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开发者详细分析《幻幻球》的创造过程

发布时间:2012-09-04 17:09:50 Tags:,,,

作者:Edge Staff

西方人总是很难理解日本人对于弹球盘(与弹珠台一样古怪且缺少规则)的沉迷。许多外国人都对这种鲜艳且噪杂的机器充满好奇。不管是从形式上还是功能上来看,它与传统电子游戏具有很大的差别,缺少足够的规则,风险和奖励。《幻幻球》便属于这类型游戏,即玩家的成败完全取决于机会与设计间的平衡。

这种说法不无道理,游戏制作人兼PopCap工作室总监Sukhbir Sidhu承认道:“20世纪90年代末我曾经玩过一款引进的弹球盘游戏,并极端沉迷于这款游戏中。随后我便决定基于相同的游戏原理(以引出相同的情感)创造出一款电子游戏。但是弹球盘是一款完全基于运气的游戏,所以很难被转变成PC电子游戏。于是我便逐渐淡忘了这一想法。直到最后我进入了PopCap并发现其中一位程序员Brian Rothstein创造了一个非常适合这类型游戏的2D物理引擎,我的这种创想又再次复燃了。”

在开发的头5个月中,只有Sidhu和Rothstein致力于该项目中。而在之后的两年时间里,PopCap首席美术人员Walter Wilson,背景美术人员Marcia Broderick以及另一位程序员Eric Tams也加入其中。

这款游戏很大程度地受益于PopCap宽松的截止日期政策,该公司联合创始人John Vechey解释道:“PopCap相信任何游戏只有在完全准备好之时才能真正发行。也就是如果它永远认为游戏未‘准备好’,那么游戏就永远不能发行。正是这种宽松的截止日期有效地维持着我们的质量关卡。尽管这种政策听起来很轻松,但是我们同样也清楚没有截止日期我们便很难创造出一款真正的游戏。你只能不断地预测各种选择,尝试着添加更多功能,甚至你永远也不会觉得游戏已经大功告成了。”

Sidhu曾经致力于PopCap内部多款游戏中,包括《Astropop》,《Insaniquarium》以及《Type Shark》等,同时他也曾参与该公司所发行的多款游戏的设计工作。而在Vechey的鼓励下,Sidhu开始尝试着结合弹球盘元素与传统雅达利游戏《Breakout》而进行游戏设计。Sidhu说道:“很明显游戏可以尝试多种方向。但是对我们来说最初也是最大的挑战便是将其压缩成一个简单,具有吸引力且有趣的机制。尽管这需要投入一定的时间,但是我们已经做好准备了。”

“一开始我们所创造的所有关卡要不就是节奏过快(使用弹球盘中经典的直达投球设置),要不就是过于苛求。所以我们便开始简化这些设置。Brian创造了一个带有1百个旋转十字架的关卡,并且玩家必须使用球去清除这些十字架。这看上去便是一个非常合理的发展方向——如此设置非常有趣,让人上瘾,且具有重玩价值,但同时也很容易让玩家感到沮丧。接下来的几周我们将这一理念转变成一块带有静态圆球的领域,而考虑到球的反弹,我们最终决定在所有圆球中使用一些随机的目标橙色圆球去平衡关卡,并以此缓解最后一个圆球可能带给玩家的沮丧感。”

的确,在《幻幻球》开发早期,PopCap中的员工们并不能理解Sidhu对于这一理念的坚定不移。他解释道:“当我们明确了游戏的核心理念。来自工作室的其他员工都对此表示质疑。在我们所设想的游戏中,玩家只要瞄准球并点击消灭它,随后就只需等待这一行动的结果便可;也就是除了这些行动玩家与游戏并不会出现其它互动。许多人都不喜欢这种设置,而我们只能不断抵抗各种希望看到更多互动元素的要求。因为那时候的我们已经对自己的游戏创想充满自信,所以并不愿轻易改变它。”

Vechey也对此表示赞同:“《幻幻球》经历了一个有趣的创造过程。Sidhu和Rothstein总是能够想出一些新理念并进行尝试。事实上他们低调地致力于多种不同理念数周时间,然后再向人们呈现出更大的结果。有些人并不相信他们会创造出真正优秀的游戏。这便是整个项目过程中的最大压力点,即你将自己的全部精力投入于一件事物中,但却未能获得正确的答案,甚至还有来自外人的各种褒贬不一的评价。”

根据Vechey称当他们明确了游戏的核心理念后,工作室的其余成员便开始投入这款游戏的创造中,而没过多久《幻幻球》便已经进入了发行状态:“从技术上来看其实我们早在一年前便可以发行游戏了,但是最终我们决定加入额外的时间去完善视听效果的手绘背景。”

受益于这种额外的时间投入的一大游戏元素同时也是一大决定性时刻。基于Extreme Fever(游戏邦注:消除橙色砖块就算通关)模式,游戏将在玩家的球撞击到最后一个橙色圆球并通过关卡前几秒响起欢快的音乐。对于益智游戏而言这是一种精彩的表演:游戏中将响起贝多芬的《欢乐颂》,并且当球进入最后的行驶轨道时镜头将会呈现出放大的慢动作画面。

Sidhu兴奋地说道:“我们发现许多玩家首次度过一个关卡时总是非常雀跃。最初我设想了一些较为狂野的声音和视觉效果,也就是我们在弹球盘中所听到的那样——虽然听起来较为疯狂,但却富有积极性与奖励性,并且我们可以无需考虑弹球盘作为一款赌博游戏的存在。

peggle1(from edge-online.com)

peggle1(from edge-online.com)

“因为我们不能让玩家在投球中分心,所以唯一一处能够让我们添加弹球盘式疯狂元素的地方便是最后的游戏关卡。我们先巨大的字体标注出了‘Extreme Fever’,后Brian又添加了《欢乐颂》。一开始我们只是玩笑式地添加了占位符,但是似乎玩家们都很喜欢这一设置,所以我们便在整个开发过程中添加了更多占位符。而当我们发觉这些元素的设置太过夸张时,我们也会开始考虑其它内容。”

这款游戏逐渐成为一款尝试着吸引硬核游戏玩家注意的网络休闲PC游戏。但是它的游戏机制也遭到那些认为这只是一款纯粹依靠运气的游戏的批评者的质疑。

Sidhu反驳道:“不可否认的是运气是《幻幻球》的一大魅力所在,但是它却不是完全基于运气元素。《幻幻球》也具有许多深度游戏玩法,即玩家不可能在一开始便感受到。当玩家进一步深入游戏中并进入主要冒险模式时,游戏关卡将变得更加复杂,且对玩家的技能,精确度,预先计划和时间安排等都具有更严格的要求。掌握了冒险模式便能够为玩家进入挑战模式做好准备:在基本的游戏玩法中共有75个不同的迷你游戏。有些设置要求你选择合适的力道,或适当的投球时刻,从而让自己能够将球弹进不断移动的球桶中,或做出风格独特的投球方式而获得额外的得分。我希望所有的批评者能够完成《幻幻球》的全部挑战后再次做出评判!”

起初游戏的销量还较低。Vechey解释道:“大多数休闲游戏的销量总是在发行后的一两周内迅速攀升到最顶端,但在之后的3个月时间里停滞不前。虽然《幻幻球》一开始未获得巨大的销量,但是它却能做到许多休闲游戏做不到:在销量提高后仍继续发展着。”

这款游戏能在核心玩家间取得巨大成功的一大推动力量便是获得了《半条命》开发商Valve的赏识。Sidhu说道:“我们的程序员Eric Tams有个朋友刚好在Valve工作,所以我们也因此听说《幻幻球》在Valve广受欢迎。我们甚至收到了来自Valve员工的电子邮件,即希望我们能够分享克服各种挑战的诀窍。那时候我们既听说了许多硬核游戏玩家也开始玩《幻幻球》,同时也遇到了一些玩家表示他们永远不会尝试带有独角兽和彩虹的游戏。”

“Valve能与PopCap展开亲密的合作关系,并且能在Steam平台上推动《幻幻球》的发展都是取决于他们喜欢这款游戏。这点真的很棒,而我们也相信如果有更多硬核玩家能够克服视觉障碍并真正尝试这款游戏,他们一定也会喜欢它的。尽管对我们来说游戏主题有点搞笑性质,但是显然并不是所有人都是这么想的。我们提议为Steam的玩家提供一个特殊的免费游戏版本,并呈现出《半条命2》背景下的角色,我想应该没有人会拒绝一款带有持枪独角兽的游戏吧。Valve也表示喜欢我们的想法,并提供给我们大量的美术和声音资产以及足够宽裕的美术创作时间,帮助我们将《幻幻球》带向那些从未尝试过这款游戏的玩家面前。”

peggle2(from edge-online.com)

peggle2(from edge-online.com)

拥有如此广泛的用户基础,以及游戏中令人印象深刻的投球剪辑能够快速在网络上传播都是归功于游戏具有直接通过电子邮件将剪辑发送给玩家的能力。

Sidhu说道:“我们让玩家能够为了获得高分而一直发送重玩文件。如此我们还接收过1百多万次的重玩请求,甚至还有一次达到了420万次。我希望为玩家呈现出结合了运气和技能的方法。而《幻幻球》的一大魅力便在于不管是在哪个关卡,玩家都可以使用不同的策略获取胜利——并且随着球的布局的改变,玩家在每次投球时所面临的事物也会发生改变。而当玩家完成了一个关卡后,他将能够面对更多不同的技能,这也增添了游戏的重玩价值,让玩家永远不会只是面对相同的游戏。”

(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)

The Making Of: Peggle

Edge Staff

The Japanese obsession with pachinko, pinball’s curious and seemingly ruleless cousin, seems inexplicable to most westerners. A tourist’s curiosity, these bright, clattering machines areinscrutably foreign in both form and function, sharing few of the rules, risks and rewards of traditional videogames. The same could perhaps be said of Peggle, a game that also sees its players’ success or failure resting on a curious balance of chance and design.

It’s not an unfair comparison, as the game’s producer and PopCap studio director, Sukhbir Sidhu, admits: “I played an imported pachinko game back in the late 1990s and became very addicted.

Following this I wanted to try and create a videogame based upon similar principals that elicited similar emotions. But pachinko is purely luck-based and so it doesn’t translate well to a PC-based videogame. As a result the idea got pushed to the back of my mind. It wasn’t until I came to PopCap and saw that one of the coders, Brian Rothstein, had created a 2D physics engine that was perfect for this style of game, that the vision was rekindled.”

For the first five months of development Sidhu and Rothstein worked alone on the game. Later in the project’s two-year lifespan, lead artist Walter Wilson, background artist Marcia Broderick and finally a second coder, Eric Tams, bolstered the team.

The game clearly benefited from PopCap’s studio policy of loose deadlines and emergent development, as company co-founder John Vechey explains: “PopCap doesn’t believe in releasing a game until it’s ready. And if it’s never deemed ‘ready’, then it’s never released. The loose deadlines are necessary to maintain our quality bar. And while this may sound like a wonderful world of idyllic pan-flute- playing fairies, it’s actually much harder to make games without deadlines. You’re constantly second-guessing the choices, trying to add more features – and you never really feel like it’s done.”

Sidhu had previously worked on internal PopCap titles Astropop, Insaniquarium and Typer Shark as well as having design input on a raft of titles the company published. With encouragement from Vechey, Sidhu began working on a game design that combined elements of pachinko with those of classic Atari title Breakout. “There were obviously a lot of directions the game could have gone,” says Sidhu, “so the biggest initial challenge was narrowing it down to a simple, compelling and fun mechanic. It took a while, but we were prepared for that.

“Initially all of the levels we created were either too fast-paced – using the typical non-stop ball shooting that you would see in pachinko – or too demanding. So we started simplifying. Brian made a level that had 100 rotating crosses, which all had to be hit with the ball and cleared. This seemed to be the right direction – it was a lot of fun, addictive and replayable but was ultimately still too frustrating. Over the following weeks or so this idea was distilled down to a field of static round pegs. This allowed for a more predictable bounce which worked so well we finally decided to just use a subset of randomly selected orange target pegs in amongst all of the others to help balance levels and ease some of the frustration of getting the last peg.”

Indeed, in the early days of Peggle’s development, others at the company didn’t share Sidhu’s unflinching belief in the concept. “Once we had the core idea in place we came under a lot of scrutiny from the rest of the studio,” he explains. “In the game the player just aims the ball and clicks to unleash it before sitting back to watch the consequences of their actions; there isn’ t really any interaction beyond that. Some people didn’t like that, so we were constantly defending against requests for more interaction. But by then we were confident enough in our vision for the game that we weren’t tempted to change it.”

Vechey agrees: “Peggle underwent an interesting creative process. Sidhu and Rothstein kept having new ideas for things to try. They actually holed up a little bit and would work on different ideas for a couple months, then show people in bigger increments. There were some people that weren’t sure a great game was going to come of it. It was stressful at that point in the project; you’ve been putting your heart and soul into this thing, there’s never fully a right answer, and everyone has good – and bad – ideas for it.”

According to Vechey, after the core concept had been nailed down and the rest of the studio had bought into the game, it wasn’t long until Peggle was in a releasable state: “We could have technically shipped the same game a year earlier, but we decided to put the extra production time into the audiovisuals and the hand-painted backdrops.”

One of the game elements that benefited from this extra time investment is also one of its defining moments. Extreme Fever mode, a rattling jackpot display of audiovisual payoff, plays out for the few seconds before the player’s ball hits the final orange peg to clear the level. It is some spectacle for a puzzle game: Beethoven’s Ode to Joy blares forth and the camera zooms in while the final few millimeters of the ball’s trajectory play out in slow motion.

“We’ve seen lots of people literally jump for joy the first time they win a level,” enthuses Sidhu. “Originally, I envisioned something more akin to the wild sounds and visuals that I’d seen in pachinko machines – they were crazy but felt really positive and rewarding, not surprising considering pachinko is a gambling game.

“Since it was important not to distract the player from watching the actual shot they made, the only real place to jam in nonsensical pachinko-style craziness was the end of the level. We started with just the words ‘Extreme Fever’ in giant letters, and Brian added Ode to Joy. At first, these were just jokingly added as placeholders, but people who played seemed to react well, so we just added more and more over the course of development. Just when we thought it was already too over the top, we’d think of something else.”

The game has gone on to become one of just a handful of casual PC web-based titles that have managed to penetrate deep into the consciousness of the hardcore gameplaying public. Nevertheless, its mechanics have attracted criticism from those who assert that it’s nothing more than a game of pure chance.

“Luck is certainly a big part of the charm of Peggle, but it’s not entirely luck-based,” counters Sidhu. “There’s a lot of depth to Peggle’s gameplay that isn’t really obvious to begin with.
As you progress further in the main Adventure mode, the levels get harder and do require skill, precision, forward planning and timing. Mastering Adventure mode basically prepares players for Challenge mode: 75 minigames that are all variants on the basic gameplay. Some of these require you to choose the right power-up, or time your shot so you can get a ricochet into the free ball bucket, or earn extra points by getting style shots. I’d like to see critics complete the Peggle challenges and still call it a game of chance!”

The game’s initial sales were slow. “Most casual games’ sales peak out within the first couple of weeks, and within three months are pretty much zero,” explains Vechey. “Peggle didn’t come out with a giant level of sales, but is doing something that few casual games do: continuing to sell while increasing sales.”

A crucial catalyst for the game’s success among core gamers has been the promotion it’s enjoyed from Half-Life developer Valve. “One of our coders, Eric Tams, had friends at Valve and heard Peggle was all the rage at their office,” Sidhu explains. “We even got a few emails from Valve staffers pleading for tips on beating some of the more difficult challenges. At the same time, we were hearing anecdotal evidence that, while there were a lot of hardcore gamers getting into Peggle, there were plenty who said they’d never be caught dead playing a game with unicorns and rainbows.

“Valve had been a great partner for PopCap and they had done a lot to promote Peggle on Steam, just because they liked the game. We thought that was cool, and really believed that if hardcore gamers could get over the visual hurdle and actually play the game, many would enjoy it. The theme had always been tongue-in-cheek for us anyway, though obviously it doesn’t come across that way to everyone. We proposed the idea of a special free version for Steam players, using our characters in Half-Life 2 themed backdrops, figuring no one could resist a game with a gun-toting unicorn.

Valve loved the idea, gave us tons of art and sound assets, free artist time, and helped get Peggle in front of many who would never have played it otherwise.”

With such a broad player-base, clips of impressive shots have spread across the internet like wildfire, in no small part thanks to the game’s ingenious ability to send short clips directly over email from within the game.

“We get people sending in replay files of their high-scoring shots all the time,” says Sidhu. “We got a few impressive one-million-plus shot replays, then one day someone sent in a mind-blowing 4.2 million point shot replay. I like the way that both luck and skill are combined. One of the great things about Peggle is that on any given level, there are many different strategies you can employ to win – and things keep changing from one shot to the next as the peg layout changes. As the level clears out, then more skill comes into play and that helps make replays varied and interesting, as no two games are alike.”(source:EDGE)

 


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