作者：Josh Bycer

我在Gamasutra上发表的第一篇文章阐述了有关抽象技能的相关理念：即围绕着行动或RPG设计的游戏创造中会出现哪些不同的玩家参与元素。为了进一步延伸这一话题，我们可以讨论有关游戏设计中的进程发展。随着游戏设计的演变，进程的定义也随之改变着，如今我们可以通过不同方式去定义它，并且没准定义方式也将给设计带来不同影响。

让我们先从进程的基本定义开始说起：这是玩家从开始到最后所遵循的道路。从最初的村庄到最后巨大的城堡，我们可以在电子游戏中轻松地勾勒出玩家的前进路径。我们还可以将进程分割成两个单独元素。

分割进程

电子游戏中的进程可以被分割成两个类别：玩家和游戏。玩家进程是指玩家在开发自身技能的同时学习规则和机制的过程。举个例子来说吧，在《传送门》中，有些玩家便会学习如何基于运动而使用传送门。而游戏进程则是关于玩家角色在整个游戏过程中的发展，或者有关策略游戏活动，如打开新单位等。

基于玩家选择，进程和抽象技能是相互影响着的。那些更加注重玩家完善的游戏往往具有更少的抽象元素。与之相反的是，围绕着RPG关卡的游戏则具有更多抽象元素。

但是事实并非总是如此，所以我们也就更难去划分进程了。例如在之前的抽象技能文章中，我列举了《边境之地》这款游戏，并认为其抽象性为-25%，从而将其划定在行动一边。但是从进程上来看，它主要是基于角色是如何根据时间的发展而发展。

在抽象技能中我使用了从-100到100的数值来定义抽象性。而面对进程，我们需要其它元素：

这一图表是关于玩家和游戏进程间的划分。深蓝色和深绿色代表的是完全依赖于玩家进程和完全依赖于游戏进程的游戏。

打斗类游戏和竞争性射击游戏便是完全基于玩家进程的游戏典例。符合达尔文难度类别的游戏：在这里玩家将接受测试，即关于他们能否在面对游戏机制时得到提升，或不断遭遇失败。

相反地，JRPG和早前的CRPG是完全基于游戏进程的游戏典例。在这里，不管玩家在游戏机制中是否熟练或者每分钟的行动是否迅速都不重要，其成功和失败都是由属性和骰子所决定。

而中外层的浅蓝色与浅绿色则代表今天大多数基于自身类型的游戏。在有关玩家进程的行动类游戏中也包含了能够打开新移动或武器的游戏进程。相反地，在RPG中，玩家将对成功产生一定的影响，如按压按键去躲避攻击，或者像在《边境之地》或《辐射3》中使用FPS技能。

而最中间的颜色则代表同时具有这两种进程的游戏，即以元游戏和多系统进程形式呈现出来。之后我们将回到这些理念上。而现在我想先说说较极端的元素以及它们对游戏设计与易用性的影响。

关键的设计：

就像之前所提到的，图表上较为极端的两边代表的是基于玩家进程或游戏进程的游戏。但是尽管这些游戏较为不同，从难度和易用性来看它们也具有一些相同的特征。

围绕着玩家进程的游戏设计往往会要求较高的玩家技能。例如《忍者龙剑传》，《街头霸王》，《反恐精英》以及《星际争霸2》等等。在这些游戏中，角色很少能够获得升级，而在多人游戏中，任何升级都不会贯穿于竞争中。我们必须牢记这一点，因为我们很快便会回到这里。

除此之外还有其它游戏进程，如《恶魔之魂》的设计便是为了加强玩家的技能，而非取代它。不管玩家处在何种关卡，或者穿着何种装备，如果未能掌握游戏机制，他们便不可能在与boss的打斗中存活下来。还有一些资深玩家在《恶魔之魂》中未升级角色而完全专注于技能组合的例子。

关于注重游戏进程的rogue游戏便深受玩家欢迎。对于那些不熟悉这类游戏的玩家来说，rogue游戏便是围绕着较高难度曲线和随机环境而设计的游戏。大多数rogue游戏是基于回合制，即让玩家可以在任何情境下计划前行方式。

这类型游戏的随机属性是为了让玩家保持警惕，并会对进程产生很大的影响。引擎每次出现的情境都是随机的，所以玩家永远都不知道下一个出现的敌人会是什么，或者下一次升级是何时。你可能会在5分钟内想要一个强大的武器，或者受困于一个基本的武器中长达一小时。

未知感是这类型游戏受欢迎的一大因素。在普通游戏中，玩家总是能够猜到接下来会出现什么。但是在rogue游戏中，他们甚至有可能在几分钟内便死掉，或者使用找到的装备而获胜。

《地下城冒险》便是一款rogue游戏，玩家完全依赖于角色进程。

这两个类别的相似处在于，它们的极端设计原理都影响着游戏的易用性（针对于游戏外部玩家而言）。玩一款专注于玩家进程的游戏意味着玩家找不到其它解决方法能够度过困境然后完善自己在游戏中的处境。但是如果玩家不能变得更厉害，他们便不会愿意继续游戏。

基于游戏进程，那些希望自己的输入能够影响最终成功的玩家将会失望了。在这种情况下，帮助玩家绕过困境的唯一方法便是继续游戏，直到他们真正需要道具或升级。这将大大提升玩游戏所需要的时间，这对于某些人来说是好事，但却也会导致其他人失去对于游戏的兴趣。

尽管仍有人尝试着创造像《地下城冒险》和《以撒的结合》这样具有易用性的rogue游戏，但是在主流玩家心中这仍是一种利基类型。

竞争优势：

自从90年代像《街头霸王》以及《格斗之王》等打斗类游戏崛起以来，竞争类游戏便开始发展起来。Evolution Champion Series大赛（俗称EVO）已经成为该类型游戏的年度盛事。

在过去十年里，竞争类游戏的受欢迎度随着Major League Gaming和World Cyber Games等组织而不断扩展。而《星际争霸》也成为了电子竞技游戏中最受欢迎的一款游戏。

像《星际争霸》和《街头霸王》都依赖于玩家进程。围绕着竞争设计而构建游戏需要遵循一些设计要素：

1.确保玩家具有平等的地位：因为游戏进程，任何比赛间都不存在永久性能让玩家去完善自己。如果它突出了具有永久性的机制，那么必然也存在摧毁这种机制的方法。

2.保持环境平衡。从地图上的起点来看，玩家并不具有多少优势。关于这一规则的唯一例外便是围绕着非对称目标而构建游戏，例如《反恐精英》。根据不同的目标，起始点的位置也会出现不同的布局。

3.设置选择：尽管玩家将面对各种各样的战术，但是每一次选择的功能性却都是一样的。就像在《街头霸王》中，Ryu每一次使用波动拳所花费的时间都是一样的，并且都会造成同等的破坏力。

4.玩家的技能总是制胜关键：在比赛背景下，我们总是会习惯关掉或限制任何游戏辅助内容，如自动瞄准。在竞赛过程中，游戏不能提供给玩家任何帮助。

这4个要点一直根植于竞争社区中。如果游戏不能满足这些要求，那么即使它能吸引到休闲玩家的注意，但却会遭到竞争类玩家的冷落。对于那些在Major League Gaming，World Cyber Games或EVO中吸引了大量媒体注意并因此获得巨大销量的游戏来说，这是最糟糕的情况。

有趣的是，竞争类游戏的发展对于策略型游戏造成了非预期的影响。随着《星际争霸》在竞争领域的成功，其它开发商和发行商们也希望自己的游戏能够突出重围并获取巨大利益。结果便是RTS设计领域发生了巨大转变，很多人都从宏观导向战斗转向了小型微观战斗中。

基于较小的单位以及地图，微观战斗更容易观看，并对玩家技能有更大的要求。因为在大规模RTS游戏中，玩家总是希望AI和UI能够放松对单位的控制或者专注于战斗中。因为一下子就让玩家去把握控制权会太过火。

考虑到大规模RTS游戏的设计要素，我们看到了一些新RTS系列（如《Company of Heroes》和《Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War》）向微观类型的转变。我们也关注着艺电会如何修改《命令与征服》的UI和设计以创造出下一款大型竞争类RTS。最近CNX系列中的游戏都缩小了地图上的单位，并成为带有微观管理能力的点击集中式游戏。

比起其它RTS游戏，《Company of Heroes》突出了较小的战斗规格，而比起基地管理也更加强调单位控制。

从微观游戏的盛行来看，如今的宏观RTS游戏变成了一种利基类型。并且这种缺乏也推动着Uber Entertainment的宏观RTS《Planetary Annihilation》在Kickstarter上成功地募集到了资金。

多系统进程：

关于游戏设计进程的最后一点，我们需要专注于之前图表中最中间的内容。在产业发展的最早阶段，游戏是平等地结合了玩家进程和游戏进程。在80年代末期，即在游戏产业复兴之后，许多设计师都在尝试各种机制，就是在那时候诞生了多系统进程。

我们可以将这种设计风格定义为：突出多种系统的游戏，并且每种系统都带有独特的机制且能够作为一种完整的体验。另外一种方法便是创造拥有足够深度的游戏系统，然后将其整合到“科学怪人”般的体验中。

多系统进程之所以如此复杂不仅是因为设计师创造了完全独立的游戏系统，同时还需要明确如何将它们有效地整合在一起。结果便是，比起分开玩不同的游戏，玩家将面对带有不同小环节的完整游戏体验。

让我们着眼于一个大受欢迎的例子，即《X-Com UFO Defense》。即使过了18年，这仍被当成是最优秀的一款游戏。早前我曾写过一些有关这款游戏的内容，我谈论了《X-Com》中的每个系统：

1.基地管理——创造基地去安置你的军队，然后是研究和生产线，同时也要管理好你的收入。

2.GeoScape——追踪UFO并派遣飞船进行拦截。

3.团体战斗：围绕着你的势力和敌人之间的回合制战斗。

此外我继续分析了每个游戏系统间的互动：

1.基地将决定你在团队战斗中使用的装备和飞船。当你围绕着世界创建更多基地时，你的覆盖范围将变得更广，从而能够识别出更多UFO并面对更多团体战斗。

2.通过击落UFO，你便能够迎合每个国家，从而在每个月初赚的更多收益。通过追踪UFO，你将能够把团队送到爆炸点，外星人基地或UFO降落的位置。

3.任何被杀死的团队成员将永远消失，而这会对你的名册带来不利影响。经历任务将让你能从外星人手上获取道具，并用于搜索新工具，或者卖掉赚钱。

尽管对于多系统进程来说，创造一款让人惊讶的游戏具有很大的积极性，但同时这里也存在一个巨大的消极性。我们总是很难有效设置多系统进程，但是不管怎样它必须在一开始就出现在游戏设计中。设计师们必须想办法平衡这些系统间的相互作用。

因为设计多系统进程所面对的种种难度，我们也看到了一种全新的进程形式（即从多系统进程演变而来）：元游戏进程。

元游戏进程：

与多系统一样，元游戏进程也在一款游戏中结合了游戏进程和角色进程。并且它可以被定义为：一款突出主要游戏系统的游戏，并在游戏进程间添加了永久性。

元游戏和多系统游戏都包含了多种游戏系统，但不同的是，在元游戏中你并不会创造单独的游戏系统相互撞击。

元游戏设计最早出现在2000年代末，即伴随着《军团要塞2》的发行。《军团要塞2》游戏玩法的扩展是伴随着道具的更新。玩家一旦打开一种道具，它便是他们永远的财产。在《军团要塞2》之后，其它多人游戏系列，如《使命的招魂》和《战地》都打开了新道具和武器去突出元游戏内容。

以下两张图表将解释根据角色或玩家而定义的常规进程以及多系统或元游戏进程的不同：

在第一张图表中，玩家将随着时间发展通过使用玩家进程或游戏进程而得到完善，这是一种渐增过程。

第二张图标呈现的是元游戏和多系统设计与常规进程的区别：

在这里，玩家进程将在玩家与游戏之间移动着。如果未专注于等式两边，你便不可能精通游戏。在《X-Com》中，那些擅于战术战斗但却不知道如何开发基地的玩家将发现，他们的军队总是因为装备欠佳而未能抵挡外星人的进攻。

另一方面，那些专注于研究并开发基地但却不善于战术战斗的玩家也将屡次遭遇军队被宰杀的情境。

元游戏设计之所以如此吸引人是因为我们需要投入大量时间去添加永久性而提高游戏的重玩性。尽管之前玩家一直在反复面对同一种地图或游戏模式，但是现在他们已经能够使用新武器和新能力而突破单调的体验了。

元游戏也将影响游戏平衡：它能够阻止新玩家和资深玩家间的较量。而在在线游戏中添加新内容的一个问题便是如何将其与当先的内容相平衡。而元游戏通过让设计师专注于特定部分而解决了这一问题，如面向水平较低的玩家的内容，以及已经到达一定水平的玩家的内容。

尽管元游戏进程受到了多人游戏的欢迎，但同时它也适用于单人游戏设计中。我最近看到的最棒的使用便是来自独立游戏《以撒的结合》。这款游戏将rogue游戏设计与自上而下的动作冒险游戏结合在一起而呈现出与第一款《塞尔达》游戏类似的风格。

在rogue游戏中，一开始关卡和道具都是随机的，耗尽了生命值的玩家将回到最初阶段而重新开始。但是《以撒的结合》还使用了元游戏进程去提供另外一层进程（除了单纯地玩游戏）。

当玩家在游戏中打败了boss或完成特定任务时，他将打开新道具，而该道具将被整合到后来的随机元素中。这些道具包括强化道具，攻击变量等等，其目的都是为了让玩家获得优势并让游戏变得更加简单。当玩家努力打败BOI时，游戏将在随机性中添加更加复杂的变量而提供挑战，包括新boss，阶段和敌人。

《以撒的结合》中多个编辑器中的一个，能在玩家多次打败游戏时提高难度。

面向单人游戏设计的元游戏进程的优势在于，它能够解决一个节奏问题：如何在避免新玩家面对较高难度的前提下继续吸引资深玩家的注意？

在《以撒的结合》中，玩家所拥有的技能让自己能够定制进程。那些刚开始接触游戏的玩家无需担心游戏越变越复杂，反而他们能打开更多内容而让游戏变得更加简单。而资深玩家不仅能够快速打败游戏并打开更复杂的变量，他们也能够更快速地遇到不断提升的挑战。

有趣的是，具有不同技能的玩家将根据自己所获得的道具而采取独特的方法在游戏中前进。

基于元游戏进程，设计师才能创造出更深层次的游戏体验。尽管多系统进程更加丰富，但也更难创造。

明确进程在游戏中的发展对于创造协调的游戏玩法非常重要。掌握完善角色需要怎样的元素能够帮助你更好地平衡游戏。但就像我的抽象技能文章中所提到的，我们同样面临着一个问题：即不可能迎合所有人。尽管元游戏和多系统进程的使用能够消除玩家与游戏进程间的隔阂，但这却不是最完美的解决方法。

不管你做出何种选择，总是会出现喜欢不同设计的人，也就是我们根本不可能创造出一款老少皆宜的游戏。但是突出不同进程形式的游戏将能够丰富游戏体验，让它们突显于其它游戏中。这也是为什么玩家们会一直热衷于早前的《X-Com》以及《Star Control 2》等游戏的主要原因。尽管我们很难设计出高级机制，但是为了最后的奖励我们应该冒这个险。

（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）

The Procession of Progression in Game Design

by Josh Bycer

In my first article on Gamasutra, I examined the concept of Skill Abstraction: where the factor of the player’s involvement differed between games built around action, or around RPG design. Taking this concept further we can discuss how progression works in game design. The definition of progression has grown as game design evolved and today there are several ways to define it, each having a different affect on the design.

Let’s begin with a basic definition of progression: the path from beginning to end the player takes. From that first village to the final epic battle, we can easily chart the player’s path through a video game.  Examining it further, we can break down the term progression into two individual elements.

The Progression Split:

Progression through a video game can be divided into two categories: player and game. Player progression is the player learning the rules and mechanics while developing their skills. As an example: someone learning how to make use of the portal based movement in Portal. While game progression refers to the player’s character developing over the course of the game or with strategy game campaigns: the unlocking of new units.

Progression and skill abstraction go hand-in-hand based on the player’s preference. Games that are more about the player improving are normally those that have less abstraction. While the opposite is true for games designed around RPG leveling.

However that is not always the case and it makes it harder to categorize progression. For instance: Borderlands which I examined in my skill abstraction article, I rated it at -25% abstraction making it more on the action end of the scale. But in terms of progression, it is mainly based on game due to how the characters and gear improved over time.

In my article on skill abstraction I used a number scale from -100 to 100 to define abstraction. For progression we’re going to need something else:

A Breakdown of progression between player and game.

This diagram shows the breakdown of how player and game progression are separated.  The extremes which are colored dark blue and dark green represent games that are based almost entirely on player and game progression respectively.

Fighting games and competitive shooters are examples of games based entirely on player progression. Along with games that fit the category of Darwinism difficulty: where the player is tested on if they can improve at the game’s mechanics or fail trying.

On the opposite side, JRPGs and older CRPGs are examples of games based completely on game progression. It doesn’t matter how versed the player is in the mechanics of the game or how quick their APM (actions per minute) is, when success or failure is dictated by attributes and dice rolls.

In the outer-middle categories of light-blue and light-green, is where we find most games fall based on their genre today. For action games that are about player progression, there is also the game progression of unlocking new moves or weapons for the player to use. On the opposite side, these are RPGs where the player is given some impact on success, such as dodging attacks with button presses or using FPS skills as in Borderlands or Fallout 3.

The middle of the chart represents games where both forms of progression exists at the same time in the form of Meta-Game and Multi-System Progression. We’ll be coming back to these concepts in a few minutes. But first I would like to talk about the extremes and their effect on game design and accessibility.

Do or Die Design:

As mentioned earlier, games that fall on the extremes of the diagram represent titles that are either predominately based on player progression or game progression. But while these games are fundamentally different, they share characteristics in terms of difficulty and accessibility.

Games designed around player progression require a high level of player skill. Titles like Ninja Gaiden Black, Street Fighter, Counter Strike and Starcraft 2 to name a few. In these titles, characters rarely improve or upgrade and in multiplayer games, any upgrades don’t persist across matches. Keep that point in mind as we’re going to come back to it very soon.

If there is any game progression, such as in Demon’s Souls, it’s designed to enhance the player’s skill, not replace it. No matter what level the player is, or what gear they’re wearing, without proper mastery of the game mechanics, they won’t survive the boss fights in Demon’s Souls. There are hardcore examples of expert players getting through Dark Souls without even leveling their character and just focusing entirely on their skill set.

On the extreme end of game progression, the rogue-like genre has flourished among its audience. Rogue-likes for those not familiar with the term: are games designed around a high difficulty curve and randomized circumstances. Most rogue-likes are turned base allowing the player to plan out exactly how they want to proceed in any situation.

The randomized nature of the genre is designed to keep players on their toes and has a huge effect on progression. Because the situation is randomized each time, the player will never know what to expect in terms of enemies or upgrades. You may find a powerful weapon within 5 minutes, or be stuck with a basic weapon for an hour.

That sense of unknown is one of the factors to the popularity of the genre.  In a normal game, the player has a general idea of what to expect. But in a rogue-like, they could die within minutes, or beat the entire game with the equipment they find.

Dungeons of Dredmor was a rogue-like that players relied entirely on character progression.

The aspect that both categories share is that their extreme design philosophy affects their accessibility to people outside the respective genre. Playing a game focused on player progression means that there are no other solutions to get past a difficulty spike then to improve at the game. But if the player can’t get better, then the game is effectively finished for them.

With game progression, someone who wants their input to factor more into whether or not they succeed will be disappointed. In this case, the only way for someone to get around being stuck is to keep playing until they either get the needed items, or out-level the fight. This increases the time needed to play the game dramatically which for some people is a good thing, but for others can lead to them burning out on the game.

While there have been some attempts at creating more accessible rogue-likes with titles like Dungeons of Dredmor and The Binding of Isaac, the genre is still considered niche among mainstream gamers. But what’s interesting to examine is how games built around player progression have flourished in the competitive scene.

The Competitive Edge:

Since the 90s with the rise of the fighting genre with games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, competitive gaming has grown. The Evolution Champion Series or commonly known as EVO, has become a major annual tournament for the genre.

In the last decade, the popularity of the competitive scene expanded with organizations like Major League Gaming and the World Cyber Games. The game that led the charge was Starcraft which became a popular title among the E-Sports scene.

Titles like Starcraft and Street Fighter were the building blocks for what made a competitive game. Both games relied on player progression above all else.  Games built around competitive design adhere to several design considerations:

1.Players have to go in on equal footing: No permanence between matches allowing someone to have improved odds because of game progression.  If it does feature mechanics that have permanence, then there must be a way to disable them or force set load outs for tournament play.

2.Environmental balance must by as symmetrical as possible.  A player cannot have an advantage based on where they start on the map. The only exception to this rule is in games built around asymmetrical objectives like Counterstrike. Wherein the starting positions have different layouts to go with the different objectives.

3.Choices must always be set: While players can have a variety of tactics open to them, the choice’s functionality has to be the same everytime.  Ryu’s unmodified hadoken in Street Fighter will always take the same amount of time to travel and hit for the same damage everytime.

4.The player’s skill must always be the predominate factor in winning: In tournament settings, it’s customary to turn off or limit any in game assist such as auto aim or handicaps. The game should not be providing help to any player during a competition.

These four points have become set in stone among the competitive community.  If a game doesn’t meet those requirements, while it may sell to casual fans, it will be snubbed by competitive gamers. This is the worst case scenario as games featured in Major League Gaming, World Cyber Games or EVO receive a huge amount of press which translates into sales.

Interestingly enough, the rise of tournament play has had one major unintended effect on the strategy genre.  With the success of Starcraft in the competitive scene, other developers and publishers wanted their games to also be featured and cash in. The result was a major shift in RTS design from larger macro oriented battles, to smaller micro focused battles.

Micro-battles are easier for someone to watch due to the smaller units and map sizes, while requiring more player skill then in macro battles. The reason is that in large scale RTS games, you as the player need the AI and UI to take some of the slack of controlling units or running the base to focus on the battles. Otherwise there would be just too much going on at once for anyone to manage effectively.

Because of the design considerations of larger scale RTS games, we saw the shift to micro style through new RTS series like Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War. Along with EA and how they altered the UI and design of the Command and Conquer franchise to build it up as the next big competitive RTS. Recent titles in the CNC series have scaled down the # of units on one map and have become more click-intensive with micro-managing special abilities.

Company of Heroes featured smaller battle sizes compared to other RTS titles and a greater emphasis on unit control instead of base management.

Today, macro-styled RTS games have become niche in favor of the micro intensive ones. Incidentally, this dearth was one of the motivations behind the creation of the successful Kickstarter campaign for Planetary Annihilation: A macro-focused RTS from Uber Entertainment.

Multi-System Progression:

The final points for this look at progression in game design are focused on the middle of the chart. Games that are made up of almost equal combination of player and game progression first started in the early days of industry. During the late 80s after the game industry revival, many designers experimented with a variety of mechanics, which gave birth to what I’ve coined: Multi-System Progression.

This type of design can be defined as follow: a game featuring multiple systems, each with their own unique mechanics and designed to work as one complete experience. Another way of putting it, is developing game systems that have enough depth to work in their own game, and combine them into an almost Frankenstein-like experience.

What makes multi-system progression so complex is that not only is the designer creating separate complete game systems, but then has to figure out how to combine them all to work together. As a result, instead of someone playing several separate games, they are playing one complete experience out of each smaller part.

While difficult to get right, the rewards can be worth it by briefly looking at one of the most famous examples: X-Com UFO Defense. X-Com is still considered one of the best games ever made, even after over eighteen years. In a retrospective piece I wrote about the game, I talked about each system that made up X-Com:

1.Base Management- Creating bases to house your troops, and research and production lines, while managing your income.

2.GeoScape- Track UFOs and bases around the world and send ships to intercept.

3.Squad battles: Turned base fights between your forces and the enemy.
From there, I went over the interactions between each game system:

1. Your base determines what equipment you have for the squad battles and your ships. The more bases you have set up around the world will give you greater coverage allowing you to spot more UFOs and have more squad battles.

2. By taking down UFOs you’ll keep each country happy which in turn means more income at the start of each month. By tracking UFOs you’ll be able to send your squads either to crash sites, alien bases, or landed UFOs.

3. Any squad members that are killed are gone forever which affects your roster. Getting through missions will net you items from the aliens that you can use to research new gear, or sell for more money.

While being able to make an amazing game is one big positive for multi-system progression, it does have one major downside. Multi-system progression is very hard to get right and must be part of the game’s design from day one. Not only does the designer have to come up with not one, but several different systems, they must also balance and fine tune the interplay between them.

Because of the difficulty of designing multi-system progression, we’ve seen a new form of progression that is in a way the evolution of multi-system progression: Meta-Game Progression.

Meta-Game Progression:

Like multi-system, meta-game progression is a way to combine both game and character progression in a single title. And it can be defined as this — A game featuring a main game system, and a secondary one that adds permanence between play sessions.

Both meta-game and multi-system are titles made up of several game systems, but the difference is that with meta-game, you’re not creating separate game systems that tie into each other.

Meta-game design took off in the late 2000s with Team Fortress 2. TF2’s gameplay expanded over the course of updates with items that could be found or crafted. These items once unlocked remained in the player’s possession. Following TF 2, other multiplayer series like Call of Duty and Battlefield featured meta-game content with unlocks of new items and weapons.

Here are two diagrams to explain the difference between regular progression defined through either character or player, and progression that is multi-system or meta-game:

In this first chart, as the player improves over time using either player or game progression, it is a gradual increase. The expression “walk before you run” can be applied here.

This second chart shows how both meta-game and multi-system designs differ from normal progression:

Here, the player’s progression moves between player and game as they progress. You can’t properly master the game without focusing on both sides of the equation. In X-Com, someone who is good at the tactical combat side, but can’t figure out the base development will find that their troops are ill-equipped to survive later alien attacks.

On the other hand, someone who focuses on research and base development, but are not as good at the tactical combat will get their troops slaughtered every time.

What makes meta-game design so compelling is that the act of adding permanence goes a long way towards improving replay-ability. Even though the player may be playing the same maps or game modes over and over again as before, they’re now using new weapons and abilities to break up the monotony.

Meta-game also has an effect on game balance: as it allows the designer to base matchmaking off of the meta-game preventing new and expert players from interacting. One of the problems with adding new content in online games is balancing them with what is currently available. But the meta-game partially solves that by allowing the designer to focus on specific parts of the meta-game, such as content for low level players, and those for people who reached the cap.

While meta-game progression has become popular with multi-player games, it can also fit in single player design. One of my favorite uses recently would be from the indie title: The Binding of Isaac. BOI was an attempt at combining rogue-like game design with a top down action-adventure game in similar style to the first Zelda game.

As in a rogue-like, the levels and items are randomized at the start of the game, and running out of health would send the player back to the first stage on the next play. But Isaac also made use of meta-game progression which provided another layer of progression beyond just playing the game.

As someone went through the game, beating bosses or completing specific achievements, they would unlock new items that would be factored into the randomization on subsequent plays. These items ranged from stat boosters, to attack variations and many more. All designed to give the player more of an edge and made the game easier. As the player managed to beat BOI, the game would add harder variants to the randomization to challenge them. This includes: new bosses, stages, and enemy variants.

One of the many modifiers in The Binding of Isaac, this one increased the difficulty after the player beats the game a few times.

The beauty of meta-game progression for single player design is that it can solve one of the main problems with pacing: How do you keep expert players interested without punishing newer ones with difficulty they aren’t ready for?

In BOI, the player’s skill at the game allowed them to personalize their progression through the game. Someone who was starting out and wasn’t that good wouldn’t have to worry about the game getting harder, but would still unlock content to make the game easier for them. While expert players would quickly beat the game and unlock the harder variants faster and wouldn’t have to play long before the challenge increased.

What happened was that two players of different skill, would each have their own unique path through a run at the game, based on what unlocks they have achieved.

With meta-game progression, it allows the designer to create a deeper experience then without it. Even though multi-system progression can be more enriching, but is a lot harder to create.

Figuring out how progression works in your title is an important step in developing finely tuned gameplay. Understanding what elements require the player to improve or the character will help you with balancing your game.  But as with my article on skill abstraction, the same overall lesson remains: you can’t please everyone. While the use of meta-game and multi-system progression are ways at bridging the gap between player and game progression, they’re not perfect solutions.

No matter what you do, you’re always going to have someone prefer a different design and creating a game that has universal appeal is impossible.  But games that feature different forms of progression can lead to richer gameplay experiences that allow them to stand out from the norm. There is a reason why gamers still hold titles like the original X-Com and Star Control 2 in high regard after all this time. While it’s not easy to design games with advanced mechanics, the risk may be worth the reward.(source:gamasutra)