作者：Jon Shafer

策略游戏类型中最重要的分界线便是时间的流逝方式——是像现实世界那样持续发展，还是为了约束玩家的活动而分割成不同阶段？许多策略型玩家喜欢一个接一个地发展，但是关于不同群组间的“争议”始终都存在着。

尽管也出现了许多有关这一主题的谈话，但却很少能够真正明确回合制游戏与实时游戏之间的区别。而优秀的设计师则必须掌握这两种类型的优势与劣势。

易用性

回合制游戏与实时游戏间最基本的一大区别便是其内在的吸引力和易用性。但是这一问题并不像“一种类型容易接近，另一种却难以碰触”那样简单。

实时游戏所提供的体验更接近于人们的日常生活。当然，在杂货店中排队更像是“回合制”游戏，但是我们所做的一切只是无尽的事件链条中的一环。就像我从这里离开并前往那里需要一分钟或两分钟时间。而在实时策略游戏中，玩家将整顿军队穿越地图，推动着他们将不断前进，直到到达目的地，并花费一分钟或两分钟时间。这种熟悉感能够让许多玩家，特别是那些喜欢休闲内容的玩家感到舒适。

实时游戏并不适合所有玩家。时间压迫将会带给玩家忧虑感，甚至有时候会超越极限。有些人喜欢接受时间的挑战，但是有些人却不然。

有经验的玩家总是会忘记，掌握比“剪刀石头布”复杂的游戏需要投入更多的努力。有些人喜欢游戏的最初阶段，如“灯的开关在哪里？”，但是大多数人更乐于跳过这些内容直达精彩之处，即他们能够精通部分游戏内容并且不再会轻易遭受损失。把握自己的步调便是回合制策略游戏中一大推动力量。

步调

事件发生的频率也许是回合制游戏和实时游戏间的最大区别。回想之前的步调便是一种简单的频率，即能从中判断一些有趣事物的出现。在回合制游戏中，设计师不能控制事件的发生时间（基于秒钟或分钟）。狂热的玩家可以在1个小时内完成游戏，而条理型玩家可能需要20个小时。

Civilization 3(from kotaku)

对于许多回合制策略游戏的玩家来说，这种灵活性便是最佳媒体功能之一，但却并非永远都是正面的。有经验的设计师能够在早期辨明，玩家认为自己想要的与自己真正想要的根本就不同！就像《文明》系列所存下的一大缺陷便是关于前10个或20个回合的步调（当玩家只拥有少量工具时）设置。需要玩家连续按压5次回车键而避开无聊的环节并不是什么值得骄傲的事。就像在许多游戏测试中，我曾看到测试者总是犹豫再三地结束自己的回合内容，他们当然会犹豫，因为真正拥有合理步调设置的游戏并不会让他们陷入这种困扰。

实时游戏的设计师不仅知道玩家能够在30秒内训练8个太空战士，同时也知道他们能在8至12分钟内训练自己的第一只雷兽。虽然并不是每个人都能知道这些确切的数字，但是这却能够简化设计师的任务，帮助他们更加明确任何顺畅的体验。

优先次序

也许回合制游戏缺少内在步调的优势，但是它们却能利用其它优势进行弥补。回合制游戏的最大优势便是让玩家能够自行决定哪些事物是重要的，哪些不是。

即通过时间流逝去告诉玩家他们应该专注于什么。广义上来讲，回合制游戏能够奖励擅于分析且有准备的人，而实时游戏则能够带给擅于识别模式且具有执行力的人奖励。

当我们需要与时间赛跑时，敏捷的行动总比逐步完善重要得多。当敌人即将到达时，我们应该优先让军队准备待命，而不是琢磨着如何调整结构。如此看来，那些喜欢表演技能专长并擅于通过实践掌握技能的玩家更适合玩实时游戏。

基于无限制的时间，玩家便有可能找到某一情境的“最佳”解决方法。并不是所有人的大脑都能够飞快地转动，而回合制游戏则能让所有人（不管是脑子灵不灵活，或者是否年轻）更好地呈现出自己的能力。尽管这种类型具有自己的优势，但同时也伴随着一定的缺陷。

微观控制

Starcraft(from nadasoft)

深入研究细节的能力，或者说是必要性既有可能是弱势（就像在《文明3》中）也有可能是一种功能（就像在《星际争霸》中）。很明显，大多数时候玩家必须判断是否存在机会让自己能够直击每一个细节。这能够鼓励回合制游戏设计师去添加更多复杂内容，并且能让这两个元素与游戏玩法有效地整合在一起。《银河霸主3》便是一款偏离了复杂元素的游戏。

实时游戏并不会突出太多微观控制元素。设计师必须将某些元素隐藏在场景之后，并且拥有最高技能的玩家能够使用的球的数量也有上限。同时在实时游戏中也存在许多没有意义的微观控制类型。

移动分散的网格砖块间的单位便是许多回合制游戏的核心元素，但是将这种功能整合进实时游戏中的可行性却不得不让人质疑。砖块是从现实世界中所提取的元素，它能够帮助设计师和玩家更好地理解并管理地图。缺少砖块的地图不仅变得松散，同时也不够精确——这是回合制策略游戏所追捧的特质。幸运的是，当玩家拥有无限的时间去做决定时，伴随着砖块的管理负荷便不再具有影响力了。但是在实时游戏中，玩家是否有时间去担心他们的长枪兵所站立的具体区域？

如果能够有效整合，微观控制便能够帮助玩家更好地掌握游戏。不管是回合制游戏还是实时游戏都能使用这一方法去区分玩家间的不同技能。就像《星际争霸2》的团队便在单位中添加了一些自然的修饰，让玩家可以将其当成群组进行调配——因为他们想要看到一个不均衡的游戏领域。很明显的是，这种方法并不适用于任何一款游戏，但是《星际争霸》的成功让我们再次确定，游戏设计仍然是一种艺术，而开发者可以使用调色板在此自由发挥。

我们该如何明确怎样程度的微观控制才是最合适的？游戏步调便是关键元素。关于实时游戏更倾向于回合制元素的一大例子便是Paradox的《欧陆风云》系列。比起传统的实时策略游戏，这些游戏提供给玩家更多把手，并且它们所拥有的强大的游戏速度选择也在暗示着这是回合制与实时游戏的“混合体”。有许多人总是会将实时策略游戏当成回合制游戏进行操作，即会为了明确自己所面临的情境和问题次序而不断暂停时间，然后模拟“从新开始阶段”假装再次开始游戏——这便是回合制游戏的发展过程。

混合

Paradox并不是唯一尝试去创造既不符合回合制游戏也不符合实时游戏的公司。但是他们都呈现出了不同的设计问题，而为了结合这两种游戏元素，他们就必须想办法把两款游戏结合在一起。任何设计师都会说，制作一款游戏就已经够呛了。直接比较两种游戏类型算是一种学术实践，但仍存在一些尝试着结合它们的游戏例子——不过真正成功的却是少数。

《文明3：玩转世界》中的“无回合”模式便是一个典型的例子。其核心机制与标准的《文明3》游戏体验是相同的，并伴随着间隔计时器，城市成果以及单位移动等。开发者的主要动机是为那些步调较慢的多人玩家创造一种最佳模式，但最终却遭遇了彻底的失败。

问题便在于，剩下的游戏设计让玩家可以不顾一切而专注于某一任务。外交协商便非常疯狂，最终将导致玩家为了转移注意力而关闭游戏窗口。而战争能够让玩家将一支军队移到最佳防御砖块中（游戏邦注：在敌人也能够这么做之前）。在《文明3》中并不存在适当的经济管理，因为游戏中设置了强大的微观控制元素，让大多数玩家望而却步（即使不需要面临时间的限制）。

最近的《文明》游戏中所使用的“模拟回合”模式也存在着许多这样的问题，并且缺少了单独的计时器去确保回合的发展与每个玩家的游戏体验是否相符合。

另外一款尝试着覆盖回合制与实时元素的游戏便是《幽浮：启示录》。有些玩家喜欢额外的实时战斗，但是却并不是人人都喜欢。因为对于步调和优先次序的剧烈影响，许多玩家选择抛弃这款游戏，从而让《启示录》成为了《幽浮》系列的“污点”。虽然这款游戏比《玩转世界》更具有凝聚力，但却始终不能弥补其过失。

判断游戏设计是“好”是“坏”其实很简单。玩家的期望值便是最佳判断指南。并且除了时间的设置，很少有其它开发决策能够影响策略游戏的整体感觉。

（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）

Turn-Based VS Real-Time

by Jon Shafer

One of the strategy genre’s most important dividing lines is the manner in which time passes – is it continuous, as in the real world? Or is it segmented into phases designed to restrict player activity? Many strategy fans favor one over the other and the “debates” between these groups often grow contentious. When a prominent series switches sides it often leads to proclamations of imminent doom, or at the very least a fair bit of teeth-gnashing.

While there’s certainly been a great deal of conversation pertaining to this topic, rare are truly comprehensive studies which seek to identify what differentiates turn-based games from their real-time cousins. Good designers need to be well-versed in the strengths and weaknesses of both.

Approachability

One of the most basic differences between the turn-based and real-time mediums is the natural appeal and approachability offered by each. And the issue isn’t nearly as simple as“one type is easy to get into and the other isn’t.”

Real-time games offer experiences more akin to everyday life. Sure, waiting in line at the grocery store might be “turn-based,” but everything we do is just one link in an endless chain of events. I walk from here to there and it takes a minute or so. Or maybe two. It doesn’t really matter. In an RTS you might order some troops across the map, and they’ll keep going until they get there and will arrive in a minute or two. This sense of familiarity provides a measure of comfort to many players, particularly those with more casual tastes.

Real-time isn’t for everyone though. The time pressure exerted on players can generate feelings of anxiety, sometimes to an extreme degree. Some people relish timed challenges, but many do not.

What should I be doing? Wait, what’s that? Oh, I’ve screwed up already, I just know it. Wow, he found my base already? Ugh, this isn’t fun…

Experienced gamers often forget that it takes a fair amount of effort to get into any game more complex than rock-paper-scissors. There are people who do enjoy that initial “okay, where’s the light switch?” phase, but most would prefer to skip ahead to the good stuff – that moment at which they’ve obtained some level of mastery and are no longercompletely lost. The ability to learn at one’s own pace is a huge plus in turn-based strategy’s column.

Pacing

The rate at which events occur is perhaps the biggest difference between turn-based and real-time games. Recall that pacing is simply the rate at which “something interesting” happens. In a turn-based game the designer has virtually no control over when, in terms of actual seconds or minutes, events will take place. A frenetic player could finish a game in an hour – a methodical one might do so in twenty.

For many turn-based strategy fans this flexibility is one of the medium’s best features, but it’s not always a positive. A lesson designers learn early on is that what players think they want and what they actually want often don’t align in the slightest! One of the rough edges that has long plagued the Civilization series is the pacing of the first ten or twenty turns when players only have a couple widgets to fiddle with. The need to hit the enter key five times in a row to get past the boring part is not a quality to be proud of. I’ve watched more than a handful of playtests in which individuals would end their turn only cautiously and reluctantly. And they’re right to be hesitant, as a game with better pacing would not have thrust them in such a position.

Designers of a real-time game are blessed with the capacity to know precisely that players can train eight space marines in 30 seconds and will have trained their first ultralisk between 8 and 12 minutes in. Exact numbers of this sort can never be to everyone’s liking, but it greatly simplifies the designer’s task of ensuring a fairly smooth experience for all.

Prioritization

Turn-based games may not have the advantage of natural pacing, but they certainly make up for it in other ways. Their greatest strength is granting players control in deciding what’s important and what isn’t.

The manner in which time flows subtly informs players what they should be focusing on. In a broad sense, turn-based games reward analysis and preparation, while real-time ones reward pattern-recognition and execution.

When one is racing against the clock it’s more important to be prompt than it is to be perfect. When an enemy’s arrival is imminent, simply putting any army into the field takes precedence over tuning its exact composition. As such, real-time games tend to be enjoyed by players who enjoy performing feats of skill and feed off of the mastery developed through practice.

With unlimited time it becomes possible to derive the “best” possible solution for a situation. Not everyone’s brain works at breakneck speed, and turn-based games offer everyone – fast or slow, young or old – the opportunity to exhibit their prowess. While this quality certainly offers advantages, it also comes paired with potential drawbacks…

Micromanagement

The ability, and perhaps, necessity of delving into minutia can be both a weakness (Civilization 3) and a feature (Starcraft). Obviously, the more time players have to make a decision the more of an opportunity there is for them to direct every last detail. This naturally encourages designers of turn-based games to add complexity, and it’s possible for these two factors to intertwine and strangle gameplay. Master of Orion 3 is one such title which strayed way off the deep end.

Real-time games typically feature significantly less micromanagement. By necessity they must hide certain elements behind the scenes, as there is an upper limit to how many balls even the most skillful player can juggle at once. There are also some types of micromanagement that don’t really make sense in a real-time game.

The ability to move units between discrete grid tiles is a core aspect of many turn-based games, but trying to wedge such a feature into one that’s real-time would be a questionable decision at best. Tiles are an abstraction of the real world which helps designers and players understand and manage the map. A tile-less map is more loose and less precise – the opposite qualities turn-based games favor. There’s a managerial tax associated with tiles that fortunately becomes almost irrelevant when players have unlimited time to make decisions. However, in a real-time game where every second counts do players really have time to be worrying about the specific plot of land their spearmen are standing on?

When incorporated effectively, micromanagement is an excellent way for players to develop mastery. Both turn-based and real-time games can use it as a tool to highlight the differences in skill between players. The Starcraft 2 team unabashedly placed an artificially-low cap on the number of units which can be ordered around as a group because they wanted an unlevel playing field. Obviously this approach isn’t right for every title, but the success of the Starcraft franchise helps remind us that game design is still very much an art where the palette available to developers is vast indeed!

So how do you determine what level of micromanagement is appropriate then? The key factor is usually a game’s pacing. A good example of a real-time game that leans more towards the turn-based bucket is Paradox’s Europa Universalis series. These games offer players many more knobs than a traditional RTS, and their extremely powerful game speed options almost suggest that they’re a sort of turn-based/real-time “hybrid.” There are people who actually play the games as though they were turn-based, pausing the flow of time frequently to survey the situation and issue orders, then resuming for the sole purpose of simulating the “resolution phase” – basically the same flow as in a turn-based game.

Hybrids

Paradox isn’t the only company which has made a stab at creating games which don’t really fit into either the turn-based or real-time category. However, they each pose very different design problems and by combining the two you’re essentially trying to make two games in one. And as any designer can tell you, the job of making just one is tough enough! Making direct comparisons between the two mediums is mostly an academic exercise, but there are a few examples of titles which attempted to do both – without much success.

One such case is the fascinating “turnless” mode in Civilization 3: Play the World. The core mechanics were basically identical to the standard Civ 3 experience, only with cooldown timers attached to research, city production, unit movement, etc. The primary motivation was to create a mode for multiplayer that didn’t have absolutely glacial pacing. Unfortunately, the end result fell flat pretty much across the board.

The problem was that the rest of the game’s design assumed players could set everything aside and focus their attention on a single task. Diplomatic negotiations were a frantic dance which often ended in one player suddenly closing the window in order to put out a fire somewhere else. Warfare devolved into a race to move one’s army into the most defensible tile before the enemy could do so himself. Proper economic management was absolutely impossible, as Civ 3 required such a daunting level of micromanagement that most players were overwhelmed even when not up against the clock.

The “simultaneous turns” mode utilized in the more recent Civ games shares many of these same problems, but the lack of individual timers at least ensures the flow of a turn roughly matches the singleplayer experience.

Another title which made a more serious attempt to straddle the turn-based/real-time divide is X-COM: Apocalypse. Some players loved the addition of real-time combat, but it was by no means universally loved. Because of the dramatic impact on pacing and priorities a large number of fans turned their back the game, and Apocalypse is often regarded as the X-COM series’ “black sheep.” The end result was a more cohesive whole than what Play the World offered, but it was still popularly viewed as a misstep.

Game design is rarely as simple as “good” or “bad.” The expectations of your fans is often the best compass available to you. Few development decisions impact the overall feel of a strategy game more than how time is handled. Hopefully this article has been instructive. Now then – choose carefully, designers!(source:gamasutra)