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举例分析电子游戏应具备的相关元素

发布时间:2013-08-05 15:12:40 Tags:,,,,

作者:Tony Belding

电子游戏设计很少被当成正规研究的课题。如今许多游戏设计都是着眼于当下流行趋势并进行各种复制。就像近来人们对于经典电子游戏的追崇便不仅仅只是为了怀旧。我们逐渐感受到今天游戏设计遗失了某些元素,即使它们的图像和声音已经到达了一个全新的高度。

本篇文章便致力于探索电子游戏设计的某些特定理念。这并不是关于设计一款热门电子游戏的法则。我认为基于法则去设计电子游戏只会阻碍其最终的发展。我只相信一款优秀的电子游戏必须围绕着稳定的基础进行创造。因此我将该主题划分为一些不同的元素。

存在元素

关于电子游戏的一大神奇元素便是在机器上模拟世界。这些世界有大有小,有的简单有的复杂。这便是我所说的“存在”元素,即体现出虚拟现实感。我认为“沉浸式”这一单词也能够用于描写这种现象。一款真正优秀的电子游戏能够让玩家产生自己也置身其中的感觉,而不只是傻傻地盯着屏幕。

现在我将列出一些能够帮助我们创造出一款成功模拟游戏的组件,即从最基本且最重要的开始,然后再致力于更复杂的组件,从而有效地强化游戏体验。让我们将本篇文章当成是创造游戏中存在元素的处方:

1.移动和碰撞

婴儿通常需要学的第一件事便是关于移动和碰撞的简单规则。物体与物体之间会相撞。这些规则与我们的真实感是紧密维系在一起。这也是为何顺畅的移动与精确的碰撞检测如此重要。最早的电子游戏,如《Space War》和《Pong》都是围绕着移动和碰撞所创造。有人甚至会说这是电子游戏的定义特性。尽管我们也能在电影(游戏邦注:特别是动作类电影)中看到移动和碰撞,但是在游戏中,玩家能够直接控制着这种移动,而不是简单地观看,这便是电子游戏的本质。玩家间的联系(越直接越好)将在屏幕上传递着控制和对象,而这便是电子游戏的基础所在。

Pong(from edge-online)

Pong(from edge-online)

最近,当提到网络游戏(具有网络延迟这一弊端)时,移动便成为我们特别关注的一点。即使服务器和客户端会出现不同时间滞差,你也必须确保移动足够顺畅,每个玩家都能够同时看到同样的碰撞事件。还有一些其它游戏,如《第二人生》便仍带有严重的移动和滞后问题。设计师必须在一开始就注意到这一问题。之后再解决的话就来不及了。

2.内部一致规则

游戏中的对象必须根据特定规则相互作用。这些规则必须足够简单且保持一致,从而让玩家能够轻松地找到它们并使用。例如规则可以说“如果对象A对对象B做某件事,它也必须对对象C做同样的事。”这些规则无需与现实世界中的规则一样。这些规则也许很奇特或抽象,但是它们在游戏环境中却都是有意义的。这就像是游戏世界中的物理定律。

最糟糕的情况应该是照本宣科的游戏,即让玩家从一个预先设定好的事件移向另一个。这些事件都是作家们随意创造的,并不是从游戏机制中浮现出来。

3.移动自由

游戏应该让玩家能够按照自己的想法和目的随时随处移动。推动着玩家基于固定路线和速度移动只会失去现实感。同样地,要求玩家遵循着预先设定好的脚本行事只会草草结尾。相反地,游戏最好能够提供给玩家一种环境,让他在此不断探索。环境再小也没关系,或者在其中设置一些障碍去挑战玩家也可以。但是在环境范围和规则内自由移动是非常重要的。《行星游戏》便是早前一个非常典型的例子:游戏允许小小的宇宙飞船能在屏幕上四处飞行,而不像《太空侵入者》那样只允许飞船左右移动。

4.实时行动和背景活动

现实世界并不会等着我们做决定。有些游戏,特别是冒险游戏和策略游戏更像是一本选择自己的冒险的廉价书籍。实时行动并不意味着你必须确保玩家同时间竞赛,但游戏并不能在玩家决定自己的移动时冻结所有内容。不管玩家在做什么,背景中的所有事物必须仍然保持着运行。即使玩家只能看到部分内容,这一背景活动也能够为游戏添加更多现实感和存在感。

经典的Atari VCS(雅达利2600)的《Adventure》便是这一技术早期且具有开创性的典例。不管玩家采取何种行动,龙和黑蝙蝠都会继续移动着,做着它们自己的事。经典街机游戏《魔域塔防》便是早前另外一个典型例子,因为游戏中的许多事件是发生在主视图以外。玩家必须使用雷达显示器去追踪并回应这些事件。

5.3D空间

到目前为止我所列出的每一款游戏都是基于2D空间。但是人们都拥有在3D空间思考的本能。所以在游戏中添加3D空间能够提高它的刺激性并更有效地模拟现实世界。当我首次提出向3D环境发展时,主机硬件刚刚能够胜任这一技术(这是在索尼的PlayStation出现不久前)。而今天我们更需要担忧的应该是手机设备能否支持3D显示。

在这种情况下,有人也许会发现多边形游戏可以在没有表面织构的情况下有效运行。Atari Jaguar是第一台支持3D游戏设计的游戏主机。但是因为某些让人厌烦的硬件漏洞,它在执行纹理映射的的能力却非常有限。使用高洛德着色(如Battlemorph)的游戏创造取得了很大的成功,并创造了类似于早前2D向量图显示器那般视觉体验。那时候,纹理映射还是一种全新且时髦的技巧,所以Jaguar的游戏很快便被说成是技术上的落后者。而在今天,当纹理映射变得无处不在时,像基于高洛德映射这样的游戏反倒成为了新奇且具有特色的作品。

3D空间并不只是关于图像显示。我们也能够创造出一款带有3D物体且基于2维平面的游戏。不过这样的游戏并不能完全体现出存在感或沉浸式。允许玩家爬到洞里或到某一平台上能够强化空间感。而允许物体在多个轴面上滚动并在3D空间中自然地移动则具有很大的帮助。

6、连续空间

当把玩家放置在一个虚拟世界时,我们最好能够避免加载过程或过场动画去中断玩家的行动。冒险游戏和RPG游戏通常都具有非常广阔的世界,但是它们却因为技术限制而长期受到这种中断的困扰。这在MMOG世界里也非常重要,即这种终端可能会阻碍玩家与其他玩家的交流。

具有开创性的《无尽任务》便是一个显著的例子。在当时,这款游戏呈现出了最具有沉浸式的环境,即带有真实的3D环境,巨大的世界,昼夜循环以及逼真的天气。我深深地记得自己迷失在迷宫般的Freeport的场景。尽管我们很容易在游戏中迷路,但这也具有非常大的吸引力。不过游戏中存在一个较大的弊端便是将世界划分成各种“区域”,所以当玩家从一个区域过度到另一个区域时便不得不停下来加载内容。在此之后的一些游戏,如《魔兽世界》便删除了这种加载过程,从而让不同区域间的界限变得更加透明。

还有一个相关问题便是瞬间移动。瞬间移动是指将玩家从一个位置带到另一个位置。很久前的游戏便已经开始使用这一技巧了—-主要是出于方便或者说是解决技术限制的一种方式。但是瞬间移动却会打破我们在现实世界中所熟悉的空间和时间界限。这是反沉浸式的表现。而带有巨大世界的MMOG便提供了一个很好的比较基础。

《无尽任务》在一开始具有较少的瞬间移动。这主要是受到死亡效果的影响:死掉的玩家需要重新回到起点。长途行走要求玩家使用交通工具(游戏邦注:如舰船)或不断奔跑,并且通常都需要经过各种危险且陌生的区域。这便让游戏中的探索变得更具有挑战性且更加吸引人,并且能够强化一个巨大且连贯的世界。但是当游戏进一步扩展时,瞬间移动开始出现,即能够让玩家从一个区域安全且轻松地转移到另一个区域。尽管这种方法更加便捷,但却阻碍了玩家的探索过程(这是游戏中非常重要的一环)。除此之外这也破坏了玩家的时间感和距离感,而这在一个具有强大凝聚力的世界中却是非常重要的。

《魔兽世界》的设计师便想办法去避免瞬间移动。他们围绕着游戏世界提供了一种便利的移动系统,并确保它不会破坏玩家的距离感和时间感。惩戒骑士会在起始点和终点间飞翔着,从而让玩家能够看到沿途中的一切事物和人。惩戒骑士也不会通过任何方式将玩家带到他们从未去过的任何地方,如此便保留了玩家的探索价值。这是一种两全其美的做法。

让我们也来看看一些反例,如《第二人生》,它将瞬间移动当成了玩家在游戏世界中行走的主要方式。在这款游戏中,角色根本就不能在任何区域中探索,这更像是一个“万维网”世界。不同区域就像被标记好的网页。这一比喻非常贴合《第二人生》,因为从本质上来看它根本就不算是一款游戏。它更像是一个社交环境,或者一个交流工具。在这里,便利性比创造游戏体验更重要。

在说了这6大存在或沉浸式组件后,我必须顺带提下虚拟现实(VR)。VR曾经被认为是具有巨大前途的一种理念,但在之后却被视为一种失败的承诺。不过我认为我们不能草草断定结果,VR很快便会卷土重来。像最近任天堂的Wiimote控制器的成功便是VR迈出的一大步。VR耳机和控制器将成为创造沉浸式环境的最后一大元素。

考虑到VR的未来,我们并不能掉进想象的陷阱中,即认为只有最先进的硬件才能创造出一款具有吸引力的游戏。我所提到的前4种技巧对于《VCS Adventure》(游戏邦注:即在带有128RAM字节和最小图像与处理能力的主机上通过4K ROM运行的游戏)非常有帮助。《Adventure》成为了Atari VCS上最受欢迎的游戏之一。所以更不用说这些理念也能够有效作用于今天更底端的硬件上。

space_adventure(from atarimania.com)

space_adventure(from atarimania.com)

混乱元素

游戏中开始涌现出一种消极趋势,即所有的内容都是基于脚本预先设置好的。每一次出现的每个关卡都是相同的:在同个地方出现同样的道具,同样的位置上的敌人遵循着同样的模式。游戏变成是纯粹的记忆竞赛。而当玩家发现了所有的秘密并记住每一个关卡时,他们便会转向其他游戏。这也是我最喜欢的一款系列游戏《使命召唤》让我感到厌烦的一处。游戏尝试着呈现给玩家有关第二次世界大战的现实感,并且在许多方面都表现得很好。但是从根本上看,游戏的前进过程却是在要求玩家掌握敌人的位置以及攻击他们的最佳方位。可以说比起混乱的战争现场,这更像是一种井然有序的练习。

但这并不是说基于脚本的游戏一无是处,或者说没有探索或挖掘秘密的乐趣。相反地,挖掘和探索是它们的核心吸引力。尽管如此,我们也正在错失着追寻更好的结果的机遇。这种错失元素便是混乱。

混乱意味着任何让人惊讶的事物会在游戏中的任何时刻发生。这便意味着简单的物体能够基于意想不到的复杂方式而互动。玩家并不是专心于了解当前的模式,而是在学习物体间是如何互动的。这对于玩家来说不仅是种巨大的乐趣,同时也是编写游戏的有效方式。比起想办法基于脚本创造关卡,开发者只需要创造出有趣的物体并将其分散到游戏环境中便可。他们并不需要创造出游戏中可能出现的所有互动。这种互动必须从物体身上自然地浮现出来,同时还包括一些设计师都未曾想到的互动。

让我们列举一些例子来说。首先来看看《宇宙复仇者》,这是在20世纪80年代初期的一款投币游戏,并且也被移植到ColecoVision(游戏邦注:一款手柄类似电话机键盘的股东家用电视游戏机)上。乍看之下它与当时其它基于脚本的横向卷轴游戏不无两样,如《Scramble》和《超级眼镜蛇》。但是《宇宙复仇者》却拥有这些游戏所缺少的混乱元素:敌人可能会一不小心彼此射击。敌人的自控导弹可能会朝着玩家的舰船飞射并跟随着它一段距离。这将导致各种可能性的出现。即玩家也可以使用这些自控导弹去射击敌人的舰船或基地。敌人会在意想不到的情况下彼此撞击或射击。这种反应让游戏变得更加有趣。

现在让我们再次看看《VCS Adventure》。从表面上来看它与许多图像冒险游戏非常相似,如《塞尔达传说》系列。但是它们也存在着一个很大的区别:像《塞尔达传说》这样的游戏是基于预制脚本。它们在同样的位置上设置了一系列相同的障碍,并在玩家触发这些障碍时将其释放。特别是在《塞尔达传说》中的某一特定屏幕中,当玩家进入该屏幕时,X个Y类怪物将出现并攻击他们。

相反的是,《VCS Adventure》共拥有4种生物:3只龙和一直黑蝙蝠。因为不管玩家在做什么,这些生物都会在游戏世界中到处游走并做着自己的事,所以他们拥有很多行程数。但是它们的移动也带有一定的限制,如进入或离开城堡。同时我们也不能确定龙或蝙蝠何时会朝你袭击。它们会在你没有任何防备时展开攻击,可能采取逐一攻击或者联合攻击。尽管龙呈现出了游戏的战斗元素,但是黑蝙蝠才是最重要的混乱元素。它遵循了一个简单的规则:它能捡起各种事物并带着它们飞翔。在几分钟后它可能会对运着的事物感到厌倦,所以它便会将其丢弃而寻找新对象。

举个例子来说吧,也许我正持着剑寻找着龙的下落。最后当我找到这只野兽时,蝙蝠却突然俯冲而下,抢走了我的剑导致我失去了有利的武器。这便等于拿我的生命安全开玩笑!或者再举个其它例子,我带着圣杯回到了金色的城堡中,这也是游戏最后的目标。胜利就在眼前了,但是蝙蝠却俯冲下来抢走了圣杯!追逐将再次上演,而我不得不再花半个小时的时间去夺回圣杯。

关于古怪的蝙蝠的一个最典型的例子应该要属《Grand Tour》。不管是玩家杀死恶龙还是被恶龙吃掉,蝙蝠都有可能出现。当玩家被困在恶龙的肚子里时,蝙蝠可能会突然出现并叼走龙的尸体,从而也带着玩家快速飞向某一游戏领域。我认为应该没有一位游戏创造者曾经设计或计划过这一场景;这只是出现在游戏规则中的内容。

除此之外,在《Adventure》中还有一个额外的游戏模式,即在游戏一开始所有物体都是随机分配在不同位置上。在这种情况下,我们便不清楚游戏是否有获胜的可能。但如果玩家精通了标准情节时,这种模式也将为他们带来额外的游戏价值。

我希望在更多游戏中看到这点:更多随机性和更加简单的物体能够基于复杂的方式进行互动。这些混乱理念能够用于更广泛的游戏中,不管是街机行动游戏还是冒险游戏,RPG游戏或者策略游戏。

挑战元素

与大多数其它游戏一样,电子游戏也是一种竞赛。玩家将通过与机器或好友对抗而测试自己的能力。所以创造适当的挑战和难度级别便非常重要。游戏不能太过简单,否则很容易变得无聊。但是也不能太过复杂,否则会导致玩家感到沮丧。如果游戏具有易用性的话便非常有利。

当Nolan Bushnell创造了自己的第一款投币电子游戏《Computer Space》时,它的成绩并不理想。人们并不能理解该如何游戏。而他的第二次尝试,即《Pong》便取得了巨大的成功,因为游戏的易用性得到了加强。任何看到游戏的人便能够立即知道该如何玩。许多大获成功的电子游戏都带有易用性的特征,如《太空入侵者》和《吃豆人》。一些更现代的例子还包括卷轴射击游戏,如《雷电》,大多数赛车类游戏,以及各种弹球机。这也是我们现在仍能看到弹球机的主要原因。每个人都知道如何玩游戏。

当然了,这并不是说复杂的游戏就不能获得成功。掌握了一款复杂的游戏便能够获得满满的成就感。当玩家战胜了带有深奥的控制系统和“战斗”系统的游戏时,他们便能获得这种感受,而角色扮演游戏以及飞行模拟游戏也能带给玩家这样的感受。即使如此,这些游戏的吸引力范围却也非常局限。这种游戏能在特定圈子里大受欢迎,但却很难获得一般公众的广泛认可。这便是硬核游戏玩家与普通人的区别。这也是《俄罗斯方块》这类型简单的游戏能够引起巨大轰动的一大原因。

有趣的是,如今的主机游戏正在朝着简单化趋势发展。而计算机游戏却变得更复杂。对于游戏来说,最残酷的竞争环境应该是在投币领域。这些游戏都具有很高的易用性,因为它们主要是通过吸引路人前来游戏,但也必须具有一定的难度才能让玩家愿意在适当时间内投入更多硬币。是经济刺激推动着设计师们做出有关游戏难度的决定。

创造一款容易掌握的游戏并不意味着它也容易精通。我再次注意到游戏中复杂的互动是必要的:它们能够带给游戏一定的深度和持久力。但是这些复杂的互动应该是来自游戏中一些简单的物体和规则。我之前提到的《VCS Adventure》便拥有非常简单的控制,玩家可以轻松地开始游戏。通过操纵杆去移动小小英雄,并按压行动按键拾起或丢掉物体。与许多现代冒险游戏不同的是,这里并不存在可追踪的数据或需要管理的库存。任何玩家都可以拿起操纵杆开始游戏。

从本质上来看,《吃豆人》便是一款容易理解的游戏。不管是孩子,祖母,还是那些从未玩过游戏的人在看到《吃豆人》第一眼后便知道该如何操作游戏。在今天的市场中,这款游戏将被归类到“休闲游戏”中。但是与大多数当时的所有投币游戏一样,他们也很难保持一款游戏的长久运行。也许第一个迷宫还不算太复杂,但是难度却会急剧上升。

对于更长久的挑战性和难度问题,最简单的解决方法便是添加难度设置或某些调整方式让玩家能够自我适应。这在现今,当你着眼于各种年龄范围的电子游戏玩家时尤为重要。如果你能够通过提供难度调整去面向更广泛的玩家,你又有何理由将自己局限在狭窄的年龄群中呢。但是可设定的用户难度设置危险则是,许多玩家非常懒惰,比起意识到自己能在较复杂的设置中感受到更多游戏乐趣,他们更愿意基于一些简单的设置玩游戏,即使可能会因此感到无聊。如果能够采取一些方法去刺激他们克服这种懒惰,那么复杂的设置便是一个很好的理念。在玩家准备好之时通过引导将他们带进更复杂的游戏中,你便能够有效地延长游戏的寿命。

有些公司并不想要延长游戏的寿命。因为他们觉得如果自己可以创造出一款可被快速解决并丢弃的游戏,玩家便能够购买新游戏。这是一种目光短浅的表现,结果往往适得其反。游戏玩家最终会意识到他们被欺骗了。他们会因为太过简单的游戏感到厌烦,从而断然离开电子游戏而追求其它娱乐形式。

很长一段时间以来,多人玩家选择一直都遭遇忽视。与人类玩家敌人进行对抗是件让人激动的事。我一直都提倡支持2人以上控制者的游戏。而在最近几年,大多数多人游戏活动也开始进入互联网。这也为这类型游戏的发展打开了全新的大门,即MMOG将成为最根本的表达方式。

为什么多人游戏如此重要?一个原因便是它能为游戏带来巨大的混乱元素。我已经写过不可预知性的利益,但是没有什么比人类更不可预知了。有些玩家并不会遵循当前的模式。多人玩家与其它游戏物体间的互动比单人游戏复杂得多,也刺激得多。并且比起机器,人类还拥有竞争感。同时我们最好能在玩家间展开直接竞争(而不是合作类型)的多人游戏中提供一些阻碍选择,从而让具有不同技能的玩家也能感受到乐趣。

从难度级别来看,MMOG又引出了一些新问题。它们不仅拥有来自世界各地混合了不同水平技能的玩家,同时大多数这类型游戏还使用了基于关卡的游戏机制,如奖励给投入更多游戏时间的玩家更高的能力。不幸的是,不同玩家投入于游戏中的时间也不同,因此他们会基于不同的速度前进。如果只有水平相当的玩家能够相合作,这便可能阻碍他们长期协作的能力。像《魔兽世界》等游戏便会鼓励玩家加入合作群组,但这些群组通常都是临时的。玩家必须通过组建更大的社区,如公会或部落而相互补充。而这便能够提供现有的玩家群组去组建部落成员。但是长期与2至3名成员保持肩并肩的合作还是很有困难。

这并不是最理想的状况,我将其当成是MMOG游戏类型一大未解决的问题。大多数MMOG设计都是为了让玩家更长久地沉浸于游戏中,并将奖励投入更多时间的玩家当成是实现这一目标的主要策略。而如果在使用了强大的奖励机制的游戏中,玩家是否能够更轻松地与其他玩家维持长期的友谊?

一种可能的选择便是确保玩家的能力可以与他们投入于游戏中的时间,或者他们角色的存在时间维系在一起,而不是玩家在线或实际游戏时间。因此创造出相同时间的角色将以同样的速度前进,并维持着相近的能力且能长期合作着。其中也包含了某些技能元素,所以玩家也可以从游戏实践或者精通中获得某些技能。比起角色,技能上的不同更多是来自于玩家。

氛围元素

到目前为止我只描述了游戏机制。有些抽象游戏仅凭游戏机制优势便获取了巨大的成功,如《Qix》或《俄罗斯方块》。但是如果游戏能够创造一种氛围便会更轻松地吸引玩家的注意并更有效地丰富他们的游戏体验。

有关氛围的第一个规则便是它不能采取任何方式去妨碍潜在的游戏玩法。这可能导致一种弄巧成拙的结果。相反地,我们必须围绕着游戏去创造相关氛围。

这里有两种创造氛围的方法:可以在游戏中完成,使用游戏引擎或利用游戏中的“附带事件”和休息屏幕。在休息时间呈现一些氛围元素(游戏邦注:特别是具有侵入性的,如音乐和视频剪辑等)并不是为了让玩家从游戏上转移注意力。在过去,这种方法也让游戏设计师可以引进游戏机制和图像所不同呈现的视频体验。但是基于技术的发展,这一点反倒不再受人瞩目。

游戏中的图像一直都是氛围最重要的组件之一。的确,许多电子游戏设计例子都是受到现今图像技术的驱动。多年来,关于图像的重要性以及如何推动硬件要求的争论一直持续着。从历史上看,一直有人认为游戏玩法比图像更加重要;但是游戏设计师的行动似乎在说着他们将最大限度地使用硬件,追求创造性的视觉效果,为玩家营造出“哇”的感受。最近的一些事件显示,我们正逐渐削减着图像的收益,并最大限度地推动图像硬件的发展,但是这却不是创造出一款成功游戏的最佳策略。我将列举两个例子去描述这一趋势。

首先,索尼和微软正紧锣密鼓地投身于技术军备竞赛中,均以极高的价格推出了全新的游戏主机,即PlayStation 3和X-Box 360。任天堂是带着不是很强大也并不昂贵的Wii主机进入市场,并取得了巨大的成功。并且经过证明,具有创造性的控制器,用户负担得起的系统以及高质量的游戏比多边形填充率更具有吸引力。

其次,索尼和暴雪几乎同时开始创造MMORPG即《无尽任务2》和《魔兽世界》。毫无疑问,从图像上来看《无尽任务2》略胜一筹。它拥有更高的系统要求和更详细的模式。但是关于图像内容也存在一些问题。有些游戏中的模式并不具有吸引力。许多游戏元素在质量上并不均衡,或者从风格上来看也并不匹配。通过比较,取得巨大成功的《魔兽世界》拥有较少多边形的图像,较低的系统要求以及固定风格的外观,即所谓的卡通化。

当着眼于《魔兽世界》时,我们必须思考游戏中大量的内容。游戏中的所有模式,环境和纹理是由许多设计师所创造出来的。尽管如此,游戏风格仍是相一致的,甚至让你觉得这是出自于同一位设计师之手。这是艺术方向的胜利而不是技术的胜利。这将是未来游戏的趋势:艺术方向将成为关注焦点,而图像呈现技术将只是辅助元素。

此外我还想谈谈“附带事件”图像,音乐和其它组件。这将是关于游戏屏幕,关卡间的菜单,全动态视频图像(FMV)介绍以及休息屏幕等等。只有进行有效设置玩家才能快速通过它们而顺利进入游戏中。然而这些组件也能够用于创造游戏氛围。一个典型的例子便是《Road Rash 3DO》。游戏在菜单和休息屏幕中使用了图像,并在游戏屏幕,比赛开始和结尾中呈现出带有音乐的FMV剪辑。所有的这些组件结合在一起便创造出了让人兴奋的游戏氛围,并且也不会干涉到游戏玩法。这是如何为带有稳定的游戏玩法和出色的游戏图像营造良好氛围并创造额外特殊体验的一个经典例子。在CD-ROM储存技术的出现之前这还是一项艰难的任务,因为这种附带事件将会挤压真正的游戏元素。而现在的我们已经拥有了CD-ROM和DVD-ROM,所以储存空间将不再是障碍了。

从混淆玩家的连续感和存在感来看,FMV过场动画的使用总是具有很高的代价。MMOG的出现引起了一个额外的问题:过场动画将阻碍玩家与其他玩家的交流,并破坏游戏的时间感和空间感。结果是,过场动画中出现的更多元素将被推向游戏引擎。这算是一种健康的发展,并且会随着时间的变化而重新回到单人游戏中。

与图像一样,音效也是一种重要的氛围组件。有时候,比起图像,优秀的音效更能创造出逼真的游戏氛围。举个例子来说吧,《异形大战铁血战士》具有优秀的图像,但是相比起来其优秀的数字化音效更能够奠定游戏的氛围。在很多情况下,背景音效比音乐更能营造游戏氛围。就此而言,有时候就算是诡异的沉默也能起到很大的作用。

声音元素的使用有利也有弊。以前,游戏中的任何声音都被当作一种新奇事物。但是现在它的价值却取决于配音的质量。悲惨的配音总是很可能弊大于利;而愉快的配音可能更具有吸引力。在脚本事件得到压缩的游戏中,整合并触发声音序列变得更有意义。《命令与征服:将军》便是这样一款游戏,即在各种游戏事件出现时大量使用了较短的“妙句”。

音乐也能够用于设定氛围,但必须多加留心。音乐的力量非常强大,在某些方面上来看它也是一种粗率的工具。这是设置氛围的一种傲慢方式。比起创造带有音效和图像的环境,并让玩家自己做出反应,音乐必须能够控制着玩家,并说道“这便是你该有的感觉!”这在游戏介绍和休息环节中很有效。而在射击游戏或其它行动类游戏中也还凑合,因为在此我们并不会怀疑玩家会有怎样的感受。他将充满兴奋感,而你可以使用配乐让他跳起来。

但是对于像冒险游戏等其它类型游戏,在游戏期间播放背景音乐就不适合了。游戏最好让玩家能够按照自己的方式进行探索,所以选择于一些特殊事件发生时再短暂地播放音乐会更有效。《神秘岛》便是基于这种方式有效地使用了音乐。大多时候它会使用音效去营造氛围,但同时它也会在玩家发现一些特殊的地点时使用合适的音乐。

电子游戏中总是会存在氛围元素。就像20世纪80年代早期的一些游戏,如具有华丽开始屏幕的《Phoenix》以及笼罩着可怕气氛的《魔域塔防》。比起技术,艺术般的情感和对细节的关注往往更加重要。先进的技术有时候也会打开全新的可能性,但是随着图像所创造的收益递减情况的出现,这种可能性似乎在逐渐下降。让我们从另一个角度来看。作为设计师的你也许会受诱而将所有努力投入于FMV介绍,休息屏幕,详细的模式等等元素中,而忽视了游戏玩法。但是你必须先考虑存在元素,混乱元素和挑战元素。当它们得以有效运行时,你才能开始考虑氛围组件。

结论

自从我写下这一文件的初稿已经过去8年时间了,而我的大多数修订都是受到3D图像和网络游戏的出现的影响。在过去十年里较令人烦恼的趋势要数好莱坞效应对于电子游戏世界的影响。游戏创造变得更加昂贵。比起8K ROM时代,如今在DVD-ROM上创造出具有商业竞争力的游戏需要投入更多资源。MMOG游戏所需要的资源更是达到另一个量级。考虑到成本太高,所以游戏公司越来越不愿意冒险。他们更加专注于那些平凡的游戏类型或者复制一些获得成功的游戏。

相反的趋势是,如果一款游戏获得关注,它便会抛弃共享空间并被划分到所谓的“休闲游戏”中。这并不是什么新鲜事。我敢保证如果《吃豆人》是诞生于今天的世界,它也定会被归类为休闲游戏。很多人建议游戏设计师应该以全新的眼光去看待早前的投币游戏,这些游戏通常都具有创造性和平衡性。他们可以从中学到许多。

我希望能够出现一些黑客们在自己的地下室,仓库或阁楼制作游戏。也许他们的产品不会多迷人,但是我们偶尔也能够期待他们创造出些不一样的内容。可以说本篇文章便是为了他们而写的。

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

Elements Of Video Game Style

By Tony Belding

The design of video games has rarely been a subject of formal study. All too often today games are designed simply by looking at whatever is popular at the moment and copying it. The recent interest in classic video games has a basis in something more than mere nostalgia. There is a feeling that something has been lost in game design, even while graphics and sound are reaching new heights.

This document is an attempt to explore certain concepts of videogame design. It is not a formula for designing hit video games. I firmly believe designing games by formula leads to stagnation. However, I just as firmly believe that a good videogame must be built on a solid foundation. Thus I have divided the subject into several elements and written an essay on each one. I’ve gathered them together here for the benefit of anyone interested in game design.

The Element of Presence

One of the magical aspects of video games is the ability to simulate worlds in the machine. These worlds may be tiny or huge, simple or complex. This is an element I call “presence” which approaches the sense of virtual reality. I believe the word “immersiveness” has also been used by some to describe this phenomenon. A good videogame creates a feeling of being there, not just watching a video or a slideshow.

Now I will list the components that can aid in making a successful simulation, beginning with the most basic and important, then working up toward more sophisticated frills that can enhance the experience. Take this as a recipe for creating that element of presence in the game:

1. Movement and Collision

Among the first things infants learn are simple rules of movement and collision. Things bump things. These rules are closely tied to our sense of reality. It’s why smooth motion and accurate collision detection are so important. The earliest video games, such as Space War and Pong, were built around movement and collision. One might even say that this is the defining character of video games. Although movement and collision are also seen in movies, notably in action movies, it’s the idea of a movement directly controlled by the player, not merely observed, that makes a videogame what it is. The connection — the more direct, the better — between the players hand on the controls and an object moving on the screen is the basic magic that video games are founded upon.

Recently movement has become a special concern when working with networked games, where net lag is a factor. You need to make sure, as much as possible, that movement is smooth and each player sees the same the same collision events, despite varying time lag between servers and clients. Some MMOGs have dealt with this problem pretty well. Some other environments, such as Second Life, continue to have serious problems with movement and net lag. The game needs to be designed with this concern in mind from day one. It can’t be fixed as an afterthought.

2. Internally Consistent Rules

Objects in the game should interact with each other according to certain rules. These rules should be simple and consistent enough for the player to figure them out and use them. He should be able to say, “If object A does this to object B, then it should do that to object C.” These rules don’t necessarily have to be the same as rules in the real world. The rules may be fantastic or abstract, but they must make sense within the context of the game. These are like the laws of physics in your game world.

The worst offenders in this respect tend to be scripted games, where the player is moved from one pre-determined event to another. The events are arbitrarily created by a writer, they don’t emerge from the game mechanisms.

3. Freedom of Movement

The player should generally be able to move where he wishes, when he wishes, for his own purposes. Games that force the player along a fixed path at a predetermined speed lose some sense of reality. Likewise games that force the player to follow pre-written scripts also come up short. Instead, it is best to provide the player an environment and allow him to explore it. It’s okay for the environment to be small, or for there to be obstacles for the player to overcome before reaching some parts of it. However, free movement within the bounds and rules of the environment is critical. Asteroids is a good early example: a game which allowed the little spaceship to fly all over the screen, as opposed to games like Space Invaders with mere side-to-side movement.

4. Real-time Action and Background Activity

The real world does not stop and wait for us to make decisions. Some games, especially adventure and strategy games, freeze in their tracks much like a cheap choose-your-own-adventure book. Real-time action does not mean you keep your player racing against the clock (unless it’s that kind of game), but the game should not freeze while he decides his move. Things should constantly be happening in the background, regardless of what the player does. This background activity, even if only partly seen by the player, adds a tremendous sense of vitality and presence to the game.

The classic Atari VCS (Atari 2600) Adventure game stands out as an early and groundbreaking example of this technique. Regardless of the player’s actions, the dragons and the black bat continued roaming about and doing their own things. The classic arcade game Defender was another early example, because many events occurred outside the main view. The player had to keep tabs on these events using a small radar display and respond to them.

5. Three-Dimensional Space

Every game example I’ve listed so far has been two-dimensional in nature. However, people have a natural ability to think in three dimensions. Adding three-dimensional space to a game makes it more stimulating and can enhance the feeling of simulating a world in the machine. At the time when I first advocated the move to 3D environments, console hardware was just beginning to become adequate for this. (It was shortly before the introduction of the Sony Playstation.) Today a more pertinent concern is whether mobile devices can support a 3D display.

In these situations one may find that polygon-based games can work surprisingly well without any surface texturing. One of the first game consoles to break into 3D game design was the Atari Jaguar. Due to some annoying hardware bugs, its ability to perform texture mapping was very limited. Games created using Gouraud shading, such as Battlemorph, were fairly successful and created a stylized visual experience that I found reminiscent of the old 2D vector graphics monitors. At the time texture mapping was a new, exciting and fashionable technique, and the Jaguar games were soon viewed as technological laggards. In today’s environment texture mapping is ubiquitous, and it’s the Gouraud-shaded games which I suspect would appear novel and distinctive.

3D space is not merely a question of graphics display. It’s possible to create a game on a two-dimensional, flat playfield that is populated with 3D objects. Some early 3D games such as Doom followed this approach. Such games fail to live up to the full potential of presence, or immersiveness. Allowing the player to climb into holes or onto platforms enhances the sense of space. Allowing objects to rotate on multiple axes and move naturally in three dimensions is also helpful.

6. Continuous and Contiguous Space

When placing the player into a virtual world, breaks for loading or cut scenes are best avoided. Adventure and RPG games often have very expansive worlds, and they were long plagued by these kinds of breaks due to technical limitations. This has proven especially pertinent in the MMOG space, where such breaks also interfere with players trying to interact with one another.

The groundbreaking Everquest game is a noteworthy example. When it was new it presented one of the most immersive environments ever seen, with a true 3D environment, vast world, day and night cycles and weather. I remember well getting lost in the maze-like city of Freeport. Although it was easy to get lost, it was also tremendously immersive and compelling. A big flaw, however, was the division of the world into “zones”, and the need to pause the game for loading when moving from one zone to another. Later games, such as World of Warcraft, have done away with the loading delay, making the boundaries between different regions much more transparent to the player.

A related problem is that of teleportation. Teleportation refers to any situation where the game removes the player from one location and drops him into another. This trick has been used in games for a long time, for convenience or as a way of working around technical limitations. However, teleportation breaks the metaphor of space and time that we’re all accustomed to in the real world. It is anti-immersive. Once again MMOGs with their typically huge worlds provide a good basis for comparison.

Everquest had very little teleportation in the beginning. It was mostly limited to death effects: killed players respawned back at their home point. Traveling long distances required either using a vehicle (such as a ship) or running long distances, often through dangerous and unfamiliar territory. This made exploration a hugely challenging and engaging activity, and it reinforced the perception of a vast and coherent world. As the game was later expanded, teleportation points were introduced which made moving from region to region safe and trivially easy. Although this was certainly convenient, it destroyed the exercise of exploration which had been such an important part of the game. It also severely damaged the player’s sense of time and distance, which are important to his sense of being in a cohesive world.

The designers of World of Warcraft notably went out of their way to avoid teleportation. They provided a system of convenient transportation around their world (via griffin rides), but designed it to avoid breaking the player’s sense of distance and time. The griffins fly over the entire landscape between their origin and destination points, and the player gets a view of everything and everyone along the way. The griffins also will not take the player to any place he hasn’t already reached previously by other means, thereby preserving the value of exploration. This is the best of both worlds.

As a counter-example, one may look at Second Life, where teleportation is the primary means of travel around the world. The character of Second Life is less like that of a landscape to be explored, and more like that of the WWW. Locations are bookmarked and called up like web pages. This metaphor works for SL because it is, at heart, not a game at all. It’s a social environment, it’s a communication tool. Convenience is far more important than trying to create a game-like experience.

Having worked my way through these six ingredients of presence, or immersiveness, I have to mention virtual reality in passing. VR is an idea that once seemed hugely promising, and then later was dismissed as a fad, a failed promise. I think it was perhaps written off too quickly, and that VR’s time may come again. The recent success of Nintendo’s Wiimote controller is a baby step back in the direction of VR. VR headsets and controllers would be the last element needed to create a fully immersive environment.

With true VR remaining somewhere in the future, we shouldn’t fall into the trap of imagining that killer, state-of-the-art hardware is required to make a compelling game. The first four techniques I listed were all used to great effect in VCS Adventure, a game that ran from 4K ROM on a console with 128 bytes of RAM and minimal graphics and processing power. VCS Adventure became one of the most popular games ever done on the Atari VCS. Needless to say, these same ideas can be used far more effectively with even the lower end of today’s hardware.

The Element of Chaos

A disturbing trend has been toward games where everything is pre-scripted. Each level is the same every time: same powerups in the same places, enemies in the same places following the same patterns. The game becomes a contest of pure memorization. Once all the secrets are found and the levels memorized, it’s time to buy another game. This is something that particularly came to annoy me in one of my favorite series, the Call of Duty games. The game tries to give players a realistic taste of World War 2 combat, and it succeeds pretty well in many respects. Yet, ultimately, progressing in the game requires learning where the enemy soldiers are stationed and the best order in which to attack them. It’s an exercise fundamentally unlike the chaotic and confusing flow of battle that the game otherwise recreates so well.

That’s not to say there’s no place for scripted games, or that it’s not fun to explore and learn their secrets. That learning and exploration is the hub of their appeal. All the same, we are missing an opportunity for something even better. The missing element is chaos.

Chaos means that surprising things can happen at almost any time in the game. It means that simple objects can interact in unexpectedly complex ways. The player is absorbed not in learning preset patterns, but in learning how the objects interact. This is not only great fun for the player, but also a more efficient way to program the game. Instead of working to create level after level of pre-scripted secrets, the developer can just create interesting objects and turn them loose in the game environment. He doesn’t have to create all the many (possibly hundreds or thousands of) interactions that can occur in the game. These interactions arise naturally from the objects themselves, including interactions the game designers may not have thought about.

At this point a couple of examples are in order. First, let’s consider Cosmic Avenger. This was a coin-op game of the early 1980s, which was also ported to the ColecoVision. At first glance it didn’t seem too different from the other pre-scripted, side-scrolling shooters of the day, such as Scramble and Super Cobra. But, Cosmic Avenger had a small chaos element those games lacked: The enemy forces could accidentally shoot each other. There were also enemy missiles that would home toward the player’s ship and could follow it for quite some distance. This led to great possibilities. The player could lead homing missiles into hitting enemy ships or installations. Enemy objects could collide or shoot each other at unexpected moments. These reactions made the game richer.

Now let’s also consider VCS Adventure once again. It appears superficially similar to lots of graphic adventures that followed, such as the Zelda series. However, there is a big difference: Games like Zelda were based upon pre-scripted encounters. They presented a series of obstacles which were always the same, located in the same places, sitting dormant until the player arrived to trigger them. Typically a certain screen in the Zelda adventures would have X number of type Y monsters which would appear and attack when the player character entered that screen.

By contrast, VCS Adventure had four creatures in the whole game: three dragons and a black bat. These creatures got a lot of mileage because they constantly wandered about the game world doing their thing no matter where the player was. There were some limits to their movement, such as entering or leaving castles. Still, there was no way to be sure when a dragon or the bat might pounce on you. They could attack when you were unarmed, and they could attack singly, or they could gang up on you. There was no way to know. Although the dragons provided the combat aspect of the game, the black bat was the most important chaos element. It followed a simple rule: it picked things up and carried them around. After a few minutes it would get tired of whatever it was carrying; then it would look for something new to pick up, and leave the old object.

For example, I might be hunting down the dragon with sword in hand. Finally I find the beast, but about that time the bat suddenly swoops in and takes my sword and leaves me holding something useless like a key. It’s time to run for my life! Or, for another example, I might be returning to the gold castle with the chalice, which is the final goal of the game. Victory is almost in sight, but suddenly the bat swoops in and grabs the chalice away from me. The chase is on, and it might be another half hour of one thing after another before I get the chalice back where I wanted it.

And, perhaps the ultimate example of bat oddities was the Grand Tour. This happened when the player simultaneously killed a dragon and was eaten by it. The player was trapped in the dragon’s belly, but sometimes the bat would come and fly off with the dead dragon, thus carrying the player along for a fast tour of the game playing area. I think it’s unlikely that this was ever designed or intended by the game’s creator; it was just something that emerged out of the game’s rules.

In addition to all the above, there was an extra playing mode in Adventure which allowed the game to start with all objects in random positions. Under these conditions there was no way to know if the game could even be won. But, it added a tremendous amount of extra play value after the standard scenario had been mastered.

So, this is what I would like to see in more games: more randomness and more simple objects that can interact in complex ways. These chaos ideas can apply to a wide range of games, from arcade action games to adventure or RPG games, to strategy games.

The Element of Challenge

A videogame, like almost any game, is a contest. The player tests his abilities against the machine or against a friend or against both at once. So, it is critically important to create the right level of challenge and difficulty. A game should not be too easy, lest it become boring. Nor should it be too difficult, lest it become frustrating. And, it’s also helpful if the game is accessible.

When Nolan Bushnell created his first coin-operated videogame, Computer Space, it did very poorly. People didn’t understand how to play. His next attempt, Pong, was a giant success because it was more accessible. Anyone could look at the game and immediately see how it was played. Many of the great hit video games have had this trait of accessibility, such as Space Invaders and Pac Man. More modern examples would include basic scrolling shooters like Raiden, most racing games, and any pinball machine. That is one reason pinball is still around. Everyone knows how to play.

That’s not to say complicated games can’t be successful. There is a feeling of accomplishment that comes from learning a complex game. This is found among the players of fighting games with their rather abstruse system of control and “combos”, and among players of computer role-playing games, and flight simulators. Even so, such games are naturally limited in the width of their appeal. These kinds of games can become very popular within certain circles, but they rarely reach widespread acceptance with the general public. This is the difference between hard-core game players and the average guy. And, it’s a big part of why the rather simple game of Tetris was such a huge hit. It was too small and simple to intimidate people who are not really into video games.

It is interesting to observe that console games have trended toward being quite easy. Computer games tend to be more complicated and somewhat harder. The most brutally competitive environment for games has generally been the coin-operated space. These games have to be highly accessible, because they depend on luring random passerby into a game or two, but they also have to be hard enough to get the player to either leave the machine or insert more coins in a reasonable time frame. Economic incentive drove the design decisions about how hard the game should be.

Making a game simple to learn doesn’t mean making it simple to master. I note again that complex interactions in the game are desirable: they give a game depth and staying power. But, these complex interactions should arise from simple objects and rules in the game. VCS Adventure, which I have already described as an example of chaos, also had very simple controls and was as easy to play as anything. The joystick moved your little hero, and the action button picked up or dropped objects. There were no statistics to track or inventories to manage, unlike more modern adventures. Anyone could pick up the stick and start playing.

Pac Man was probably the ultimate in accessible gaming. It couldn’t be more obvious how to play. Children, grandparents, people who had zero experience with games could look at Pac Man and figure out in seconds how it worked. In today’s market it would probably be pigeonholed as a mere “casual game”. Yet, like almost all coin-op games from that era, it was pretty darn difficult to play and keep a game going for very long. The first maze wasn’t too bad, but the difficulty ramped up quite steeply.

As for the more general issue of challenge and difficulty, the easiest way to address it is by adding difficulty settings or some form of adjustment the player can make to suit themselves. This is especially important when you look at the wide range of ages the video game market caters to these days. There is no reason to artificially limit your game to a narrow age group when you can widen its appeal by providing the difficulty adjustments. However, a danger of user-settable difficulty settings is that many players are lazy and will tend to play on easy settings, even to the point of boredom, rather than realize they would actually enjoy the game more on a harder setting. Giving them some incentive to overcome their laziness and use the harder setting is a good idea. By luring players onto the harder difficulty as soon as they are ready for it, you can extend the life of the game.

Some companies don’t want to extend the life of the game. They feel they can make games to be solved quickly and cast aside, so the consumer can buy another. This policy is shortsighted and ultimately counterproductive. Game players eventually realize they are being ripped off. They become bored with easy, quickly solved games and migrate away from video games toward other forms of entertainment.

Multi-player options were, for a long time, badly overlooked. The thrill that comes from playing against a human opponent is wonderful. Even games that were otherwise rather bland somehow gain new life. I have long been a big advocate of game machines with built-in support for more than two controllers. In recent years, however, most of the multi-player game activity has moved onto the internet. This has opened up great new horizons, with MMOGs being the ultimate expression.

So, why is multi-player so great? One reason is that it brings a large chaos element into the game. I’ve already written about the benefits of unpredictability, and there’s nothing much more unpredictable than a human being. The other player doesn’t follow any preset pattern. The interactions between multiple players and other game objects can be far more complex and exciting than you would normally see in a one-player game. Also, there’s a greater sense of competition against a human rather than a machine. At the same time, it’s good to provide a handicap option in the multi-player games where the players are competing directly against each other (as opposed to the cooperative type), so that players of different skill can still enjoy themselves.

MMOGs have raised some new problems in terms of challenge level. Not only do they have players from around the world mixing together with different skill levels, but most of them also use a level-based game mechanic such that time spent playing the game is rewarded with increased abilities. Unfortunately, players vary a lot in the amount of time they can invest in the game, and therefore they advance at different rates. If only players of similar level can effectively play together, that hampers their ability to form long-term associations. Games such as World of Warcraft encourage players to band together into cooperative groups, or parties, but the groups are short-lived. Players have compensated somewhat by forming larger communities called guilds or clans. These can provide a ready pool of players to draw party members from. Still, it remains difficult to play shoulder-to-shoulder with your two or three best pals over the long run.

This is not optimal, and I regard it as an unsolved problem of the MMOG genre. Much of MMOG design is predicated on keeping players hooked for as long as possible and rewarding the investment of time into the game is one of the main strategies used toward that goal. However, if players can more easily maintain long-term friendships with other players in the game that would probably exert at least as strong an incentive to stay, if not stronger.

One possible option might be to make player abilities tied more to the amount of time the player has been subscribed to the game, or the amount of time his character has existed, rather than the amount of time spent online and actually playing. Thus characters created around the same time would tend to progress at the same rate and maintain similar abilities and be able to continue playing cooperatively over the long term. There could and should still be a skill element involved, so there would be something to be gained from practice and familiarization with the game. The difference in skills would then exist more in the players than in their online avatars.

The Element of Atmosphere

So far I have described only game mechanics. Some abstract games have succeeded on the strength of game mechanics alone, such as Qix or Tetris. However, it’s much easier to engage the player’s interest and enrich his experience by creating an atmosphere.

The first rule of atmosphere is that it must not sabotage the underlying gameplay in any way. That would be self-defeating. Instead, take the game and build a mood around it.

There are two general ways to create atmosphere: It can be done in the game itself, using the game engine, or it can be done with “incidentals” in the title and intermission screens. An advantage of moving some atmosphere elements (especially the more intrusive ones like music and video clips) out into the intermission is not to distract from the focus of the game itself. In the past this approach has also allowed the game designer to introduce a video experience that the game mechanisms and game graphics were not sophisticated enough to produce. With advancing technology, however, this has become less of a concern.

In-game graphics has always been the most important component of atmosphere. Indeed, much of the history of videogame design has been driven by advancing graphics technology. The debate over the importance of graphics and how hard to push hardware requirements (particularly on PCs) has been ongoing for years. Historically there has always been an argument that gameplay is more important than graphics; yet the actions of game designers seemed to say otherwise as they pushed hardware to its limits, seeking novel visual effects to “wow” the players. Some recent events suggest that we are hitting a point of diminishing returns in graphics, and that pushing the limits of graphic hardware may no longer be the best strategy for a successful game. Two examples will illustrate this trend.

First, Sony and Microsoft engaged in a technological arms race, both coming out with new game consoles at high price points: the Playstation 3 and the X-Box 360. Nintendo entered the market with their less powerful and less expensive Wii console and experienced huge success. An innovative controller, affordable system and quality games proved more compelling to gamers than polygon fill rates.

Secondly, Sony and Blizzard both began MMORPG games at about the same time: Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft. There was no doubt that Everquest 2 was more graphically advanced. It had higher system requirements and more detailed models. Yet, there were problems with the graphical content. Some models in the game were simply unappealing. Many game elements seemed uneven in quality or mismatched in style. By comparison, hugely successful World of Warcraft had graphics with fewer polygons, lower system requirements and a stylized appearance that some called cartoony (though to my eyes it looks more like an oil painting style).

When looking at World of Warcraft, we have to ponder the vast amount of content in the game. It took an army of artists to create all the models, environments and textures used in this game. Despite that, the style is so focused and coherent that you can examine objects all around the game world and easily imagine that they were created by the same artist. It’s a triumph not of technology but of art direction. This will be the trend in future games: art direction will take center stage, and graphics display technology will be merely the canvas.

However, I do want to talk more about “incidental” graphics, music and other components. These would be title screens, between-level menus, FMV introductions and intermissions, etc. These must be made so the player can get past them quickly and get into the game without delay if he wants to. Nonetheless, these components can be used to tremendous effect for creating atmosphere. A good example of this was Road Rash 3DO. Still pictures are used in the menus and intermissions, and FMV clips with fine music for the title screens, start and end of races, and so forth. All these components combine to add tremendously to the excitement surrounding the game, but they don’t interfere with the actual gameplay. It’s a great example of how to take a game, which in this case already had solid gameplay and excellent in-game graphics, and then surround it with incidentals that raise it over the top and make it an extra special experience. This was tough prior to the advent of CD-ROM storage technology, because such incidentals would have squeezed out actual gameplay elements. Now that we have CD-ROM and DVD-ROM, storage space should no longer be much of an obstacle.

Another good example would be FMV clips embedded in the game at certain appropriate points, such as when the player attains a goal in an adventure game. Again, it’s important to let the player quickly abort out of the video clip if he’s tired of seeing it. A good example of how FMV could be useful is the Atari Jaguar game Alien Vs Predator. In the course of the game, the player will sometimes find computer terminals in which crewmen have recorded log entries. These are plain text. FMV clips could have been far more effective in creating an impression of the desperate last days on board the space station. It was impractical in AvP because of the limitation of the Jaguar ROM cartridge, but the advent of CD-ROM gaming allows these kinds of uses. Some games of the pre-CD-ROM era have used various kinds of animation to create these embedded sequences. CD-ROM and FMV allow us to do it better.

The use of FMV cut scenes has always come at a price, in terms of disrupting the player’s sense of continuity and presence. The advent of MMOGs raises an additional problem: a cut scene would interrupt interactions with other players and break the sense of time and space that they all share in the game. As a result, more of the elements that would normally appear in cut-scene videos are being pushed into the game engine itself. This is a healthy development and has worked its way back into single-player games over time.

Sound effects are an important atmosphere component, just like graphics. Great sound effects can sometimes contribute more to the mood of the game than graphics do. For example, Alien Vs Predator on the Jaguar had fine graphics by the standards of its time, but the excellent digitized sound effects went perhaps even farther toward setting the mood of the game. In many cases, background sound effects are superior to music for setting a mood in the game. For that matter, even eerie silence can be useful sometimes.

Voice elements can cut both ways. Long gone are the days when any kind of voice in a game was a novelty. Now its value largely comes down to the quality of the voice acting. Miserable voice acting can easily do more harm than good. Good voice acting, on the other hand, can be compelling. In a game where scripted events are minimized, the challenge is to incorporate and trigger voice sequences in a way that makes sense. I could point to Command & Conquer Generals as an example of a game that did this pretty well, with heavy use of short “catch phrases” when various in-game events occurred.

Music can be used to set mood, but only with caution. Music is a powerful, and in some ways heavy-handed, tool. It is an arrogant way to set a mood. Rather than create an environment with graphics and sound effects and let the player react to it as he wishes, music grabs the player by the nose and leads him around, saying “THIS is what you should feel!” That’s fine for introductions and intermissions. It’s not so bad either for shooters or other heavy action games because there’s really little doubt about how the player should feel. He should feel excited, and you can use the music soundtrack to pump him up.

For other kinds of games, such as adventure games, a constant background track during the gameplay is probably bad. It is better to let the player explore the game in his own way, and save the music for brief moments when something special happens in the game. Myst used music very effectively in this way. Most of the time it used sound effects to set the mood (and rather effectively, I should note) but used music when the player found some very special places in the game.

The element of atmosphere has always existed in video games. It’s possible to pick out fine examples from the early 1980s, such as the beautiful opening screen of Phoenix or the intimidating aura of Defender. Artistic sensibility and attention to detail have always been more important than technology. Advancing technology sometimes opened new possibilities, but now it seems this happens less and less often as graphics have hit a point of diminishing returns. So, let’s put this in perspective! As a designer you may be tempted to pour all your efforts into the glitz and glamour of FMV introductions, intermissions, high-detail models and the like while overlooking gameplay. The elements of presence, chaos and challenge should come first. When they are in place and working well, then it’s fine to go back and tart up the game with atmosphere components.

In Closing

It’s been eight years since I posted the original of this document, and most of my revisions have been prompted by the rise of 3D graphics and the emergence of internet-based games. A vexing trend for at least a decade has been the Hollywood Effect intruding onto the world of video games. Games have become far more expensive to create. To make something commercially competitive on DVD-ROM requires a lot more resources than the old days of 8K ROM carts on the VCS. MMOGs increase the resources required by yet another order of magnitude. Because of the great expense, game companies become less and less willing to take risks. Increasingly they focus on well-worn genres and near copies of already successful games.

A counter trend, if one is to be found, may grow out of the shareware space and the proliferation of so-called “casual games” on mobile devices, as well as on computers and consoles. This phenomenon is not as new as it seems. Pac Man, I am sure, would be pigeonholed in today’s world as a mere casual game, and today it fits well onto a cell phone (aside from the lack of a decent controller). Many game designers would be well advised to take a fresh look at those old coin-operated games, in which game play was often innovative and almost always finely tuned and balanced. They have much to teach.

I hope there will always be hackers making games on a shoestring in their basements, garages, and attics. Their product may not be as slick and glamorous, but we can count on them to turn out something different from time to time. This document is dedicated to them. (source:gamedev)


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