作者：Douglass Perry

在E3之前的巡回演讲中，Epic Games执行制作人Rod Fergusson（曾负责《战争机器》系列）向媒体谈及去年夏天的工作室game jam活动如何造就Epic的首款内部手机游戏《Infinity Blade: Dungeons》。

infinity blade dungeons from gametyrant.com

Fergusson表示，“我们觉得，在投身《战争机器》制作这么多年后，进行game jam活动将是不错选择，在此我们可以让团队成员进行创造性充电；这有点像画板清洁剂。”

2011年7月，Epic将人员扩充90多人，以完成《战争机器3》的工作任务，但当作品临近完工时，他觉得在投入7年多时间制作《战争机器》系列后，他的团队需要接触新东西。

Fergusson解释表示，“所以我花费1周时间将人员划分成小团队。根本来说，你需要有足够的冲劲说服其他4位成员和你合作。所以大家都纷纷着手制作某些富于想象的内容。我不想要谈论很多关于引擎的东西，但通过Unreal Engine，你1周内能够完成的内容着实非常惊人。”

Fergusson表示，有些团队负责创造游戏构思，有些（包括行政和社区人员）则负责通过PPT展现构思，例如新商业模式。若干成员推崇暗黑破坏神风格的地牢爬行者内容。

他表示，“这一地牢爬行者构思对某些人而言是个激情四射的项目。这像是天作之合。当你具备Epic各式各样的美工和人员时，幻想就是大家想要涉猎的东西。我的意思是，你已目睹我们的美术风格，所以谈论越多，我们就越发意识到：‘这适合无尽之剑世界。’”

Fergusson表示，现在是时候将此变成真正的游戏作品。他向董事会呈现游戏内容，获得批准后，项目被分配20名人员，其中Fergusson扮演执行制作人的角色。项目的进展存在若干重要启示。

“另一我们觉得有趣的地方是，Chair（Chair Entertainment）在手机领域表现突出，但Epic总部在此毫无经验。我认为这是探索此领域，获得相应技能的方式。UI、商业模式存在很多值得我们学习的东西，这款游戏的思路和《战争机器》截然不同，所以这是培养人员，促使他们崭露头角的绝佳机会。从某种意义上看，我们甚至改变了自己的开发方式。由于团队非常小，因此我们将所有人员聚集到同个房间。项目参与人员共计20多个。我们全都坐在一起，这是不同的工作方式，非常有趣。”

由于Epic的小团队负责制作iOS游戏，因此自然会接触到最新的Unreal engine更新内容，这带来每天成百上千的代码登记。

Fergusson表示，“我们采取新举措完善手机领域的体验，这表现在调和映射和动态gamma方面，在此游戏能够基于你的眼睛做出调整，我们能够实现景深效果。”

随着部分人员由AAA主机开发转移至20人的小团队中，Fergusson发现，成员从中收获不同技能，若干成员甚至获得《战争机器》之类大型项目所没有的主动性。

他解释表示，“巧妙之处在于，我们由90人的《战争机器》团队转移至20人的小团队（游戏邦注：在此所有人员同处一室）。”你能够从中感受到房间中所散发出来的能量，所有人员满怀激情；这样的合作真的非常愉快。

“在此你依靠的不是数据表格，而罗列所有任务的白板。这有点像在车库开发游戏的感觉。”（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）

How Epic Games’ week-long game jam gave birth to Infinity Blade: Dungeons

by Douglass Perry

During a pre-E3 tour last week, Epic Games executive producer Rod Fergusson (Gears of War series) spoke with Gamasutra about how an internal studio game jam last summer produced Epic’s first in-house mobile game, Infinity Blade: Dungeons.

“We decided that after working on Gears of War for many years that maybe it would be a good idea to do a game jam where we could recharge our team creatively; sort of a palette cleanser,” Fergusson said.

In July 2011 Epic had staffed up to over ninety people to finish work on Gears of War 3, but once it hit near-completion, he felt after nearly seven-plus years of working on Gears of War games, his team needed something new to tackle.

“So we took a week and formed into small teams,” explained Fergusson. “Basically you had to have enough momentum to convince four others to work on it with you. So everyone went off and created some really imaginative stuff. I don’t tend to push or talk about the engine much, but what you can do from nothing to something with the Unreal Engine in a week is crazy. It felt like full games were created in a week.”

Several groups created game concepts, while others, including administration and community personnel, chimed in to create power-point presentations on ideas such as new business models, said Fergusson. A few staffers pursued a Diablo-style dungeon crawler.

“This dungeon crawler concept came about as an overall passion project for a few people,” he said. “It felt like a natural fit. When you have the kinds of artists and people we have at Epic, fantasy is something people like to work in. I mean, you have seen the kind of art we do, so the more we talked about it, the more we realized, ‘Hey, this could fit into the Infinity Blade world.’”

That, according to Fergusson, was when the collective lights turned on to make this into a real game. He pitched the game to the board of directors and, once approved, gave the game a staff of about 20, with Fergusson playing the role of executive producer. The project’s go-ahead had several important implications.

“Another thing we felt was interesting, too, was that Chair is doing such a great job in the mobile space, yet we didn’t have that experience with Epic proper at headquarters. We felt that this was another way to explore that space and get that skill-set here. There are a lot of great learnings for us on the UI, business models, and even for our people. The leads on this game weren’t leads on Gears, so it’s a great way to grow people and get them to show up. And we even changed the way we develop in a sense. Because the teams were small enough, we put everyone into one room. There are a little over 20 people on the project. We are all sitting together. It’s just a different way of working. It’s been fun.”

With Epic’s small team tasked to create the iOS title, it also had the natural access to work on the latest improvements to the Unreal engine, which gets hundreds of code check-ins every day.

“There are definitely new things we have done to improve the mobile experience in terms of push-process effects, tone mapping, and dynamic gamma, where the game can adjust for your eye, and we have the ability to do depth of field,” said Fergusson.

With a portion of the staff transitioning from a triple-A console developer to a small 20-person team, Fergusson has seen the staff evolving different skill-sets and several staffers taking initiative that they couldn’t have on a larger project like Gears of War.

“What is really great is that we went from this 90-person team on Gears to a 20-person team where we’ll all in the same room,” he explained. “You can feel the energy in that room where people are so passionate about making this game; it’s really nice to have the collaboration.

“You’re not living off a spread sheet, you’re living off a white board with all the tasks written on it. It’s got that old school garage gaming feel to it.”（Source：gamasutra）