作者：Ernest Adams

我们都知道，游戏行业的人员更迭率很高。充满激情的年轻人加入这个行业，但工作时间和条件让他们不堪重负，于是他们离开游戏公司去寻找更加轻松的职业，如此不断循环。这种情况呈现出来的，除了对生命和天赋的浪费外，还表明游戏公司毫无行业记忆，这也是为何我们不断犯设计错误的部分原因。以下将总结玩家对8个游戏设计问题的看法：（请点击此处阅读本系列第1、2、3、4、5、6、8、9、10、11、12、13篇）

1、前数个关卡过后便毫无新功能

新颖性是电子游戏娱乐性的众多来源之一，也是其与桌游的不同之处。Mahdi Jeddi抱怨称有些游戏在前数个关卡中向玩家呈现了所有的功能，在游戏的后期阶段中便丝毫没有新颖的内容。他说道：“如果他们的开发预算有限的话，可以将新功能的引入分散到各个关卡中，也可以针对某个功能制作某些特别关卡。这样，游戏就会一直保持新鲜感直至结束，玩家也不会感到厌烦。”

有些游戏定期引入些许新功能，有些游戏同时向你呈现所有的功能，哪种做法更好呢？我更偏向于前者。显然，具体的设计方法随游戏题材进行调整，但前者确实能够保持玩家对游戏的兴趣。许多游戏在最后1/3的内容中变得十分乏味，玩家如果想要看到游戏结局，就必须耐着性子玩过这个阶段。产生无聊乏味的阶段并非正确的游戏设计方法，要将你的创新扩展分布到整款游戏中。

2、在BOSS战役突然极大更改游戏规则

BOSS往往需要采用与普通敌人不同的方法来应对，这是游戏设计传统，也是众所周知的事实。但是，当这种改变大到让你之前所有的经验都变得毫无价值时，这样的游戏对玩家来说便显得不甚公平。

有人反映：“《死或生3》在最终的BOSS战中完全改变了规则，使你已经学到的技巧变得毫无作用。在游戏的故事模式中，BOSS战之前你需要与众多不同的角色战斗。但是到最后，你需要迎战的是单个大型BOSS，情况完全发生了改变。他向你射击，游戏镜头锁定在与之前游戏过程完全不同的位置上，导致你所有惯常的移动在控制器上都要多转90度，这使得战斗难度大大增加。你之前学习的所有战斗技巧和移动在BOSS战中都是无用的。”

这确实是个需要更改的设计方式。BOSS战应当以玩家通过之前游戏了解和掌握的技巧为基础，而不是完全将其舍弃。

3、翻译和本土化很差

一名西班牙语用户指出，质量不佳的翻译和本土化会毁了整款游戏：

“过去，被翻译成西班牙语的游戏很少，主要是图像冒险游戏，而这些可能是翻译正确的唯一一批游戏。我对Lucasarts的游戏印象特别深刻，因为它们的翻译做得很好，美国主题的笑话都被转换成了西班牙主题的笑话。现在，随着游戏越变越复杂且充满多媒体内容，本土化的任务也越来越艰巨。然而，有些游戏能够适应这种情况，有些游戏却无法做到。”

“我刚开始玩的是英文版的《使命召唤》，游戏中的声音增添了战场的真实感，但西班牙语版本的翻译相当糟糕。在英文原版中，军官吼出命令，着重强调命令中的重点内容，畏惧战争的士兵在声音中便可以听出他们的恐慌感，隐蔽的时候队友会低声轻语，甚至来自不同州的士兵还带有不同的口音。在西班牙语版本中，声音上的表演艺术完全消失了，对话平淡得就像是读出来的一般。所有对话的语调和样式都完全相同，无论处在何种境况或环境下。”

《使命召唤》是款很棒的游戏，那么为何会出现上述问题呢？动视中究竟是谁如此不重视自己的工作，将这种质量不佳的作品投放到市场上？还是说西班牙语市场不值得像英语市场那样付出精力？不久之后，美国本土也会产生出庞大的西班牙语市场，所以任何带有上述想法的公司都应当做出改变。这毫无疑问是游戏设计上的错误做法！

4、无字幕

就语言的问题上，来自乌克兰的玩家表示：

“字幕使外国人和某些无法开启音效的玩家可以流畅地体验游戏。但是，许多著名游戏（游戏邦注：比如《神秘岛》、《迷雾之岛》和《时空英豪》）不设置字幕。而且，《神秘岛》中的多数台词都伴有大量的造影，即便是本地玩家也很难分清。在《盟军敢死队》中，如果没有开启声音的话，几乎无法从任务简报中获得信息，只能看到地图不断地打开关闭。因为某些原因，我电脑上的《Driver》无法播放声音，所以我无法根据声音来获得信息，而且游戏还没有设置字幕。”

神秘岛(from gamasutra)

“我觉得所有的声音信息都应当有字幕或其他视觉线索提供支持。如果你觉得字幕会影响到游戏可玩性，那么可以设置默认选项为关闭字幕。在某些情况下，在将游戏翻译成另一种语言时，可以只更换字幕而不改变游戏中的声音。比如，《赏金奇兵》便良好地采用了这种翻译方法。如果开发商将声音也更换成俄语，那么就无法呈现出角色可爱的口音。”

对于他的最后一句话我并不认同，如果开发商能够做好，同样可以在翻译声音的基础上保持角色的口音。但是本土化公司并非总是愿意解决这个麻烦。

还有个原因使游戏中的字幕成为必要元素，那就是让有听觉障碍的玩家可以玩游戏。在这个方面，我们落后于其他媒体。TV和DVD现在都带有字幕，甚至还内置手语翻译。《半条命2》做得还不错，不同说话者的字幕采用不同的颜色。

除非你以物品为角色来制作游戏，否则你应当将字幕视为游戏的必要功能。同可阅读字体和可调整音效一样，这也是优秀的设计元素。

5、无用的界面元素（游戏邦注：比如不可见的十字准星）

玩家还提出了另一个设计瑕疵：不可见的十字准星。他说道：“多数游戏会让你决定是否需要使用十字准星，有些游戏甚至会向你提供多种不同的十字准星。但是，有些游戏将它们设计成半透明的或涂成某种与背景类似的颜色。这种设计导致的最糟糕情况是，你最终不知道自己正在朝何处射击。我愿意选择使用十字准星，所以请让它们更加清晰。”

“《半条命：针锋相对》使用半透明的绿色十字准星，各种武器都不相同。有些准星显得过于暗淡，很难看清。当你打开夜视镜（游戏邦注：游戏部分关卡中需要夜视镜）时，所有的屏幕变成绿色，包括你的十字准星和所有信息，这使得玩家很容易迷路。”

对我来说，这听上去像是测试上的问题。不幸的是，多数游戏测试者并不能找到与游戏可用性相关的问题。他们知道游戏内外的每个细节。他们知道接下来会发生的事情和应当往何处射击。他们不需要十字准星、小地图、角色顾问或简单模式，而这些恰恰是可以让首次玩游戏的玩家更流畅地体验游戏的功能。测试者甚至没有注意到十字准星在游戏中毫无用处，但应当有人发现这点。

我曾听过Melissa Federoff的讲座，她写过有关游戏易用性的论文，最近正在微软游戏工作室进行游戏易用性研究。她在讲座中说了几个有趣的故事，故事的内容是设计师观察新玩家体验关卡的过程。在某次测试中，玩家经常掉进光线不足小巷的陷阱中。关卡设计师咆哮道：“为何他们总是犯这种错误？”Melissa解释道：“因为他们并不是构建关卡的人！他们不知道小巷中有什么，他们不像你，已经玩过上万次这个场景。”

当你在进行游戏测试时，你必须找那些之前从未见过游戏的人充当测试者。然后，你要注意他们的所言所行。

6、配置无法保存

我在之前的文章中已经提过劣质配置机制对游戏的影响，但是我没有意识到这个小功能会带来如此多的问题。《战地2》不会将自定义控制方式保存在游戏账号上，所以当你使用新电脑来玩游戏时，需要重新配置所有按键，而像《战地2》这样的游戏涉及到的按键相当多。有人说道，当你设置新的游戏账号时，也需要重新配置控制方式。根据GameSpot的评论，你需要翻过多个页面来解绑某个按键，才能将该按键绑定在新的动作上。

翻过过个页面，这真得令人十分讨厌！你或许会希望滚动列表从未被发明过，只在单屏上显示所有当前绑定、未绑定按键和未绑定功能的列表。这样，玩家就可以在更改的同时看到所有需要的信息。随后，允许玩家将尽可能多的不同配置保存在自己的电脑上。如果这是款网络游戏，也可以设置将控制方式保存在服务器上，玩家可以在任何需要的时候加载。

7、不可用的配置菜单

劣质配置设计给玩家带来的影响似乎远远超过我们的想象，有人反映：

“根据我的游戏经验，多数设置菜单（游戏邦注：包含控制、音效和图像调整等功能）应当可以在游戏的任何时候调出。很显然，存在例外的情况。你不能在游戏过程中改变规则，分辨率调整会导致电脑和其他在线玩家的游戏暂停几秒时间。某些改变需要重新计算庞大的目录，甚至重新加载整个关卡。但是，当你改变游戏的控制方式或关闭烟雾效果时，为何需要重新计算呢？”

辐射(from gamasutra)

“《Grand Prix 3》的游戏过程中，除了音效外你不能改变任何配置。在《辐射》中，首先你需要生成角色并观看介绍视频，然后你才能更改明暗度、音量和字幕显示。《Driver》就更糟糕了，你需要使用标准控制方式完成首个任务，然后才能更改。《反恐精英》中修改明暗度后需要重新连接。”

我需要断开游戏连接才能够更改明暗度？这是谁的想法？

你或许会想：“谁在意这个呢？相对于游戏玩法的协调而言，这些配置内容显得无关紧要。”确实如此，但这就是必须将上述方面做好的原因！构建良好的配置机制并非游戏设计师最令人充满激情的工作，但这对玩家至关重要，因为如果他们无法根据自己的喜好配置游戏，那么即便游戏玩法非常协调，这样的游戏给予玩家的体验也并不好。

要么把你的工作做好，包括那些乏味的部分，要么退位让贤。现在有成千上万个人想做游戏设计师的工作。

8、忽略基本物理法则

最后我要提个很奇怪的设计错误。我们已经习惯于古怪的游戏物理，比如汽车在撞到公园长凳后马上停下等。当我们某天拥有足够的计算能力时，这样的问题应当能够得到改善。但这里要讨论的是游戏设计错误，与计算能力并无关联。有人说道：

“在某些游戏中（游戏邦注：比如《雷神之锤1》和《毁灭公爵3D》），你下潜到水中，浮出水面的位置与下潜位置相比低了数米。我想设计师应当好好研究下物理学！水域是连通的，所以水面应当是等高的（游戏邦注：除非水下有蕴含空气的封闭式房间，比如潜水钟）。”

我必须承认自己从未注意到这点，但他的说法显然是对的。如果你从A点潜入水下，从B点上浮，那么根据物理学的连通器法则，A和B的水位应当相同。如果你潜入水中，然后到达水下某个有空气的地方，那么这也不符合物理学常识。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2006年7月10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）

The Designer’s Notebook: ‘Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!’ VII

Ernest Adams

We all know the game industry suffers from a lot of personnel turnover. Enthusiastic young people join the business; the hours and working conditions burn them out; they leave to find a more sane occupation, and a new crop shows up all ready for the flames. Apart from the waste of life and talent this represents, it means that game companies have no institutional memory, and that’s partly why we keep making design errors.

On the other hand, it does give me something to write about every year! Welcome to Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! VII. This year’s list of Twinkie Denial Conditions is, unfortunately, a long one, and as usual, it was all submitted by you, my faithful readers. If you’d like to send me some more, write to notwinkie@designersnotebook.com. In the meantime, here we go:

No New Features After the First Few Levels

Novelty is one of the many ways that video games entertain, and a quality that sets video gaming apart from, say, board gaming. Mahdi Jeddi writes to complain about games that present all their features in the first few levels, and then don’t have anything new to offer in the later stages of the game. As he says, “If they have budget limitations, they can spread the introduction of new features across all levels, and maybe make some special levels for one feature. This way the game will maintain its freshness to its end and the player will be saved from boredom.”

Hear, hear! Which is worse: A game that introduces its features sparsely but regularly, or one that gives them all to you at once and then never gives you another one? I would much rather play the former. Obviously this will vary somewhat by genre, but offering up a new twist every now and then will certainly help to keep the player’s interest. Too many games turn into a boring grind in the last third or so, and the player has to slog through it if he wants to see the ending. We didn’t get into this business to make boring grinds. Spread your innovations out over the whole game.

Extreme Rule Changes When Fighting Boss Characters

Boss characters always require a different approach from ordinary enemies—this is a well-known convention of gaming, and we all get it. But when the changes are so great that all your earlier experience is worthless, the game is being unfair to the player.

David Peterson writes, “Dead or Alive 3 completely changes the rules when fighting the last boss, and voids all you have learned. When playing in story mode, you fight a bunch of different characters in the regular game. At the end, you fight the ‘big boss’ (I still have no idea who he is or why he is surrounded by flames) and everything changes. He shoots at you; the camera is locked in a completely different position from the rest of the game, making all your usual moves rotate 90 degrees on the controller, and your game becomes block, move a little closer, block, move a little closer, etc. All the skills and moves you had previously learned are now useless. Aargh!!!”

Yup, definitely a Twinkie Denial Condition. Fights with boss characters should build upon what the player already knows, not replace it entirely.

Bad Translation and Localization

Santiago Hodalgo writes from Spain to point out what a fantasy-killer a cruddy translation and localization is. I’ll let him tell it:

“In the past, very few games were translated to Spanish, mainly graphic adventures, and those were probably the only ones correctly translated. I especially remember the Lucasarts games because they had good translations, and even the American-themed jokes were changed for Spanish-themed ones… Today, with games being more complex and full of multimedia content, I think localization has become a bigger task, and while some games are correctly adapted, many others aren’t.”

“I played Call of Duty in English for the first time, and the voices added to the realism, but in the Spanish version the translation is extremely poor. In the original version the officers shouted orders, emphasizing points; panicking soldiers reflected panic in their voices; hidden people whispered at you, and even different nationalities had distinguishable accents. In the Spanish version, there’s no voice acting at all, it’s only reading. It’s the same tone and pattern for every line of dialogue, no matter what the situation or the environment.”

Now Call of Duty is a great game, so what’s up with that? Who at Activision had so little pride in his work that he let this cruddy hack-job out the door? Is the Spanish-speaking market somehow less deserving of decent production values than the English-speaking one? (Considering how big the Spanish-speaking market will soon be within the USA, anybody who has that delusion had better get over it quick.) Bad game designer! No Twinkie!

No Subtitles

And while we’re on the subject of languages, Mihail Mercuryev writes from the Ukraine to say:

“Subtitles make the game accessible for foreigners and people who are forced to play without sound. But many outstanding titles (Myst, Uru and Outcast come to mind) don’t have them. Also, most of Myst’s speech is mixed with enormous amount of noise and is barely recognizable even in native language. In Commandos, when you don’t have sound, the mission briefing conveys no information, the map simply scrolls back and forth. For some reason Driver refused to produce any sound on my computer, so I was unable to listen to messages… and no subtitles, again.”

“I think all voice messages should be backed up with subtitles or another visual clue. If you think that subtitles ruin gameplay, keep them off by default. In some cases, when translating the game into another language, only subtitles might be replaced, without touching the voice. For example, this kind of translation worked well in Desperados; if they dubbed the voices in Russian, the characters would lose their lovely accents.”

I disagree with his last sentence—they wouldn’t necessarily have lost their accents if they had done the dubbing right. But as Santiago pointed out, localization companies don’t always take the trouble.

There’s another good reason to include subtitles, and that is to let hearing-impaired players play the game. We’re way behind other media on this. TV and DVDs now routinelyship with subtitles or even picture-in-picture sign language translation. Half-Life 2 did a nice job of including subtitles with different colors for different speakers. To find out more about making your game accessible to the deaf, visit www.deafgamers.com.

Unless you’re making a game for a wristwatch or something, you should regard subtitles as a required feature of the title. It’s just good design practice—like readable typefaces and adjustable sound levels.

Unworkable Interface Elements (e.g. Invisible Crosshairs)

Santiago also proposed another TDC: crosshairs that you can’t even see. He said, “Most games allow you to decide if you want crosshairs or not, and some of them even offer you different crosshairs to choose. But some games paint them translucently or in a color that gets confused with the background. In the worst case you end up not knowing where you’re shooting. I’ve chosen to use crosshairs, so please make them clear!”

“Half-Life Opposing Force uses translucent green crosshairs, one different for each weapon. Some of them are so dimmed that they are difficult to see, but then you turn on night vision (and some parts of the game can’t be completed without it) and it turns all your screen green… including your crosshair and all information, which get lost in the chaos.”

This sounds to me like a testing problem. Unfortunately, most game testers are not the right people to correct problems with a game’s usability. They know every detail of the game inside and out. They know exactly what’s going to happen next and where to shoot. They don’t need crosshairs… or mini-maps, or advisor characters, or easy modes, or, well, any of the features that make a game more playable to someone starting it up for the first time. The testers never even noticed that the crosshairs were useless… but somebody should have.

I heard a great lecture last year from Melissa Federoff, who wrote a seminal thesis on usability for games and, until recently, did game usability research at Microsoft Game Studios. She had some funny tales to tell of designers watching new players try to get through a level in some game or another. Half the time the players ended up going down a blind alley and falling into a pit. The level designers were baffled. “Why do they keep doing that?” they asked. Melissa had to suppress the urge to scream, “Because they weren’t the ones who built the level, you moron! They don’t already know what’s in it and unlike you they haven’t played it 10,000 times!”

OK, I exaggerate; Melissa is much too professional to call a level designer a moron. She probably reserves that for user interface designers who don’t provide any way to reconfigure the input devices. But when you’re testing a game, you have to get someone to look at it who’s never seen it before. Then you have to pay attention to what they say and act on it.

Speaking of reconfiguring input devices, Ben Ashley writes in to complain about…

Unsaved Configurations

I already mentioned bad configuration mechanisms back in No Twinkie V, but I hadn’t realized quite how many ways there were to screw up such an utterly trivial feature. Battlefield 2 doesn’t save your control profile with your game profile, so when you sit down at a new computer, you’ve suddenly got to reconfigure the keys again… and in a game like Battlefield 2, there are a lot of keys. And when you set up a new game profile, Ben says, the new profile goes back to the default control configuration again. Furthermore, according to the GameSpot review, you have to sort through multiple pages to unbind a key before you can bind it to something else.

Multiple pages? What a nuisance! You would think the scrolling list box had never been invented. Put a list of all the current bindings, all the unbound keys, and all the unbound functions on one screen. That way the player has all the information she needs right in front of her to do any mapping she likes. Then let her save as many different configurations as she wants on her own machine, and if it’s an online game, on the server as well, and reload them on demand.

Unavailable Configuration Menus

And I’m not even done yet. It seems that bad config designs hack players off far more than we realize, because Mihail Mercuryev adds:

“As a rule of thumb, most setup menus (controls, sound, small graphics adjustments) should be available everywhere in the game. Obviously, there are exceptions. You can’t change rules in the middle of the race, and resolution changes would freeze your computer, and those of other online players, for a couple of seconds. Some changes require recalculating large tables, or even reloading the entire level. But what is there to recalculate when you change your controls? Or when you turn off smoke effects?”

“Grand Prix 3 doesn’t allow you to change anything (except sound) while in game. In Fallout, first you need to generate a character and view an introductory video, then you may change brightness or volume, or turn subtitles on. Driver is even worse: you need to complete the first mission (show how good you are at the wheel) with standard controls, then you may change them. Counter-Strike requires you to reconnect when you change brightness.”

Uh… brightness? I have to disconnect from the game because I want to change the brightness? Whose idea was that?

You might be thinking, “Who cares? This config stuff is trivial compared to the importance of tuning the gameplay.” Yes, and that’s why there’s no excuse for doing it wrong! Building a good configuration mechanism is hardly the most exciting part of a game designer’s job, but it matters to the players, because if they can’t configure the game to their liking, you’re going to give them an inferior gaming experience no matter how well-tuned your gameplay is. I shouldn’t have to prove that I’m good with your stupid configuration before I’m allowed to set a sensible one, because in case you hadn’t noticed, I, not you, am the one playing the game.

Either do your job right—including the boring parts—or resign and give it to somebody who will. There are thousands of wanna-be designers out there who would be happy to take over from you.

Ignorance of the Law of Communicating Reservoirs

I’ll end with a sort of strange one, also contributed by Mihail Mercuryev. We’re pretty used to putting up with weird compromises in physics—cars that stop instantly when they hit indestructible park benches, and so on. Someday we’ll have enough computing power to get all that right. But this one is a level design mistake that doesn’t have anything to do with computing power. Mihail says,

“In some games (Quake 1, Duke Nukem 3D) you dive into the water, and get out a few meters below. If this has become a convention, forget it and start studying physics! When the reservoirs are communicating, the water level should be the same (unless there’s a closed chamber with some air trapped underwater, such as a diving bell).”

I have to admit that I never thought about that, but of course he’s right. If you dive underwater at point A and get out at point B, A and B must be at the same altitude because water seeks its own level. If you dive down to a lower level and get out into the air down there… why doesn’t that space just fill up with water?

Someday maybe we’ll simulate water as a real fluid rather than just a blue filter over the lens, and we’ll get this right. In the meantime, level designers, if you want to avoid Mihail’s wrath, remember the Law of Communicating Reservoirs. Or set your game inside a diving bell.

Conclusion

My thanks to Mahdi Jeddi, David Peterson, Santiago Hodalgo, Mihail Mercuryev, and Ben Ashley for this year’s batch of Twinkie Denial Conditions, and remember, only you can prevent stupid design errors. And if you spot one—even, or especially, in an otherwise great game—send it along to me. (Source: Gamasutra)