作者：Soren Johnson

假如电子游戏与桌面游戏属于表亲关系，那么可以说它们一开始的玩法极其类似欧洲贵族风范。这两种类型的游戏互相混合，随着越来越多电子游戏向桌面游戏看齐，这两者间的界线日趋模糊。

Carcassonne(from gamaustra)

比如《Cabals》或《英雄学院》这些最近发行的移动游戏，它们均呈现出桌面游戏的标志——包括回合制玩法、洗牌、砖块形式的可见桌面，以及毫无掩饰的透明化规则，尽管它们只发行了电子版本。

此外，一些更具主流的电子游戏也会选择性地包含桌面游戏元素，比如《Rage》的卡牌收集机制。设计师认为用户十分熟悉桌面游戏惯例，因此他们在电子游戏中包含卡牌与骰子这些惯例元素，帮助玩家获得舒适感。

同时，电子与实体游戏的碰撞改变了后者的存在模式。更具体地讲，iPad革新了桌面游戏领域，将实体游戏转化为电子版本。iPad特点——宽大且高分辨率的屏幕、触屏界面以及能够出售电子应用的强大基础设施完美地构成了电子桌面游戏。桌面游戏发行商Days of Wonder创始人及首席执行官Eric Hautemont表达了他对iPad的热爱：

“iPad的美观会令你忘记它的存在。这意味着，当你把iPad放在两个玩家之间时，其完美屏幕几乎会让你忘记它属于电子设备。当你在iPad上体验《Small World》时，你会忘记它是一款iPad游戏，而只考虑到这是《Small World》。未来，关于某款游戏属于‘桌面游戏’或‘iPad应用’或其它此类问题则会变得毫无意义。”

Days of Wonder的业务在移动领域经历了大幅增长。自从《Ticket to Ride Pocket》在iPhone上发行后，该作的盒装版本售量持续增长了70%。同时，其iPad版本也一直处于应用榜单前100名，并以6.99美元的高价出售。

确实，自从《Ticket to Ride》电子版本发行后，其销量与实体版本之间的比例已达到3:1，这不禁让人困惑Days of Wonder到底是桌面游戏公司还是电子游戏公司。

透明化的游戏

电子版桌面游戏的成功意味着它再也不会被排除在电子游戏设计的讨论范围之外。然而，随着桌面游戏日益趋向电子化，它们该如何保持桌面游戏的固有特性？桌面游戏是否仍将以其实体组件而定义？《Cabals》或《英雄学院》这两款只有电子版本的游戏又该如何？iOS游戏《Assassin’s Creed Recollections》与实时游戏《Magic：The Gathering》这两款离不开电脑以进行实时互动的游戏又如何呢？

如果实体组件并非必要元素，那么桌面游戏的本质究竟是什么？为何有些游戏属于这一类型，有些不是？也许，能够定义桌面游戏的不再是实体元素，而是它们的绝对透明化原则，即所有游戏规则都应清晰明了的原理。

这种认识具有重大意义；如果透明化就是贯穿所有桌面游戏的元素，那么透明化必定是人们喜欢这类游戏的主要原因之一。因此，透明化可能就是所有游戏的趣味来源之一，设计师们应理解它在游戏中的作用。

比如，《文明》系列本质上是一款大型的桌面游戏，它只能通过电脑操作所有运算与记录。玩家可以清晰地看到大部分游戏机制，比如每回合一座城市生产多少食物，或者发现下一项技术需要多少时间。

然而，《文明》中的战斗系统却不具有透明性，它对玩家而言仍是一个黑盒，以致玩家担心在某些失误的情况下，一辆坦克甚至会败给一个枪兵。《文明4》进一步修改了这方面问题，为玩家提供每场战役的准确胜算率。而《文明5》甚至会弹出详细的图解窗口，估计破坏程度。

naval combat（from gamasutra)

基本上，玩家们仍然无法看到《文明》系列的战斗系统。可是，它们的特性仍然遵循透明化理念，向玩家清晰展示战斗结果；设计师们了解透明化是该系列的重要优势，粉丝们也接受它们在某些方面的一些更改。

当电子版战胜实体版

电子版与实体版融合最有趣的部分在于，有些桌面游戏能在转变为电子游戏的同时，完善其中的某些部分。首先，电子版桌面游戏并没有时间设置或记录，这意味着玩家可以在全新环境中启动游戏，并更快地体验游戏进程；玩家无需吓跑其它顾客，便可在咖啡店中体验《二战回忆录44》。

能够数十次，甚至上百次体验的电子版桌面游戏也改变了人们的游戏方式。比如，《1960》这种厚重且卡片驱动的历史模拟游戏可能需要玩家耗费一些时间，但其网页版却支持玩家在一个小时内完成游戏进程。游戏的简洁性与游戏频率减缓了失败的痛苦，这意味着玩家可以试验新型战略，且无需害怕错失一个月的努力所获得的机会。

可是，这种频繁的体验可能会更快地体现出游戏的不平衡。Martin Wallace于2011年发行的以法印之战为题材的战争游戏《A Few Acres of Snow》，该作由于需要处理主导战略（游戏邦注：英国人将其称为Halifax Hammer）的快速修复补丁而获得差评。游戏发行不久，相关游戏战略便应运而生，因为该游戏在网页上为免费版本。

电子版桌面游戏的另一优势为异步玩法。实体桌面游戏所面临的挑战是找到让玩家长久且不间断地聚集在一起体验游戏的方法。异步玩法回避了这类问题，它允许玩家以自己的速度运行游戏；而游戏程序会等待下一位玩家做出行动。

《暗杀神》这款iOS游戏的成功应归结于采用正确的模式。它是优秀的套牌构造游戏《Dominion》的出色转变，但它却是在入驻App Store后才大获成功。该游戏的开发者不仅注重不同以往的异步玩法，而且还将此元素作为游戏的核心性能，这样玩家可以便捷掌控多个同时进行的游戏。

趣味分析

无论是异步模式或单人模式，电子版本均可以消除桌面游戏所需的等待时间这一问题。有些德式桌面游戏便鲜少包含随机性，也不隐藏信息，典型例子为《Caylus》与《Puerto Rico》，人们同喜欢采用优化策略的对手玩游戏时最受罪，因为后者总是不惧于放慢速度以确保自己做出最佳决策。然而，等待一位缓慢玩家采取行动的负面效应就在于，这会让人们误认为采用优化策略这一做法本身就没有多大趣味。

虽然，由于社会压力，玩家为了更快完成游戏进程而使用优化手段可能会造成游戏的无趣，但找到处理某个复杂情境的正确方法其实是这些类游戏的价值所在。毕竟大量的分析行为，有时候也正是单人游戏的粘性所在。问题在于，独自玩游戏既是因为不想放慢游戏进程，同时也是为了避免莽撞行动导致自己出错的情况。

桌面游戏的异步与单人版本皆解决了这些问题，它们总会为玩家提供完善计划的元素。其实，《Puerto Rico》在iPad上出现后，其紧凑、出色的游戏机制能够为单人玩家做出所有决定时提供舒适的进程速度。实际上，最近《Pandemic》和《Ghost Stories》这些合作制桌面游戏的盛行也表明，包含桌面游戏精髓的纸牌电子游戏颇有市场。

这表明，删除桌面游戏的实体特性，以绝对透明化定义该游戏具有重大价值。所有设计师应认识到，透明化可以在所有题材或形式的游戏中突显其优势。比如《三重小镇》中的自然砖块匹配模式，或者《植物大战僵尸》中可预测的敌人行为，或者《割绳子》中的简单物理元素。它们都不是桌面游戏，但均突显透明化的优势。（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）

When digital versions of board games surpass the originals

by Soren Johnson

Former Firaxis designer Soren Johnson breaks down the appeal of digital board games, and explains why the digital versions can be better than their physical counterparts, in this opinion piece originally printed in Game Developer magazine’s August 2012 issue.

If video games and board games are cousins, then they are starting to behave like they belong to the European aristocracy. The two formats are intermixing such that the artificial line separating the two is blurring, with many digital games now built to resemble board games.

Consider the recent mobile games Cabals or Hero Academy; both contain the trappings of board games – including turn-based play, a shuffled deck of game pieces, a visible board divided into tiles, and transparent rules with no hidden modifiers – even though these games only exist in digital form.

Other, more mainstream video games are including select board game elements, such as the collectible card mechanic in Rage. The designers assume that the audience is familiar with board game conventions, so that including cards or dice can be just as useful as any other video game convention in helping players feel comfortable with the design.

Meanwhile, the collision of digital and physical gaming is changing the latter as well. More specifically, the iPad is revolutionizing the board game industry as digital translations of physical games are finally viable. The iPad’s features – a large, high-resolution screen, a touch-based interface, and (perhaps most importantly) a robust infrastructure for selling digital apps – are the perfect combination for digital board games. Eric Hautemont, the founder and CEO of the board game publisher Days of Wonder, expressed his enthusiasm for the device:

“The beauty of the iPad is that you could forget about it. Meaning that when you put an iPad between two players, the screen is so well done that you almost forget there are electronics behind that. When you sit down to play Small World on the iPad, you stop thinking about it as an iPad game and just think of it as Small World. In the future, the question of whether something is a ‘board game’ or an ‘iPad app’ or whatever it will be in the future becomes a meaningless question.”

Days of Wonder’s business experienced a significant bump from mobile. Since the release of Ticket to Ride Pocket on the iPhone, the boxed version of the game began selling more copies, by a sustained increase of 70 percent. Meanwhile, the iPad version is consistently a top-100 app, selling for a healthy $6.99. (One sign of the healthy iOS market for board games is how well they have maintained a high price point in a sea of 99-cent games; Catan and Samurai both sell for $4.99 while Carcassonne — pictured above — still costs a whopping $9.99 two years after release!)

Indeed, since release, the digital versions of Ticket to Ride have outsold the physical one by 3-to-1, which raise the question of whether Days of Wonder is a board game company or a video game company.

Transparent games

The success of digital board games means that they can no longer be excluded from discussions of video game design. However, as board games become increasingly digital, how do they still retain the traits of a board game? Can a board game still be defined as simply one with physical components? What about the aforementioned Cabals or Hero Academy, which exist only in digital form? What about the iOS game Assassin’s Creed Recollections, a real-time variant of Magic: The Gathering, which could not exist without a computer to handle the real-time interaction?

If the physical components are not necessary, then what is the essence of a board game? Why do some games fall into this category and other games do not? Perhaps what defines board games is not their physical elements but their absolute transparency, a philosophy that all a game’s rules should be visible.

This realization has important implications; if transparency is the thread that connects all board games, then transparency must be a major reason why people enjoy playing board games at all. Accordingly, transparency is then one possible source of fun in all games, and designers should understand the role it plays in their own designs.

For example, the Civilization series is essentially a giant board game that could only be played with a computer to handle all the calculations and record-keeping. The majority of game mechanics are clearly transparent to the player, from how much food a city produces each turn to how much time is needed to discover the next technology.

One area not so transparent was the combat system, still a black box to the player, leading to fears that a tank could lose to a spearman under the wrong circumstances. Civ 4 took steps to fix this problem by providing players with the exact probability of success for each possible battle. Civ 5 went even further, with a detailed graphical widget to show the estimated damage.

The combat systems of these games were still opaque to the average player (the hard-core, of course, reverse engineered the formulas). However, these features still honored the ideal of transparency by making the results of combat clear; the designers understood that transparency was an important virtue for the series, and the changes were well received by the fans.

When digital beats physical

One of the most exciting aspects of the digital-physical merger is that some board games are greatly improved in the transition to a video game. First, digital board games require no set-up time or record-keeping, which means that games can be played much faster and in new environments; suddenly, Memoir ’44 can be played in a coffee shop without scaring away the other customers.

Being able to play a digital board game tens, or even hundreds, of times transforms the experience. A heavy, card-driven historical simulation game like 1960 will probably be played only a handful of times in person, but the Web version allows finishing a game in an hour. The brevity and frequency of games lowers the pain of a loss, which means players can experiment with new strategies without fearing they are blowing their one chance to play the game that month.

However, one challenge of such frequent play is that imbalances are found much quicker than ever before. A Few Acres of Snow, Martin Wallace’s 2011 wargame on the French-Indian War, gained some notoriety for needing a quick patch to deal with a dominant strategy for the English known as the Halifax Hammer. This strategy emerged so soon after release because the game was playable for free on the Web; water found a crack that much sooner.

Another advantage of digital board games is asynchronous play. One of the challenges of board gaming is finding a way to get people together for long, uninterrupted blocks of time. Asynchronous play circumvents this issue by letting people run games at their own pace; the program simply waits for the next player to make her move.

One iOS game, Ascension, owes much of its success to getting this format right. The game was a competent variant to the seminal deck-builder Dominion, but Ascension met its greatest success when it hit the App Store. The developers focused on asynchronous play as not some unusual game mode but as a core feature of the game, enabling players to easily manage multiple concurrent games. Not every board game is ideal for asynchronous play (each turn needs to feature a significant number of decisions), but ones that are should find new life on mobile devices.

Analytical fun

Whether played asynchronously or in single-player, digital translations can eliminate the waiting time associated with meaty board games. A certain type of Eurogame with little randomness and no hidden information, typified by Caylus and Puerto Rico, is painful to play with optimizers, who are unafraid to slow the game down to a crawl to ensure they make just the right decision. However, the negative experience of waiting for a slow player can often lead to the mistaken impression that optimization itself is not fun.

Optimization while under social pressure to finish faster may not be fun, but finding just the right move to handle a tricky situation is exactly why these types of games are so rewarding. Analysis paralysis, after all, is also known as intense engagement in single-player games! The problem with playing in person is not wanting to slow down the game while also fearing that rushing will lead to the wrong move.

Both asynchronous and single-player versions of board games solve this problem by giving the player all the time he needs to perfect his plan. Indeed, Puerto Rico comes alive on the iPad, shining as a tight, elegant game that can move at a comfortable speed when a single person gets to make all the decisions. Indeed, the popularity of cooperative board games in recent years, such as Pandemic and Ghost Stories, suggests a healthy market for solitaire video games with a board game soul.

This revelation underscores the value of decoupling the physical characteristics of board games from their defining feature – absolute transparency. The lesson for all designers is that transparency can be a virtue in almost any genre or format. Consider the natural tile-matching patterns in Triple Town, or the predictable enemy behaviors in Plants vs. Zombies, or the simple physical elements in Cut the Rope. These games don’t appear to be board games, but they all share the virtue of transparency. (source:gamasutra)