作者：Leigh Alexander

试验型设计师Chris Bell在其最近作品《Way》以及《Journey》中尝试了让陌生人之间建立友情的这种设计挑战。

他称回顾这两款游戏有助于构划自己下一个项目中的设计目标：“现在我重新审视这两款游戏时，发现玩家社区随着时间发展这一现象对我极有启发。”

Chris Bell(from twitter.com)

在《Journey》刚开始时，多数玩家都想攀向顶峰。但在实现这一目标的过程中，他们已不再一心关注终级目标，而是转向游戏的意义和参与性。他们在此期间与其他玩家提升了飞行技术，在发现游戏行动局限性细微差别中创造自己的挑战。

在《Way》和《Journey》中让这些元素持续长存的趣味就在于与其他玩家的互动，以及其他人的变数“……这次遇到的陌生人又有哪种游戏玩法，我们俩人又将如何共同交流想法？”

Bell表示，游戏在一个提示性的“游戏场所”中将两个自由选择、拥有各自动机的个体联系在一起，从而自然催生出新型玩法行为。玩家在《Journey》环境中可以有意或者即兴发展自己的玩法——无需开发者明确指出游戏世界中所含有的潜在玩法。

游戏中有一些重复出现的角色和玩家类型——开发团队在测试过程中鉴别出了四种类型：拥护者，独行侠，捣乱者和探索家。其中的区别取决于，在虚拟数字空间的游戏情境中玩家是否更愿意接近或疏远他人。

例如，拥有者一般会追随其他玩家的步伐，而捣乱者则会想方设法扰乱其他玩家的计划；独行侠只想一人独处，而探索家则乐衷于探索。那么这四种特殊角色的组合如何创造出自发性游戏？

Journey(from motivateplay.com)

可以这样想，探索家会在某个区域进行探索，拥有者会跟随他，或者说探索者出于自己的兴趣而引导后者。《Journey》中的Barrens区域设计成了一个圆环，是一个最初人员招募空间。拥护者一般都会在那里等待新的旅行者，并带他们四处转转熟悉环境。

游戏中还有一种串联飞行的舞蹈，Bell对此解释道：“同步飞行是指玩家互相为对方补充能量，并能够一起飞越很长的路程。如果两个玩家飞行的时候配合甚妥，那就是一种交流方式。”

他补充指出，“玩家可能完全不想完成整个完卡的亚目标，他们也许只是想在其中观光……这是玩家自己的故事，他们沉迷于自己所创造的游戏。”

而当独行侠和捣乱者加入时，这就变成了一场猫捉老鼠的游戏，即独行侠总想避开纠缠不清的捣乱者。“《Journey》的机制设计宗旨是让玩家相聚在一起，所以游戏中的猫和老鼠之间的关系就比较麻烦了，老鼠总是难以和猫撇清关系。”

在沙漠尽头有一个高塔，当Bell以一个独行侠的身份进行角色测试时，他试图骗同事Nick相信自己准备跳塔，而从塔上降落却有违游戏的整体目标。

“我站在边缘准备跳的时候Nick也跟着下去了，但我刚一跳就马上飞回了塔顶，而Nick却没有看到，他就一直向下坠落。我们终于脱离关系了，我赢了！那真是一个美妙的时刻，因为我颠覆了系统并发现了这个摆脱同伴的新玩法。”

“那是一个强大的策略，但我不能同其他人分享。”独行侠玩家最初目标是摆脱捣乱者，但他们只有重新与他人合作才有机会发现Bell的这个伎俩。从根本上说，《Journey》的设计目标总会返回让玩家之间彼此相关这个原点。

在游戏中积雪的顶峰上，所有这些想法和主题开始汇集在一起，Bell表示，“在游戏尾声，你实际上会与之前闯过的所有关卡产生共鸣。然后，我们在此给予玩家超负荷的任务，让他们做一些之前根本没法完成的事情，我认为这一点正体现了我们的游戏理念，即提供玩家能够参与其中的一个场所（这一点不同于其他整体目标）。”

《Journey》中的每个空间都有独特的游戏场所，其中的景观和世界造型就是一种局限性条件，可以启发人们催生相应的游戏玩法。例如，躲猫猫、捉迷藏、同步飞行和舞蹈，猫捉老鼠，竞速、并列攀岩、追随领袖等，均是玩家可共同执行的活动。

Bell指出，“毋庸质疑，《Journey》中的每个游戏都必须是《Journey》的一个子集。我们观察游戏场所的设计时都会思考它能够催生出哪种新型玩法。”

最佳交互性场所（游戏邦注：例如实体操场的设施）可以为参与提供基于这个空间的自发型游戏。它表明“这个场所邀请玩家使用其中设施，但玩家如何使用则可从他们的交流中表现出来，这可以体现你对其中潜在系统的理解和认识，但你可以根据自己的意愿改变它。”

Belly认为这些空间具有系统性、直观性、认知性，知觉性、物质性、灵活性，丰富而多变，交叉性和易用性。《Journey》中的每个空间都是玩家对于该地可采用哪种玩法的一种对话。

Bell现在仍乐于为玩家创造这种构建自己的“魔法圈”的条件。《Minercraft》在这一点上表现出色，因为它允许玩家自主更改空间，即使是最小的建设构件也不例外。

“我们设计数字领域的游戏时，总是易于将它们局限于固定框架，并运用极为苛严的系统，而我认为并不一定需要这样，Doug Wilson的作品《J.S. Joust》就是一个典型例子，它表明游戏可以更具延展性和流动性。”

Bell所推崇的一种“交流”以及缩减玩法的典型就是《反恐精英》中的刀战——玩家在其中会使用匕首向其他玩家表示自己希望进行一场刀刃之战。“他们用这种方式表明自己并不想参与常规的枪战，但想在这个以枪战为主的游戏中进行自己的游戏。”

Bell的下一步时持续探索游戏中的自玩性玩法，研究这种玩法如何让玩家使用整体游戏中的工具创造自己的游戏体验、语言以及交流方式。（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）

Beautiful folk play and emergent interaction in Journey

By Leigh Alexander

Award-winning experimental designer Chris Bell has been working with the design challenge of creating friendships between strangers, in his recent work on Way and Journey.

Looking back at those games helped him map his own design interests in the goal of looking ahead toward his next project: “When I look at both of those games now, it’s particularly revealing to see how the player communities have changed over time,” he says.

At Journey’s launch, most players wanted to reach the mountain. Having achieved that, they’re no longer fascinated by the ultimate goal and look elsewhere in the game — its symbols and lore, for example — for meaning and engagement. They perfect the art of flying with other players, and create their own challenges as they discover the nuances of the game’s movement constraints.

The interest that outlasts all of these in both Way and Journey is the act of interacting with other players, the variable of another human — “this person who guarantees the recurring mystery of who is this stranger this time, how will this stranger play, and how will the two of us express ourselves together?”

By linking two free-choosing individuals with individual motivations in a suggestive “playground” environment, new forms of performative play emerge naturally, says Bell. Players have intentionally or otherwise developed their own improvisational folk games within Journey’s world — without the developer ever needing to explicitly outline the potential for those games within the world.

There are some reoccurring roles and player types — the team identified four during playtesting that have since cropped up during play: The lover, the loner, the griefer and the explorer. The difference is essentially defined by whether players are moving closer to or further from one another, relevant in the context of a game that’s fundamentally about digital space.

A lover, for example, will follow the other player; a griefer will do anything in his or her power to upset the other player’s intentions. A loner seeks isolation, while an explorer, naturally, explores. How did the combination of those particular roles create folk games?

Let’s say an explorer seeks discoveries within the place, and the lover follows, or, acting out of affection, perceives the explorer’s interest in discovery and guides him or her. Journey’s Barrens area is designed as a circle, an initial recruitment space. Lovers are inclined to wait there to greet new journeyers and show them around.

There’s the dance of tandem flying, too. “Synchronized flying is this thing that emerges where as players stay together they can charge each other up and fly over really long distances. When you find two players that can fly really well together, that becomes a sort of conversation,” Bell explains.

“Players may entirely reject the meta-goal of getting through the level, they’ll just play with the landscape, and weave through the landscape… orthagonal to the overall objective of getting through the narrative,” he adds. “This is the player’s own narrative, and they’re engaging with the game that they themselves created.”

When a loner and a griefer join, it becomes a game of cat-and-mouse, where the solitary player is trying to escape a pest. “The mechanics of Journey are designed such that we try to bring players together, and so a game of cat and mouse is kind of borked. It’s really hard for that ‘mouse’ to get away.”

Toward the end of the desert is a high tower, and when Bell played as a loner for the purpose of role-testing, he tricked his colleague Nick into thinking he was going to drop down to the bottom of the tower. To descend the tower is to reject the game’s overarching goal.

“I jump off the ledge and Nick follows, but just as I go out of frame I fly right back up and land on the ledge. He doesn’t see that; he falls all the way down. We disconnect; I had won! That was a very beautiful and kind of profound moment, because I had subverted the system and found this new way of getting away that we hadn’t really pushed for players to find,” he says.

“That was beautiful and strong, but I couldn’t share that with anybody,” he adds. In that way, the original goal of escaping a griefer became a wish to connect with the other player again so that he could see Bell’s trick. Fundamentally Journey’s design always returns to the objective of creating a longing to connect with others.

At the game’s snowy summit, all these ideas and themes converge, Bell says. “You actually have echoes of every level that runs through… at the end of the game. And with that, we supercharge the player and let them do endless things that they couldn’t do before and I think that speaks to that notion of us trying to provide a place for you to play in and just be in, versus some other over-arching goal.”

It’s key that each space within Journey offers a unique sense of playground. The shape of the landscape and world acts as a constraint, and informs the ways people experience the game. Peekaboo, hide and seek, synchronized flight and dancing, cat and mouse, racing, tandem rock climbing, follow the leader, tag and acrobatics are just a handful of the kinds of games players have performed together within the game’s world.

“It goes without saying that every game that comes from Journey … must exist as a subset of Journey,” he adds. “When we look at playground design we’re trying to look at games that afford new kinds of games to emerge.”

The best interactive landscapes — like physical playground installations, for example — provide a wide variety of spaces for participants to generate their own games based on the intuitive suggestions of the space. It presents “an invitation for players to use it, but how the players use it is met in conversation with that,” says Bell. “It’s about understanding and looking at the implied system you have… but sort of changing it to your own will and making it for your own.”

These spaces are systemic, self directed and cognitive; sensory, physical and flexible, rich and varied, cross-pollinating and accessible, Bell says. Every space of Journey is a conversation with the players about what can be done in that space.

Now, Bell is excited to continue focusing on giving players the ability to construct their own “magic circles” within games. Minecraft does this well, because it allows players to repurpose and reconstitute the space themselves down to the smallest building block, says Bell.

“When I think of games in digital spaces, we tend to lock them down and apply a very rigid system to them, and I don’t think that necessarily needs to apply,” he continues. “The work of Doug Wilson (J.S. Joust) is a good example of how this work can be changed and be more malleable, more liquid.”

One example of a “conversation” and reduction of play that Bell likes is how in Counter-Strike, there’s the ritual of the knife-fight — players will actually use knives to communicate to other players that they want to have a knife duel. “There’s this conversation of them not wanting to partake in the normal game, but in its own game within the game,” he says.

The next step for Bell will be to continue exploring folk play within games that provide for players to invent their own experiences, languages and methods of communication using the tools of the over-arching experience.（source：gamasutra）