作者：Altug Isigan

引言

大约在50年前，工程师Stephen Russell创造并在PDP-1小型机上运行了游戏《SpaceWar》（游戏邦注：这是世界上第一款真正意义上，可娱乐性质的电子游戏），同时Umberto Eco（意大利学者兼作家）发行了著作《The Open Work》（1962）。在书中，Eco将“开放性作品”定义为读者参与内容描述的行为。这些作品的作者们不仅邀请读者们帮他们阐述文本，而且还让他们在文本的构建中扮演着非常重要的角色。他们提供给读者一整套的规则和元素，并随机结合在一起创造出大量的文本变量。这就是我们将在本文中阐述的突变性，并且与故事叙述紧密地结合在一起。虽然我们能够在此看到各种变量，而当这些变量也能够单独出现时更像是一种美学体验。

游戏学认为，只有游戏才具有突变性。对于很多游戏学家来说，“叙述”（游戏邦注：他们将其视为一种“照稿子念的”内容）是违背游戏的突变属性。例如，Jesper Juul就曾经说过，如果你在游戏中使用了叙述，那就等于破坏了角色的突变性，从而影响游戏的进程。然而Eco的著作以及上述提到的文学作品都清晰地阐明了叙述性与突变性并非相互排斥的。这就使我们不得不重新思考“突变性”这一概念：我们是否能够认为这只是一种媒体的特定属性？是否存在这样一种媒体，能够在各种应用情况下都凸显其“突变性”？

我认为游戏学家在定义游戏的突变性时太过于草率。交互性就足以证实游戏系统是属于非线形过程。我从中看到了两个问题：

1）需要解释突变性行为模式。

2）是否可以人为地创造突变性而不是在游戏中自然地表现出来？

突变性行为和必要性上限

Berthold Brecht（游戏邦注：德国诗人及剧作家）曾经说过一句很经典的话：“在具有障碍的两点之间所存在的最短的一条线，便是曲线。”

curve(from gamasutra)

这个观点能够很好地阐明传统戏剧理论中所存在的矛盾。从技术上来讲，任何尝试着去解决这种矛盾的人都必须受到必要性的支配。必要性所针对的是一个事实是，总是有一股固定的力量推动着我们去寻找最佳方法解决我们所面临的矛盾。换句话说，必要性只允许一定“合理”且有意义的行动存在。如此，我们便只能使用非常少的可能性空间；而那些“无用”的部分将只能永远掩埋于地下不可能被发掘。这就意味着我们永远也不可能自由地漫步于一个开放的世界里，即使我们有能力这么做，因为我们的行动变成是一种受动机推动且充满目的性的行为。这种目标导向型便为突发性行为牢牢地套上一个框架模式。

戏剧理论着眼于动机引起的这些问题，并提出了以下问题：“为何角色不是径直地离开并忽视挑战？当到达决策节点时，为何角色会选择对游戏故事有益的内容？”为了更好地阐述这些内容，我将列举一款带有突变性特质的游戏：《俄罗斯方块》。

Tetris A to B(from gamasutra)

什么都不做的结果是沿着直线从A过渡到B。

curve(from gamasutra)

如果我们想要改变这个走势，我们可以画出一条曲线！

more curves(from gamasutra)

进行越多的尝试，我们便能够创造出更多曲线！

如此看来我们好像有很多突变情况和非线形方法。然而对我来说这里出现非线形结果其实非常狭隘。因为虽然我们每次的游戏过程都不一样，但是基本来看都是反反复复地从A点前进到B点。换句话说，系统本身的发展已经明确了，而玩家的行为也已经被塑造在一个成形的框架里了。

为什么呢？因为我们受到了必要性的推动。必要性并不允许过多的偏差以及非线形过程中所侧重的自由走法。必要性在整个实验过程中设下了一个无形的上限；我将其称之为“必要性上限”。

混沌理论将这种类型的游戏称之为非周期性行为案例，也就是稍微偏离线性走势的过程。每一个类似的“自由”迭代行为的出现都是受到既定力量的影响。在非周期性行为中存在着一种引子能够创造突发性行为，以便它能够朝着可预见的结果发展。

可以说在绝大多数电子游戏中，必要性就像是引子般的存在。因此在这种类型游戏下，突发性的玩家行为都是以套用模版的形式出现。在著作《On Certainty》中，Wittgenstein使用了一个隐喻的说法巧妙地描写了玩家是如何在这种引子理念下移动：“我并不能明确哪个方法较为合适。我只能从一个主题环绕的中心轴进行判断。尽管这个轴并不是固定的，但是围绕着它移动却能让我们感觉它是不动的。”必要性要求我们找到一个解决方法，而当我们移动并进行尝试时，我们的行动便能够帮助我们达到最终目标。

necessity(from gamasutra)

我们在此所面临的整体叙述架构都是可以预见的，属于线形机构且封闭的。因此我只能勉强将其称为“伪”非线形的“突变性”游戏：尽管本质是开放的，但是这些游戏都是围绕着相对狭隘的空间以及线形基础而形成。虽然本质是开放式的非线形行为，但是却更像是在不断重复一些相同事件的过程。

same sequence(from gamasutra)

受控制的突变性是一种设计成就

我的第二个问题是，是否存在这样一种媒体，能够在各种应用情况下都凸显其“突变性”？游戏难度与可能性空间之间的关系将告诉我们答案。关注下面的图表：

diagram(from gamasutra)

根据图表，我们可以发现在一定条件下，非线形系统可能变成线形系统，反之亦然。而这种看法似乎是在反驳突变性是游戏媒体独有的“属性”这一观点。的确，我们可以说在一定条件下，游戏能够避免出现突变性。换句话说，设计师能够合理设置并控制着突变性出现的情境。例如使用保存点或者额外的生命以解决难度设置中可能性空间不足的问题。

在此我的结论是，我们不能默认地为任何一种游戏或叙述贴上开放或封闭的标签。也许我们只是将特定媒体生产模式的美学理念错误地当成是这种媒体的属性罢了。

结语

从不同创造者的技巧和目的来看，线形和非线形系统都属于游戏设计成就。但是媒体本身却不能为我们创造这种成就，因为它不能明确线形与非线形的区别。它只是将固定的轮廓展现在我们的面前，而我们只有根据自己的需要绕着弯走，才能真正看到我们所需要的内容。如果我们尝试着保持线形系统，它就只会呈现线形结构。如果我们尝试着保持非线形系统，它也就只会呈现非线形结构。如此看来只要我们尝试着创造突变性内容，也就能够出现突变性了；但是结果却是我们将会把自己再次绕进一个固定的圈子中，更别提什么突变了。

（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）

Is Emergence the Nature of Games?

by Altug Isigan

Intoduction

Almost 50 years ago, just around the times when engineer Stephen Russell created and ran the game Spacewar! on a car-sized PDP-1 computer at the MIT labs (Juul, 2001), Umberto Eco published his book The Open Work (1962). In this book, Eco defines “open works” as narratives that manifest themselves as the reader interferes with them. They invite readers not only to interprete the text, but to play an active role in their configuration as texts. They provide the readers with a set of rules and elements that may be combined randomly to yield a large number of text variations. We speak of emergent yet coherent narratives here. A large number of variations come to life. Yet each one of them individually makes sense as an aesthetic experience. Two examples of such permutative narratives are George Perec’s Life: A Manual, and Raymond Queneau’s A Hundred Billion Poems.

Ludology seems to be convinced that only games possess this quality of emergence. To many ludologists, “narrative” (which they perceive as being of a “scripted” nature) is against the emergent nature of games. Jesper Juul for example says that when you apply narrative to games, you destroy their emergent character and they turn into games of progession (2002). However, Eco’s work, and the literature examples above, clearly show that narrativity and emergence aren’t mutually exclusive. This urges me to rethink the notion of “emergence”: Can we speak of emergence as being the nature of only certain media, but not others? Can we safely assume that there is a type of medium that renders “emergent” every instance of its use?

I believe that Ludologists come to a too hasty conclusion in regard to games being emergent by their very nature. Interactivity seems to be enough to convince Ludology that game system are truly non-linear. I see two problems here:

1) The need to explain patterns in emergent behavior.

2) A theorethical challenge: Could it be that emergence needs to be crafted artificially rather than being the nature of games?

In this article I will elaborate on these two problems.

Emergent Behavior and the Necessity Cap

There is a famous quote of Berthold Brecht: “The shortest line between two points –if there’s an obstacle inbetween- is a curve.”

This is actually a very good definition of the notion of conflict in classical drama theory. Technically speaking, any character who is trying to solve a conflict is subject to necessity. Necessity addresses the fact that there is a force at play that keeps the character on search for a optimal solution to the conflict that she is facing. In other words, necessity renders “logical” and meaningful only certain types of actions. In the light of necessity, only a limited part of the available possibility space is of use; the useless parts will probably never be discovered. This means that even if we could, we do not simply roam freely in the open world: Our actions are rather motivated and telic. This goal-orientedness causes patterns to emerge in the ongoing emergent behavior.

Drama theory addresses these issues under the topic of motivation and asks the following questions: “Why can the character not simply walk away and ignore the challenge? When arriving at decision nodes, why does the character chose what is good for the story?” To illustrate the point, let’s have a look at a formal game with emergent qualities: Tetris.

Doing nothing results in a straight line from A to B.

But if we attempt to change this algorithmic fate, we draw a curve!

The more we try, the more curves we create!

This may still look like we have a lot of emergence and non-linearity here. Yet to me the non-linearity that emerges here is rather limited. I see in all this some quite linear drama! While every playing session may vary considerably, we basically push ourselves through the same A –> B sequence over and over again. In other words, the system is quite deterministic, and player behavior is quite patterned.

But why? Because we are motivated by necessity. This doesn’t leave much space for the type of deviation and free-roaming we credit non-linearity for. Necessity puts an invisible cap on experimentations; a cap which I call the Necessity Cap.

Chaos theory would probably consider these types of games as examples of aperiodic behavior, something that is slightly less linear than linearity. In each “free” iteration similar behavior emerges due to the forces that are at play. In aperodic behavior, there is a single attractor that structures emergent behavior so that it takes similar shapes while on its way to a predictable end.

We could say that in most video games, necessity works like an attractor. Hence emergent player behavior in these games tends to display a pattern. In his On Certainty, Wittgenstein uses a metaphor for player moves that fits the attractor notion perfectly:  “I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility” [emphasis is mine] (1969: 22). Necessity forces us to find a solution, and as we move and try, our actions help a goal to crystalize.

The overall narrative construct that we face here then can be said to be quite predictable, linear, and closed. Hence I dare to call these kind of “emergent” games pseudo-non-linear: Despite their openness, these games are built around  relatively narrow possibility space and an essentially linear premise. They are much more a repetition of the same sequence of events as of being truly open-ended and non-linear.

Controlled Emergence as a Design Achievement

My second question was asking whether we can safely assume that the game medium renders every instance of its use emergent. Looking at the relationship between game difficulty and possibility space may give us an idea. Have a look at the diagram below:

Considering the diagram, we may claim that under certain conditions a non-linear system may turn linear, and vice versa. This situation seems to put a dent to claims that emergence is the “nature” of the game medium. Actually, we could say that under certain conditions games resist to ambitions of emergence. In other words, the designer has to craft and maintain the conditions of emergence.For example using save-points and extra-lives is a way to artificially overcome problems of insufficient possibility space under hard difficulty settings.

My conclusion here is that neither games nor narratives have a “nature” that by default allows us to label them as open or closed. Maybe we are just making the mistake of seeing the aesthetic conventions of a certain historical mode of production in a particular medium as the nature of that medium. [1]

Conclusion

Both linearity and non-linearity are design achievements, depending on authorial skill and intention. The medium won’t do the work for us, because it does not recognize linearity or non-linearity. It just makes itself available to our vision and it’s up to us to realize that vision by bending the medium as to serve our needs. If we manage to keep it linear, it will be linear. If we manage to keep it non-linear, it will be non-linear. And if we manage to do so, it will start out emergent, but collapse into a state in which nothing can emerge anymore.（source:gamasutra）