作者：Gavin Koh

当我第一次想到制作一款极简风格的游戏时，主要是为了向别人展示我提供的原型制作服务。但是，我的菌落模拟游戏《Nurture》确实具有它自己的魅力，因为论坛上的人对它的玩法概念表现出深厚的兴趣。

最终，它成为一款相当好玩的游戏。以下就是它有趣的原因。

玩法风格

做了一些初期研究后，我决定尝试制作一款生命模拟游戏。我本可以选择商业或其他严肃的模拟题材，但像《Creatures》或《Tamagotchi》这样的游戏已经离开我们的视线有好一段时间了；更别说模拟自然的极简风格游戏了。

与之前的游戏不同，在这个充满随机拼图的小世界里，玩家不再控制一个实体，而是多个实体。为向Molyneux的《上帝也疯狂》致敬，我给游戏取名为《Nurture》。

接着，我要给游戏构思一个合适的背景故事。

Nurture 1(from gamasutra)

背景故事

我必须承认，在构思背景故事时，我自己也想得很开心……所以，以下是《Nurture》如何变成一个生机勃勃的世界的过程。

“玩家的角色是游戏中的上帝，照看一团可爱的、蓝色的、圆溜溜的小生物Glob，它这一生的使命就是不断地分裂（游戏邦注：也就是繁殖）。”

为什么是可爱的、蓝色的、圆溜溜的小生物？——你可能会这么问？好吧，因为它们就是地球上最早的生物，并且，毕竟这是一款极简风格的游戏。

“玩家不能直接操纵Glob，但可以替换他们所在绿色土壤。玩家在游戏中的目标就是使用鼠标拖动小生物下面的绿色拼图，使他们看到Globbledygook这个小世界的其他景色。”

这也许是我想到的比较有创意的主意，也是《Nurture》的一大卖点。为什么跟沙盒游戏《我的世界》和《泰拉瑞亚》一样的思路？玩家也是扮演全能的上帝角色。

所以，这个至高无上的人如何创造生命？为什么他捡起材料，放在手心里捏成一团，一个新生物就出现了？我用一个简单的小概念解释为什么要拖屏幕上的绿色拼图：通过放置绿色拼图，玩家可以像施展魔法一般地给Glob创造出黄色的养料——就这么简单。

Nurture 2(from gamasutra)

Glob和它的世界

为了提高开发速度，我开始使用Construct 2这个游戏引擎。我的目标是在线玩家，如果游戏反响不错，我就可以把游戏移植到手机平台。

游戏世界就是一个屏幕，我有意把贴图做得更小，使低等生物Globs看到的世界Globbledygook显得很大。玩家不能用鼠标操作Glob，但可以拿掉它们底下的地面，这样可怜的小Glob就会掉进深渊。因为收集Globs的机制，我决定Glob下落不会受伤。

玩家能看到的Glob的属性只有两项——攻击力和精力。玩家看不到第三个属性，即分裂能力。这个属性决定了Glob的繁殖能力。当时机成熟时，一只Glob撞上另一只Glob，它就可以生育了……“分娩”后的Glob会死亡，但同时它会生出3只Glob。

Nurture 3(from gamasutra)

最终目标

为了设置一个玩家想达到的合理目标，我决定玩家必须使他的Glob菌落发展到200只的规模。这个目标似乎足够玩家享受5到10分钟的乐趣了。当然，我不会使用《生命游戏》那种复杂的算法，但《Nurture》应该有足够的玩法来吸引玩家。

游戏一完工（开发时间非常短，比如两天），我就在游戏引擎开发者的论坛上放出这款游戏的新闻。令人惊喜的是，玩家给这款游戏留了一些有趣的反馈——大多数人对创造自己的贴图的“拖动-放置”概念非常有兴趣。

为了拓展玩法，有人提供了一个小建议——引入梯子。这多少会改变游戏的动态，因为在发布的第一版游戏中，Glob只能左右移动。

添加梯子意味着我必须想出更复杂一点的结构链……以下是基本思路：

1、绿色贴图+绿色贴图=黄色食物

2、绿色贴图+黄色食物=白色梯子

这个结构链只有两级。已经简单到极致的游戏还能更加简单吗？

Nurture 4(from gamasutra)

教训

因为这款拼图式游戏只有一个游戏画面（以后的iPad版将有所改进），我最终选择的拼图像素是32*32，有点太小了。除非缩大，否则玩家很难把一块拼图放在另一块拼图上。所以，我添加了一个应急的放大功能，但愿能缓和这个问题。

另一个难题是给予玩家有意义的反馈。我不打算设计一个大窗口显示每一只Glob的想法。相反地，玩家可以选择某只Glob，然后仔细了解这只Glob的想法。所谓的“想法”只不过是Glob的攻击力和精力罢了。事后，我又决定游戏应该更幽默一些——怀孕Glob会告诉玩家它怀孕了，还会害羞地变成淡红色。

结论

但是，根本问题是，这种极简风格的游戏会好玩吗？靠这5到10分钟的游戏时间，足以使玩家的目光停留在屏幕上吗？

好吧，根据我从朋友和其他业内人士那儿收集到的反馈，我认为我达到目标了。

这款极简风格游戏，我设计得很开心。三天就结束了，我将继续下一个项目。这就是作为独立开发者的快乐。（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）

Can a minimalistic simulation game be any fun?

by Gavin Koh

When I first thought about creating a minimalistic game, it was more to showcase to others about the prototyping services that I offer. But Nurture – my minimalistic colony simulation game – did take on a life of its own as people on the forums were rather intrigued by the gameplay concept.

Ultimately, the game turned out to be quite a fun little gem to toy around with… and here is why -> a well-designed minimalistic game can be a quite a power-packed package of fun.

Gameplay Style

After doing some preliminary research, I decided that I would try my hand at making a life simulation. I could have chosen to write a business or other serious simulation, but it has been some time since we have saw anything remotely close to Creatures or even something simpler like Tamagotchi. Let alone, one that would be minimalistic in nature.

I decided that the player would not be controlling a single entity (as in the former game), but instead several entities would populate and wander about a small confined world filled with random tiles. In a befitting salute to Molyneux’s Populous, I christened my game – Nurture.

Then it was off to dream up a crazy background story to suit the circumstance.

Crazy Background Story

I must admit I had a little fun here… so this is how Nurture was brought to life – inside the fertile imagination of a self-confessed game junkie.

“The game places you in the role of GOD as you take to looking after GLOBS – cute little round blue beings whose role in life is only to blink (and to reproduce, of course).”

Why cute little round blue beings – you might ask? Well, because they are the easiest things to draw this side of the galaxy… and after all – it’s supposed to be a minimalistic game.

“You cannot directly manipulate Globs, but you can shift the green-colored earth that they walk upon. The objective in the game is to use your mouse and drag the green tiles from under your Globs so that they can meet somewhere in their small confined game world of Globbledygook.”

This is perhaps where I got truly creative and came up with a unique selling point for Nurture. Why dig around the way you do like in the sandbox games of Minecraft and Terraria… you are playing the role of an almighty omniscient being after all.

So, how might such a supreme person create stuff? Why he picks them up and drops them on something else, mixes them up in his palm, and a new object appears in its place. A neat little concept that explains the need for dragging and dropping the green-colored tiles you see in the screenshots. By placing a green tile on another, you magically create yellow food pellets for your Globs – as simple as that.

The Nature of Nurture

To develop Nurture as quickly as possible, I embarked on using the Construct 2 game engine. My target would be an online audience, and if the game got positive vibes, I would then simply port the concept over to a mobile platform.

The game world would be confined to a single screen and tiles were deliberately made smaller to make the world of Gobbledygook look huge from the point of view of the lowly Globs. The player will not be allowed to manipulate Globs with his mouse, but he could take out the floor from under one and the poor little Glob would drop away into the abyss that opens up below them. Because of this mechanic to gather Globs together, I decided to make the Globs invulnerable from falling.

The Globs would take on only two parameters that would be visible to the player – Hit Points and Energy. A third one known as Fission would be hidden from the player; this latter game parameter would determine when a Glob is ready to reproduce. Globs get “pregnant” by colliding into other Globs, and when the time comes… the pregnant being would die, but at the same time give birth to 3 more Globs somewhere in the confined game space of Gobbledygook.

Creating the final Target

To set a reasonable objective that the player would want to meet, I decided that the player would need to grow and nurture his colony of Globs until he had 200 of them. That seemed plausible enough for a five to ten minute spurt of fun. Sure, I would not be using the complex algorithms of Conway’s Life, but there should be enough gameplay inside of Nurture to interest players.

Once the game was done (after a very short development time of say two full days), I went ahead to advertise news about the game on the game engine developer’s forums. Surprisingly, the game met with some interesting feedback – most people were rather pleased with the drag-and-drop concept of creating your own tiles.

To expand gameplay, someone offered a simple suggestion – introduce ladders. This would change the game dynamic quite a bit, since Globs only wander left and right upon our first release.

Adding ladders meant I would have to come up with a slightly more complicated construction chain… and here was how it went:

Green tile + Green tile gives Yellow food

Green tile + Yellow food gives White ladder

A construction chain comprising only two levels. How much more minimalistic can you get from something that is already simple to the core?

Lessons

Being a tile-based game constrained to one screen (suited for release on the iPad in the future), my final choice of tile size at 32 by 32 pixels was just a bit too small. Unless you were zoomed in, a player would it find it tricky to pick tiles and drop them on top of one another. So, I added in a quick and dirty zoom-in function that would hopefully alleviate this problem slightly.

Another problem was to give players meaninful feedback. I was not going to design a huge window to show the thoughts of every one of the Globs. Instead, the player can select a single Glob and pry into the thoughts of that single entity. The so-called “thoughts” were simply based upon the band that the Glob’s Hit Point and Energy were in. As an afterthought, I decided to add in some humor – pregnant Globs would comment they were pregnant and also turn a shade of embarassing red.

Conclusion

But, the fundamental question was whether a minimalistic game would be any fun to play? With only five to ten minutes of gameplay time, would it even keep the player rooted to the screen?

Well, based on feedback I gathered from friends and other professionals… I think I achieved that!

Ahh… the joys of a minimalistic design. All wrapped up after three days, and on to the next project, I go. The joys of being indie.(source:gamasutra)