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阐述电子游戏的4种常见趣味类型

发布时间:2013-07-11 17:13:34 Tags:,,,,

作者:Gryphon Myers

当问道:你为什么玩电子游戏?大多数人会问答:因为有趣啊。虽然这个回答已经相当充分了,但“有趣”是一个很模糊的词。为什么游戏有趣?为什么有些游戏比另一些游戏有趣?为什么有些人觉得某类游戏有趣,而另一些人却不认为?

显然,这些都是很难回答的问题。如果是我们自己做游戏,那答案是什么就无所谓了,但为了理解作为游戏开发者的我们如何履行为人们创造有趣的体验这一职责,我们有必要先定义一下所谓的“乐趣”。

我绝不是思考这个问题的第一人——事实上某些能人已经为我完成大部分艰难的工作了。在此我要做的不过是与读者分享从其他人的文章中摘录的精华。在几乎所有资源中,我都能找到一些不同的乐趣分类,虽然描述的基本上相同的概念,但用词稍有不同。

放松/简单的乐趣——易玩性

游戏中简单的乐趣的特征如下:

1、容易、直观的操作

2、大量反馈,包括无条件地鼓励玩家

3、简单、无风险的问题解决情境

4、极少UI元素

5、容易学习,几乎没有复杂或混乱的玩法机制

6、依赖文化/常识(比如,墓地意味着应该避开的危险等等)

休闲游戏市场关注的就是这种乐趣:玩家通过简单的系统操作某物,成败取决于玩家自己的操作,但这些操作都受游戏引导且始终保持简单。简单的乐趣强调易玩性,以便吸引和留住那些缺少经验的、动机不强的玩家。简单的乐趣还给玩家十分即时的反馈或鼓励。

水果忍者(from fruitninja.com)

水果忍者(from fruitninja.com)

《水果忍者》就是一款充分利用简单的乐趣的游戏。这款游戏的机制再明显不过了,操作也简单到不能再简单了。基本没有什么玩法可言,除了一个计分器,再无其他UI元素。反馈速度快,且视觉效果华丽,玩家得到随机“评论”和石榴之类的奖励作为鼓励—-即使玩家的表现其实并没有那么突出,游戏还是让玩家觉得自己牛逼了。这是一个避免玩家失望的好办法,特别适用于留住那些未必擅长游戏的人。

就获得满足感而言,通过简单的乐趣得到的奖励往往是很小的。在《滑坡与梯子》中打败小妹妹会不会让你更爽,或者打败著名的象棋选手?这对开发者意味着,如果你把注意力全部放在游戏中的简单的乐趣上,玩家群体的反应可能会相当冷淡。你的游戏可能会有不错的下载量,但也许不会培养出太多忠实玩家。

挑战性乐趣——精通的潜力

游戏中的挑战性乐趣的特征如下:

1、学习操作系统/键盘输入

2、反馈的主要作用是强化玩法体验,而不是鼓励玩家

3、困难的问题解决情境

4、大量用于追踪各种游戏数据的UI元素

5、难以学习,通常包含需要反复练习的玩法元素

6、往往依赖“游戏文化”/游戏的既定惯例

挑战性乐趣吸引的是硬核粉丝、游戏狂和好胜心强的玩家。挑战性乐趣来源于完成某些有难度的任务。精通某款游戏、某个关卡或某种机制通常能让玩家产生愉悦感,且难度越高这种感觉越强烈。这部分解释了为什么许多硬核玩家会抱怨游戏“太简单”,并坚持寻找那些提供终极挑战的游戏。

尽管,挑战性强并不一定能成就一款好游戏——硬核玩家喜欢有难度的游戏,部分原因是这类玩家本身就更难产生满足感。休闲玩家可能在反复点击农场中的奶牛就心满意足了,但硬核玩家会马上发现并谴责这种玩法的缺陷和欺骗性。挑战性乐趣来源于确实“有效”且具有终极难度的游戏系统。

并非所有人都怀有掌握某种技能的动机;再加上以挑剔的硬核玩家为目标市场本身就很困难,所以绝大多数手机/休闲游戏都把那些难度大于乐趣的元素拒之门外。

社交乐趣——社区建设能力

游戏中的社交乐趣的特征如下:

1、支持多人游戏

2、可以竞技

3、融入“潮”文化和游戏文化

4、与社交媒体相结合

在网络普及以前,社交乐趣在游戏中只不过是一个游戏元素,但早在网络出现以前它就存在了:社交乐趣是从现实世界转移到游戏中去的,它在体育运动中已经存在上千年了。在早期的游戏,特别是街机风行之时,社交乐趣是促进游戏文化发展的因素之一。人们认为游戏是一种社交活动。直到家用游戏机诞生之时,游戏才开始成为一种玩家孤立和反社交的行为。

尽管在过去10年这一情况有所变化。任天堂非常敏锐地捕捉到这个变化,充分利用“派对”作为Wii的卖点,这几乎开辟了一整个休闲玩家市场。再加上社交媒体整合的出现以及排行榜追踪技术的提高,玩家之间的联系变得前所未有地紧密。

这是否意味着游戏变得更有趣了?一定程度上是的——我们是社会性动物,我们需要那种刺激,事实上许多玩家正是缺少社交活动。

但有意思的是,社交乐趣通常在游戏体验之外操作。大游戏品牌已经形成自己的文化,也就是说,借助共同喜欢的游戏,粉丝可以形成关系纽带,享受真正的乐趣体验。特别是对于那些培养了大批相当忠实玩家的游戏品牌。《英雄联盟》就是一个典型例子:尽管这是一款相当新的游戏,它成功地积累了大量忠实粉丝,他们不仅玩游戏,还为自己喜欢的游戏角色和场景画同人漫画、做周边和cosplay。

League_of_Legends(from gamefaction.pl)

League_of_Legends(from gamefaction.pl)

另外,社交乐趣也是电子游戏最令人兴奋和害怕的乐趣形式。一方面,它增强玩家之间的联系,让他们享受社交体验;另一方面,它也导致“入戏过深”,即让玩家脱离了现实生活(游戏邦注:看看新闻报道的“魔兽使夫妻感情破裂”、游戏使玩家丢掉工作、玩家在网吧猝死等现象)。作为游戏开发者,我们应该慎重地看待游戏致瘾问题,因为它关系到社会健康。现在的游戏可以更好地吸引玩家,但不滥用致瘾这种自我毁灭的行为,是我们游戏人的社会责任。

逃避现实的乐趣——剧情/沉浸感

游戏中的避世乐趣的特征如下:

1、精彩的故事/会话

2、“实现愿望”(这是我从其他资料中借用的说法)

3、连贯的游戏世界

4、角色自定义

5、高品质的美术/角色设计

准确地说,这算不上一种乐趣形式(我会证明它可以是),但我在这里把它也归类为一种乐趣,是因为我认为它同上述其他乐趣一样,足以成为玩家玩游戏的一个理由。逃避现实的乐趣起源于更加既定的娱乐形式,如阅读和看电影。人类是想象力丰富的动物,我们通常很乐意暂时撇开自己的怀疑,任由假想的世界淹没自己。

而在游戏中,我们有更多机会沉浸于想象的环境中:我们不仅观察或了解虚拟角色,而且我们自己就成为他们。这是《魔兽世界》等MMORPG的建立基础。这类游戏的设计意图就是让玩家沉浸在虚拟的世界中。从玩家的忠实度上可以看出游戏达到这个目标的效力有多大。另外,我们也轻易地了解到,玩家是多么容易“入戏太深”。

尽管避世的乐趣不一定会产生这么大的作用。并非所有人都想完全脱离现实世界,但我认为基本上所有人都喜欢接触一些不属于自己所生活的世界或受制于现实的事情。对逃避现实利用得更加充分的是剧情。为什么我们要玩RPG?事实上,RPG的游戏机制已经一年比一年过时了,但RPG仍然是一种非常有商业价值的游戏类型。我得说,这是因为虚拟剧情包含了逃避现实的因素。遇见许多不同的角色,带领他们完成某些目标或抵达目的地,这是非常有趣的。

随着游戏越来越接近电影(游戏邦注:例如《最终幻想15》、《合金装备5》),游戏剧情的作用也越来越明显。电影与游戏之间的界线开始模糊了。一直以来,玩家享受着丰富的游戏情节如《时空之轮》和《最终幻想6》,但说到虚拟世界的其他部分,看起来仍然是游戏。尽管现在,争取高分越来越不是我们玩游戏的目的——我们玩游戏还因为游戏能够感动我们。

结论

为什么人要玩游戏?以上就是我想到的答案——为了这四种“乐趣”。我认为要制作一款让尽可能多的人觉得有趣的游戏,关键是考虑到并且尽量将这些乐趣加入到游戏中。(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

Types of Fun in Video Games

by Gryphon Myers

Why do people play video games? Most people would answer, “because they’re fun.” While that is a fairly adequate answer, fun is an imprecise word. Why are games fun? Why are some games more fun than others? Why do some people find certain games fun, while others don’t?

Obviously, these are all very difficult questions to produce answers for. It probably wouldn’t matter so much if games made themselves… but seeing as how we, as game developers, are in the business of creating fun experiences for people, it would behoove us to try to assign some parameters to this ‘fun’ thing.

I’m by no means the first person to think about this – some very intelligent people have actually done most of the hard work for me. What I’m about to share with you is basically a digested and regurgitated version of articles other people have written (I’ll link to those at the end). Almost all the sources I could find agree on a few different categories of fun, which all basically describe the same concepts, but the terminology might vary a bit.

Relaxing/Easy Fun – Accessibility

Characteristics of easy fun in games:

Simple, intuitive controls

Wealth of feedback, including unconditional player encouragement

Simple, non-threatening problem-solving scenarios

Few UI elements

Minimal learning curve, with few complicated or confusing gameplay mechanics

Reliance on cultural/innate knowledge (bombs are bad so avoid them, etc.)

This is the kind of fun that the casual game market focuses on: simple systems whereby players are given control over something, and can succeed or fail depending on their inputs, which are guided and kept very simple. Easy fun is characterized by accessibility: these are the elements of a game that can draw an unpracticed, unmotivated player in and keep them playing. Players are also given constant feedback / encouragement.

An example of a game that makes heavy use of easy fun elements would be Fruit Ninja. The premise is extremely simple and the controls are about as obvious as they could possibly be. There are no complex gameplay mechanics to speak of, and the UI consists of nothing other than a point counter. Feedback is instantaneous, visually exciting, and players are given encouragement in the form of random “criticals” and pomegranates that award a great deal of “star fruit” – even though the player didn’t really do anything exceptional, they are made to feel like they did. This is a great way of avoiding player frustration, and retaining people who aren’t necessarily great at video games.

Easy fun tends to be the least rewarding though, in terms of satisfaction gained. Would you feel better beating your little sister at Chutes and Ladders, or besting a renowned chess player? What this means for the developer, is that if you focus entirely on easy fun elements in your games, response from the gaming community will probably be pretty lukewarm overall. You might get a good number of downloads, but you probably won’t gain too many devoted fans.

Challenging Fun – Potential for Mastery

Characteristics of challenging fun in games:

Learned control systems / keystrokes

Feedback primarily utilized as a way of enhancing gameplay experience, rather than a means of encouraging the player

Daunting problem-solving scenarios

Numerous UI elements that allow for tracking various game data

Considerable learning curve, usually including gameplay elements that benefit from practice

Tends to rely on ‘game culture’ / established conventions in games

Challenging fun is what draws core gamers, fanatics and competitive gamers. It’s the kind of fun that arises from accomplishing something difficult. Mastery of a particular game game, level or mechanic is often accompanied by a feeling of gratification, which is more pronounced the more difficult the given task. This is part of the reason why many core gamers will denounce games for being ‘too easy,’ and adamantly seek out games that offer the greatest challenges.

A great challenge doesn’t necessarily make a game fun though – part of the difficulty in appealing to core gamers is that they are much harder to please. A casual gamer may be perfectly content clicking on that cow over and over again, but a core gamer will immediately detect and condemn gameplay elements that are poorly executed or conceived. Challenging fun arises from game systems that already ‘work,’ and merely have their difficulty level brought to the nth degree.

Not everyone necessarily possesses this drive for mastery of arbitrary tasks. This fact, coupled with the inherent difficulty of targeting a highly critical market has led to a back-burnering of these fun elements in the majority of mobile/casual titles.

Social Fun – Community-building Capabilities

Characteristics of social fun in games:

Multiplayer support

Potential for competitive play

‘In’ jokes, game culture references

Social media integration

Social fun has only been an obvious factor in gaming since the advent of the Internet, but it really has even predated that: social fun is about the real-world connections made over gaming, which have existed in sports for thousands of years. In the early days of gaming when arcades were still relevant, social fun was one of the factors that contributed to the development of game culture. People thought of games as a social thing. It was only when games made the leap to home consoles that they began to induce isolation and antisocial behavior in gamers.

All that has been changing over the past ten years or so though. Nintendo, presumably observant of this fact, heavily marketed the fun ‘party’ nature of the Wii, which brought in a whole new market of casual gamers. Coupled with the advent of social media integration and increased potential for leaderboard tracking, gamers are becoming more connected than ever.

Does this mean games are getting more fun? In a certain sense, yes – we are social creatures, and on some level, we need that kind of stimulation, and honestly many gamers haven’t been getting enough of it.

What’s interesting about social fun though is that it often operates outside the confines of the game playing experience. Big game franchises have established their own culture, so to speak, whereby fans can bond and have genuinely fun experiences over their shared appreciation of games. This is particularly evident with larger franchises that have extremely loyal fanbases. A prime example would be League of Legends: though a relatively new franchise, LoL has amassed a throng of devoted fans who not only play the game together, but make fan comics, art and cosplay together over their shared love of the game characters and world.

Social fun is simultaneously the most exciting and frightening form of fun in video games. On the one hand, it allows gamers to be more interconnected and enjoy social experiences together, but it can also lead to ‘avatarization,’ whereby players end up neglecting their real lives (see any number of news-breaking cases of World of Warcraft players alienating their spouses, losing their jobs and friends, dying in Internet cafes, etc.) As game developers, it is prudent that we be aware of this issue, as it is something of a public health issue. We can engage gamers better than ever before, but it is our civic responsibility not to facilitiate self-destructive behavior.

Escapism – Narrative / Immersion

Characteristics of escapism in games:

Well-written storylines/dialogue

‘Wish fulfillment’ (this is borrowed terminology, see first source below)

Cohesive game world

Avatar customization

Quality art direction / character design

This isn’t exactly a form of fun (I would argue that it is), but I am including it here because I feel that it is just as much a reason for playing games as any of the other fun factors I have mentioned. Escapism has its roots in more established forms of entertainment like books and films. Humans are imaginative beings, and we are often quite willing to suspend our disbelief and allow ourselves to be taken to other worlds.

With games, we are provided even more opportunities to immerse ourselves in imaginary environments: we not only see, or read about fictional characters, but we can be them. This is one of the primary bases for MMORPGs like World of Warcraft – these games are designed to immerse players in fictional worlds. The efficacy of the medium toward this end is evident given how loyal the customer/subscriber bases are, and again, how easily players can slip into ‘avatarization.’

Escapism isn’t necessarily this dramatic a force though. Not everyone wants to leave the real world entirely, but I think pretty much everyone likes to hear about things that aren’t rooted in, and perhaps limited by reality. A much more typical use of escapism in games would be narrative structure. Why do we play RPGs? Honestly, the game mechanics have gotten pretty stale and derivative over the years, but it is still a commercially viable genre. I would argue that this is because of the escapism factor involved with enjoying a fictional narrative, and to a certain extent controlling its outcome. It’s fun to meet a cast of characters and guide them toward some goal or destination.

The role of narrative in games is becoming more evident lately given the increasingly cinematic nature of games (see Final Fantasy XV, Metal Gear Solid 5); the line between movies and games is starting to blur. Gamers have been enjoying rich story lines for a long time with games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, but to the rest of the world, these have still just looked like games. Now though, it’s clearer than ever that we don’t just play games for high scores – we play them because they possess the capacity to move us.

Fun in Video Games – Conclusion

These are the four main reasons I can come up with as to why anyone would play games – these are the parameters of ‘fun.’ I think the main key to creating games that are as fun to as many people as possible, is to consider and incorporate as many of these areas into each game as possible.(source:gamasutra)

 


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