作者：Leigh Alexander

多年来，传统发行领域一直在告诉我们，没有人偏好基于故事的探险游戏或围绕互动故事叙述的游戏形式。但Kickstarter时代充分说明，情况已发生改变，往昔的著名探险游戏开发商在此成功获得融资。

但互动故事的潜在复兴趋势不仅仅是出于怀旧之情。更广泛的游戏用户意味着曾经的“休闲”游戏将越来越受欢迎，此外，平板电脑和电子书阅读器的普及意味着如今这种形式的游戏将广受欢迎：以前代人所未经历的方式在荧光屏上阅读内容。

书籍和游戏逐步成为应用商店最热门类型的竞争对手，在这样的市场中，若如今的新用户渴望获得字谜游戏之外的内容会出现什么情况？

文本游戏：返璞归真

通过简单文本命令互动是电子游戏最初诞生时的模式——过去支持图像完全是不可能的事情。在此变得具有可行性时，早期设计师便开始添加图像，但在这之前，他们只能保持创造性，通过黑暗监视器上闪着浅绿色光芒的文字描绘触觉世界。

要成为优秀的游戏设计师，你必须是优秀的创作者。严肃玩家喜欢发生在游戏创作者和自己之间的离奇故事；很多甚至喜欢这样的荒谬挫败感：发现字谜可以简单通过“take”而非“get”一词破解。

colossal cave adventure(from gamasutra)

我自孩童以来玩过的游戏不胜枚举，但没有作品能够取代我青少年时期非常着迷的Will Crowther《巨洞冒险》，其众所周知的“祖父”文本游戏——地图迷宫，爬行拼凑的岩石，追寻空洞的声音到达无法逾越的缝隙。

自此游戏行业已将多数时间花在挖掘持续发展的前沿技术，极力填补游戏和现实世界存在的鸿沟——有时甚至不考虑提高画面质量和保真度是否有必要，或者这是否具有可行性。通常，更简单、更抽象的互动模式都半途而废。

80-90年代的探险游戏（游戏邦注：由Sierra和LucasArts主导）坚持以诙谐有趣的故事作为游戏体验的核心元素，即便游戏基于广阔而缤纷多彩的世界及一连串物体和工具。最终结果是游戏体验因创作者的声音和特性而令人印象深刻，因此玩家会因幽默的描述者及有趣的角色创作者而格外珍视游戏。

这就是为什么Tim Schafer、Jane Jensen、Al Lowe和Two Guys From Andromeda这些家喻户晓的创作者能够在今天重拾自己擅长的游戏风格。但就连更原始的游戏故事叙述模式（包括那些主要基于文本的游戏）也逐步东山再起，这主要归功于手机领域的多元化及注重故事叙述和探险元素的新潮流。

偏好文字游戏及“后倾”游戏的用户

事实上，只基于文本的游戏从来没有完全消失。互动故事创作者和设计师联盟一直通过社区、工具及年度赛事保持这一题材的活跃性。

这意味着其元老领导者已做好引领潮流的准备，因为IF（互动故事）领域开始利用自己的新机会——2010年，在《Double Fine Adventure》之前，Andrew Plotkin通过Kickstarter平台给自己的iPhone互动故事游戏《Hadean Lands》筹集8000美元资金。他最终筹得3万多美元，消除他之前的疑虑，即是否会有人掏钱资助他制作这款曾被玩家深爱多年的文本游戏。

hadean lands(from gamasutra)

作家及设计师Emily Short也一直是IF社区的领导者，他的多数作品主要围绕在互动故事体验中创造角色间的仿真互动。她的公司Little Text People最近被《第二人生》开发商Linden Lab收购，工作室当前正在制作的项目是款基于AI的互动故事叙述体验（游戏邦注：由她今年在GDC呈现的复杂社交模拟引擎支持）。

她同意自己所处的领域逐步繁荣发展。她表示，“随着平板电脑的兴起，我们获得一个适合阅读及同高强度画面内容进行互动的形式要素。

我们并非基于家庭电视中的控制器设计适合起居室进行的前倾动作游戏，平板电脑的兴起意味着我们能够基于坐在沙发上随意阅读内容的用户设计游戏。”

与书籍进行互动

Short接着表示，“发行领域的许多人士也逐渐对如何利用采用电子书形式的书籍产生兴趣。”这一消息主要来自那些积极探索互动性及新技术与书籍结合可能性的传统发行领域人士。

例如，Penguin Group推出App Store版《Chopsticks》，这是个由Jessica Anthony和Rodrigo Corral创作的青春浪漫故事。应用版本提供平装本之外的选择，让玩家能够同角色生活中的物品互动，通过视觉和触觉互动探索故事。

chopsticks(from gamasutra)

很多人都有通过其他数字媒介内容，或创造自主选择探险活动形式的体验接触过扩充故事，Short表示，“但许多发行商发现，他们能做的还有更多，互动故事叙述有何发展空间？”

Short继续表示，“显然这里我带有自己的个人主观色彩，因为这是我一直想要看到的，但我发现，在传统游戏形式中更具挑战性的故事和叙述类型如今越来越受关注。”

玩家希望看到更深层次的特性描述及游戏世界，在此他们能够真正参与其中，文本能够变成形象描述内部世界、思维过程或其他无法简单通过意像呈现的元素。

Short谈及Little Text People的游戏项目，“我们所采取的举措旨在希望利用用户对于书籍的熟悉程度，将内容塑造成他们所理解的东西。我们所制作的内容在形式上别具一格；你知道如何阅读故事，这里有个页面——但这一页面还添加其他东西。”

就用户分布情况而言，Short希望互动故事能够吸引类似的“放松”型用户（游戏邦注：他们会被《愤怒的小鸟》之类的简单触控游戏所吸引）。“我喜欢玩掌机游戏，但有些时候我颇为疲惫或忙碌，此时我完全不可能坐下来玩FPS，这会非常刺激，有些令人焦虑。”

Short提出这样的问题，“若是低沉浸性的游戏，你会从中收获什么？我们能够探索的范围很广，若你想要得到书籍给予的放松感觉，游戏应呈现什么样式？你希望游戏内容能够带给你多玩一回合《俄罗斯方块》所没有的附加价值。”

互动故事的适合位置

这也是个文化现象：用户越来越习惯于将书籍当作媒介伙伴——《哈利·波特》、《暮光之城》和《饥饿游戏》之类的热门电影，或是《权力的游戏》之类的电视连续剧，同时阅读书籍和观看电影会让粉丝感到更满足。

文本游戏的设计师可以利用这一熟悉特点将用户带入能够阅读内容及参与其中的世界里。不是每个粉丝都想要制作粉丝艺术品或粉丝小说，亦或是进行角色扮演，但显然用户多半都会想要同自己阅读的内容进行互动，或是以新方式访问文字内容。

她表示，“当你阅读自己非常喜爱的书籍时，你多半都会有这样欲望，那就是停留在此背景中，保持互动。你将书本放下，希望书中的世界会继续存在，所以我将此视作一个机会。我将此当做供用户重新进行互动的场所。”

此外，Short表示自己不禁基于自己“之前”古典文学教授的视角思考问题：“我发现大家如今进行的很多活动都和人的本性存在根深蒂固的关系。”

“整体想法是，故事是某种知识产权，只首次出现时才有价值，重新改组他人的故事，或进行重述都属于欺骗行为，并非远古社会人们构思故事的方式。”

通过互动、参与及游戏设计，今天的故事延续神话故事的复杂性，玩家能够从多层面探索故事——例如，源自不同角色视角的系列相同活动，或者是现在恶棍变成英雄。

她表示，“我知道很多人对作家怀有深深的崇拜之情，但我觉得这并不属于反文学：让用户同自己喜爱的故事进行互动。”

跳过语法分析程序：融入现代氛围

Short及其团队当前采用的技术能够确定具体处境的潜在启示性，但不要求文本输入——新一代玩家无法轻松克服的一个问题是棘手的语法分析程序，即便是个最新版本。

Short解释称，“这里存在一个需要从语法分析程序领域转移到选项选择领域的设计问题。语法分析程序带来的益处是一方面，但这可能促使玩家陷入深深的沮丧之中。”

她补充表示，“但这促使你作为玩家能够实现独自飞跃，让游戏不再控制你的操作。我无需被告知‘点击X按键’——我希望自己想出一个可行操作，然后将其落到实处。”

她接着表示，“在我看来，古典文本探险游戏魅力无穷：逐步意识到你生活在包含众多命令的世界中。作为作家，其中挑战在于弄清如何同玩家沟通，而且不破坏其中的神秘感。”（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）

In-depth: Is it time for a text game revival?

by Leigh Alexander

For years, the traditional publishing industry has been telling us that nobody wants story-driven adventures or game forms oriented around interactive storytelling. But the Kickstarter age has been showing us something a little bit different, amid successful fundraising for developers of renowned adventure games of yore.

But there’s more than just nostalgia contributing to a potential revival for interactive stories. A broader gaming audience means appetites for game forms we might have once called “casual” in another time — and furthermore, the popularity of tablets and e-readers means there’s a real appetite for game forms that take advantage of a culture now habituated to reading on luminous screens in ways prior generations were widely not.

In a market where books and games are close rivals for the most popular category on app stores, what happens when today’s new gamers are hungry for something more than word puzzles?

Text gaming: Back to the roots

Of course, interaction via simple text commands was how video games were born — it used to be that supporting graphics was an impossibility. Early designers would add graphics as soon as it became feasible, but before that they were forced to get creative, sketching tactile universes only from words that glowed pale green against dark monitors.

To be a good game designer, you had to be a good writer. Serious players were folks who liked the surreal dialogue that could take place between the writer of a game and themselves; many even liked the absurdist frustration of learning a puzzle that could be solved simply by using the word “take” instead of “get.”

I can’t count how many games I’ve played since I was a child, but nothing can ever quite substitute for my long young days and years spent with Will Crowther’s Colossal Cave Adventure, the widely-known “granddaddy” of text games — mapping mazes, crawling quilted bedrock and chasing hollow voices into impossible crevices.

The game industry has spent most of its time since then marching hungrily toward ever-expanding technological horizons, taking every wild leap it could across the gulfs that spanned play and the real world — sometimes without consideration to whether better graphics or higher fidelity were necessary, whether they served. Often, simpler and more abstract modes of interaction fell by the wayside.

The adventure games of the ’80s and ’90s, pioneered by Sierra and LucasArts, held to spines of witty, playful writing as core to the experience even as they relied on expansive, brightly-colored worlds and their litanies of objects and tools. The result was experiences strongly impressed with the voice and identities of their creators, so that players still valued games because of descriptive humorists and fun character writers above anything else.

That’s probably why renowned and well-remembered folks like Tim Schafer, Jane Jensen, Al Lowe and the Two Guys From Andromeda have such opportunity today to revisit the style of game in which they excelled. But even more primordial modes of storytelling in games — including those that rely on text primarily — are making something of a comeback too, thanks to the diverse mobile climate and a new wave of appreciation for storytelling and adventure.

An appetite for wordplay and the “lean-back” game

Actually, the text-only game has never wholly disappeared. All the while a close-knit group of interactive fiction writers and designers have kept the form alive through community, tools and annual competitions.

That means its veteran leaders are well-positioned to lead as the IF space takes its own share of today’s new opportunities — in 2010, well before Double Fine Adventure, Andrew Plotkin asked for $8,000 through Kickstarter to fund Hadean Lands, an interactive fiction game for the iPhone. He got over $30,000, validating his stated curiosity about whether anyone would actually pay him to make the text games his fans had loved for so many years.

Writer and designer Emily Short is also a longtime leader of the IF community, and much of her work has focused on creating plausible interactions among characters in interactive fiction experiences. Her company, Little Text People, was recently acquired by Second Life creator Linden Lab, and her current project underway at the studio is an AI-driven interactive storytelling experience backed by the sophisticated social simulation engine she presented during GDC this year.

She agrees that her field is uniquely positioned for a blossoming. “With the rise of tablets, we’ve got a form factor that’s really comfortable for reading, and for interacting with things with high-intensity graphics,” she tells Gamasutra.

Instead of designing for the lean-forward, action-oriented living room experience consoles brought to the home television screen, tablets’ popularity means there are all kinds of opportunities to design an experience for somebody sitting back on a sofa, casually reading.

Playing with books, too

“There’s also an increased interest from people in the publishing industry in looking at what they can do with books that really takes advantage of the ebook form,” Short continues. She’s heard from people in traditional publishing who are intrigued by what interactivity and new tech can continue adding to books.

For example, Penguin Group has published an App Store version of Chopsticks, a teen romance story by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral. The app edition provides an alternate take on the paperback story that lets players interact with artifacts from the characters’ lives and explore the narrative through visuals and tactile interaction.

Many have experimented with augmenting novels with other digital media content, or with creating choose-your-own-adventure type experiences, “but a lot of publishers are aware there’s more they could be doing,” Short says. “What are the possibilities of interactive storytelling that go beyond?”

“Obviously I’m bringing my own biases to this, because this is what I’ve always wanted to see, but I think there is an increased interest in some of the kinds of stories and interaction that are more challenging to do in traditional game formats,” Short continues.

Gamers are hungry for deeper characterization and worlds to which they can truly attach, and text can be a way to illuminate inner worlds, thought processes or other elements that aren’t easily demonstrated by imagery.

“The approach that we’re taking tries to leverage people’s familiarity with books to make it feel like something they already understand,” Short says of Little Text People’s project. “We’re doing something that is very unusual in terms of game formats; you understand how to read a story, and here’s a page — but things are being added to that page.”

In terms of demographics, Short hopes that interactive stories will attract the same kind of “relaxed attention” audiences that are drawn to simple touch-based games like Angry Birds. “I enjoy playing console games, but there are certainly times where if I’ve had a draining or busy day, the last thing I want to do is sit down and play an FPS that is going to be adrenaline-fueled and anxious.”

“What do you get from a game if you want it to be low-commitment?” poses Short. “There’s more of that spectrum we could explore… what do games look like when you want something that gives you the kind of relaxation that a chapter of a book would give you? You want something where you feel like you’re retaining some kind of gained value you don’t necessarily get from playing one more round of Tetris.”

Where interactive stories fit

It’s also a cultural climate where audiences are increasingly used to thinking of books as media companions — popular film series like Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games, or TV series like Game of Thrones, all feel richer to fans if they read the books as well as enjoy the films.

Designers of text-based games can take advantage of that familiarity to bring audiences into worlds they can read and participate in. Not every fan would want to create fan art or fan fiction or do cosplay (though thousands do!), but it’s clear people very much want to interact with things they read, or to access written content in new ways.

“There’s always been a desire, when you read a book that you really like, to remain in the setting, and to remain engaged with it,” she suggests. “You put the book down, and somehow wish that world could go on… so I do see that as an opportunity. I see that as a place where i want people to re-engage.”

At the same time, Short says she can’t help but look at things from the perspecive of her “previous life” as a classics professor: “I feel a lot of the things people are doing now actually have really profound roots in human nature,” she says.

“The whole idea that a story is a kind of intellectual property and only counts the first time you tell it, and that it’s cheating to repurpose someone else’s story, to retell it, is… not the way people conceived of these things in the ancient world.”

Through interactivity, participation and game design, today’s stories can gain the complex permanence of mythology, where players can explore narratives as multidimensional things — for example, the same series of events from the perspective of multiple characters, or where the villains are now the heroes.

“I know there are a lot of people obsessed with the cult of the author, but I think there is something that is not anti-literature about having people take a story that they really care about and play with it,” she reflects.

Past the parser: into the modern climate

The tech with which Short and her team are currently working determines possible affordances within a situation, but doesn’t actually ask for text input — one thing the new generation of gamers might not easily hurdle is a persnickety parser, even an up-to-date one.

“There’s sort of a design issue we’ve had to take from the parser world into the world of selected choices,” Short explains. “The thing the parser gives you is on one hand, there’s the possibility of tremendous player frustration.”

“But what goes with this is the possibility of making a leap on your own as a player, of realizing the game wasn’t holding my hand,” she adds. “I didn’t get told to ‘press the X button’ — I thought of a possibility on my own and then I executed it.”

“For me, that’s a lot of the appeal of especially the classic text adventures: the process of realizing you live in a world with a tremendous and unbounded number of verbs,” she continues. “As an author, the challenge is always to figure out how to communicate with the player… without spoiling that sense of mystery.”（Source：gamasutra）