作者：Raul Aliaga Diaz

当你开始投入一个新的游戏项目前，你可能已经思幻想过各种可能性，包括编写故事，勾勒草图，想象游戏某一特定时刻将会带来何种影响力等等，然后你便会与某些好友去谈论这些内容，而他们也会给予你相关反馈，甚至有可能加入你这疯狂的创作旅程之中。

快进到之前的几周或几个月，你可能已经通宵好几个夜晚，每天都在啃食垃圾食物并被各种激烈的讨论所淹没。你可能已经创建了一个可游戏的原型，各种各样的角色模型，动画，精心编写的故事情节，带有logo的网站等等，但是似乎你对这些内容都不甚满意。

这并不是一种合作，似乎所有参与了该项目的成员都不敢发表自己的意见。到底发生了什么事？哪一环出了错？为什么这样一个优秀的理念却会变得一团糟？

Ace Attorney(from capcom.wikia)

几乎所有的游戏项目都是源于一个简单的陈述句，并推动着参与者去想象各种可能性。根据开发者不同的品味，背景，所拥有的合作伙伴，这些陈述句可以是：“基于《逆转裁判》（游戏邦注：CAPCOM公司于2001年至今在GBA以及NDS平台上推出的法庭辩论推理类系列游戏），但却能够像《怪医豪斯》那样解决一些内科病例（“Ace House”项目）”，“Wario遇上《时空幻境》（“Wraid”项目）”，“基于手机上的休闲《星际争霸》（“Casualcraft”项目）”等等。这些理念都可以作为非常棒的出发点，但是最终只会延伸出一个最让人头疼的问题：开发这款游戏有何价值？

当你在一家游戏工作室工作并面对一个新的理念时，这便是你们首先需要解决的问题。根据工作室的优势，企业策略以及过去的经验，“价值”的定义也各有不同。同时也会遇到各种各样的限制性因素，如时间，预算，平台，用户，团队等等。

对于那些已经开发过寻物解谜游戏，或者已经为其它游戏创造过图像，角色和故事等工作室来说，像“Ace House”便是一个很棒的理念，他们可以围绕着这一理念快速创建游戏原型，并将其递交给发行商求得认同，然后开始进一步的创作。

而对于那些只专注于休闲益智游戏（游戏邦注：只有1名身兼多职的美术人员/设计师以及2名程序员）的工作室来说，这便是难以达到的目标。

你也许会说：“因为我是独立完成这些工作，所以我可以自由地做自己想做的事。”但事实上却不是如此。当你基于一个理念组建一个团队时，你就必须确保所有团队成员都能认可这一理念的价值性，而如果你是独立开发者，你也必须询问自己这一问题。

局限性越少你便越发自由，但是你必须利用这种自由去明确价值的潜在含义，而不是浪费时间于一些不会有任何进展的内容上。除非你拥有足够的资本去挥霍。

“项目有何开发价值？”是最困难的问题，每个开发团队都必须确保所有成员能够诚实地回答这一问题。有趣的是，基于不同的工作，面向同一项目的团队成员也将给出各种不同的答案。

你可以开始学习游戏开发，完善某一特定的技能，开始创建一家独立游戏工作室，不断增强工作室的游戏组合等等。团队中的每个成员可以拥有不同的目标，但是这些目标却必须基于明确的时间规划，优先顺序和愿景。而尽管你解决了这一问题，还是会出现其它等待你分析的问题。

可以说，所有的创造性项目都是围绕着各种风险与不确定性因素展开，电子游戏开发（基于其多学科性质）所存在的问题则是很容易忽视一些关键的不确定性因素，而转向一些相对“轻松的”任务。

举个例子来说吧，在“Ace House”的项目中，一开始在想象角色，医生，护士，病人以及各种陈设架时总是非常有趣；并且已经出现了许多关于医学的电视节目，你可以从中获取各种灵感，并更好地创造角色，编写故事，或基于《逆转裁判》风格而创造相关的医务人员，但是如何才能将其变成一款真正的游戏呢？

如何将《逆转裁判》的机制转变成医学机制？这与单纯地改变一个项目的外观有何区别？需要删除哪些机制？从医院背景来看哪些机制是特别的？如何才能保证Capcom不会对你发起控诉？是否已经存在医学类的游戏？我们将如何区别于这些游戏？是否能够做到这一点？这么做是否有趣？“乐趣”是否就是我们的期待，或者我们更希望能够突显不一样的游戏体验？

接下来让我们说说“Wraid”项目。如果Konami通过模仿《宇宙巡航舰》而创造了《Parodius》，有人便会说“如果它能使用《瓦里奥制造》的游戏角色并模仿《时空幻境》不是会更棒？”你在玩《时空幻境》时所感受到的许多乐趣都可以成为你的出发点，如将Wario，Mona，Jimmy T.等角色置于一个特别的背景中，并带来一些不同的影响等等。

但是你也需要明确这么做是否可行？因为Konami拥有《宇宙巡航舰》的IP，所以他们能够基于这款游戏随意地进行模仿。但是你是否也能够这么对待任天堂和Jonathan Blow的IP？当然也存在可能性，但是关键时，这种可能性发生的几率非常之小。

而真正有价值的副产品到底是什么？如果《瓦里奥制造》拥有基于时间操纵的机制会是怎样的情况？如果你借鉴了《瓦里奥》中的某些内容并围绕着某一艺术风格将其转变成类似《时空幻境》的游戏又会是怎样的情况？你将如何升级“模仿”这一理念，并只是“参考”各种游戏IP而最终呈现出全新的一款游戏？

“Casualcraft”项目又是怎样的情况？《星际争霸》能够带给玩家两种不同的体验：沉浸在电子竞技世界中的乐趣以及从其他人身上感受到的不同乐趣。而如果赋予这款游戏休闲性，它便不再具有电子竞技世界所具有的乐趣了。

Starcraft（from tomshardware）

如果你是《星际争霸》的粉丝并曾经在智能手机上创造过类似的内容，你便会认为“这非常简单，我可以快速创建游戏原型。”并且考虑到从鼠标界面向触屏界面的过度，你便需要开始编写代码，并获得许多有趣的游戏功能去进一步实践你所拥有的OOP知识和创造性理念。

但是，“休闲的《星际争霸》”到底意味着什么？策略游戏如何具有休闲性？如果我们将这款游戏带向手机平台，最终所创造出来的内容与电子竞技游戏体验又会出现何种偏差？是图像，单位创建还是与好友的游戏方式？我们应该专注于那一元素？最终游戏是否还属于即时策略游戏？异步游戏玩法是否合适？脱离了键盘的游戏是否还具有乐趣？玩家是否还能够快速地前进？游戏是否适合手机平台？手机游戏玩家是否会选择这款游戏？

这些都是非常难回答的问题，但是它们却能帮助你明确风险的根源并找到合适的解决方法。也许有人觉得我所列举的这些理念太过平淡无奇了，但是它们也只是用于列举说明而已。因为当我开始致力于游戏创作时，我便发现许多游戏狂热者所想出的各种游戏理念都与这些例子极为相似。以下便是一些常见的模式：

未能明确真正有价值的创新理念，不能简化剩下的内容：创新非常困难，而同时实现多种创新就更加困难了。如果你的游戏同时呈现出过多创新内容，人们便很难去学习游戏，并很快便会感到疑惑，所以你需要呈现出不会让玩家“迷失”的内容。

最关键的还是核实你的理念的核心创造性或价值，如果做到了这一点，你的游戏便有可能就此发光发亮，并适应其它规则。我所说的“关键的”创造性是指一些非常重要的内容，而不是像“我会使用彩虹替代心脏作为健康仪表！”之类的内容。尽管这种内容也很有趣，但却不能称得上是“关键的创造性”。

基于已知的技术和工具去选择理念：“我只创造过3D模型，所以游戏将会是3D的，”“我知道如何使用Unity，所以我将基于这一工具去创造游戏，”“我只认识RPG Maker，所以让我们制作角色扮演游戏吧。”尽管创造你所熟悉的内容没有错，但是有时候你也需要尝试一些不同的理念。

创造3D游戏虽然很棒，但是却完全超出分支项目的范围。Unity虽然是个很棒的引擎，但是所有的团队成员却可以共同面向Flash制作游戏（主要是面向网页），所以不能因此而抛弃Flash。RPG Maker是款非常棒的软件，但是如果你不能添加一些新的机制而只专注于故事，那干嘛不直接创造一本连环漫画册？比起根据技能和资源去选择理念的价值或可行性，你更需要有针对性地修改理念。

纠结于游戏中的某一特定领域（技术，故事等）：如果你投身于某一项目的主要原因是为了学习，这一问题便会经常困扰到你。你需要学习如何编写图像效果，如何有效地使用设计模式去编写游戏玩法，学习新的纹理技巧，学习如何为汽车和机器建模，如何在整个游戏资产间不使用任何文字去传达故事等。你可以从中获得大量的经验和知识。但是最终你所创造的却不能算是一款真正的游戏，只能说这只是一个学习项目，或者是实现你的热情的某次尝试。

未能有效地定义限制条件：开发一款游戏最棒的时刻便是当你觉得“坚持这一理念是对的”的时刻。如果暴雪和Valve能做到这点，为什么你就不能？因为有时候你希望能够看到一些真正的成就而不愿白白地浪费时间。但是事实上，限制条件一直都在推进你的创造性而不是阻碍它。所以为自己选择一些适当的限制因素，至少是时间框架或者一些你在某一特定时刻想做的事：主要理念，建造模型，扩展模型，制作游戏等等。

拒绝改变理念：这是未能意识到成本流失的标志。“我已经投入了许多时间于这个理念上，所以我必须坚持下去，直到完成最终的创作！”事实上，如果你拥有某些麻烦，那么这些麻烦将会一直困扰着你，除非你找到解决方法，并尽快落实行动。谁都不可能保证投入的所有时间都是有效率的，但是你却可以将其当成学习源泉而做出一些正确的事。

所以，当你开始一个全新的游戏项目或处于游戏开发过程中时，尝试着问自己一些棘手的问题：这么做有何价值？所有参与者是否都同意这么做？是否满意这种创作进展？

不要害怕这些问题会破坏你的游戏理念的可行性和价值，如果其中出现了某些问题，你也可以从中获得学习，并不断完善自己，从而在今后创造出更加出色的游戏理念。

（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）

Opinion: Starting a new game project? Ask the hard questions first

By Raul Aliaga Diaz

We have all been there. You want to start a new game project, and possibly have been dreaming of the possibilities for a long time, crafting stories, drawing sketches, imagining the dazzling effects on that particular epic moment of the game… then you start to talk to some friends about it, they give you feedback, and even might join you in the crazy journey of actually doing something about it.

Fast forward some weeks or months, and you’ve been pulling too many all-nighters, having lots of junk food and heated discussions. You might even have a playable prototype, several character models, animations, a carefully crafted storyline, a website with a logo and everything but… it just doesn’t feel right.

It’s not coming together and everyone involved with the project is afraid to say something. What happened? What went wrong? How did such an awesome idea become this huge mess?

Usually all game projects emerge from a simple statement that quickly pushes the mind to imagine the possibilities. Depending on your particular tastes, background, and peers, these statements can be like: “Ace Attorney, but solving medical cases, like House M.D.!” (Ace House?), “Wario meets Braid!” (Wraid?), “Starcraft but casual, on a phone!” (Casualcraft?). These ideas can be just fine as starting points, but somewhere down the line the hardest question is: Is this game something worth doing?

When you work at a game studio and a new idea arises, that’s the first question it faces. And depending on the studio’s strengths, business strategy, and past experiences, the definition of “worth” is very, very specific. It usually involves a quick set of constraints such as: time, budget, platforms, audience, team, among others.

So for a particular studio that has developed hidden object games and has done work for hire creating art, characters and stories for several other games, an idea like Ace House? can be a very good fit, something they can quickly prototype and pitch to a publisher with convincing arguments to move it forward.

However, in the case of a studio focused solely on casual puzzle games that has just one multi-purposed artist/designer and two programmers, it can be rather unfeasible, much more if all but one says: “What’s Ace Attorney? What’s House M.D.?”

Okay, you might say, “But I’m doing this on my own, so I can fly as free as I want!” That’s not entirely true. If you want to gather a team behind an idea, all of the team members must agree that the project is worth doing, and even if you do it on your own, you must answer the question to yourself.

Having less limitations can positively set you free, but take that freedom to find out your personal definition of worth, not to waste months on something that goes nowhere. Unless you can, like, literally burn money.

“Why is the project worth doing?” is the hardest question, and the one that must be answered with the most sincere honesty by everyone involved. The tricky part is that it is widely different for many people working on a game project out of their regular job or studies.

It can be to start learning about game development, to improve a particular set of skills, to start an indie game studio, to beef up a portfolio, etc. It is okay to have different goals, but they all must map to a mutually agreed level of time commitment, priorities, and vision. But even if you figured this out, there are still other issues.

All creative projects can be formulated as a set of risks or uncertainties, and the problem with video game development — given its highly multidisciplinary nature — is that is very easy missing to tackle the key uncertainties, and start working on the “easy” parts instead.

So for example, for the Ace House? project, it can be lots of fun to start imagining characters and doctors, nurses, patients and whatnot; there’s plenty of TV series about medical drama to draw inspiration from, and almost surely you can have a good time developing these characters, writing about them, or doing concept art of medical staff in the Ace Attorney style, but what about the game?

How do you precisely translate the mechanics from Ace Attorney to a medical drama? How is this different from a mere re-skin project? Which mechanics can be taken away? What mechanic can be unique given a medical setting? How can you ensure that Capcom won’t sue you? Are there any medic-like games already? How can we blend them? Is it possible? Is this fun at all? Is “fun” a reasonable expectation or should the experience be designed differently?

Let’s talk about Wraid? now. If Konami pulled off Parodius doing a parody from Gradius, “how cool would it be to do a parody of Braid using the characters from the WarioWare franchise?” Here you have a starting point for lots of laughs remembering playing Braid, and putting Wario, Mona, Jimmy T., and the rest of the characters in the game, wacky backgrounds, special effects, and everything.

But: Is this reasonable? Let’s start with the fact that Konami owns the IP of Gradius so they can do whatever they want to it. Can you get away with making a parody of both Nintendo and Jonathan Blow’s IPs? Sure, sure, the possibilities can be awesome but let’s face it: It is not going to happen.

What can be a valuable spin-off though? What if WarioWare games have a time-manipulation mechanic? What if you take Wario’s minigames and shape them around an art style and setting akin to Braid? (Professor Layton? Anyone?) How can you take the “parody” concept to the next level and just make “references” to lots of IPs, but the game is something completely new in itself?

What about Casualcraft?? Starcraft can be said to have roughly two levels of enjoyment: as an e-sport, and whatever other pleasure the other people draw from it. If we want to make it casual, it should not be an e-sport, should it?

If you’re a Starcraft fan and have experience doing stuff for smartphones, you might think “This should be easy, I can make a prototype quickly.” And given that a mouse interface can be reasonably translated to touch, you start coding, and get a lot of fun implementing gameplay features that pumps all your OOP knowledge and creative juices to the roof.

But… what does exactly mean “Casual Starcraft?” How can a strategy game be casual? What is the specific thing different from the e-sport experience that we want to bring to a phone? Is it the graphics? Is it the unit building-leveling? Is it playing with other friends? Which one of those should we aim for? Can it still be an RTS? What about asynchronous gameplay? Can this be played without a keyboard? Can it still be fast? Would it fit on a phone? People that play on a phone: would they play this game?

So, all these are tricky and uncomfortable questions, but they are meant to identify the sources of risk and figure out a way to address them. Maybe the ideas I presented here are plain bad, sure, but they are only for illustrational purposes. Since I started working in games, I’ve seen countless ideas from enthusiasts that are not really too far away from these examples anyway. The usual patterns I’ve seen are:

Not identifying the core valuable innovation, and failing to simplify the rest: It is hard to innovate, much harder to do several innovations at once. Also, people have trouble learning about your game having too many simultaneous innovations and can quickly get lost, rendering your game as something they simply “don’t get.”

The key is to identify what’s the core innovation or value of your idea, the one single thing that if done right, can make your game shine, and then adjust all the rest to known formulas. And by “key” innovation, I mean something important, critical, not stuff like “I won’t use hearts as a health meter but rainbows!” That can be cute, but it’s not necessarily a “key innovation.”

Putting known techniques and tools over the idea’s requirements: “I only do 3D modeling so it has to be 3D,” “I know how to use Unity so it has to be done in Unity,” “I only know RPG Maker so let’s make an RPG.” It is perfectly okay to stick to what you feel comfortable doing, but then choose a different idea.

A game that’s way too heavy on 3D might be awesome but completely out of scope for a side project. Unity can be a great engine, but if all the other team members can work together in Flash on a game that it will live primarily on the web, it can’t hurt to learn Flash.

RPG Maker is a great piece of software, but if you can’t really add new mechanics and will concentrate only in creating a story, why not just develop a story then? A comic book project is much more suitable. Why play your particular game when everyone that is into RPGs surely has at least two awesome ones that they still can’t find the time to play? Instead of crippling down the value or feasibility of your idea to your skills and resources, change the idea to something that fits.

Obsessing over a particular area of the game (tech, story, etc): This usually happens when the true reason to do the project is to learn. You’re learning how to code graphic effects, or how to effectively use design patterns to code gameplay, a new texturing technique, vehicle and machines modeling, a story communicated through all game assets and no words, etc. You can get huge experience and knowledge doing this. But then it’s not a game meant to be shipped, it is a learning project, or an excuse to fulfill something you feel passionate about.

Failing to define constraints: The romantic idea of developing a game until “it feels right.” If Blizzard or Valve can do it, why can’t you? Well, because at some point, you’ll want to see something done and not feel that your time has gone to waste. The dirty little secret is that constraints almost all the time induce creativity instead of hinder it. So choose a set of constraints to start with, at least a time frame and something you would like to see done at particular milestones: key concept, prototype, expanded prototype, game.

Refusing to change the idea: This is usually a sign of failing to realize sunken costs. “I’ve spent so much time on this idea, I must continue until I’m done!” The ugly truth is that if you’re having serious doubts, those will still be there and will make you feel miserable until you address them, and the sooner you act, the better. It can be that all the time you spent is effectively not wasted, but only when you frame it as your learning source to do the right things.

So, if you’re starting a new game project, or are in the middle of one, try asking the tough questions: Do you know why is worth doing? Do all people involved agree on that? Are you making satisfying progress?

Are you sure there isn’t a question about your project you are afraid to ask because you fear that it can render your idea unfeasible, invaluable or messy?

Don’t be frightened, go ahead. If it goes wrong, you will learn, you will improve, and the next idea will get to be shaped much better.(source:gamasutra)