作者：Borut Pfeifer

这是模拟驱动型游戏制作过程系列文章的第2部分。

第1部分我们阐述了运用于这类游戏的普遍过程所存在的问题。我还更新了对模拟驱动型游戏的定义。

任何游戏制作过程的概念开发阶段都是探索想法和制定决策。这些决策尚未得到验证，但你需要推进这一过程，否则就会陷入一个空洞状态（这是任何游戏制作过程中都可能出现的问题）。

任务

这个阶段的一个普遍元素就是确定总体游戏体验的宗旨。

虽然《Skulls of the Shogun》并非基于模拟的游戏，我们的“街机策略游戏”目标令人难以决定如何添加新设计元素。这些元素是否会加快玩法速度，还是降低速度？如果是后者，无论一个功能看起来有多酷，都要果断排除。

在EA这就称为X-Statement。此时你需要定义你模拟游戏的驱动原则。

以《Scarface》为例

scarface(from paradizevalley)

制作《Scarface》时，虽然游戏玩法的高级目标总是很明确（安置Tony Montana和他的世界），但却要花更长时间确定Scarface的世界的奇特之处。因为《侠盗猎车手3》（简称GTA3）和《罪恶都市》已经从《Scarface》电影中“窃”走了许多元素，我们团队就只能想法让自己的模拟世界不同于这两款游戏。

主要驱动因素就是我们意识到Tony Montana的世界是一个更为黑暗、更罪恶的地方。街上随机出现的行人更可能是黑帮成员而非无辜的路人。

这一点最终在Drug Wars辅助任务的模拟世界中实现（玩家在此要保卫自己的安全居所，并在不同地点间输送毒品），从而招至警方的Heat攻击。与早期的GTA游戏不同的是，Heat是基于地理位置的技能，并且会受到玩家所在区域类型的影响。在阴暗小镇的小巷中射击黑帮比在South Beach向熙来攘往的街道开枪影响更小，这更强化了游戏世界中的部分环节更为黑暗和暴力的理念。

群体和个体关系

在我的群体仿真游戏中，整个游戏体验受到探索人们为何参与大规模抗议、骚乱这一主题的驱动，并探索个体和群体之间的鸿沟。

这对我的模拟游戏而言意义更为复杂。模拟游戏必须处理群体和个体的关系。有些系统必须（通过突发性行为）创造一群行动有所变化的个体。但你可以将人们视为个体以便减少他们对群体行为的本能反应。这是为了实现让人们了解为何人类在那些场景中要采取从众行为的美学目标。

有些模拟场景会挑战玩家应对混乱、秩序或大规模人群的能力。在大规模群体中找到某人或某信息这是一项极具挑战性的任务，游戏应该借此令玩家进入系统和游戏故事的沉浸状态。

明确你的变量

我发现下一个最有价值的步骤是确定你的模拟世界所依靠的数据。这部分是因为你首先面临的问题之一是模拟的间隔尺寸。它应该有多详细？实现你的美学目标的最简单模拟游戏最易于创造并呈现乐趣，但驱动这些组成玩法的系统交互却是一项颇为复杂的工程。

对于我的群体仿真工作，我希望将模拟元素与我的首个美学目标相绑定。关于群体行为的研究并不多，这方面较有代表性的是Steve Reicher和Cliff Stott，他们的著作《Mad Mobs and Englishmen?》详细描述了他们所发现的影响人类在骚乱中表现行为的两种主要因素——人们与外来群体的一致性，以及他们对于权力/权威团体合法性的看法。

这些因素如何运用于创建相关系统？这是一个有助于快速跳过空虚状态并确定如何处理系统设计的具体问题。

创造原型

这是概念阶段的另一个目标，除了判断设计元素的创意理念，你还需要一系列原型。这些是独立、互不相干的系统，每一者对应的都是游戏的一个未知新系统。

从这些原型中你可以知道哪些系统对玩法更重要。你可能会根据原型否决一些系统，可能还会添加更多系统。但你应该针对每个你觉得必不可少的核心系统创造一个原型。

如果游戏使用了枪战等意义明确的系统（它可能已经在某个已确立的题材中出现过），那么这个阶段就不需要大量使用原型。因为它解决不了问题，你也已经能够想象它如何适用更为独特的系统。在LMNO开发过程中，我们首先关注的是你同伴侣AI角色的关系在战斗之余如何发展。但我们也会首先用类似于《镜之边缘》的方法创造第一人称移动的原型，因为这可以提前确定游戏发布日期。

现在还不到整合战斗环节的时候，下一部分内容我将举例阐述创建独立原型的方法，以及在这个概念阶段需避免的问题。（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）

Building Simulations, Part 2 – Concept Development

by Borut Pfeifer

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

This is the second part of a series on production practices for building simulation-driven games.

Part 1 – an overview of the problems applying common processes to these types of games. I’ve updated it with a definition of what I mean by simulation-driven games.

The concept development phase of any game production is about exploring ideas and making decisions. These decisions are yet to be proven, but you need a way forward, otherwise you stall in blank-slate mode (a problem in any game production).

The Mission

A common element of this phase in any game is to define a mission statement about the overall experience. (I was always fond of the imagery of the one for EA’s canceled Command and Conquer hybrid FPS/RTS, Tiberium – “You’re the quarterback on the frontlines of the war of the future” or something along those lines if my memory serves).

While Skulls of the Shogun was not a simulation based game (having little concrete knowledge of the reality of the samurai afterlife), our goal of “arcade strategy” made it trivial to decide to add to new design elements. Did they speed up play, or did they slow it down in any way? If it was the latter, no matter how cool a feature it may have been, we quickly moved on.

At EA this was called, which will come as no surprise if you’ve read the first article, the X-Statement. Just as important though, you need to define the driving principles of your simulation.

Tony Montana’s Miami

Working on Scarface, while the high level goal for the gameplay was always clear (inhabiting Tony Montana and his world), it took longer to define what made the world of Scarface unique. After GTA 3 and Vice City had liberally stolen from Scarface the movie, the team was left with the interesting problem of how to distinguish the world simulation from those games.

The driving factor was the realization that Tony Montana’s world is a darker, more sinister place. Random people on the street are much more likely to be gangsters than innocent pedestrians.

Ultimately this was realized in the form of the Drug Wars-lite simulation creating ancillary missions in the world (as the player defends their safe houses from attack and transport drugs between locales), and attracting Heat from police. Heat was location based unlike earlier GTA games, and would be affected by the type of location the player was in. Shooting a gangster in an alley in a shady part of town would have much less impact than firing on a busy street in South Beach, reinforcing the notion that the parts of the world are darker and more violent.

This Is Worth Another Example

With my crowd simulation game, the overall experience is driven by themes exploring why people act the way the do in large scale protests, riots, etc., and exploring the gap between the individual and the group (“There but for the grace of god, go I”).

What that means for my simulation, though, is a bit more complex. The simulation must deal with both groups of people and individuals that make them up. Some systems must create a group of individuals that act coordinatedly (through emergent behavior, much like people). However you can approach people as individuals to help reduce their instinctive reactions to group behavior. This is to realize the aesthetic goal of the getting the player to the realization of why people act as they do in those types of scenarios.

There must be some aspect(s) of the simulation that challenge the player to deal with the chaos, and order, of a large crowd. Trying to find people or information in a large group is challenging, and the game needs to capture that to help immerse the player in both the systems and the game’s narrative.

Declaring Your Variables

Creatively, I find the next most valuable step is to decide the data that your simulation will be based on. In part that’s because one of the first questions you are faced with is the granularity of the simulation. How detailed will it be? The simplest simulation that achieves your aesthetic goals will be the easiest to build and make entertaining, but it needs to be complex enough to drive those system interactions that make up gameplay.

For my crowd simulation, I wanted to anchor the simulation elements tied to my first aesthetic goal in the research of Steve Reicher and Cliff Stott. Turns out there’s really not many researchers that study crowd behavior. Their book Mad Mobs and Englishmen? (looking at the 2011 soccer riots in England) details the two primary factors they found that influence people’s behavior in riots – the amount a person identifies with the out-group, and their opinion of the legitimacy of the group in power/authority.

Now how can these factors be used to build relevant systems? That is a more concrete problem that helps quickly move past the blank slate and defines how to tackle systems design.

To the Prototypes, Batman!

The other goal coming out of the concept phase, besides having those creative razors to judge design elements, is a set of prototypes. These are individual, unconnected systems, one for each major unknown or new system to the game.

From those you should know what systems will be crucial to gameplay. You may have rejected some systems based on your prototypes, and you may still add more. But you should have a prototype for every core system you absolutely know will be necessary, and is largely new or heavily altered for your game.

If the game uses a well defined system like gunplay, probably in it’s place in an established genre, there’s very little use in prototyping it at this stage. It resolves no questions, and it is well-defined enough to to imagine how it might fit in with more unique systems. On LMNO we focused first how your relationship with the companion AI character would evolve outside of combat. But we also prototyped first person movement in a style similar to Mirror’s Edge, because that pre-dated that game’s release, so up to that point was fairly unique.

It would be some time before we would integrate combat with that, however. Perhaps even too long – the next part in the series will look at examples of building stand alone prototypes, and pitfalls to avoid during this concept stage.（source：gamasutra）