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阐述游戏谜题的存在意义及其设计原则

发布时间:2013-05-21 14:55:52 Tags:,,,,,

作者:Upplagd av Thomas kl

最后我看了一篇关于谜题游戏的文章,不禁让我陷入思考。那篇文章介绍了游戏多年来用谜题替换其他活动的不同方法,我对此非常感兴趣。有许多优秀的冒险游戏似乎被它们的谜题拖了后腿。因为谜题总是打断体验的连贯性。我发现,当手头上有通关攻略时,玩家反而能更投入地玩冒险游戏。当然,看攻略玩游戏也有它自己的问题,并且也不是理想的玩游戏方式。总是有其他解决方案存在的。

早在我们建立Frictional Games以前,我们就树立了解决这个问题的大目标。我们在我们的每一款游戏中加入新想法, 一是为了使体验更加流畅,二是最小化谜题带来的问题。

当我们开始《Super Secret Project》之时,我们最初的想法是彻底放弃传统的谜题。一开始,我们的主要做法是,让关卡的目标非常明确。我们希望创造一种“戏剧感”,让玩家自由地角色扮演,而不必担心解决益智谜题。但随着项目进展,越来越多传统的谜题设计渗透进去了。我早已经意识到这个问题,但直到我看了上述提到的文章,才迫使我正视这个问题。尽管我们努力朝反方向前进,结果似乎仍然无法摆脱传统的谜题。似乎有什么东西使它们成为必不可少的部分。

puzzle(from csatimes.co.in)

puzzle(from csatimes.co.in)

大概有以下三个主要原因:

1、目标。谜题给玩家提供目标。当一种处境被设置成谜题的形式时,玩家就更容易理解接下来要怎么办。这就形成了一种指导玩家怎么想怎么做追求什么结果的框架。事实上,更准确地说,当一种处境以全面综合的方式安排时,才产生谜题。所以谜题元素只是一种副产物。

2、结构。谜题是安排结构框架和控制故事进展的好办法。为了合理地进展故事,玩家是不可能按自己的意愿玩游戏的。必须把场景按“向玩家透露某条路径”的原则来设置场景。谜题提供的瓶颈比较隐蔽,而且可以穿插在故事中。如果你希望玩家在达到房间D以前先通过房间A、B和C, 那么你可以通过谜题达到那个目的。这么做的同时也能推动游戏剧情发展。不是游戏告诉玩家什么时候该继续前进,而是由玩家自己做决定。谜题可以很好地控制故事的发展。例如,如果游戏要求玩家在某个地方停留一会儿,这时候就可以让玩家寻找线索或参与其队与谜题相关的活动。

3、沉浸感。谜题有助于玩家融入游戏剧情。玩家使用他所知道的游戏世界的知识来解决谜题,从而对故事产生影响。这样,玩家就成为故事的一部分,根据故事做决定。谜题不是为了测试玩家的智商和/或阻碍进度,而是增加玩家的存在感。当玩家需要理清某些事情之间的关联时,总是会对游戏更有沉浸感。这就好像,使用间接或隐喻的手法来描述书中的某些事物,总是更加吸引读者的注意。

我认为以上三点都是支持谜题存在的有力证据。但谜题仍然存在缺陷。我在上文中提到的文章指出游戏解决谜题缺点的几种办法;但那些方法基本上把谜题的优点也消灭了(游戏邦注:例如,《行尸走肉》使用重要的对话选项,使玩家成为剧情的一部分)。但为了达到这个目的,游戏必须有很长的过场动画,而且要减少交互活动。玩家不再推动故事发展或得到隐蔽的目标。游戏只是在应该继续前进的时候告诉玩家要做什么。尽管这种设计也自有优势,但不能传达一种由玩家全程主动的体验。我们的工作室Frictional Games想创造的可不是那种体验。

与其考虑拿什么替代谜题,不如想一想如何改进谜题。所谓的改进,就是取其精华去其糟粕。第一步是思考为什么我们需要谜题。我认为许多冒险游戏面临谜题的问题的主要原因是,它们没有让谜题实现其存在价值。所有谜题似乎只是一种“有趣的挑战”,一种其价值不容置疑的特征功能。我认为应该先思考这个问题:“谜题对整体体验有何作用?”

一旦确定谜题是必须的,那么下一个问题就是,谜题的复杂度是多少?如果你希望玩家融入游戏故事中,那么谜题就要在不损失其乐趣的前提下保持尽可能地简单。所以,简单到什么程度?我最近想到的一条黄金标准是:

“谜题应该使玩家认为是他自己想到解决办法的。”

这意味着谜题必须给玩家某种“启示”,但又不让玩家觉得是谜题灌输给他的。从遇到阻碍到执行解决方案的过程不应该太过明显或简单。然而,这通常意味着谜题变得太复杂和/或太困难。这样,解决问题就演变成了“揣摩设计师的意图”,这当然不是我们要达到的效果。我们应该让玩家内化游戏世界,永远不能迫使他们跳出游戏世界来思考问题。以下是我们的做法:

1、位置。所有与解决谜题有关的元素必须在位置上相互接近。这就保证玩家不会因为错过某条线索或物品在太远的位置而无法继续进展。

2、多种解决办法。具有多种解决谜题的办法通常被用于增加游戏的重玩性。在我们的游戏中,我们却是通过提供多种解决方法来保证大部分玩家找到自然直观的一种。在许多情况下,我们其实执行了测试员已经尝试过的所有可行的办法。

3、物品不要太多。不要出现太多地点、物品、角色等,这样就可以避免迷惑玩家,或他们引向错误的路径。当然,物品太少也不行,所以物品设置必须巧妙处理。

4、一致的模拟。这意味着整个游戏要从头到尾一致地执行机制。例如,镐能够敲碎冰做成的东西。最近大多数游戏如《时空幻境》和《粘粘世界》都采用了这个策略。然而,这些游戏都发生在架空世界中,游戏机制都是由故事产生的。在追求“真实”的剧情导向型游戏中,很难达到100%的一致性。我们曾经尝试用物理学解决一致性问题,但遇到各种困难。

5、把谜题当作活动。只要有可能,把谜题当作活动通常能取得比较理想的效果。这有助于玩家跳出“找到聪明的解决办法”的心态。如果你希望通过谜题强化故事,就不应该把谜题当作挑战。

6、把谜题作为游戏世界的一部分。这是最明显但最难执行的一个方案:谜题应该总是融入游戏故事。如果不能,当玩家遇到谜题时,就会明显地感觉到它与剧情的脱节。《生化危机》可以作为学习榜样——它几乎没有谜题不能与游戏世界契合。

7、相关的暗示。我认为保证玩家不会卡在某个进度上的最好办法是,让他通过主人公的评论、笔记或任何辅助物品,从不同的角度看待谜题。这是为了保证玩家不会误解某些概念,得以“正确”地观察谜题。如果玩家卡住了,那么最可能的原因就是玩家无法理清某些步骤的逻辑关系。可以通过含蓄的暗示避免发生这种情况。

以上技巧的目的是,给玩家提供流畅的体验,同时避开谜题的缺点。另一个重要的问题是,如何向玩家清楚地显示目标。玩家在游戏中卡住通常是因为他们没有意识到他们的目的是什么、他们要解决的难题是什么。以下是三种解决办法:

1、明确的目标。这可能是我们尝试得最多的做法。明确的目标意味着你要保证玩家知道下一步怎么办。在《失忆症》中,我们总是通过明显的障碍或某些笔记、想像来暗示玩家。作为备用方案,我们也采用某些不破坏沉浸感的任务列表来进一步提示玩家。

2、隐藏但指引。有时候游戏可能不会直接告诉玩家到底要做什么,而是通过隐蔽的方式透露给玩家,使他最终偶然发现自己的目标。《寂静岭2》中提供了简单而有效的例子:玩家必须找到碎石路才能逃出井。这是制造恐慌的好办法,又因为这个办法很容易发现,所以不会让玩家感觉受挫。

Silent-hill-2(from silenthill.wikia.com)

Silent-hill-2(from silenthill.wikia.com)

3、明确的解决方案。也就是只提前告诉玩家到底要做什么。这种方法可能看似无聊,但在某些情况下却相当有效。在《行尸走肉》中就有一个绝好的例子——食物配给:玩家显然清楚自己必须做什么,但很难决定要给谁食物。

尽管遵循以上所有原则,也不能保证玩家一定能解决谜题。你绝对不能把谜题当成玩家游戏旅程上的绊脚石。你的目标是让谜题增加玩家在虚拟世界中的体验乐趣,而不是减少。

《断剑之魂》的重制版却提供了非常糟糕的例子。当玩家来以上锁的门前时,一个滑动的谜题窗口突然弹出来。即使不考虑我不喜欢滑动的谜题,这种做法也确实很糟,与游戏故事没有任何关系。就谜题与故事的关联性来看,玩家解决谜题后其实是一无所获的,除了体验被打断。更糟糕的是上锁的门这个障碍本身,太没创意了。游戏设计师采用了无聊的谜题出现方式,并把它做得更糟。严重地误用谜题。

而《恶魔的呼唤:黑暗角落》则是一个优秀的案例。玩家在游戏中必须打开一个前往牧师的秘密藏身处的通路。在抵达教堂以前,玩家不会意识到这里有一个藏身处,除非阅读了笔记。这里还有一个关于如何进入的线索:教堂的钟必须按某种顺序敲响,且打开秘密通路走下楼梯。我认为这样的谜题很好;它不仅把知识、探索和剧情相结合,而且让玩家与环境产生有趣的互动。通过发现和打开秘密通道,玩家对故事的进展具有积极主动的影响。

尽管还是有一个缺点——开启藏身处的机制并不合理。无论何时牧师想进入他的小巢穴,这整个小镇都会注意到。但问题不大。这个谜题的安排令人满意,仍然不失为一个优秀的谜题。技术确实是一个重要的方面。

设计谜题是很困难的,特别是设计一个一致的、有趣的、与剧情发展相符的谜题就更加困难的。如果你想制作一款有趣又多变的冒险游戏,你不可能把所有谜题都做得完美无缺。但最重要的是,保证谜题与你希望创造的体验相契合。只要谜题能增加体验,玩家就可以容忍奇怪的机制(如上述的教堂钟)、简化的库存系统(如《行尸走肉》)和其他欠佳的解决方案。在制作谜题时,一定要记住这一点。

你的目标不是让玩家觉得你很聪明或制作最复杂的谜题。你的目标是保证所有部分服务于整个游戏体验。设计师非常容易忽略这一点(我本人就多次犯错),难度过大的谜题并没有太多好处。但我认为只要设计师摆正心态,设计出合适的谜题也并非不可战胜的挑战。

正如本文一开始提到的,多年来谜题一直被其他机制排挤到一边。有些游戏要么把谜题元素塞进背景故事中(如《神秘海域》),要么完全根据一个特定的机制展开(如《传送门》)。然而,我认为还不是时候放弃经典的冒险游戏谜题。我这么说,不是指我们应该遵循过去的那种谜题设计,而是从不同的角度看待和使用谜题,看看我们能否改进并重新审视它们的作用。本文的目的也在于此,但我认为还有很多地方需要进一步研究。现在就将谜题与故事相结合的做法完全放弃,可能并不高明。(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

Puzzles, what are they good for?

by Upplagd av Thomas kl

I recently came a across this article from AdventureGamers about puzzles, and it got me thinking. The article covers the different ways in which puzzles have been swapped for other activities over the years, something that I am very interested in. There is so much great about adventure games that just seem to be held back by their puzzles. It always seem that they break the flow of the experience. I find that many adventure games are more engaging to play when you have a walkthrough close at hand. Of course, consulting a guide has it own share of problems, and is far from an optimal way to play. Some other solution must exist.

Ever since we started Frictional Games, a big goal has been to try and fix this somehow. With each game we have incorporated new ideas in order to deliver a more streamlined experience; to try and minimize the problems that puzzles tend to cause.

When we started our Super Secret Project our initial idea was to get rid of traditional puzzles entirely. A focus from the start was to have levels where the goal was very clear. We wanted to create “scenes of drama” where the player would be free to role play without worrying about solving puzzles. But as the project has progressed, more and more traditional puzzle design have slipped in. I have been aware of this for quite a while, but the AdventureGamers article slapped me in the face with it. Despite all our efforts to the contrary, we seem unable to remove the puzzles entirely. There is just something that makes them a crucial ingredient.

The three main reasons seem to the be following:

Goal. They give the player a goal. When a situation is set up in the form a of a puzzle it is so much easier for the player to understand what to do next. It sets up a framework on how to behave, act and what outcomes to strive for. Actually, it is more accurate to say that setting up situation in a comprehensive manner gives you a puzzle. So the puzzle-element is simply a sort of side effect. (For those interested, here is an entire blog post dedicated to this subject).

Structure. It is an excellent way to set up a structural framework and provide flow. It is impossible, and story-telling wise unwanted, to allow the player to go in whichever way or do whatever they please. It is necessary to set up scenes in such a way that it confides the player to a certain path (or paths). Puzzles provide bottlenecks that are implicit and goes along with the narrative. If you want the player to visit rooms A, B and C before going to room D, you can set up a puzzles that achieves this. This system also lets the player drive the story forward. Instead of it the game telling the player when it is time to move on, the player is the ones in control. It also sets up a nice way to control the flow of the narrative. For instance, if the player is required to slow down and remain in an area for a while, you can have them searching for clues or engage in other puzzle related activities.

Immersion. Puzzles are a great way for the player to become part of the story. When solving a puzzle players use their knowledge of the game’s world in a way that has an effect on the narrative. Players become one with the story and base their decisions on that. The puzzle is not there to test the player’s wits and/or hinder progress, but to increase the sense of presence. By having something that requires the player to connect the dots often makes it much more engaging. Like how a description in a book can be more compelling if written in an indirect and/or metaphorical fashion.

I find all of these strong arguments for having puzzles. But at the same time the problems of puzzles remain. The AdventureGamers article point a few ways in which games have worked around puzzles; but the problem is that this mostly also removes what is so good about puzzles. For instance, The Walking Dead uses important dialog options to make the player part of the story. But in order to this, the game needs to have long cut scenes and reduce its scope of interaction. Players no longer push the story forward or get implicit goals. The game simply tells them what to do and when it is time to move on. For all its accomplishments, The Walking Dead fail to deliver a game where you play all the way through. This is not the kind of experiences we want to make at Frictional Games.

Instead of thinking about what to replace puzzles with, it is more rewarding to consider how to evolve them. How to improve them in a way that keeps the good traits and removes the bad. The first step towards this is to consider why we have puzzles at all. I think a major reason many adventure games gets problems with puzzles is because they are never justified. Every puzzle is seen as a “fun challenge”, a feature with intrinsic value that should not be questioned.  I think that simply asking the question: “how does this puzzle serve the overall experience” is bound to be a good start.

Once it has been decided that a puzzle is really needed, the next question is what kind of complexity it should have. If you want a game that is about engaging the player in a narrative, you really want the puzzle to be as simple as possible without losing any of the benefits  So what is simple enough? My current gold standard is:

“A puzzle should make players to do something in such a way that they feel they came up it themselves.”

This means that the puzzle must give the player some kind of “revelation” and must not feel spoon fed. The path from encountering the obstacle to performing the solution should not be too obvious or simple. However, this often means puzzles become too complex and/or difficult. The solving problems then devolves into “guess the designer” which ruins the intended effect. The player should be kept inside the game’s world and never be forced to think outside of that. What follows are some of the ways we try and solve this:

Locality. All ingredients for solving a puzzle should be in close proximity to one another. This makes sure the player does not get stuck because of missing a clue or an item at a now distant location.

Multiple Solutions. Having many ways to solve a puzzle is often used as a replayability feature. In our games, it is instead used to make sure that the solution feels natural and intuitive to a wide range of players. In many cases we have actually implemented whatever fitting approaches that testers have tried (to the point of even allowing button mashing as a way to progress).

Low Item Density. By making sure there are not too many locations, objects, characters, etc, one can avoid confusing the player and leading them on stray paths. Too few items can also be a problem of course, so one has o have a bit finesse.

Coherent Simulation. This means that mechanics work globally and are consistent throughout the game. For instance, a pickax is able to break any object made of ice. Most of the recent great puzzle games like Braid and World of Goo use this approach; however all these games are set in fantastic realms where the mechanics come before the story. In a narrative driven game aimed to have a sense of “reality”, it is much harder to be 100% consistent. We have tried it with physics and it comes with all sort of trouble. More info here.

See it as an Activity. When possible it is often rewarding to think of puzzles as an activity. This push you out of mindset of just thinking about having clever solutions. If you want to have puzzles that are there to enhance our storytelling, they need to stop being seen as challenges.

Part of the World. The most obvious, and also hardest one: puzzles should always stay consistent with the story. If not, it will be painfully obvious when one is encountered. Resident Evil is a poster child of this; very few of its puzzles make sense in the game’s world.

Story Coherent Hints. I think the best way to make sure that the player is not stuck is to have protagonist comments, notes, or whatever auxiliary means, show the puzzle from different angles. This in order to make sure that the player has not misunderstood some concept and is seeing the puzzle in the “right way”. If players get stuck, the most common cause is that there is some step in the logic that they failed to catch. By having subtle hints it is possible to minimize this from happening

The above tips are meant to facility a smoother experience for the player while trying to solve the puzzle. Another important issue is how to make it clear that there is a goal at all. Player often get stuck in games because they do not realize what their objective is, what puzzle it is that they are supposed to solve.  Here are three ways that can help overcome this problem:

A Clear Goal. This is probably what we have tried to use in most of our games. It basically means that you make sure players know where to go next. In Amnesia we always tried to have some obvious obstacle or let some kind of note/vision give a hint. As a back-up we also employed a somewhat immersion consistent todo-list, where further hints where given.

Hidden, but guided. Sometimes it is possible to never tell the player exactly what to do, but guide and/or confine them in such a way that they will stumble upon it eventually. A simple, but effective, example is in Silent Hill 2 where you need to escape a well by finding a loose rock. It is a great way to create a sense of panic, and since the solution is so easily found it never becomes frustrating.

Spelled out Solution. This is when you just tell the player front up exactly what they are supposed to be doing. This might seem kind of of boring, but can work really well in some situations. A perfect example is the food rationing in The Walking Dead. Here it is obviously clear what you need to be doing, but a quite hard to decide who to give food.

Despite following all these rules, it is not sure that you come up with a puzzles. It is vital to not see them as stumbling blocks along the players’s journey. You want something that enhances the player’s time in the game’s virtual world. Not something that reduce it.

A very bad example of this is in the remake of Broken Sword. When encountering a locked door, a sliding puzzle pops suddenly pops up. Disregarding that I loath sliding puzzles, this is really bad. It has nothing to do with the game’s narrative. I gain nothing in terms of a connection with the story by solving this. It is simply there to hinder my path. What makes it worse is that the obstacle itself, a locked door, is not really interesting. The designer has taken an uninspiring set up and made it worse. This is a bad usage of puzzles.

A good example is found in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, where you need to open a passage to a priest’s secret hideout. Upon arriving at the church you are not aware of there even being a hide-out and need to read this in a note. Here is also a clue on how to access it; the church bell must be rung in a certain order and opening up a secret passage way downstairs. I think this sort of puzzle is great; it requires a combination of lore, exploration and force the player to make narrative connections. It also lets you interact with the environment in an interesting fashion. By both discovering and opening the secret passageway the player has an active role in the progression of the story.

There is a catch though. The mechanism for opening the hideout makes little sense. The whole town would notice whenever the priest wants to go to his lair. But in the end, it does not matter. It satisfy enough criteria to still be a good puzzle. This is a really important aspect of the craft.

Coming up with puzzles is hard. Coming up with puzzles that are coherent, engaging and fit with the flow of the narrative is extremely hard. If you want to make an engaging and varied adventure, it is impossible to make every puzzle perfect. Above all else, the puzzle must fit with the experience that you want to create. Players can see past strange mechanics (like the above bell puzzle), live with simplified inventory system (like in The Walking Dead) and other sub-optimal solutions as long as it serves to enhance the experience. This is very important to remember when creating a puzzle.

The goal is not to make players think you are clever or to do the most complex set up. The goal is to make sure all parts serve the experience as a whole. It is very easy to forget this (I have done so many times myself) and it does not help that puzzles are fiendishly hard to evaluate. But I think that with the right mindset, it should not be an insurmountable challenge.

As mentioned in the start, over the years puzzles have been pushed aside for other mechanics. Games with more progressive design either push the puzzle elements into the background (eg Uncharted) or base all around a specific mechanic (eg Portal). I do not think it is time to give up on the more classical adventure game puzzles yet though. By this I do mean that we should go back to the interconnected puzzle design of old days (as explained here). Instead we should try and look at puzzles in a different light and see how we might change them and reinterpret their role. This post has been an attempt to do just that, but I think there is a lot more to explore. It would be very bad to abandon the quest to combine storytelling and puzzles just yet.

Those interested in more puzzle discussion might want to take a look at series of articles on puzzle that I wrote a few years back while working on Amnesia. They can be found here. The posts go through some other aspects of puzzles design that should be of interest..

I am also interested in getting your input and/or links to other articles on this subject. It is not easy to come by good writing on puzzles, and even harder to find something that discuss narrative-serving puzzles, so I am very grateful for any feedback and tips!(source:frictionalgames)


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