是它仅仅是让玩家在数学领域中探索而已。

这样的设计并没有不当之处。

但是,色彩能够增添游戏的吸引力。而模拟是提供色彩的方法。

假设出于某些原因,有关滑铁卢的游戏能够拥有极大的商业吸引力。如果我愿意的话,可以以《大富翁》为原型,将“Park Place”替换为“Quatre Bras”,将旅馆替换为塑料士兵,然后将游戏名改变为《滑铁卢》。这样新的游戏就诞生了。

但是,难道模拟战斗场景不会让游戏变得更好吗?看到大队士兵在行军,听到枪炮声,这难道不会让游戏更具吸引力吗?

或者以我设计的角色扮演游戏《星球大战》为例。我本可以通过改造Gygax和Arneson的《龙与地下城》来制作新游戏,把原游戏中的单位替换为爆破手等。但是我没有这么做,我选择了模拟同名电影的做法,鼓励玩家尝试电影中的表演,使用系统来呈现与电影中相似的气氛和环境。

模拟还有其他的价值。其一,它可以提升角色认同。以《大富翁》为原型设计的《滑铁卢》并不能让玩家产生自己就是惠灵顿和拿破仑的感觉,Kevin Zucker的《Napoleon’s Last Battles》效果要好得多,游戏强迫玩家去思考角色所面临的战略问题。

其二,它可以允许玩家洞察到仅仅通过叙事无法呈现的情境。它允许玩家探索不同的结果,并因此对模拟的主题有更深层次的了解。在玩过有关滑铁卢的十多款不同游戏之后,我对这场战斗有了更深的了解,知道事件发生的缘由和拿破仑发动战争的本质,这远比我阅读大量同主题书籍要好得多。

模拟几乎总是要比开拓色彩主题要更为复杂。因而,它并不适合所有的游戏。但是如果可以使用,这项技术能够展现出强大的力量。

模拟元素能够如何强化游戏呢?

遭遇的多样化

“你只是运气好罢了。”

这是句藐视他人的话,指对方的获胜仅仅是运气好。带有运气成分的游戏的质量显然不及那些需要技巧和聪明才智来获得胜利的游戏。这种想法是对的吗?

不一定。

游戏中的“随机元素”永远不具有完全的随机性。它们的随机有一定的可能性范围。在桌面战争游戏中,我做出攻击,我可以查看战斗结果表格。我知道可能出现何种结果以及意愿结果出现的可能性。我所冒的风险可以计算出来。在整个游戏过程中,我投入数十次甚至数百次的骰子,随机性起到很大作用,“随机元素”仅仅是种方法而已。除了某些特别情况外,我的胜利或失败是基于战略举措,而不是基于掷骰子中的运气。

随机性确实有用,是提供多样化遭遇的方法之一。

同样的东西不断重复会显得单调乏味,玩家喜欢遭遇到意料之外的事情。所以,游戏进程中必须发生各种不同事情,这样玩家遭遇的东西总是会有些许不同之处。

在象棋之类的游戏中,“不同之处”就是棋子位置组合的无穷变化。在Richard Garfield的《万智牌:魔法师之旅》之类的游戏中,卡牌的种类很多,它们的出现顺序是随机的,卡牌的结合也是随机的。在Arneson和Gygax的《龙与地下城》中,怪物、咒语的种类极为丰富,游戏控制者还会为玩家构建各种新的情境。

如果游戏的多样化不足,玩家很快就会感到厌烦。这正是没有人会玩两次图像冒险游戏的原因所在,对于首次游戏过程来说,其多样化是足够的,但是下次玩游戏时你接触到的是同样的内容。这也是为何单人卡牌游戏《Patience》在如此短的时间内就令玩家生厌的原因所在,你不断重复做着同样的事情,一段时间后重新洗牌就不足以重新激起你的兴致。

玩家在这款游戏中会遭遇哪些东西?是否存在足够的东西让他们去探索和发现?是否存在多样化?我们要如何增加遭遇的多样化?

身份认同

“角色认同”是小说的普遍主题。作者想要让读者喜欢上主角,认同主角的做法,关心主角的遭遇。角色认同为故事赋予了情感力量。

这种情况在游戏中同样存在。从某种程度上来说,你鼓励玩家关注自己这一方的情况,认同他们在游戏中的身份,由此增加游戏的情感冲击力。

最极端的例子就是运动,在运动中,你的“身份”就是自己。你亲身站在棒球场上,获胜或失败对你很重要,你在击球的时候可以感觉得到自己的动作。这场比赛对你来说很重要。

正是因为这种重要性的存在,才使运动赛场上的斗殴和谩骂屡见不鲜。正是因为这种重要性的存在,才使我们拥有了“运动道德”这种传统文化,努力避免不愉快的感觉在赛场上发泄出来。

角色扮演游戏稍显抽象,角色并非你自己,但是你在角色上投入了大量的时间和精力。它是你惟一的象征,是你游戏中身份的代表。角色扮演游戏玩家之间也会发生谩骂甚至斗殴,虽然与运动相比出现较少。

当玩家只有单个象征时,让玩家识别他们的游戏身份是很简单的。少数人会因为在象棋中失去骑士或在战争游戏中失去步兵单位而感到极为悲伤。但即便是消极情绪,如果玩家能够认同自己这一方,那么依然可视为游戏的情感力量得到提升。

实现的方法之一是明晰玩家的观点。观点混淆是桌游设计师普遍存在的失败之处。比如,Richard Berg的《Campaigns for North Africa》声称极为真实地模拟了轴心国在非洲的战斗。但是对于玩家来说,游戏中需要花大量时间来考虑飞行员的定位和水源补给。Rommel的员工可能曾经为如此设计的不当之处而担心,但是Rommel显然并没有这样想过。你赞同哪一方的看法呢?这款游戏中的模拟真实性与细节层次两者并不相符。

你能够采取何种措施让玩家关注他的身份?是否存在某个特别重要的游戏特征?如何才能强化玩家对这种特征的认同?如果不存在这种特殊特征的话,那么身份的整体情感吸引力究竟如何?如何去强化这种吸引力?玩家在游戏中的“化身”是什么?他的观点是什么?

角色扮演

《英雄任务》被称为“角色扮演桌游”。在电脑的角色扮演游戏中,每个玩家控制的是单个角色,同样在《英雄任务》中,玩家控制的是棋盘上的单个塑料棋子。如果你控制的是单个角色,是否算是在“扮演角色”呢?正是这个特征使得“角色扮演”游戏获此名称吗?

前者的回答是肯定的,而后者的回答是否定的。

这个问题混淆了“身份识别”和“角色扮演”两个概念。我有可能认同游戏象征,但是无法感觉到自己正在扮演某个角色。

从某种意义上来说,角色扮演是在你接纳了身份的形象特征时才开始的。不同的玩家和不同的游戏可能通过不同的方法来实现这个目标:可能你尝试以角色的语言和节奏来说话;可能你说法的方式就好像感受到了角色的情感;可能你并未改变自己的说法方式,但是严肃地考虑“角色在这种情况下会怎么做”而不是“我接下来要怎么做”。

自然,角色扮演在角色扮演类游戏中很常见。但是它也可以出现在其他环境中,如果不在游戏线路中模仿西班牙口音,我就无法顺利打通Vincent Tsao的《Junta》。游戏让我觉得自己就像某破败共和国中的伟人,我开始扮演这个角色。

角色扮演之所以算得上是项强大的技术,原因有多种。它提升了身份认同,如果你能够像角色那样思考,那么你就更能够认同他。它提升了游戏的色彩,因为玩家开始融入游戏中,使得游戏世界显得鲜活和多姿多彩。而且,它还是游戏社交化的绝妙手段。

事实上,角色扮演同社交化间的联系是关键所在:前者是表现形式。在角色扮演游戏中,角色扮演者为了愉悦好友而表现。如果没有好友,那么这种表现就显得毫无意义。

这也是为何所谓的“电脑角色扮演游戏”并非真正角色扮演的原因所在。它们与角色扮演之间的联系同《英雄任务》差不多。也就是说,它们有着角色扮演的外衣:角色、装备、故事。但是却没有供玩家通过动作来个性化自己的机制。

这种情况的根源便是科技。电脑游戏是单人游戏,而所谓的单人玩家指的是没有观众。因而,电脑游戏不算是真正的角色扮演。

加上网络,你就可以制作出角色扮演游戏。因而,MUD能够如此流行。

玩家如何被引导到角色扮演中?系统允许或鼓励扮演的是何种类型的角色?

社交化

游戏历来将社交作为其主要用途。对于桥牌和猜字游戏的玩家来说,社交是首要目标,其次才是游戏。

奇怪的是,多数商业上成功的游戏本质上几乎都是单人游戏,比如基于光盘的电脑游戏和CD-ROM游戏等。曾几何时,我们对游戏玩家的印象是,许多人围坐在桌旁玩纸牌。现在的游戏玩家是,单个青少年坐在屏幕前摇动着手中的操纵杆。

pictionary(from miad.utrechtblog.com)

pictionary(from miad.utrechtblog.com)

 

但是同时,我们看到了角色扮演的发展,这些角色扮演的基础正是社交化。而且,我们看到多数成功占有市场的桌游几乎只能在社交场合中玩,比如《Trivial Pursuit》和《Pictionary》。

我不得不相信,多数电脑游戏的单人化只是暂时性的偏差,是科技发展的结果。随着网络的普及和带宽的提升,历史上游戏的传统作用将逐渐重现。

在设计任何游戏时考虑到游戏的社交用途以及系统如何鼓励或阻碍社交,这是很有用的。比如,几乎所有的网络平台都有在线版本的经典游戏,比如扑克和桥牌。但是,几乎在每个平台上,这些游戏都无法吸引到大量用户。

America Online是个例外,平台允许玩家进行即时聊天。他们的网络桥牌允许玩家之间相互交谈。因而,这款游戏变得很流行。

许多角色扮演桌游花过多精力考虑游戏的“现实性”,而在游戏的用户方面投入精力过少。如果每个战斗回合需要15分钟时间,整场战役需要4小时时间,那么战斗系统的超现实化还有何作用呢?这样会让玩家将大部分的时间花在投掷骰子和查看图表上,而不是社交化和交谈。这样的游戏还有什么意义呢?

游戏如何能够更好地鼓励社交化?

叙事紧张

荣获星云奖的作家Pat Murphy曾表示,情节的关键元素是“逐渐增加的紧张感”。也就是说,故事应当在发展过程中不断提升其吸引力,直至达到最终的高潮。

假设你是Yankees的粉丝。当然,你希望看到Yankees获胜。但是,如果你前往棒球场观看比赛,你难道真得愿意看到他们在首局便领先7分,最后以21比2获得胜利吗?是的,你确实希望他们能够获胜,但是上述胜法让比赛显得索然无趣。真正能够让你感到兴奋的,是你看到他们在比赛最后依然落后的情况下成功翻盘。也就是说,紧张感可以铸就有趣的游戏。

理想情况下,游戏的整个过程都应当紧张,但是游戏的末尾尤为重要。最艰难的问题和最大的障碍应当留到最后呈现。你不能总是确保所设计的游戏能够获此效果,尤其是那些直接竞争游戏:象棋高手和新手间的比赛丝毫看不到紧张态势。但是,对单人电脑游戏来说,应该可以确保游戏的每个阶段都包含些许挑战,玩家的目标直到最后才得以实现。

事实上,最普遍出现的游戏失败设计之一便是反高潮。紧张感最大化的阶段并没有出现在游戏末尾,而是位于游戏过程中的某个时刻。多数情况下,正是设计师未考虑到叙事紧张才导致这种现象。

我们要通过哪些做法来让游戏变得紧张呢?

总结

我们现在拥有足够的知识来回答开篇提出的问题。

各种形式的游戏间是否存在共同点?多数游戏确实有共同之处。所有的游戏都包含做决定和为实现目标的资源管理,包括象棋、《第七访客》和《超级马里奥兄弟》等。这是共同点是普遍存在的,正是它们定义了游戏这种媒介。

如何分辨优秀游戏和差劲游戏呢?真正的测试结果仍然需要从玩游戏中得到,但是现在我们有某些可以用来分析游戏吸引力的内容。象棋涉及到复杂和艰难的决定,万智牌中的遭遇类型极为丰富,轮盘赌有极具吸引力的目标。我们应该还可以通过上文所述内容对游戏进行更细节化的分析。

本文阐述的分析理论是否完美?答案是否定的,有些游戏并不含有上文中阐述的部分内容(游戏邦注:比如《Candyland》就不涉及做决定的成分)。

如果我们想要制作出堪称“艺术”的作品,我们必须开始考虑要如何实现这个目标,而不是单纯从商业化的方向考虑游戏设计。(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

I Have No Words & I Must Design

Greg Costikyan

There’s a lotta different kinds of games out there. A helluva lot. Cart-based, computer, CD-ROM, network, arcade, PBM, PBEM, mass-market adult, wargames, card games, tabletop RPGs, LARPs, freeforms. And, hell, don’t forget paintball, virtual reality, sports, and the horses. It’s all gaming.

But do these things have anything at all in common? What is a game? And how can you tell a good one from a bad one?

Well, we can all do the latter: “Good game, Joe,” you say, as you leap the net. Or put away the counters. Or reluctantly hand over your Earth Elemental card. Or divvy up the treasure. But that’s no better than saying, “Good book,” as you turn the last page. It may be true, but it doesn’t help you write a better one.

As game designers, we need a way to analyze games, to try to understand them, and to understand what works and what makes them interesting.

We need a critical language. And since this is basically a new form, despite its tremendous growth and staggering diversity, we need to invent one.

What Is a Game, Anyhow?

It’s Not a Puzzle.

In The Art of Computer Game Design, Chris Crawford contrasts what he call “games” with “puzzles.” Puzzles are static; they present the “player” with a logic structure to be solved with the assistance of clues. “Games,” by contrast, are not static, but change with the player’s actions.

Some puzzles are obviously so; no one would call a crossword a “game.” But, according to Crawford, some “games” a really just puzzles — Lebling & Blank’s Zork, for instance. The game’s sole objective is the solution of puzzles: finding objects and using them in particular ways to cause desired changes in the game-state. There is no opposition, there is no roleplaying, and there are no resources to manage; victory is solely a consequence of puzzle solving.

To be sure, Zork is not entirely static; the character moves from setting to setting, allowable actions vary by setting, and inventory changes with action. We must think of a continuum, rather than a dichotomy; if a crossword is 100% puzzle, Zork is 90% puzzle and 10% game.

Almost every game has some degree of puzzle-solving; even a pure military strategy game requires players to, e.g., solve the puzzle of making an optimum attack at this point with these units. To eliminate puzzle-solving entirely, you need a game that’s almost entirely exploration: Just Grandma and Me, a CD-ROM interactive storybook with game-like elements of decision-making and exploration, is a good example. Clicking on screen objects causes entertaining sounds and animations, but there’s nothing to ‘solve,’ in fact, no strategy whatsoever.

A puzzle is static. A game is interactive.

It’s Not a Toy.

According to Will Wright, his Sim City is not a game at all, but a toy. Wright offers a ball as an illuminating comparison: It offers many interesting behaviors, which you may explore. You can bounce it, twirl it, throw it, dribble it. And, if you wish, you may use it in a game: soccer, or basketball, or whatever. But the game is not intrinsic in the toy; it is a set of player-defined objectives overlaid on the toy.

Just so Sim City. Like many computer games, it creates a world which the player may manipulate, but unlike a real game, it provides no objective. Oh, you may choose one: to see if you can build a city without slums, perhaps. But Sim City itself has no victory conditions, no goals; it is a software toy.

A toy is interactive. But a game has goals.

It’s Not a Story.

Again and again, we hear about story. Interactive literature. Creating a story through roleplay. The idea that games have something to do with stories has such a hold on designers’ imagination that it probably can’t be expunged. It deserves at least to be challenged.

Stories are inherently linear. However much characters may agonize over the decisions they make, they make them the same way every time we reread the story, and the outcome is always the same. Indeed, this is a strength; the author chose precisely those characters, those events, those decisions, and that outcome, because it made for the strongest story. If the characters did something else, the story wouldn’t be as interesting.

Games are inherently non-linear. They depend on decision making. Decisions have to pose real, plausible alternatives, or they aren’t real decisions. It must be entirely reasonable for a player to make a decision one way in one game, and a different way in the next. To the degree that you make a game more like a story — more linear, fewer real options — you make it less like a game.

Consider: you buy a book, or see a movie, because it has a great story. But how would you react if your gamemaster were to tell you, “I don’t want you players to do that, because it will ruin the story”? He may well be right, but that’s beside the point. Gaming is NOT about telling stories.

That said, games often, and fruitfully, borrow elements of fiction. Roleplaying games depend on characters; computer adventures and LARPs are often drive by plots. The notion of increasing narrative tension is a useful one for any game that comes to a definite conclusion. But to try to hew too closely to a storyline is to limit players’ freedom of action and their ability to make meaningful decisions.

The hypertext fiction movement is interesting, here. Hypertext is inherently non-linear, so that the traditional narrative is wholly inappropriate to hypertext work. Writers of hypertext fiction are trying to explore the nature of human existence, as does the traditional story, but in a way that permits multiple viewpoints, temporal leaps, and reader construction of the experience. Something — more than hypertext writers know — is shared with game design here, and something with traditional narrative; but if hypertext fiction ever becomes artistically successful (nothing I’ve read is), it will be through the creation of a new narrative form, something that we will be hard-pressed to call “story.”

Stories are linear. Games are not.

It Demands Participation.

In a traditional artform, the audience is passive. When you look at a painting, you may imagine things in it, you may see something other than what the artist intended, but your role in constructing the experience is slight: The artist painted. You see. You are passive.

When you go to the movies, or watch TV, or visit the theater, you sit and watch and listen. Again, you do interpret, to a degree; but you are the audience. You are passive. The art is created by others.

When you read a book, most of it goes on in your head, and not on the page; but still. You’re receiving the author’s words. You’re passive.

It’s all too, too autocratic: the mighty artist condescends to share his genius with lesser mortals. How can it be that, two hundred years after the Revolution, we still have such aristocratic forms? Surely we need forms in spirit with the times; forms which permit the common man to create his own artistic experience.

Enter the game. Games provide a set of rules; but the players use them to create their own consequences. It’s something like the music of John Cage: he wrote themes about which the musicians were expected to improvise. Games are like that; the designer provides the theme, the players the music.

A democratic artform for a democratic age.

Traditional artforms play to a passive audience. Games require active participation.

So What Is a Game?

A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal.

Decision Making

I offer this term in an effort to destroy the inane, and overhyped, word “interactive.” The future, we are told, will be interactive. You might as well say, “The future will be fnurglewitz.” It would be about as enlightening.

A light switch is interactive. You flick it up, the light turns on. You flick it down, the light turns off. That’s interaction. But it’s not a lot of fun.

All games are interactive: The game state changes with the players’ actions. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be a game: It would be a puzzle.

But interaction has no value in itself. Interaction must have purpose.

Suppose we have a product that’s interactive. At some point, you are faced with a choice: You may choose to do A, or to do B.

But what makes A better than B? Or is B better than A at some times but not at others? What factors go into the decision? What resources are to be managed? What’s the eventual goal?

Aha! Now we’re not talking about “interaction.” Now we’re talking about decision making.

The thing that makes a game a game is the need to make decisions. Consider Chess: it has few of the aspects that make games appealing — no simulation elements, no roleplaying, and damn little color. What it’s got is the need to make decisions. The rules are tightly constrained, the objectives clear, and victory requires you to think several moves ahead. Excellence in decision making is what brings success.

What does a player do in any game? Some things depend on the medium. In some games, he rolls dice. In some games, he chats with his friends. In some games, he whacks at a keyboard. But in every game, he makes decisions.

At every point, he considers the game state. That might be what he sees on the screen. Or it might be what the gamemaster has just told him. Or it might be the arrangement on the pieces on the board. Then, he considers his objectives, and the game tokens and resources available to him. And he considers his opposition, the forces he must struggle against. He tries to decide on the best course of action.

And he makes a decision.

What’s key here? Goals. Opposition. Resource management. Information. Well talk about them in half a mo.

What decisions do players make in this game?

Goals

Sim City has no goals. Is it not a game?

No, as it’s own designer willingly maintains. It is a toy.

And the only way to stay interested in it for very long is to turn it into a game — by setting goals, by defining objectives for yourself. Build the grandest possible megalopolis; maximize how much your people love you; build a city that relies solely on mass transit. Whatever goal you’ve chosen, you’ve turned it into a game.

Even so, the software doesn’t support your goal. It wasn’t designed with your goal in mind. And trying to do something with a piece of software that it wasn’t intended to do can be awfully frustrating.

Since there’s no goal, Sim City soon palls. By contrast, Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley’s Civilization, an obviously derivative product, has explicit goals — and is far more involving and addictive.

“But what about roleplaying games?” you may say. “They have no victory conditions.”

No victory conditions, true. But certainly they have goals; lots of them, you get to pick. Rack up the old experience points. Or fulfill the quest your friendly GM has just inflicted on you. Or rebuild the Imperium and stave off civilization’s final collapse. Or strive toward spiritual perfection. Whatever.

If, for some reason, your player characters don’t have a goal, they’ll find one right quick. Otherwise, they’ll have nothing better to do but sit around the tavern and grouse about how boring the game is. Until you get pissed off and have a bunch of orcs show up and try to beat their heads in.

Hey, now they’ve got a goal. Personal survival is a good goal. One of the best.

If you have no goal, your decisions are meaningless. Choice A is as good as Choice B; pick a card, any card. Who cares? What does it matter?

For it to matter, for the game to be meaningful, you need something to strive toward. You need goals.

What are the players’ goals? Can the game support a variety of different goals? What facilities exist to allow players to strive toward their various goals?

Opposition

Oh, say the politically correct. Those bad, icky games. They’re so competitive. Why can’t we have cooperative games?

“Cooperative games” generally seem to be variants of “let’s all throw a ball around.” Oh golly, how fascinating, I’ll stop playing Mortal Kombat for that, you betcha.

But are we really talking about competition?

Yes and no; many players do get a kick out of beating others with their naked minds alone, which is at least better than naked fists. Chess players are particularly obnoxious in this regard. But the real interest is in struggling toward a goal.

The most important word in that sentence is: struggling.

Here’s a game. It’s called Plucky Little England, and it simulates the situation faced by the United Kingdom after the fall of France in World War II. Your goal: preserve liberty and democracy and defeat the forces of darkness and oppression. You have a choice: A. Surrender. B. Spit in Hitler’s eye! Rule Britannia! England never never never shall be slaves!

You chose B? Congratulations! You won!

Now, wasn’t that satisfying? Ah, the thrill of victory.

There is no thrill of victory, of course; it was all too easy, wasn’t it? There wasn’t any struggle.

In a two-player, head-to-head game, your opponent is the opposition, your struggle against him; the game is direct competition. And this is a first-rate way of providing opposition. Nothing is as sneaky and as hard to overcome as a determined human opponent. But direct competition isn’t the only way to do it.

Think of fiction. The ur-story, the Standard Model Narrative, works like this: character A has a goal. He faces obstacles B, C, D, and E. He struggles with each, in turn, growing as a person as he does. Ultimately, he overcomes the last and greatest obstacle.

Do these obstacles all need to be The Villain, The Bad Guy, The Opponent, The Foe? No, though a good villain makes for a first rate obstacle. The forces of nature, cantankerous mothers-in-law, crashing hard-drives, and the hero’s own feelings of inadequacy can make for good obstacles, too.

Just so in games.

In most RPGs, the “opposition” consists of non-player characters, and you are expected to cooperate with your fellow players. In many computer games, the “opposition” consists of puzzles you must solve. In LARPs, the “opposition” is often the sheer difficulty of finding the player who has the clue or the widget or the special power you need. In most solitaire games, your “opposition” is really a random element, or a set of semi-random algorithms you are pitted against.

Whatever goals you set your players, you must make the players work to achieve their goals. Setting them against each other is one way to do that, but not the only one. And even when a player has an opponent, putting other obstacles in the game can increase its richness and emotional appeal.

The desire for “cooperative games” is the desire for an end to strife. But there can be none. Life is the struggle for survival and growth. There is no end to strife, not this side of the grave. A game without struggle is a game that’s dead.

What provides opposition? What makes the game a struggle?

Managing Resources

Trivial decisions aren’t any fun. Remember Plucky Little England?

There wasn’t any real decision, was there?

Or consider Robert Harris’s Talisman. Each turn, you roll the die. The result is the number of spaces you can move. You may move to the left, or to the right, around the track.

Well, this is a little better than a traditional track game; I’ve got a choice. But 99 times out of a 100, either there’s no difference between the two spaces, or one is obviously better than the other. The choice is bogus.

The way to make choices meaningful is to give players resources to manage. “Resources” can be anything: Panzer divisions. Supply points. Cards. Experience points. Knowledge of spells. Ownership of fiefs. The love of a good woman. Favors from the boss. The good will of an NPC. Money. Food. Sex. Fame. Information.

If the game has more than one ‘resource,’ decisions suddenly become more complex. If I do this, I get money and experience, but will Lisa still love me? If I steal the food, I get to eat, but I might get caught and have my hand cut off. If I declare against the Valois, Edward Plantagenet will grant me the Duchy of Gascony, but the Pope may excommunicate me, imperilling my immortal soul.

These are not just complex decisions; these are interesting ones. Interesting decisions make for interesting games.

The resources in question have to have a game role; if ‘your immortal soul’ has no meaning, neither does excommunication. (Unless it reduces the loyalty of your peasants, or makes it difficult to recruit armies, or… but these are game roles, n’est-ce pas?) Ultimately, ‘managing resources’ means managing game elements in pursuit of your goal. A ‘resource’ that has no game role has nothing to contribute to success or failure, and is ultimately void.

What resources does the player manage? Is there enough diversity in them to require tradeoffs in making decisions? Do they make those decisions interesting?

Game Tokens

You effect actions in the game through your game tokens. A game token is any entity you may manipulate directly.

In a boardgame, it is your pieces. In a cardgame, it is your cards. In a roleplaying game, it is your character. In a sports game, it is you yourself.

What is the difference between “resources” and “tokens?” Resources are things you must manage efficiently to achieve your goals; tokens are your means of managing them. In a board wargame, combat strength is a resource; your counters are tokens. In a roleplaying game, money is a resource; you use it through your character.

Why is this important? Because if you don’t have game tokens, you wind up with a system that operates without much player input. Will Wright and Fred Haslam’s Sim Earth is a good example. In Sim Earth, you set some parameters, and sit back to watch the game play out itself. You’ve got very little to do, no tokens to manipulate, no resources to manage. Just a few parameters to twiddle with. This is mildly interesting, but not very.

To give a player a sense that he controls his destiny, that he is playing a game, you need game tokens. The fewer the tokens, the more detailed they must be; it is no coincidence that roleplaying games, which give the player a single token, also have exceptionally detailed rules for what that token can do.

What are the players’ tokens? What are these tokens’ abilities? What resources do they use? What makes them interesting?

Information

I’ve had more than one conversation with a computer game designer in which he tells me about all the fascinating things his game simulates — while I sit there saying, “Really? What do you know. I didn’t realize that.”

Say you’ve got a computer wargame in which weather affects movement and defense. If you don’t tell the player that weather has an effect, what good is it? It won’t affect the player’s behavior; it won’t affect his decisions.

Or maybe you tell him weather has an effect, but the player has no way of telling whether it’s raining or snowing or what at any given time. Again, what good is that?

Or maybe he can tell, and he does know, but he has no idea what effect weather has — maybe it cuts everyone’s movement in half, or maybe it slows movement across fields to a crawl but does nothing to units moving along roads. This is better, but not a whole lot.

The interface must provide the player with relevant information. And he must have enough information to be able to make a sensible decision.

That isn’t to say a player must know everything; hiding information can be very useful. It’s quite reasonable to say, “you don’t know just how strong your units are until they enter combat,” but in this case, the player must have some idea of the range of possibilities. It’s reasonable to say, “you don’t know what card you’ll get if you draw to an inside straight,” but only if the player has some idea what the odds are. If I might draw the Queen of Hearts and might draw Death and might draw the Battleship Potemkin, I have absoutely no basis on which to make a decision.

More than that, the interface must not provide too much information, especially in a time-dependent game. If weather, supply state, the mood of my commanders, the fatigue of the troops, and what Tokyo Rose said on the radio last night can all affect the outcome of my next decision, and I have to decide some time in the next five seconds, and it would take me five minutes to find all the relevant information by pulling down menus and looking at screens, the information is still irrelevant. I may have access to it, but I can’t reasonably act on it.

Or let’s talk about computer adventures; they often display information failure. “Oh, to get through the Gate of Thanatos, you need a hatpin to pick the lock. You can find the hatpin on the floor of the Library. It’s about three pixels by two pixels, and you can see it, if your vision is good, between the twelfth and thirteenth floorboards, about three inches from the top of the screen. What, you missed it?”

Yeah, I missed it. In an adventure, it shouldn’t be ridiculously difficult to find what you need, nor should victory be impossible just because you made a wrong decision three hours and thirty-eight decision points ago. Nor should the solutions to puzzles be arbitrary or absurd.

Or consider freeforms. In a freeform, a player is often given a goal, and achieving it requires him to find out several things — call them Facts A, B, and C. The freeform’s designer had better make damn sure that A, B, and C are out there somewhere — known to other characters, or on a card that’s circulating in the game — whatever, they have to be there. Otherwise, the player has no chance of achieving his goal, and that’s no fun.

Given the decisions players are required to make, what information do they need? Does the game provide the information as and when needed? Will reasonable players be able to figure out what information they need, and how to find it?

Other Things That Strengthen Games

Diplomacy

Achieving a goal is meaningless if it comes without work, if there is no opposition; but that doesn’t mean all decisions must be zero-sum. Whenever multiple players are involved, games are strengthened if they permit, and encourage, diplomacy.

Games permit diplomacy if players can assist each other — perhaps directly, perhaps by combining against a mutual foe. Not all multiplayer games do this; in Charles B. Darrow’s Monopoly, for instance, there’s no effective way either to help or hinder anyone else. There’s no point in saying, “Let’s all get Joe,” or “Here, you’re a novice, I’ll help you out, you can scratch my back later,” because there’s no way to do it.

Some games permit diplomacy, but not much. In Lawrence Harris’s Axis & Allies, players can help each other to a limited degree, but everyone is permanently Axis or permanently Allied, so diplomacy is never a key element to the game.

One way to encourage diplomacy is by providing non-exclusive goals. If you’re looking for the Ark of the Covenant, and I want to kill Nazis, and the Nazis have got the Ark, we can work something out. Maybe our alliance will end when the French Resistance gets the Ark, and we wind up on opposite sides, but actually, such twists are what make games fun.

But games can encourage diplomacy even when players are directly opposed. The diplomatic game par excellence is, of course, Calhammer’s Diplomacy, in which victory more often goes to the best diplomat than to the best strategist. The key to the game is the Support order, which allows one player’s armies to assist another in an attack, encouraging alliance.

Alliances never last, to be sure; Russia and Austria may ally to wipe out Turkey, but only one of them can win. Eventually, one will stab the other in the back.

Fine. It’s the need to find allies, retain them, and persuade your enemies to change their stripes that makes sure you’ll keep on talking. If alliances get set in stone, diplomacy comes to an end.

Computer games are almost inherently solitaire, and to the degree they permit diplomacy with NPC computer opponents, they generally don’t make it interesting. Network games are, or ought to be, inherently diplomatic; and as network games become more prevalent, we can expect most developers from the computer design community to miss this point entirely. As an example, when the planners of interactive TV networks talk about games, they almost exclusively talk about the possibility of downloading cart-based (Nintendo, Sega) games over cable. They’re doing so for a business reason: billions are spent annually on cart-based games, and they’d like a piece of the action. They don’t seem to realize that networks permit a wholly different kind of gaming, which has the potential to make billions in its own right — and that this is the real business opportunity.

How can players help or hinder each other? What incentives do they have to do so? What resources can they trade?

Color

Monopoly is a game about real estate development. Right?

Well, no, obviously not. A real estate developer would laugh at the notion. A game about real estate development needs rules for construction loans and real estate syndication and union work rules and the bribery of municipal inspectors. Monopoly has nothing to do with real estate development. You could take the same rules and change the board and pieces and cards and make it into a game about space exploration, say. Except that your game would have as much to do with space exploration as Monopoly has to do with real estate development.

Monopoly isn’t really about anything. But it has the color of a real estate game: named properties, little plastic houses and hotels, play money. And that’s a big part of its appeal.

Color counts for a lot: as a simulation of World War II, Lawrence Harris’s Axis & Allies is a pathetic effort. Ah, but the color! Millions of little plastic airplanes and battleships and tanks! Thundering dice! The world at war! The game works almost solely because of its color.

Or consider Chadwick’s Space 1899. The rules do nothing to evoke the Burroughsian wonders, the pulp action thrills, the Kiplingesque Victorian charms to be gained from the game’s setting. Despite a clean system and a detailed world, it is curiously colorless, and suffers for it.

Pageantry and detail and sense of place can greatly add to a game’s emotional appeal.

This has almost nothing to do with the game qua game; the original Nova edition of Axis & Allies was virtually identical to the Milton Bradley edition. Except that it had a godawful garish paper map, some of the ugliest counters I’ve ever seen, and a truly amateurish box. I looked at it once, put it away, and never looked at it again.

Yet the Milton Bradley edition, with all the little plastic pieces, still gets pulled out now and again… Same game. Far better color.

How does the game evoke the ethos and atmosphere and pageantry of its setting? What can you do to make it more colorful?

Simulation

Many games simulate nothing. The oriental folk-game Go, say; little stones on a grid. It’s abstract to perfection. Or John Horton Conway’s Life; despite the evocative name, it’s merely an exploration of a mathematical space.

Nothing wrong with that. But.

But color adds to a game’s appeal. And simulation is a way of providing color.

Suppose I think, for some reason, that a game on Waterloo would have great commercial appeal. I could, if I wanted, take Monopoly, change “Park Place” to “Quatre Bras” and the hotels to plastic soldiers, and call it Waterloo. It would work.

But wouldn’t it be better to simulate the battle? To have little battalions maneuvering over the field? To hear the thunder of guns?

Or take Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, which I designed. I could have taken Gygax & Arneson’s Dungeons & Dragons and changed it around, calling swords blasters and the like. But instead, I set out to simulate the movies, to encourage the players to attempt far-fetched cinematic stunts, to use the system itself to reflect something about the atmosphere and ethos of the films.

Simulation has other value, too. For one, it improves character identification. A Waterloo based on Monopoly would do nothing to make players think like Wellington and Napoleon; Kevin Zucker’s Napoleon’s Last Battles does much better, forcing players to think about the strategic problems those men faced.

And it can allow insight into a situation that mere narrative cannot. It allows players to explore different outcomes — in the fashion of a software toy — and thereby come to a gut understanding of the simulation’s subject. Having played at least a dozen different games on Waterloo, I understand the battle, and why things happened the way they did, and the nature of Napoleonic warfare, far better than if I had merely read a dozen books on the subject.

Simulating something almost always is more complicated that simply exploiting a theme for color. And it is not, therefore, for every game. But when the technique is used, it can be quite powerful.

How can elements of simulation strengthen the game?

Variety of Encounter

“You just got lucky.”

Words of contempt; you won through the vagaries of chance. A game that permits this is obviously inferior to ones where victory goes to the skilled and smart and strong. Right?

Not necessarily.

“Random elements” in a game are never wholly random. They are random within a range of possibilities. When, in a board wargame, I make an attack, I can look at the Combat Results Table. I know what outcomes are possible, and my chances of achieving what I want to achieve. I take a calculated risk. And over the whole game, I make dozens or hundreds of die-rolls; given so much reliance on randomness, the “random element” regresses to a mean. Except in rare cases, my victory or defeat will be based on my excellence as a strategist, not on my luck with the dice.

Randomness can be useful. It’s one way of providing variety of encounter.

And what does that mean?

It means that the same old thing all over again is fucking boring. It means that players like to encounter the unexpected. It means that the game has to allow lots of different things to happen, so there’s always something a little different for the players to encounter.

In a game like Chess, that “something different” is the ever-changing implications of the positions of the pieces. In a game like Richard Garfield’s Magic: The Gathering, it’s the sheer variety of cards, and the random order in which they appear, and the interesting ways in which they can be combined. In Arneson & Gygax’s Dungeons & Dragons, it’s the staggering variety of monsters, spells, etc., etc., coupled with the gamemaster’s ingenuity in throwing new situations at his players.

If a game has inadequate variety, it rapidly palls. That’s why no one plays graphic adventures more than once; there’s enough variety for a single game, but it’s the same thing all over again the next time you play. That’s why Patience, the solitaire cardgame, becomes dull pretty fast; you’re doing the same things over and over, and reshuffling the cards isn’t enough to rekindle your interest, after a time.

What things do the players encounter in this game? Are there enough things for them to explore and discover? What provides variety? How can we increase the variety of encounter?

Position Identification

“Character identification” is a common theme of fiction. Writers want readers to like their protagonists, to identify with them, to care what happens to them. Character identification lends emotional power to a story.

The same is true in games. To the degree you encourage playes to care about “the side,” to identify with their position in the game, you increase the game’s emotional impact.

The extreme case is sports; in sports, your “position” is you. You’re out there on the baseball diamond, and winning or losing matters, and you feel it deeply when you strike out, or smash the ball out of the park. It’s important to you.

So important that fistfights and bitter words are not uncommon, in every sport. So important that we’ve invented a whole cultural tradition of “sportsmanship” to try to prevent these unpleasant feelings from coming to the fore.

Roleplaying games are one step abstracted; your character isn’t you, but you invest a lot of time and energy in it. It’s your sole token and the sum total of your position in the game. Bitter words, and even fistfights, are not unknown among roleplayers, though rather rarer than in sports.

Getting players to identify with their game position is straightforward when a player has a single token; it’s harder when he controls many. Few people feel much sadness at the loss of a knight in Chess or an infantry division in a wargame. But even here, a game’s emotional power is improved if the player can be made to feel identification with “the side.”

One way to do that is to make clear the player’s point of view. Point of view confusion is a common failing of boardgame designers. For instance, Richard Berg’s Campaigns for North Africa claims to be an extraordinary realistic simulation of the Axis campaign in Africa. Yet you, as player, spend a great deal of time worrying about the locations of individual pilots and how much water is available to individual batallions. Rommel’s staff might worry about such things, but Rommel assuredly did not. Who are you supposed to be? The accuracy of the simulation is, in a sense, undermined, not supported, by the level of detail.

What can you do to make the player care about his position? Is there a single game token that’s more important than others to the player, and what can be done to strengthen identification with it? If not, what is the overall emotional appeal of the position, and what can be done to strengthen that appeal? Who “is” the player in the game? What is his point of view?

Roleplaying

HeroQuest has been termed a “roleplaying boardgame.” And, as in a roleplaying game, each player controls a single character which, in HeroQuest’s case, is a single plastic figure on the board. If you are a single character, are you not “playing a role?” And is the characterization of this game as a “roleplaying” game therefore justified?

No, to both questions.

The questions belie confusion between “position identification” and “roleplaying.” I may identify closely with a game token without feeling that I am playing a role.

Roleplaying occurs when, in some sense, you take on the persona of your position. Different players, and different games, may do this in different ways: perhaps you try to speak in the language and rhythm of your character. Perhaps you talk as if you are feeling the emotions your character talks. Perhaps you talk as you normally do, but you give serious consideration to “what my character would do in this case” as opposed to “what I want to do next.”

Roleplaying is most common in, naturally, roleplaying games. But it can occur in other environments, as well; I, for one, can’t get through a game of Vincent Tsao’s Junta without talking in a phony Spanish accent somewhere along the line. The game makes me think enough like a big man in a corrupt banana republic that I start to play the role.

Roleplaying is a powerful technique for a whole slew of reasons. It improves position identification; if you think like your character, you’re identifying with him closely. It improves the game’s color, because the players become partly responsible for maintaining the willing suspense of disbelief, the feeling that the game world is alive and colorful and consistent. And it is an excellent method of socialization.

Indeed, the connection with socialization is key: roleplaying is a form of performance. In a roleplaying game, roleplayers perform for the amusement of their friends. If there aren’t any friends, there’s no point to it.

Which is why “computer roleplaying games”, so-called, are nothing of the kind. They have no more connection with roleplaying than does HeroQuest. That is, they have the trappings of roleplaying: characters, equipment, stories. But there is no mechanism for players to ham it up, to characterize themselves by their actions, to roleplay in any meaningful sense.

This is intrinsic in the technology. Computer games are solitaire; solitaire gamers have, by definition, no audience. Therefore, computer games cannot involve roleplaying.

Add a network, and you can have a roleplaying game. Hence the popularity of MUDs.

How can players be induced to roleplay? What sorts of roles does the system permit or encourage?

Socializing

Historically, games have mainly been used as a way to socialize. For players of Bridge, Poker, and Charades, the game is secondary to the socialization that goes on over the table.

One oddity of the present is that the most commercially successful games are all solitary in nature: cart games, disk-based computer games, CD-ROM games. Once upon a time, our image of gamers was some people sitting around a table and playing cards; now, it’s a solitary adolescent, twitching a joystick before a flickering screen.

Yet, at the same time, we see the development of roleplaying, in both tabletop and live-action form, which depend utterly on socialization. And we see that the most successful mass-market boardgames, like Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary are played almost exclusively in social settings.

I have to believe that the solitary nature of most computer games is a temporary aberration, a consequence of the technology, and that as networks spread and their bandwidth increases, the historical norm will reassert itself.

When designing any game, it is worthwhile to think about the game’s social uses, and how the system encourages or discourages socialization. For instance, almost every network has online versions of classic games like poker and bridge. And in almost every case, those games have failed to attract much useage.

The exception: America Online, which permits real-time chat between players. Their version of network bridge allows for table talk. And it has been quite popular.

Or as another example, many tabletop roleplaying games spend far too much effort worrying about “realism” and far too little about the game’s use by players. Of what use is a combat system that is extraordinarily realistic, if playing out a single combat round takes fifteen minutes, and a whole battle takes four hours? They’re not spending their time socializing and talking and hamming it up; they’re spending time rolling dice and looking things up on charts. What’s the point in that?

How can the game better encourage socialization?

Narrative Tension

Nebula-award winning author Pat Murphy says that the key element of plot is “rising tension.” That is, a story should become more gripping as it proceeds, until its ultimate climactic resolution.

Suppose you’re a Yankees fan. Of course, you want to see the Yankees win. But if you go to a game at the ballpark, do you really want to see them develop a 7 point lead in the first inning and wind up winning 21 to 2? Yes, you want them to win, but this doesn’t make for a very interesting game. What would make you rise from your seat in excitement and joy is to see them pull out from behind in the last few seconds of the game with a smash homerun with bases loaded. Tension makes for fun games.

Ideally, a game should be tense all the way through, but especially so at the end. The toughest problems, the greatest obstacles, should be saved for last. You can’t always ensure this, especially in directly-competitive games: a chess game between a grandmaster and a rank beginner is not going to involve much tension. But, especially in solitaire computer games, it should be possible to ensure that every stage of the game involves a set of challenges, and that the player’s job is done only at the end.

In fact, one of the most common game failures is anticlimax. The period of maximum tension is not the resolution, but somewhere mid-way through the game. After a while, the opposition is on the run, or the player’s position is unassailable. In most cases, this is because the designer never considered the need for narrative tension.

What can be done to make the game tense?

They’re All Alike Under the Dice. Or Phosphors. Or What Have You.

We’re now equipped to answer the questions I posed at the beginning of this article.

Do all the myriad forms of gaming have anything in common? Most assuredly. All involve decision making, managing resources in pursuit of a goal; that’s true whether we’re talking about Chess or Seventh Guest, Mario Brothers or Vampire, Roulette or Magic: The Gathering. It’s a universal; it’s what defines a game.

How can you tell a good game from a bad one? The test is still in the playing; but we now have some terms to use to analyze a game’s appeal. Chess involves complex and difficult decisions; Magic has enormous variety of encounter; Roulette has an extremely compelling goal (money–the real stuff). More detailed analysis is possible, to be sure, and is left as an exercise for the reader.

Is the analytical theory presented here hermetic and complete? Assuredly not; there are games that defy many, though not all, of its conclusions (e.g., Candyland, which inolves no decision making whatsoever). And no doubt there are aspects to the appeal of games it overlooks.

It is to be considered a work in progress: a first stab at codifying the intellectual analysis of the art of game design. Others are welcome, even encouraged, to build on its structure — or to propound alternative theories in its defiance.

If we are to produce works worthy to be termed “art,” we must start to think about what it takes to do so, to set ourselves goals beyond the merely commercial. For we are embarked on a voyage of revolutionary import: the democrative transformation of the arts. Properly addressed, the voyage will lend granduer to our civilization; improperly, it will create merely another mediocrity of the TV age, another form wholly devoid of intellectual merit. (Source: costik.com)


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