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开发者谈基于纸上模型的游戏设计

发布时间:2012-03-24 15:56:21 Tags:,,,

作者:Amit

今天我想要简要谈谈设计师口中的“纸上建模”在游戏设计中是什么含义。关于这一词组的解释多种多样,但这里我将从非美工和非编程员的视角进行阐述。首先先来解释一个将频繁出现的定义。

游戏机制——这是游戏设计的核心要素,涉及游戏内容的运作方式,若玩家进行X操作,那么游戏将出现Y结果。若X正确无误,那你就能够进行Y操作。诸如设置、获胜条件、体验进程和玩家操作之类的元素都是游戏机制的组成要素。

screenshot from fatcowgames.net

screenshot from fatcowgames.net

为撰写本文,我花了2个小时创建一个模型构思,这里我从训练技能时会运用到的游戏主题和目标着手。

我最终确定的主题是魔术师在水中骑海豚,而游戏目标是争取第一个跑到终点。

这是个意外的纸上模型,作为设计师,我有责任确保自己所呈现的是经过深入钻研和测试的有趣游戏构思。通常我会首先撰写游戏设计文稿。我所制作的游戏是关于竞赛主题,我的叙述不是很有条理,敬请原谅。

在找纸张画格子的时候,我发现一个旧象棋盘;我决定利用棋盘上的网格,以加快自己的设计进程,我能够直观获悉适当的行走路径。格子是当时最简单的模式,砖块需要耗费更多的时间,卡牌需要进行更多事前的计划,格子是制作“竞赛路径”的最简单方式。

在棋盘上进行竞赛或者简单围绕转换和移动操作相当乏味。但这是最简单的游戏基本机制,玩家向上移动9个格子,然后向下移动8个格子,想办法挪到左侧。所以我需要通过融入受限玩法区域(游戏邦注:这就是棋盘外加魔术师骑海豚的主题)丰富游戏内容。

chessboard from fatcowgames.net

chessboard from fatcowgames.net

我立即想到的是什么?首先,我想要尝试另一种移动方式,而不是采用传统的骰子,我裁剪若干张纸片,写上1-6 ,然后正面朝下,和掷骰子一样,玩家每个回合都要挑选一张纸牌。但这并非替代掷骰子机制的最佳方案,所以我决定融入运气元素,将“移动卡片”变成一个记忆迷你游戏。所以我设计出下列有限数量的卡片:

* 1移动6个格子

* 1移动5个格子

* 2移动4个格子

* 3移动3个格子

* 4移动2个格子

* 5移动1个格子

然后我将这些卡片弄乱,正面朝下。玩家将抽取纸牌,将其放到棋盘另一侧的“已用过牌堆”中,把它变成“位相”(Phase)。待到抽完所有移动卡牌后,玩家将进行洗牌,纸牌会重新回到原有位置,变回1副完整牌组。换而言之,玩家不会抽到同张纸牌(游戏邦注:直到之前的所有纸牌都抽完)。只要所有纸牌都被抽过,玩家就会重新进行洗牌,再次把它们变成一个牌组,让玩家得以预测和记住游戏的移动方式,这后期将发挥显著作用(就游戏整体设计而言)。

movement from fatcowgames.net

movement from fatcowgames.net

现在我已设计出体验空间,玩家实现目标所要移动的方向,他们如何轮流进行移动。所以,规则将呈现如下模式。

1. 选择一个移动纸牌

2. 根据纸牌呈现的数字移动斜线

3. 首先达到终点的玩家胜出

这就是我所设计的游戏,基本机制已建立起来,但我觉得这有点乏味,因为其中缺乏用户参与和冲突元素。我玩过的多数棋盘游戏都有包含资源管理元素,但缺乏玩家间的冲突性,如阻碍其他玩家,因此显得有些枯燥乏味。

那么接下来发生什么?我需要融入能让玩家产生敌意,相互阻碍对方胜出的元素。所以,我创造了魔法,将其进行简化,所有玩家在游戏开始都能够得到魔法,但没有不同魔术师的定制角色表单。我设计了名为漩涡池(Whirl pool)的魔法卡。

漩涡池——在你当前的路径中添加斜线,当对手遇到此斜线时,他们需要挑选出1张移动卡片,这决定他们需要返回多少个格子。这是个策略组合,能够让玩家从中体验到有深度的内容,而基于运气的元素,能够让游戏富有惊喜性,通过让玩家挑选移动卡片,决定他们需要返回的距离。

whirlpool from fatcowgames.net

whirlpool from fatcowgames.net

所以新规则就扩展成如下模式。

1. 挑选移动卡片

2. 根据卡片显现的数字移动斜线

3. 在步入最后一个回合前使用魔法

4. 最先到达终点的玩家胜出

我将运用魔法放到最后一个回合而非第一个回合的原因是,希望能够在游戏中融入更多的策略和计划元素,我稍后将加以解释。但在这之前,你也许会发现,让玩家实施魔法,而没有融入资源管理元素会显得不那么有趣,是吧?这将会款截然不同的游戏,对我来说会显得有些过于简单,所以我设定相关游戏机制,让玩家能够获得资源,且施加魔法需要付出一定代价。所以我在玩家的前进过程中随机于棋盘中放置新魔法/能量球。每次挪开这些小球,他们都会获得新的魔法值,进而能够凭此运用漩涡池道具,阻碍对手玩家的前进。

Board 01 from fatcowgames.net

Board 01 from fatcowgames.net

现在我们已拥有游戏棋盘、移动规则、回合模式、用户粘性、资源管理和小型策略元素。

我试验各种不同的规则和机制,甚至还在游戏中添加更多的纸牌、限制条件等元素。这里是其他基于游戏设计的纸牌及耗费2小时的纸上模型。

冷冻电波——它只能垂直从左到右投射,这意味着你需要位于对手玩家的前方或后方,而且会在你想要冷冻的玩家前方看到一个空格子。当玩家踏入此格子时,他需要抽取1张移动卡片,然后根据卡片显示的数字,被冷冻相应的时间。

freezewave from fatcowgames.net

freezewave from fatcowgames.net

加快进程——为确保玩家享有更多资源管理权限和选择,我添加在自己身上运用魔法的机制,玩家可以通过花费1个魔法球多前进1格,所以若玩家为最后一个路径积累下8个魔法球,那他就能够通过运用这些小球最终胜出(游戏邦注:前提条件是,他没有遭遇冷冻电波或漩涡池陷阱)。

boost from fatcowgames.net

boost from fatcowgames.net

最终我希望游戏融入能够让玩家反击其中1个陷阱的道具,所以我设计了魔法盾,这样玩家就能够用它跳过陷阱,让陷阱失去效用,然后进行向前行进。

这是因为我添加了这样的规则:“若陷阱位于有小球的方格中,踏入陷阱的玩家就无法获得小球,除非他运用魔法盾。”这也是为什么“使用魔法”是出现在你完成移动操作之后,否则提早放置陷阱的玩家就无法发挥陷阱玩法的效用,所有玩家都能够在回合一开始,也就是刚看到远处陷阱时就激活魔法盾道具。由于游戏目前采用“完成移动操作后运用魔法”模式,因此玩家需要提前进行思考,这让游戏变得更有趣、更有策略性。

shield from fatcowgames.net

shield from fatcowgames.net

我还添加3个更新内容,这极大改变游戏的玩法,但这多半是由于8×8的游戏棋盘,所以将棋盘扩大至16×16会令这3个更新内容更适合游戏。我最后将这3个更新内容移除,因为游戏因此变得更像是“保存魔法以获得升级”模式,而不是“发起进攻,阻碍对手前进”。

这3个更新内容分别是:

容量升级:通过支付5个小球,玩家可以将小球的持有数量由5个提高至10个。

双倍数量的移动:通过支付10个小球,玩家能够进行双倍的移动,所以若移动卡片显示2,玩家就能够移动4个格子。

双倍数量的小球:通过支付5个小球,每次经过有小球的格子时,玩家能够获得双倍数量的小球,所以玩家得到的小球数量不是1,而是2。

也许你还不明白我什么要设计移动纸牌,将其制作成牌组,下面我将进一步说明。这是因为魔法要求受影响的玩家挑选1张纸牌,以决定冷冻时间或返回格数。这意味着,魔术师可以通过追踪已显示的纸牌预测最佳结果,争取让对手玩家选择5-6的纸牌,这只有1/X之一的机率。换而言之,若我知道5和6还没有被抽取,而牌组只剩2张牌,那么在此设陷阱,玩家将陷入困境。

这是运用纸上模型的真实游戏设计过程。下图呈现的是游戏的最终画面和测试过程。

theboard from fatcowgames.net

theboard from fatcowgames.net

cardsandboard from fatcowgames.net

cardsandboard from fatcowgames.net

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

Blog – Game Design / Paper Prototyping?

By Amit

Today I want to explain briefly what designers mean when they say “paper prototyping” in terms of game design. The explanation can vary but in this particular case I am going to show it from a non-artist and non-programmer viewpoint. Before I give a quick example let us explain one of the definitions ill be using a lot.

Game Mechanic – This is one of the core elements of game design and is about how something works, if player does X, then Y happens. If X is true, then you can do Y. Things like setup, victory conditions, progression of play and player actions are a part of the game mechanic.

For this particular impulsive blog, I have spent 2 hours creating a prototype idea where I started with theme and goal of the game when I was training my skills.

The Theme I ended up with was Mages riding dolphins in water world. The Goal I ended up with was simply first one to race to the end.

Again, this is an unplanned paper prototyping that occurred out of the blue and as a designer it is also my job to ensure we have new interesting ideas popping up which are further researched, investigated and tested out. Normally, I just write game design documents first. So, the game I created is about racing so bare with me as I explain what happen in a unorganized fashion.

Ready? Walking around the house I saw an old chess board while looking for paper to draw grids on; I decided to just use the grids on the chess board to speed up the design, visually telling me which was the path. Grids was the easiest solution at the time, tiles would require more time, cards would require more planning and grids was easiest way to make a “racing path”.

Having a race on a board game or in general with nothing else occurring except turns and movement, is rather dull. But it was the basic game mechanic in its simplest form where the player moved up 8 grids, then down 8 grids and worked their way to the left. So I had to spice it up using restricted gameplay area which was the chess board along with the theme which was mages riding dolphins.

What did I think about immediately? First, I wanted to try another method of moving instead of dices so I cut out some paper, wrote 1-6 and put it upside down so each player had to pick one each turn like throwing dice. What happen is it was a bad replacement of dice throwing, so I decided to throw in luck design and make “movement cards” into memory mini game, so I created following and limited amount of cards.

* 1 that moved 6 grids

* 1 that moved 5 grids

* 2 that moved 4 grids

* 3 that moved 3 grids

* 4 that moved 2 grids

* 5 that moves 1 grids

I then shuffled them and put them face down, a player would then pick it up place it onto the “used deck” on the other side of the board, turning it into “Phases”. Once all the movement cards were emptied, they were shuffled and put back into place as a full deck. In other words, the same card wouldnt be used again until all the cards before were used, once all cards were used it was all shuffled back into a deck letting players predict and memorize the games movement, which pays a great important later in terms of the whole game design. Read on to understand why it matters.

I had now designed the play area, direction that the player must move to reach their goal and how they would move in turns. So, the rules would look as following.

1. Pick a move card

2. Move diagonal according to the number showed on the card

3. First to reach end goal, wins.

That is it, basic mechanic were in place but in my opinion it was boring because to me it was lacking player engagement and conflict. Most board games I played that had resource management but not much player conflict like stopping other players was kind of boring.

So, what was up next? I needed something the players could do to engage each other aggressively to stop the other player from winning the race. So, I created magic spells and simplified it to the point that everyone simply had it available at the start of the game and no custom character sheet for different mages etc. So I created a spell card called whirl pool

Whirl pool – Place diagonal on your current path, when opponent lands on it they need to pick a movement card which decided how many grids/spaces they go back. It is a combination of strategy to give depth to players like me and luck based to keep things unexpected by letting the player pick move card to determine the distance they need to go backwards.

So, the new rules were expanded into following.

1. Pick a move card

2. Move diagonal according to the number showed on the card

3. Cast a spell before ending turn

4. First to reach end goal, wins.

The reason I put cast spell at the end of the turn and not first is simply because it brings more strategy and planning into the game, I will explain later how. But before that you might have noticed that letting a player cast spell without resource management can be less fun, right? Well, it is a completely different game and would be too simple for my taste so I obviously needed a system for gaining resources and giving casting spell a cost. So, I randomly placed my new mana/energy orbs onto the board along the path of the player. Each time they moved over it they would gain a mana, thus afford to spend it on whirl pool to stop the opposing player.

So, now we have playing board, movement rules, turns, player engagement, resource management and minor strategy.

I played around with different rules, mechanic and even added more cards, limit, restrictions and other stuff. Here are some of the other cards based on game design and the 2 hours paper prototyping.

Freeze wave – It can only be cast vertically from left to right which means you have to be ahead or behind a player, along with see a square/grid space that is ahead of the player you want to freeze. When the player lands on it, he picks a movement card and is frozen for that amount of time.

Boost – To ensure more resource management and choices for the player, I added a spell to use on self which lets the player spend a mana orb and move one extra space, so if someone decided to save 8 orbs for the last path, he could spend it and then win the game. That is if he isn’t stopped by freeze wave or whirl pool trap.

Eventually I wanted something that could counter 1 trap spell so I created the shield spell so the player could use it to ignore the trap, thus rendering the trap spell useless and continue moving.

This is because I added a rule that says “If trap placed on orb grid, player who lands on the trap does not gain orb unless shield is on”. This is also why the “Use spell” is AFTER you are done moving, otherwise the previous player who placed the trap would make the trap gameplay useless, letting all players simply activate shield at the start of the turn when they saw a trap ahead. With the current “Use spell after moving” the player need to think ahead of time thus making things more interesting and strategic!

I also tried three upgrades which changed the gameplay drastically but that is mostly because of the 8×8 game boards, so simply expanding the board to 16×16 would make the three upgrades more suited in the game. I removed the three upgrades because the game become more of “Save to upgrade” rather than “Attack to stop” gameplay in the short amount of playtime.

They were:

Capacity upgrade: By paying 5 orbs the player would increase the limit of keeping 5 orbs to 10 orbs.

Double move: By paying 10 orbs the player would gain double move then standard movement, so if the move card said 2 he would have gotten 4.

Double orbs: Pay 5 orbs to gain x2 amount of orbs each time you passed an orb grid. So instead of 1 they player would get 2.

Now, unless you didn’t notice yet why I designed movement cards and made it into deck then I will try and explain. It was because the spells require the affected player to pick a movement card for freeze time or going back in movement. This means, the caster can try and predict the best outcome by keeping track of which cards that went out and try and have the opponent pick 5-6 card, which there is only 1 of! In other words, if I know the 5 and 6 didnt leave the deck yet and there are only 2 cards left then the player would be in trouble after I place a trap spell.

Anyway, this is an actual real process of game design using paper prototyping. Below is the final image and test session.(SOurce:fatcowgames


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