作者：Jon Shafer

不管是开发商还是玩家总是会投入大量时间和精力去研究如何从游戏中索取更多。不管是更多功能，更多内容，还是更多决策。但是他们却常常忘记，物以稀为贵这个道理。

在大多数游戏中，单一环节持续时间如果超过几分钟便更有可能促成一定的停工期。这种游戏设计的“负空间”是优秀的步调设置中非常重要的元素。

优秀的步调设置与糟糕的设计

游戏设计师通常都会整合一些会让别人感到“无聊”的功能，旨在给予玩家一些喘息空间。如果一款游戏长达20个小时，那么从为角色命名到最后记分的每一秒钟都会带给玩家深深的紧张感，从而导致大多数玩家会因为压力过大而不能走到最后。

你应该看过许多游戏功能都独立提供了必要的停工期间，而这些游戏的设计大多“不怎么样”。或者我们可以说它们的影响违背了游戏或游戏类型的高层次目标。

在射击游戏中，玩家需要从一个地方走到另一个地方，或者在平台游戏中，谜题会在某些时刻变得非常简单。没有人想玩一款不能射击的射击游戏，或者一款只提供零挑战的平台游戏。应该没人喜欢走这种弯路，但它们的内在都具有非常明确的目的。

毫无疑问，比起科学，游戏设计更倾向于艺术，这仍是一种有趣的现象。你可能认为一个优秀的功能便是一个优秀的，但就像生活中的许多事情一样，它与周围的环境是否和谐才是关键。这也是为何游戏测试和迭代如此重要的原因——在所有材料下锅前你永远不知道最终会出现怎样的一道菜。

让我们通过一些特定的例子去分析如何使用负空间，以及为什么要使用负空间。

负空间的使用

我是在最近参加TGDRT时想到这篇文章的核心理念（我，Dirk与《行尸走肉》的设计师Sean Vanaman和Jake Rodkin共同加入）。Dirk强调他并不喜欢游戏的探索序列内容，因为它们不如其它游戏内容有趣，并且不能提供丰富的游戏玩法或决策机制。

我们的来宾解释道，这一功能明确了放缓游戏速度的目的。但是这种方法并不适用于任何游戏中，并且有可能存在更好的方法能够实现这一目标，但不管怎样我们都不能反对其内在的目的。

Persona 4（from findfreegraphics）

在我玩过的所有游戏中最好地利用了“负空间”的便是《Persona 4》这也是我最喜欢的游戏之一。这款游戏的突出之处便在于绝妙的步调设置。在游戏中，玩家需要穿越地下城，并且在探索阶段能够自行决定执行哪些活动，同时游戏中还设置了非交互式过场动画。《Persona 4》之所以如此特别还在于它提供给玩家完全的控制，让他们能够自己分配每个阶段所需要投入的时间。

我便是这一功能的拥护者，并且不只有我这么想。我们总是会经历情感的变化，有时候想要痛打坏人，有时候又会寻求一些较轻量级的体验，或者想更深入了解角色。所以在停工期出现时让玩家能够根据自己的口味定制游戏体验便是一种很棒的做法。完全的放纵体验将会吓跑许多玩家，但是在一个稳定的框架内提供适当的自由则会获得大多数玩家的好感。

《文明》系列中备受争议的功能便是层面结构的完善。当我在设计《文明5》时，有许多人建议我删去“工人”单位，而让玩家能够基于类似《文明霸业》中的公共工程的系统进行完善。

我知道许多人都未玩过这些游戏，但其基本理念便是，比起设置功能单位，游戏只需要让玩家打开屏幕，选择他们想要“完善”的地方，并点击他们希望放置层面的位置便可。这么做的目的是为了让玩家减少微观控制（游戏邦注：要求玩家到处移动“工人”们），而专注于一些更有趣的部分。但是不管怎么说这都是一种被误导的目标，因为实际上“工人”一点都不有趣。

而我之所以未选择这么做是因为不想失去“工人”单位所提供的内容。等等，刚刚我们不还说“工人”很无聊吗？的确，从某种程度上看来是这样的，但是无聊并不等于无用。他们能提供一些节律性活动，让玩家可以在此缓和情绪后再回到艰难的“治国大任”中。如果在游戏中做出每个决策都需要玩家耗尽脑力，那么他们最终将会燃烧殆尽，这时候便需要进行适当休息，否则他们将选择永远退出游戏。

这便引出了本文的结论，即如果游戏不存在负空间将会怎样？

正空间超载

缺少停工期不一定是个毛病，但却会限制游戏所覆盖的玩家类型。

另外一款我所喜欢的游戏《Unity of Command》便证实了这一点。游戏设计非常紧凑，也很精致，玩家在游戏中所作出的每个行动和每个决策都非常重要。

对于那些喜欢这种方法的人来说，《Unity of Command》是优秀游戏设计的典范。但紧张的游戏体验也意味着在一段时间过后玩家将会感到焦虑与不安。但是游戏中却不存在任何能够缓解玩家情绪的空间。这时候他们将发现自己在游戏中所做出的决策都非常艰难。

每款游戏都以不同方法，并基于不同程度而包含了“负空间”，这也是每位设计师需要考虑的上千种元素之一。我们需要退一步去考虑目标用户和目标，并确保用户的情感能够与我们的目的维系在一起。

（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）

Negative Space

by Jon Shafer

Both developers and players spend a serious amount of time and energy focusing on how we might get more out of games. More features. More content. More tough decisions. It’s easy to forget that sometimes… less is more.

Most titles where a single session lasts longer than a few minutes are best served by providing players at least a small measure of downtime. This “negative space” of game design is an important ingredient in proper pacing.

Good Pacing… Bad Design?

Games often incorporate features that might be considered a bit “boring” with the express purpose of giving players a breather. If a game is 20 hours long and every last second of it from naming your character to the final credits is over-the-top intense, most people would be too stressed out to get anywhere close to the end!

Should you view most of a game’s features included simply to provide that necessary downtime in isolation, you’ll find that they’re in fact rarely “good” design. Or, perhaps a better way to describe them would be to say that their impact runs counter to the high-level goals of the game or its genre.

Consider a shooter where the you casually walk from one place to another, or a platformer where the puzzles become trivially easy for a period of time. No one would want to play a shooter where you don’t actually shoot, or a platformer that offers zero challenge. Everyone may not like such detours, but their inclusion was made with a very clear purpose in mind.

While there’s no doubt that game design is more art than science, this is still a fascinating phenomenon. You would think that a good feature is a good feature, but as with so many other parts of life context is everything. This is one of the reasons why playtesting and iteration is so crucial – you never know how your dish is going to turn out until all of the ingredients are in the pot.

Now that we’ve discussed negative space in a general sense, let’s look at a few specific examples of how and why it’s used.

Negative Space in Action

The idea for this article came to me during a recent episode of TGDRT, when Dirk and I were joined by Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, the designers of Telltale’s The Walking Dead. Dirk noted that he wasn’t a huge fan of the game’s exploration sequences, which are certainly less intense than the rest of the game, and don’t really offer much in terms of meaty gameplay or decision-making.

Our guests explained that this feature was included with the express purpose of slowing the game down. This sort of approach doesn’t work in every case, and there might be better ways of achieving the same goal, but you certainly can’t argue against the intention behind it.

Perhaps the best usage of “negative space” in games I’ve played personally is in Persona 4, which, as many of you know, is one of my favorite games. One of the reasons for this hallowed distinction is its superb pacing. The game is a roughly even mix of crawling through dungeons, an exploration phase where you decide which activities to spend your time on, and non-interactive cut scenes. What makes Persona 4 special is that it provides players nearly complete control over how much time they can spend in each of these phases.

I’m a really big fan of this feature, and I know I’m not alone. I will go through moods where I feel like beating up on some baddies, but other times I’m looking for a lighter experience and just want learn more about the characters. The freedom for players to choose when this downtime occurs allows everyone to customize the experience to their personal taste. A completely unguided, freeform experience is daunting for most, but providing freedom inside a sturdy framework offers the perfect middle ground.

A controversial feature in the Civilization series is the construction of tile improvements. When designing Civ 5 one of the suggestions I received on more than one occasion was that I should cut out the Worker unit, and instead have players place improvements through a system similar to public works in the two Call to Power titles.

I’m sure most of you haven’t played those games, but the basic idea is that rather than having a worker unit players simply open up a screen, select the Improvement they want, click on the tile where they want it, and BAM there it is. The intention was to reduce the micromanagement required in shuffling a horde of Workers around, and instead refocus on more interesting bits. This was by no means a misguided goal, as Workers are in fact kind of, well, not interesting!

One of the big reasons why I ultimately chose not to go in this direction was because I didn’t want to lose what the Worker unit provided. Wait, didn’t we just say that Workers are boring? In a manner of speaking, yes, but boring doesn’t necessarily equate to useless. They offer a rhythmic activity where players can spend some time to chill out before returning to the hard work of statecraft. If every decision is a brain-burner, eventually you burn out and either need to take a break, or in the worst-case scenario, maybe even quit forever.

That brings us to the conclusion of our article: so, what does happen when a game goes without negative space?

Positive Space Overload

A lack of downtime is not always a flaw, but it does greatly narrow the type of audience your game will appeal to.

A game which demonstrates this is actually another one of my favorites: Unity of Command. The design is so tight and well-crafted that nearly everything you do is important. All of your decisions matter. All of them.

No doubt, some people absolutely love this approach and Unity of Command is sort of a reference guide for good game design. But the intensity of the experience means that playing it for long enough can eventually make you anxious and uncomfortable. There’s no exploration or farming to sooth your weary soul in this game. No, all you’ll find are tough, tough decisions.

Every game incorporates “negative space” in different ways and to varying extents, and it’s yet another one of the thousand elements every designer must take into account. We are wise to step back, consider what our target audience is and what our goals are, and ensure the mood actually provided matches our intentions.(source:gamasutra)