作者：Lars Doucet

文章主要回顾过去几十年来的游戏设计杰作，从中抽取可供大家进行借鉴的有趣技巧。本文将尽量列举具体范例。

第一个是来自宫本茂的设计概念，我将其称作“三原则”。这是个实际的关卡设计技巧，将玩家逐步引入新挑战中。

Super Mario Bros from dan-dare.org

以下是它的运作模式：

在你向玩家发布新功能挑战前，你首先以3个简单的不同情景显示内容。

这一技巧倍受宫本茂青睐，令他的作品在80年代的众多复杂NES游戏中脱颖而出。但这一策略无法令你的游戏变得“更简单”。相反，它会促使游戏变得具有“习得性”（游戏邦注：让玩家在迎接真正挑战前做好准备）。它的最大优点是，你无法通过乏味的指南做到这点。你必须通过玩法。正如Raph Koster所述，玩家通过玩乐进行学习。

这属于实际游戏设计，因此我将通过实例进行阐述。下面就来看看原生《超级马里奥兄弟》，看看游戏如何引出Goomba。

步骤1-简单挑战 from gamasutra.com

初次看到Goomba时，它径直向我们走来。没什么花招，没什么特别之处：它只是缓慢向我们走来。

注意这是基于Goomba挑战玩家的最简单方式。

在我们多数人看来，这没有太大问题。将其踩扁，或直接跳过，你都会完好无事。但回到1986年，这是很多人都玩过的首款电子游戏，很多玩家可能会被第一个出现的Goomba消灭。但这没什么关系——丧失生命，从头开始，不会丧失任何进展。只需再次进行尝试。

此外，若没有掌握游戏基本技能——跳跃，我们完全无法避开游戏的首个Goomba。这意味游戏设计师可以做出此假设：任何通过这一初始点的玩家都知道如何进行跳跃。

通过这一挑战，设计师告诉玩家：“游戏存在Goomba这类元素”。

首个Goomba被玩家顺利跳过。向右移动一小段距离后，我们遇到第二个Goomba。

步骤2-融入些许变化 from gamasutra.com

它在两个管道之间来回跳跃，我们处在某个管道上。

这比最简单的Goomba挑战更进一步。但更重要的是，这带来全新Goomba。在玩家需要踩扁Goomba或进行跳跃前，暂时将其置于一旁。现在我们看到不同的情境：当它击中管道时会持续来回跳跃。这一密闭空间改变了挑战的性质。

通过这一挑战，设计师告诉玩家：“Goomba周围的空间可以呈现不同模式。”

但这个挑战也不是很困难，玩家可以很快完成这一关卡。只要玩家通过这一节点，设计师就可以做出此假设，玩家已把握前两次的经验。

接着，我们会看到如下画面：

步骤3-再次调整 from gamasutra.com

基于之前的挑战做出调整，这里是两个更宽阔的管道，同时有两个goomba正在来回跳跃。

这一挑战颇具趣味，因为相比上个挑战，这变得更简单，也更复杂。它变得更简单是因为管道存在更多空间，更复杂是因为goomba的数量翻倍，所以即使你逃过一个，你也依然有被消灭的可能。

逃过这一挑战，设计师告诉玩家：“Goomba并不总是单独出现。”

解决这三个挑战只需10秒钟，但玩家从中充分把握游戏的首个敌人类型。我们学到应对挑战需要的基本技能（游戏邦注：即跳跃），我们快速把握Goomba的各种出现形式。

这也许有些过于简单，但在很多游戏中，玩家并没有在迎接新挑战前“做好充分准备”。相反，玩家在初次遇到新挑战时，就直接被出奇不意地击败。这不仅颇令人沮丧，而且还无法让玩家从中进行学习。三原则是这一问题的最佳解决方案。

所以，回到《超级马里奥兄弟》。现在宫本茂已向我们呈现Goomba元素，接下来会发生什么？

步骤4-最终模式 from gamasutra.com

这里Goomba会从平台上降落，威胁从天而降的玩家。Goomba首次在游戏中变成具有挑战性的威胁元素。想想如果这是你初次体验游戏时遇到的场景会是怎样。当然如今具备多年游戏经验的硬核玩家在此毫无问题，但我可以想象在1989年只有5岁的孩子定会因此而感到非常沮丧。当年，这个简单的10秒玩法让我能够做好充分准备，应对这一情境，这对如今的玩家来说也是如此。

这对关卡晋级来说非常重要。从根本来说，你其实是向玩家提供学习课程。你在升级内容前，先单独呈现挑战，这样玩家就能够首先学习个别技能，而这随后将组合成更复杂的技能。

三原则适用众多范围，包括关卡内和关卡外。《超级马里奥兄弟》的各个游戏空间由3个初级关卡构成，然后是一个富有挑战性的“城堡”关卡。这样三原则就贯穿于整个《超级马里奥兄弟》结构中。

看看你首次遇到Koopa前，游戏第一个城堡的最后一个走廊：

Koopa准备 from gamasutra.com

游戏并没有让玩家立即应对Koopa，然后迅速遭遇死亡，玩家会受到短暂的火球训练。首先，火球会单独出现在你面前。然后游戏地形会发生改变，火球会从不同高度进行袭击。最后，火球会以更快速度出现。这样在战斗开始前，玩家就做好迎接战斗的“准备”。

显然，这里的数字“三”没有什么奇特之处。这觉得这是个不错的经验法则——只要你在不同情境中向玩家呈现内容三次以上，你就有理由地将内容混合起来。

游戏邦注：原文发布于2010年4月3日，文章叙述以当时为背景。（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）

Practical Game Design : The Rule of Threes

by Lars Doucet

This is the first article in a series I’m calling Practical Game Design.

The idea is to look back on the great masters of game design over the past few decades and extract some useful techniques from their games that we can immediately use in our own. I’ll stick to specific examples as much as possible.

The first one comes from Shigeru Miyamoto himself, and although it might be known by other names, I’m going to call it “The Rule of Threes.” This is a practical level design technique that introduces the player to new challenges gradually.

Here’s how it works:

Before you challenge the player with a new feature, you first present it in 3 easy but varied situations.

This technique is a favorite of Shigeru Miyamoto, and really helped differentiate his games from all the other punishingly difficult NES titles of the 1980′s. This technique does not makes your games “easier,” however.  Instead, it makes your games more “learnable” by making sure that the player has been “primed” before the real challenges begin. The best part is, you don’t do this with boring, pedantic tutorials. You just do it with gameplay. As Raph Koster would say, the player learns by having fun.

Since this is Practical Game Design, I’ll explain the technique through example. Let’s take a look at the original Super Mario Bros. and see how the Goomba is introduced.

The first time we ever see the Goomba, he’s just walking straight towards us. No tricks, nothing fancy: there’s just one of them and he just slowly lumbers in our direction.

Note that this is the easiest possible way to challenge the player with a Goomba.

For most of us, this isn’t much of a problem. Stomp him or hop over him, and you’re good. But, back in 1986, this being the first video game many people had ever played, many players would have been killed by that first Goomba. But that’s no big deal – one life down and start from the beginning, no progress lost. Try again.

Note also that it is literally impossible to get past the first Goomba without learning the game’s most fundamental skill: jumping. This means that the game designer can assume that any player that gets past this initial point knows how to jump.

With this challenge, the designer tells the player: “There is such a thing as a Goomba.”

Okay, first Goomba has been jumped over. Move to the right a bit, and here we see our second Goomba.

He’s bouncing back and forth between two pipes, and we are standing on a pipe.

This is one step up from the easiest possible Goomba challenge. More importantly, however, this shows us a new dimension to the Goomba. Before the player needed to merely stomp the Goomba or jump and let it pass. Now we have a different situation: it will bounce back and forth when it hits a pipe. The confined space changes the nature of the challenge.

With this challenge, the designer tells the player:
“The land around the Goomba can take different shapes”

This one isn’t particularly difficult, either, and the player is likely to get past this stage fairly quickly. As soon as the player is past this point, the designer can assume the player has absorbed his first two lessons.

Next, we see this:

A variation on the challenge we were just given, here is a wider span of two pipes, with two goombas moving back and forth together.

This one is interesting, because it’s both easier and harder than the last challenge. It’s easier because there’s more space, and because you can stomp both Goombas at once, and harder because there’s twice as many of them, so that even if you get one, you might still die.

With this challenge, the designer tells the player:
“The Goomba will not always come alone.”

It only takes about 10 seconds to make it through these three challenges, but already the player has been given a very good introduction on the game’s first enemy type. We’ve learned the basic skill we need to deal with it (jumping), and we’ve been given a quick but representative sample of the various situations in which Goombas will be thrown at us.

This might seem a bit simplistic, but there are plenty of games in which the player is not properly “primed” for new challenges before they’re presented. Instead, the player’s first encounter with the new challenge is to be beaten in the face with it unexpectedly. Not only is this frustrating, but the player is unlikely to learn much from this scenario. The Rule of Threes is a great solution to this problem.

So, back to Super Mario Bros. Now that Miyamoto has introduced us to the Goomba, what happens next?

Here we have Goombas falling off of ledges and threatening the player from above. This is really the first time in the game where Goombas are presented as a challenging threat. Imagine if this was the first thing that greeted you upon playing the game. Sure, plenty of us hard-core gamers with decades of experience today would have no problem with it, but as a 5 year old in 1989, I can imagine being plenty frustrated. That simple 10-second build up of gameplay really helped prime me for this situation back then, and it will work the same way for players today.

This is what’s really important about level progression. In essence, you’re building a learning curriculum for the player. You present the challenges in isolation before you ramp things up, so the player learns individual skills first, which can be layered together into more complex skills later.

The Rule of Threes can be used across many scales, both in and out of levels themselves. Each world in Super Mario Bros. consists of 3 preliminary levels, and then a challenging “castle” level, after all. In this way the Rule of Threes is applied throughout the structure of Super Mario Bros., kind of like a fractal.

Just look at the last corridor of the first castle, before you meet Koopa for the first time:

Rather than just let the player deal with Koopa and meet instant death, the player is given a short training course on fireballs. First, a fireball comes straight at you in isolation. Then, the terrain changes and the fireballs come at different heights. Finally, the fireballs start to come more quickly. The player has been “primed” for battling Koopa before the fight has even begun.

Obviously, there’s nothing magical about the number three. I picked it as it seems like a nice rule of thumb – once you’ve shown something to the player a minimum of three times in different situations, you can start to mix it up without being completely unfair.

There’s plenty of other useful techniques and interesting structural lessons to be learned here, but I’ll just keep this short for now and leave those for future posts.

Let me know what you think! Is this helpful to anybody?（Source：gamasutra）