作者：Simon Brislin

我们可以将游戏分成两种元素：互动和故事。互动是指游戏元素以及玩家与游戏间的互动。故事式则是指叙述，对象和角色等。就像《俄罗斯方块》便是纯粹的互动式游戏。相反地，《骤雨》则是故事类游戏。

大多数大型游戏则尝试着同时触及这两个领域，即将其混合在一起。我将在本篇文章中谈论可能导致这种混合出现错误的一些要点。我将主要分为5个区块进行讨论：

Ludonarrative（游戏邦注：由原LucasArts创意总监Clint Hocking提出,这是一个合成词,由ludology和narrative两个单词组成,意指游戏故事与玩法之间的冲突）矛盾

玩家如何游戏

开发者如何创造

玩家知道什么

角色和玩家

Ludonarrative矛盾

是Clint Hocking创造了这个词。当故事元素和互动元素出现矛盾时，这一点就变得很重要。Hocking的论点在于，这是《生化奇兵》所存在的问题。他声称游戏力求提供给玩家两种体验：追求个人能力的体验以及为他人着想的故事体验。而这一论证与互动元素相矛盾。

说实话我并不同意对于《生化奇兵》的这一评价，但是Ludonarrative矛盾却是一个重要理念。我也玩过一些故事和游戏玩法相矛盾的游戏。不管我多么喜欢它们作为个体所带来的体验，但是它们的不协调性真的很难让人忽视。举个例子来说吧，《侠盗猎车手：圣安地列斯》是基于救赎的故事，即关于一个全新的开始，但同时玩家也必须犯下种族灭绝的大罪才能走到最后救赎的终点。这便是一种Ludonarrative矛盾。

将机制整合到故事中

Raph Koster在自己的一篇文章中曾指出“故事并不是一种游戏机制。”这点非常重要。故事是将行动置于背景中进行研究，并提供相关反馈。你不需要为了完善游戏的互动式而使用故事，你只需要将其融入背景中便可。

有趣的是，Walt Williams在名为“我们并不是英雄：通过故事将暴力置于环境中”的GDC Talk中指出，反过来却是对的，即游戏机制是一种故事元素。这是我们经常忽视的等式另一边的内容。

在《特殊行动：一线生机》中，射击对象便是一个关键的故事元素。《特殊行动》是一款关于射击对象的游戏。所以游戏故事将涉及这一内容。当死亡人数增加时，Walker将变得更加主动。实际上，玩家在游戏中杀人便是游戏故事的关键元素。

关于机制被“整合到故事中”还有另外一个有趣的例子。《波斯王子：时之刃》中的匕首将把重玩行动整合都游戏故事中。匕首是游戏世界中的一种工具，能够倒转故事时间，让玩家再次进行尝试。实际上玩家多次尝试同一个跳跃谜题的行为已经和故事紧密整合在一起了。

考虑互动元素对于故事（反之亦然）的影响是将两者有效整合在一起的关键。

玩家如何游戏

玩家经常会采取与我们预想中不同的方法去体验游戏故事。我将分别分析其中的三个部分：

玩家失败

玩家经常分多次去玩游戏

玩家并未真正完成游戏

玩家失败

关于玩家如何游戏的最显著的问题便是遭遇失败。即玩家在故事中间阶段便死去。处理失败或死亡的标准方式便是从复活点上再次开始挑战——故事元素并不会去处理这一问题。

有些游戏只会将其当成是媒介的组成部分，但也有些游戏却想尽办法去处理该问题。《波斯王子：时之刃》便将其带到故事中。《骤雨》让角色能够基于不同方式死去。《蝙蝠侠：阿卡姆疯人院》使用抓钩将蝙蝠侠从瀑布中救了出来。

在游戏文化中，重新开始并不是一种彻底的解决方法。但却是一种值得考虑的方法。如果你能够通过将玩家失败整合到故事中而让他们重新开始，那定能够带给玩家更棒的体验。

同样地，“失败”并不总是代表死亡。玩家可以基于各种方式遭遇失败。他们可以因为找不到出口而失败，因为解决不出谜题而失败，或者因为不能按照你所期待的方式执行行动而失败。当你创造出一个故事后，你就需要考虑如何将失败整合到里面。

玩家经常分多次去玩游戏

玩家很少一次性就完成全部的游戏。他们可能会花几天，几周，几个月甚至是几年的时间去玩游戏。当我们创造了一款10个小时的游戏后，我们必须考虑故事是否足以维持玩家更长时间的游戏过程。

我便经历过一些带有迷宫般情节的游戏，并且我也投入了好几个月时间去找出答案。因为不知道角色到底在说些什么，所以我根本不敢想像接下来到底会出现怎样的情况。

甚至在一些相对简单的情节中，如果延伸到数个月后也会出现问题的。

当我们在考虑游戏情节时，我们需要基于不同情境而考虑这一情节是否会与我们设想的节奏出现偏差。

有些开发者开始将游戏当成一种插话式内容。越来越多开发者发现，比起电影，从电视剧中寻找灵感更适合游戏。我很惊讶于许多游戏都未曾使用过“前情提要”这一技巧。

玩家并未真正完成游戏

我们总是很难获得多少玩家完成游戏的准确数据，但根据相关信息我们可以知道，许多人并未真正完成游戏。根据Bioware，有42%的玩家完成了《质量效应3》，56%的玩家完成了《质量效应2》。并且根据调查，在1万4千名XBox活跃用户中只有26%的人完成了《侠盗猎车手IV》。

换种说法来说吧，如果是同样的人购买了一部非常有趣且广受好评的电影（如《黑暗骑士》），但却只有26%的人看到最后，你会是怎样的反应？

许多游戏都是基于电影般的结构，并渐渐发展成一个大故事。也许我们应该采取一些更接近于玩家游戏体验的故事结构。

当然了，还有一种解决方法便是将越多人带到游戏最后。但是不管是面对哪种方法，我们都需要先解决其中的问题。

开发者如何创造

游戏很长

让人分心

游戏很长

平均游戏长度一般是电影的5倍。打开www.howlongtobeat.com，你将会发现许多游戏比电影长了5倍，10倍，20倍甚至是更多。就像《侠盗猎车手IV》就需要花费玩家28个小时。

在创造一个故事时，我们需要注意过场动画的时间是否过长。再加上玩家总是会分多次玩游戏，我们便需要考虑是否该降低复杂性或在一个简单的整体弧线上设置一些复杂的迷你弧。《侠盗猎车手》在这点上便做得很好。

分心

除了主要任务，玩家在许多现代游戏中还有许多事要做。毕竟在游戏中提供有趣的内容才是最重要的。但是我们也需要记得故事中哪些元素会对这些内容带来影响。我发现许多支线任务经常会破坏故事的节奏。《古墓丽影》中便设置了许多任务：玩家需要抢救财货，捕猎动物，寻找遗迹，收集GPS缓存，攻击古墓等等。但是问题就在于，当故事表示“立即拯救X”时，我发现自己仍以相同的节奏执行着支线任务。当我跑道庙宇前时会注意到遗迹，然后我便控制着Lara朝着遗迹前进，而Lara也淡定地向我描述了遗迹的来源。但是这却完全破坏了故事想要传达的紧迫感。

游戏玩法会破坏故事。当着眼于你的故事和游戏玩法时，你还必须考虑支线任务是否会导致玩家分心，或者是否有其它缓和的方法。如果你想要营造一种紧急的氛围，那么倒计时便是一种不错的方法。

玩家知道什么

简单地来说便是：有时候玩家掌握的信息多于角色，而有时候角色掌握的信息则多于玩家。这两种情况已经出现在许许多多例子中，而我在最近玩过的两款游戏中也注意到了这一点。

在《生化奇兵：无限》中，Booker DeWitt提到了他所经历过的历史，但是玩家却不知道。玩家可以控制Booker的眼睛，腿和手臂，创造出他们就是主角的幻想。但是他们却不知道Booker到底在说些什么，以至于这种幻想最终破灭了。

在《古墓丽影》中，Lara在玩家按压按键时告诉他们“我不能那么做”。这便引起了玩家的疑惑。是什么迫使她去做一些自己不想做的事？当她说我不能这么做时，这一谈话的对象是谁？她又是怎么知道在未来自己将会这么做？我完全能理解为什么这对于玩家来说是非常有用的信息，但是Lara大声说出来却是一件很诡异的事。

在《古墓丽影》中还有一个玩家比角色拥有更多信息的例子。在游戏中的某个点上，玩家必须控制Lara进入一个陷阱中。Lara被上下颠倒了，而玩家必须射击不断前进的坏人。如果Lara在射击过程中死去的话玩家将从陷阱之前的环节重新开始。他们的唯一选择便是再次带着Lara进入陷阱中。玩家知道这点但是Lara却不知道。这便创造了玩家与角色间的隔离。如果玩家能够在陷阱之后的环节中复活的话，这一问题也就解决了。玩家将不再需要按照游戏所强加的少量信息行动了。

在《雷曼3》中，Murfy将在第一个关卡中阅读有关Rayman的用户手册。

“这里说如果你想要跳跃的话便按压跳跃按键。”

这是关于打破“第四堵墙（游戏邦注：属于戏剧术语，指一面在传统三壁镜框式舞台中虚构的“墙”），但却能够吸引我们去重视玩家与角色间的分离。虽然我所列举的这些例子不一定很重要，但是我们却需要在设计游戏时更好地思考玩家和角色间分离的问题。

角色和玩家

当你在思考游戏故事时，我认为明确玩家和角色间的区别非常重要。我们总是会因为懒惰而交替地使用这两个术语，但是这么做却会带来问题。

越来越多人注意到技术和制作价值能够有效提高人们创造华丽过场动画的能力。现在我们能够渲染角色并让它们做出一些特别的事。但这正是问题所在。因为这变成是角色在做这些事而非玩家。

我并不反对过场动画。我认为它们是创造情境并吸引玩家沉浸在故事中的重要元素。但是有时候我却会觉得开发者们好似在说服自己，如果角色能够在过场动画做一些了不起的事，那么玩家便会像自己在核心机制中完成某些目标一样满足。虽然这是取决于核心机制—-但是从总体上看我认为这是不正确的。

玩家肯定会意识到自己未与这些了不起的事件进行真正互动，并且这里也引进了一些快速反应事件（QTE）。Raph Koster便指出这就像是“打地鼠”游戏。

当你在考虑添加这样的内容时，你需要站在故事和游戏玩法的角度进行思考。

从故事角度来看，你因为使用QTE而给自己造成了2大伤害。首先，你通过让玩家在尝试着注意你的游戏故事的同时转向玩“打鼹鼠”般的内容，从而导致他们的分心。其次，你破坏了过场动画。因为让玩家反复观看过场动画真的是再糟糕不过的体验了。

从游戏玩法角度来看，你创造了一款非常简单的迷你游戏。屏幕将告诉玩家按压哪个按键而摇动，并且他们需要在很短的时间内完成这些动作。如此玩家便与游戏产生了互动（虽然是以非常简单的方式）。特定的QTE更为复杂，并尝试着去连接一些行动，如控制铁锤完成强度测试。

当你在添加QTE时，我认为必须同时基于故事和游戏玩法角度进行思考，并确保是否能够保持平衡。我们是否能够投入更多努力去创造更复杂的控制或者只是呈献给玩家激动人心的时刻？

我看过的最奇特的例子便是以QTE取代核心机制而呈现在玩家面前。比起瞄准并射击最终boss的头，游戏让我随便按压一个按键。游戏提供给我一个完成这一任务的道具，但却不让我凭借自己的能力做到这一点。

《骤雨》设置了很长的分支并在行动序列中添加了一些路径而创造了有趣的体验，但却不能让玩家感受到操控感。所以说比起游戏，《骤雨》更像是一则优秀的互动故事。

我并不是说QTE是一个糟糕的理念，我只是认为有些人是基于错误的假设在使用它。

也许比起呈献给玩家角色所拥有的有趣体验，我们应该投入更多时间，努力和金钱为他们创造出真正有趣的体验。

结论

在创造故事类游戏时，我们必须做出选择和比较。虽然每个人都拥有自己的判断，但是我真心希望你们能够重视我所强调的这些要点。

（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）

Balancing Narrative And Gameplay

by Simon Brislin

Games can be considered to be split up into two types of elements: ludic and narrative. Ludic refers to the gameplay elements and how the player interacts with the game. Narrative refers to the story, objectives, characters etc. Tetris for example is almost purely ludic. In contrast Heavy Rain is heavily narrative.

Most blockbusters tend to be sophisticated in both fields and try and marry the two. In this post I want to talk about points where this marriage can go wrong. I am going to discuss this in five sections:

Ludonarrative Dissonance

How Players Play

How Developers Create

What The Player Knows

The Character and the Player

It’s worth pointing out that I am going to say bad things about very good games. I have thoroughly enjoyed every game mentioned here. I offer my criticism to elucidate my ideas on how to improve games in general not to highlight particularly bad points of the games.

Ludonarrative Dissonance

Clint Hocking coined the term in (“Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock”). This is essentially when the narrative elements and the ludic elements are in conflict. His contention was that this is a problem with “Bioshock”. He claims that there are two contracts on offer to the player: a personal power-seeking contract and a narrative contract to behave altruistically. The argument being that this is in conflict with the ludic contract.

I don’t really agree with this assessment of Bioshock but Ludonarrative dissonance is an important concept. There are games that I have played where the narrative and the gameplay are at odds. No matter how much I enjoy each individually the incompatibility is jarring. For example “GTA: San Andreas” is a redemption story which necessitates a headcount of thousands. The story is about CJ making a new start while the player must commit genocide to get to the redemptive ending. This is a ludonarrative dissonance.

Bringing The Mechanics Into The Narrative

Raph Koster points out in one of his posts that “Narrative Is Not A Game Mechanic”. This is a very important point. Narrative is for contextualising the action and for providing feedback. You don’t use narrative in order to improve the ludic elements of a game but to contextualise them.

Interestingly Walt Williams in his GDC Talk “We Are Not Heroes: Contextualising Violence Through Narrative” points out that the converse can be true i.e. the mechanics of a game can be a narrative element. That is the side of the equation that we often miss.

In “Spec Ops: The Line” the shooting of people is a key narrative element. “Spec Ops” the game is about shooting people. “Spec Ops” the story deals with this fact. As the body count mounts up and Walker becomes more pro-active, it gets harder to justify the killing and the narrative addresses this. The fact that the player is killing people is a pivotal element of the story.

This is part of the reason why I think “Spec Ops: The Line” is so narratively satisfying. It doesn’t have as much of a disconnect between the gameplay and the story as there is in other games.

There are other interesting examples of mechanics being “brought into the story”. The dagger in “Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time” brings the act of replay into the narrative. The dagger is an in-world tool that rewinds the time of the story and allows the player to try again. The fact that the player tries the same jumping puzzle multiple times is no longer disconnected from the narrative.

Considering the effect of your ludic elements on your narrative (and vice versa) is key to making the two sides work well together.

How Players Play

Players often experience the narrative of a game in a different way to what we intend. There are three parts of this I’m going to address individually:

Players fail

Games are usually played over multiple sittings

Players don’t finish games.

Players fail

Perhaps the most obvious problem with how players play is that they fail. Players die in the game mid-narrative. The standard way of dealing with failure or death is restarting from a checkpoint – the narrative elements making no attempt to address this.

Some games are happy to just consider this a part of the medium but others are making some attempts to address it. “Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time” brings it within the narrative. “Heavy Rain” allows characters to die and proceeds down a different path. “Batman : Arkham Asylum” uses the grappling hook to save Batman from fatal falls.

Restarting is so ingrained in gaming culture that it’s often hard to see the point of addressing it. But I think it’s worth thinking about. If you can smooth out the restarts by bringing them into the narrative I think you can offer a better experience.

Also “fail” does not necessarily mean die. Players can fail in all kinds of ways. They can fail to find the exit. They can fail to work out the puzzle. They can fail to perform the action in the way you expect. When creating a narrative we should consider how failing fits in.

Games are usually played over multiple sittings

Games are rarely completed in one sitting. They may be completed over days, weeks, months or even years. When we create a narrative for a 10 hour game we may have to consider a narrative that will play out for the player over a far longer time.

I have seen so many games with labyrinthine plots that I’ve ended up playing over the course of months. I dread to think how many brilliant third-act betrayals have been lost on me simply because I had no idea what the characters were talking about.

Even a relatively simple plot can be problematic when stretched out over months.

When we consider the plot of a game we should consider that in many circumstances this will play out at a totally different pace to how we wrote it.

Some developers are beginning to treat their games as more episodic in form. Taking inspiration from a TV series that plays out over many seasons may match the form of play a lot better than the movie inspiration that we see in a lot of games. I am surprised Alan Wake’s “previously on Alan Wake” hasn’t been adopted by more games.

People Don’t Finish Games

It’s very hard to get really good data on how many people get to the end of games but it seems from the information out there that a lot of people don’t. Bioware reported that 42% of players completed Mass Effect 3 and 56% completed Mass Effect 2 (source). In a survey of 14,000 XBox live users 26% completed “GTA IV” (source).

If you think about someone buying a similarly well-respected, enjoyable and well-reviewed film (say The Dark Knight) it seems utterly inconceivable that only 26% of people will get to the end.

And yet lots of games seem to be structured like movies that gradually build up to a big narrative climax. Maybe we should consider different narrative structures that are more compatible with how our audience experience games.

Of course another solution is to get more people to the end of the game. Either way I think it’s clear there is an issue to tackle.

How Developers Create

Games are long

Distractions

Games Are Long

An average length game is maybe five times the length of a movie. Take a look at a random sample on www.howlongtobeat.com and you will see that many games are five,ten,twenty or more times longer than movies. “GTA IV” clocks in at around 28 hours.

When creating a story we should be very mindful that our hour of cut-scenes is going to play out over a long time. Coupled with the fact that players play it in multiple sittings we may consider dialling back the complexity of the plot or have lots of complex mini-arcs in an overall simple arc. The GTA series does a really good job of this.

Distractions

A lot of modern games have things to do other than the main quest. This makes perfect sense. After all giving the player fun things to do in a game is a good idea. But it’s worth bearing in mind what effect this has on your narrative. I find that these side-quests often destroy the pacing of the narrative. “Tomb Raider” is full of things to do: salvage to pick up, animals to hunt, relics to find, GPS caches to collect, tombs to raid. But the problem with this is that when the narrative says “Save X urgently” I find myself still playing at the same pace that the side-quests have instilled in me. As I race to the temple I notice a relic, steer Lara towards it and Lara calmly tells me all about its origins. This completely destroys the sense of urgency the narrative is trying to instill.

The gameplay is damaging the narrative. When considering your narrative and your gameplay you should consider whether the side-quests are going to distract and if there is anyway to mitigate it. For example if something is particularly urgent maybe a countdown would be appropriate.

What The Player Knows

This next point is a strange one. It doesn’t usually shatter the suspension of disbelief but nibbles away at it. It’s the disconnect of knowledge between the main character and the player. Put simply; sometimes the player has better information than the character and sometimes the character has better information than the player. There are countless examples of both of these but I’ve noticed them both in the last two games I played.

In “Bioshock Infinite” Booker DeWitt alludes to a history that he is privy to and the player is not. The player is in control of Booker’s eyes, his legs and his arms, creating the illusion that they are the protagonist. However they don’t know what Booker is talking about so the illusion is broken.

In “Tomb Raider” Lara tells the player “I can’t do that yet” when the player presses a button. This raises some questions. What has compelled her to try and do something she can’t do? Who is she talking to when she says she can’t do it? And how does she know that at some future time she will be able to do it? I can completely understand why it’s useful information for the player to have but having Lara saying it out loud is frankly bizarre.

There is also an example of the player having better information than the character in “Tomb Raider”. There is a point in the game where the player must walk Lara into a trap. Lara is turned upside down and they have to shoot the advancing bad guys to advance. If Lara dies during this shoot out the player is restarted at a point immediately before the trap. Their only option is to walk Lara into the trap again. The player knows this but Lara is completely unaware. This creates a disconnect between the player and the character. If the save had instead been after the trap was sprung this problem would have been removed. The player would not need to act on the lack of information that the game has thrust upon them.

There’s a wonderful bit in Rayman 3 where Murfy reads the user manual to Rayman as they progress through the first level.

“It says here that you hit the jump button in order to jump.”

This is all a bit fourth-wall breaking but does hilariously draw attention to the player/character disconnect. These examples I have drawn may not seem that important but I think the concept of the player/character disconnect is worth thinking about when you are designing a game.

The Character And The Player

When thinking about game narrative I think it is extremely important to be clear about the distinction between the player and the character. It’s easy to lazily use the terms interchangeably. The problem with this is that it masks a problem….

As technology and production values have improved the ability to create incredibly beautiful cutscenes has been seductive. Now we can render the character doing absolutely amazing things. But that’s the problem. It’s the character doing those things not the player.

I’m not against cutscenes. I think they are invaluable in establishing a situation and creating investment in the story. However I sometimes feel developers convince themselves that if our character does something amazing in a cutscene it’s as satisfying as the player achieving something amazing with the core mechanics. I guess it depends on the core mechanics – but in general I would say this is not true.

This lack of interaction with these amazing things was, of course, recognised and Quick Time Events were introduced. Raph Koster points out in “Narrative Is Not A Game Mechanic” that these are basically a game of Whack-A-Mole.

They are usually pass/fail situations and the reward is proceeding in the game. When thinking about adding them I think it’s worth considering what they add from a narrative and gameplay perspective.

From a narrative perspective I think you do yourself two disservices by using QTEs. Firstly you distract the player from the narrative by getting them to play Whack-A-Mole at the same time as they are trying to watch your dramatic moment. Secondly you make it possible to fail the cutscene. Seeing cutscenes over and over again is a miserable experience.

From a gameplay perspective you get a very simple mini-game. The screen tells you the button to press/stick to waggle and you have a short period of time to do it. You are interacting with the game (albeit in a simple way). Certain QTEs are slightly more sophisticated and attempt some link to the action e.g. Hammer CROSS for a strength test. Even this is a pretty light.

When adding QTEs I think we should consider them from both a narrative and gameplay perspective and see if on balance they add what we want them to add. Would we be better served by spending extra effort creating a sequence with more sophisticated control or simply show the player the exciting moment?

The most bizarre examples I have seen are where the player is presented a QTE that replaces the core mechanic! Instead of aiming and shooting at the final boss’ head I am told to press an arbitrary button to do it. The game has given me the tools to do the job and then denied me the ability to do it.

Heavy Rain did some interesting things with them by having long branching and joining paths of them during action sequences – turning them into more than pass/fail – but they were still not satisfying in a press-by-press sense. Heavy Rain, wonderful as it is, is more of an interactive story than a game.

QTEs are far from a terrible idea I just think the use of them is sometimes based on faulty assumptions.

Maybe we should focus more time, effort and money on making an exciting experience for the player than showing them what an exciting experience the character is having.

Conclusion

There are choices and compromises to be made when creating a narrative game. Each individual will add different weight to the ones I have highlighted. But hopefully I have highlighted some areas where there is a choice to be made and convinced you that it is worth making.(source:gamasutra)