作者：Kris Graft

在周四的2012 DICE大会上，来自Rocksteady游戏总监Sefton Hill阐述了他们在创造出热门游戏《蝙蝠侠：阿甘疯人院》和《蝙蝠侠：阿甘之城》中所遵循的基本原则。

batman-arkham-asylum(from ps3vault.com)

其中一大重要原则便是快速创建原型。

Hill称他们是在开发游戏期间创造原型。

在游戏创建初期，他先把自己的游戏理念告诉团队所有成员。然后成员们开始分解这一理念，分析如何执行它，并“围绕着它快速创造游戏。”

他还说道：“我们需要快速地进行游戏玩法的迭代。迭代速度越快，你便能够获得越宽松的周转时间，从而更好地完善游戏理念。”而如果你的团队并未设定完善游戏的时间，你们便不可能有效地执行游戏理念，更不可能创造出一款优秀的游戏。

Hill表示快速创建原型之所以重要是因为“游戏理念本身也有生命力。”他承认，这些理念也会出现各种各样的问题，但是如果你能够始终坚持这一理念并保持激情，“那么它所拥有的强大生命力将能够帮助你解决问题”。

“缓慢的迭代非常致命。如此你将会面临更多具有风险性的理念，并因此遇到更多问题，而需要投入更多精力去解决这些问题。”一个团队在处理游戏理念与执行过程之间的时间越短，他们越能够创造出一款好游戏。

Rocksteady获取成功的另外一大重要因素是为游戏创建一个“有效的基础”，而根据这一基础进行游戏设计和更高级别的游戏优化。

Hill表示：“要明确一些基础元素以创建游戏中的重要内容。”他解释道，在《阿甘疯人院》中，他们是基于一个关卡和房间架构开始进行游戏设计，以此让团队成员能够隔开游戏中的其它内容，而更专注于优化这个单独的基础，从而创造出更精致的内容。

Hill表示：“这是我们所制定的最重要决策之一。”

Hill继续说道，在《阿甘疯人院》之后的另一个更加开放的《阿甘之城》世界中，开发团队决定从“整个世界中最小的开放世界开始做起。”

“我们设想从较小的区域开始进行创造，这样就有可能想出一些更加独特的创意。游戏中每一块小小的区域都能够填充一些手工制作的内容，从而让游戏突显于其它游戏。”

Hill称Rocksteady获得成功的下一个重要元素便是，选择了一个合适的前提而让游戏更有逻辑性。我们的团队想在游戏中融入更多谜题元素，所以游戏的一大前提便是让蝙蝠侠去解决各种独特的谜题。

Hill认为游戏开发的另一大关键点便是在开发过程中“不断评估”游戏中的各个要素。团队成员需要非常仔细地检查游戏功能以及这些功能的功效。

一些开发团队很重视游戏的薄弱环节。认为通过完善游戏中这些糟糕的功能，也能够帮助开发团队进一步提升游戏中的其它功能。

但这却不是Rocksteady所采取的方法。该工作室反而更加看重游戏中的优势。薄弱环节之间总是相互联系着，所以我们只能采取个别完善或者彻底删除的方法。所以，Hill便强调应该“侧重游戏中的优势而不是劣势。”

Hill表示下一个成功要素是精神力量。当然了，工作室不可能具有精神力量，但是他们却能够取悦大多数电子游戏玩家。

Rocksteady整个开发团队都不赞成“阿谀奉承式的设计”，即为了迎合游戏玩家或基于用户的心理而进行游戏设计。Hill说道，这种理念将会导致“创意麻痹”，即开发者将一味地猜测玩家的想法而最终只能创造出一些雷同的游戏。

Hill告诉广大开发者们“只有你自己才会真正了解玩家需要什么。我们也属于自己游戏的目标用户。而我们知道自己想要看到什么样的游戏。”

他补充道：“我不认为非得依靠市场调查才能了解玩家。我们只需要问自己‘什么东西会让我开心？’”你需要做的便是创造一款自己真心想要玩，自己真正感兴趣的游戏。

“只要你创造出一款自己真正感兴趣的游戏，你的团队也将会喜欢这款游戏。而最终玩家将能够从游戏中感受到这份激情与自豪。”

Hill口中的“阿甘秘诀”还包括游戏必须让玩家能够立刻感受到乐趣所在。玩家拥有享受游戏乐趣的权利。Rocksteady认为“我们的工作职责便是娱乐玩家。我们希望游戏能够很容易上手且立即表现出趣味性。也就是玩家一进入游戏，便能够开始享受轻松欢快的时光。”

具有深度的核心机制也是“阿甘秘诀”中的一部分内容。《蝙蝠侠》游戏系列以扣人心弦且不失娱乐性的战斗机制而出名，其机制会奖励那些付出努力的玩家，玩家付出的努力越多，所得到的奖励也就越大。

Hill同样还强调必须遵从角色的真实性，即不能脱离角色的本质属性。蝙蝠侠不能杀死敌人（游戏邦注：对蝙蝠侠而言，杀死敌人有悖于他的个人原则和使命），本来这一点对于Rocksteady的游戏来说非常不利，但是他们反而有效利用了这一角色特征。Hill说道：“我们必须不断地摸索角色的局限性，正是因为局限性才让这些角色更加与众不同，而如果你能够好好利用这些限制因素，你便能够创造出一款独特的游戏。”

（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）

DICE 2012: The five keys to Rocksteady’s Batman success

by Kris Graft

At DICE 2012 on Thursday, Rocksteady’s Sefton Hill exposed the fundamental rules that the studio followed to make critical and commercial hits Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City.

One of those keys, Hill said, is rapid prototyping.

“The prototyping is all done in-game,” he said.

Early in the game’s creation, he would present an idea to people on the team. Then they’d break it apart, analyze how it could be implemented, and “get it in game as quickly as possible.”

He said, “The gameplay needs to be iterated quickly to be improved. The quicker you can get that turnaround cycle, the better your ideas are going to be.” If a team does not give itself time to improve aspects of a game, those ideas will not be as well developed, and “just not as good,” he said.

Rapid prototyping, said Hill, is important because “Ideas themselves have an energy, a life force.” Ideas always will encounter problems, he acknowledged, but if you preserve that idea and excitement, “that energy can help you smash through” problems.

“Slow iteration is a killer,” said Hill. “With more risky ideas, you’ll hit more problems, and you need more energy to get you through those problems.” The shorter a team can keep the gap between your ideas and their implementation, the better the game, Hill said.

Another important aspect of Rocksteady’s method is establishing “smart foundations” for the game, foundations that will be conducive to good game design and a high level of polish.

“Choose foundations to establish what’s important in your game,” said Hill. He noted that in Arkham Asylum, the game was designed with a level and room structure that let the team really isolate areas in the game, and polish them to a high sheen on an individual basis.

“It was one of the most important [decisions we made],” Hill said.

Hill said that with Asylum’s follow-up, the more open world Arkham City, the team made the choice to make “The world’s smallest open world game.”

“We figured that by going smaller, we could come up with something more unique. … Every square foot of the game can be filled with hand-crafted content, and look different from any other game out there.”

The next ingredient to Rocksteady’s success, Hill said, was choosing a premise that lent itself to believable fiction. The team wanted to include more puzzle elements, so the premise had to make sense for a character like Batman to solve a unique room puzzle, for example.

Hill’s next key to game development is to “constantly reevaluate” the in-process game. Teams need to examine the game’s features, and the quality of those features, very carefully.

Some development teams identify the weak areas and focus on those. By improving the weak features, a team might even bring up all of the game’s other feature a little bit.

But that’s not Rocksteady’s method. The studio instead focuses energy on the game’s strengths. Weak areas are combined with other weak areas, improved individually, or cut completely. “Focus on your strengths, not your weakness,” Hill said.

Hill said another component of success is, rather unfortunately, psychic powers. Of course, the studio isn’t psychic, but the studio’s ability to please a large audience of video game fans might seem like it is.

Rocksteady’s team didn’t succumb to “sycophantic design” that pandered to game reviewers or to what they thought some theoretical audience wanted. Hill said such methods result in “creative paralysis,” and lead to generic experiences as a developer becomes obsessed with trying to guess what people want.

“The person who knows best what your gamers want is you,” Hill told the developer audience. … We’re our own target audience … we know what games we want.”

“I don’t think we need market research to achieve that,” he added. “We need to ask ‘what excites me?”” You need to make a game you want to play, a game that you’re passionate about, Hill said.

“Once you make a game that you’re passionate about, your team will be passionate about it. … That passion and pride will translate directly to the game.”

Finally, there’s what Hill called the “Arkham Recipe.” This includes making sure that a game is fun right off the bat. Players shouldn’t have to earn the right to enjoy a game. Rocksteady “believes it’s our job to entertain,” Hill said.
“We want to make it instantly fun and accessible. … As soon as you start playing the game, you start kicking ass.”

Deep core mechanics are also part of the Arkham recipe. The Batman games are celebrated for the sharp and entertaining combat mechanics. The mechanic rewards the player for the effort, and the more effort he or she puts in, the greater the reward.

Hill also stressed the importance of authenticity in characters, and being true to those characters. Batman does not kill his enemies, and that could’ve been seen as a drawback in the development of Rocksteady’s games. But instead they took advantage of that unique character trait. “Celebrate and explore the limitations of the character,” said Hill. “It’s what makes them unique, and if you embrace those limitations it will make your game unique.” (source:GAMASUTRA)