作者：Micah Hrechovscik

定义的问题

在游戏设计这个行业出前早期，使用“乐趣”这个词就足以形容游戏设计的目标了。随着游戏设计进一步成熟，“乐趣”被许多词替代了，如体验、情感、沉浸感、流状态，等等。不幸的是，它们实际上只是游戏设计的热词。更糟的是，这些词与游戏设计有什么关系，似乎没有设计师能达到共识。我不打算提供另一种定义，只是想展示一种可以映射玩家的“游戏体验”的工作模型。理想情况下，设计师采用这种模型可以设计出更好的影响游戏体验的机制和玩法。

游戏体验模型

游戏体验

游戏体验是我的对游戏设计有限的定义中的最后一个模型。我的定义还包括机制和玩法，即达到目标的方法，而这个目标就是创造游戏体验。然而，在我看来，这个目标应该作为游戏设计的起点。在Salen和Zimmerman合著的《Rules of Play : Game Design Fundamentals》一书中，游戏体验被叫作“第二手设计问题”，在Hunicke、Robin、Marc LeBlanc和Robert Zubek写的《MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research》一文中，他们提出一个游戏设计和研究的公式——“MDA模型”，并在这个模型中把游戏体验形容为游戏美学。我在本文中提出的模型旨在总结几个相关的想法——游戏如何创造体验、玩家能力如何与游戏操作联系起来以及游戏状态是如何形成的。

体验

在深入了解游戏体验模型以前，我们要先思考一个问题：人如何产生体验？在《Theory of Fun for Game Design》中，Koster用认知机制解释游戏对人的影响，而Grodal则在《Story for Eye, Ear and Muscles》中用符号学方法和与其他媒体的比较法做了同样的研究。他们的结论是，游戏主要是一种心理活动。我的模型全盘吸收这个观点，解释玩家体验如何通过心理、身体和灵魂汇聚成整体。这个观点得到认知心理学的支持，后者对体验的定义是“中央心理和身体功能的暗示性模拟。”也就是说，游戏（棋类、卡牌、电子、体能运动，等等）总是通过刺激心理和生理的反应来创造体验，即使这些反应在强度上各不相同。

Zen(from gamedesigntools)

游戏能力

理解游戏体验还可以从玩家的角度出发。如果玩家不具备一定的基本能力（游戏邦注：即你的五感、认知和运动能力），游戏（或者说游戏构建的活动）是不可能发生的。Crawford在《Chris Crawford on Game Design》一书中指出，游戏刺激玩家使用基本的能力，并通过挑战提高这些能力。也就是说，游戏不仅需要玩家使用自己的能力，而且游戏的直接目的就是刺激使用这些能力，考验玩家，并最终鼓励玩家提高能力。

faculties(from gutenberg.org)

从游戏设计师的角度看，这使得玩家有可能设计出与玩家能力直接相关的游戏机制。我们的能力可以宽泛地分为身体的和心理的两个大类。其中，身体的能力包括五感、协调、力量和耐力；心理的能力包括记忆、联想、概念形成、模式识别、语言、注意力、洞察力、问题解决和想象力。

所有游戏的基础都形成于几种游戏原型——竞赛、技能、角色扮演、运气、感觉、表达、发现、社交和解谜。这些原型对游戏体验的重要性体现在它们能刺激玩家使用不同的能力。

游戏状态

游戏体验模型的另一个方面是理解游戏状态。游戏设计文献经常借用“流状态”的概念，说到底就是在无聊和受挫之间取得平衡。从游戏设计师的角度看，这一点应该是很明显的。游戏体验模型识别了几种会随着游戏波动的状态。在《Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul》中，Stuart Brown告诉我们，在游戏过程中，为了让游戏保持玩家的兴趣，游戏应该让玩家在不同的时间段内遇到6种状态。如果其中一种状态缺失或难以获得，那么游戏就非常可能变得无聊或令人受挫。这6种状态包括预感、学习、理解、赋能、惊喜、沉着和精通。

children-playing(from gamedesigntools)

结论

游戏创造真实的体验。然而，我不认为它们的价值可以与其他真实体验相提并论。游戏体验总是包含玩家的身体和心理反应。这些反应的强度通常取决于游戏形式。例如，进行体育运动（如足球）产生的身体体验比玩电子游戏的更强烈，但二者都从身体和心理交互反应中创造了体验。

游戏要求玩家综合使用感觉、认知和运动能力。游戏创造活动的直接目的是刺激玩家使用这些能力，然后考验他们并最终促进这些能力的提高。你可以想象，这些能力受损会导致玩家沮丧和消极的游戏体验。例如，视觉受损的玩家在玩任何强调视觉能力的游戏都会感到困难。不同的游戏原型可以为游戏设计师提供刺激玩家使用不同能力的方法。然而，我认为优秀的游戏机制和玩法可以使游戏更加符合特定的目的。

玩游戏是一种动态的、起伏的体验状态，不是单一的或者单纯的流状态。游戏往往很擅长把玩家留在游戏状态中。理论上说，能提供平衡的游戏状态的游戏应该能长久地吸引玩家玩下去。例如，当我们第一次玩某一款游戏时，我们通常会有一定的预感。游戏开始后，我们进入学习状态，然后是理解状态。当我们完成某个有难度的目标时，我们会感到惊喜；随着惊喜出现得更加频繁，我们会觉得自己更强大了（赋能）。只要我们继续玩下去，我们就会学到更多，变得更加沉着，最终精通整个游戏。（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）

Game-Play Experience

by Micah Hrechovscik

The Problem with Definitions

In the early days of game design, using the word ‘fun’ was enough to describe the goal of game design. As game design discourse matured, terminology such as experience, emotion, immersion, game-play, and flow have come to substitute the word ‘fun’. Unfortunately they have become no better than game design buzzwords. To make it worst, no two game designers seem able to agree upon what these terms mean in relation to their design work. I do not want offer an alternative definition, but present a working model that maps out  the experience the player has when playing a game or the player’s ‘game-play-experience’. Ideally such a model could support a game designer’s design of game mechanics and play mechanics to affect a player’s game-play experience .

The Game-Play Experience Model

Game-play Experience

Game-play experience is the last model in my finite definition of game design. Included in my definition are game mechanics and play mechanics, which represent a means to an end [1]. The end being the creation of a game-play experience. However in my opinion it should represent  the starting point for a game’s design. Game-play experience has been called a second hand design problem [2] and in the MDA model [3] is described as a game’s aesthetics. The model I present in this post is an attempt to summarize several related ideas about how games create experiences, how player abilities connect to gaming and how a game’s play state is structured.

Mind & Body

Experience

The game-play experience model begins with questioning how a person has an experience. Effects of gaming on players have been explained by cognitive mechanisms [4], semiotic approaches and compared to other forms of media [5]. Perspectives that typically suggest games are primarily mental activities. The perspective taken by my model is holistic and considers how a player’s experiences are gathered through mind, body… and soul. This perspective is supported by ideas from cognitive psychology which shows experience is a “cued stimulation of central mental and bodily functions.”[5] Meaning that games (board, card, video, sport, etc.) always create experiences by triggering both physical and mental reactions, even if these reactions vary in intensity.

Senses, Cognitive & Motor Abilities

Gaming Ability

The next aspect of the game-play experience understand the game aspect from the perspective of the player. Gaming (or game structured activities) cannot take place without the player having some of the basic faculties (i.e. your five senses, cognitive and motor abilities). Gaming triggers the use of a player’s basic faculties and challenges [6] them to improve these faculties. The game-play experience model claims that games not only require the use of our your faculties to play them, but gaming is an activity directly aimed at triggering their use, challenging them and ultimately encouraging their improvement.

From the perspective of a game designer this opens the possibility to design game mechanics directly related to the player’s faculties. Our faculties can be roughly categorized as physical and mental. Our physical faculties include our five senses, coordination, strength, and endurance. Our mental faculties include memory, association, concept formation, pattern recognition, language, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery.

There are several game archetypes which form the basis of all games. These archetypes are competition, skill, role-playing, chance, sensation, expression, discovery, social, and puzzling. The archetypes are important to game-play experience because of the way they activate the player’s need to use different faculties.

The Play State

Another aspect of the game-play experience model is to understand the play state. Game design literature typically barrows the concept of flow [7] which narrows it down to a balance between boredom and frustration. From a game designer’s perspective this should be obvious. The game-play experience model instead recognizes several states of play which can fluctuate accordingly to the game.  During game-play a player should encounter the six states [8] of play at various times in order to maintain a playful attitude during the game. If one of the seven states is missing or difficult to obtain, then play is likely to become boring or frustrating. The six states include anticipation, learning, understanding, empowerment, surprise, composure, and mastery.

Conclusion

Games create real-life experiences. However I will not argue their value compared to other real-life experiences. A game-play experience always includes physical and mental reactions from a player. The intensity of these often depends on the game form. For example, playing a sport (e.g. football) provides a more intense physical experience than a video game, but both create experience from physical and mental interactions.

Gaming requires the player to use a combination senses, cognitive and motor abilities. Games create activities directly aimed at triggering these faculties, then challenge them and ultimately encouraging their improvement. You can well imagine that impairment of any of these faculties ultimately result in frustration and a negative game-play experience. For example, a visually impaired player would become frustrated when playing any game that requires vision to progress through the game. The different game archetypes can offer the game designer a way at triggering the different faculties. However I believe that well design game mechanics and play mechanics can help tailor make games for applied purposes.

Play is a state of fluctuating experiences and not a single state, or simply a state of flow between boredom and frustration. Games typically do a good job of keeping players a play state. In theory, games that offer the proper balance of play states should keep the player playing. For example, when we first start playing a game we typically feel a certain amount of anticipation. As we begin, we enter a state of learning, which eventually leads to understanding. And we feel surprised when we accomplish something in the game that we did no think was possible was challenging and as surprise happens more often we feel empowered. Finally, as we continue to play we learn more and more composure and eventually this leads to mastery.(source:gamedesigntools)