作者：Eric Zimmerman

迭代设计

在我分享在《How I Teach Game Design》博文的教学大纲中，作业布置一两周后就要上交。那么学生在这一两周的实际工作时间里做什么呢？答案就是：迭代设计过程。（请点击此处阅读本系列之序言）

迭代设计是一个专注于测试的过程。你以尽可能快的速度做出游戏的可玩原型，然后测试这个原型再根据测试的结果做修改。理解迭代设计的方法之一是知道它的相反面：提前设计出游戏的所有细节并制做出最终规则和其他材料的设计师居然没有真正地玩过这款游戏。

当然，这个讽刺是很荒唐的：我认识的设计师中还没有人会不经测试就发布游戏。但在我的教学实践和作为设计师的工作中，我确实特别强调迭代设计。游戏设计师Kevin Cancienne叫我“游戏测试的原教旨主义者”——也许他说的没错。

为什么迭代这么重要？复杂的、交互性系统的行为——与游戏一样，是非常难预测的。你一般不可能确切地知道玩家打开游戏后想做什么。唯一的预测方法就是构建你的游戏的原始版本，让人试玩它，再看看会发生什么事。每一次测试，你都会发现管用或不管用的方面、做些调整然后再测试。那就是为什么要把这个过程叫作“迭代”——你随着进度制作游戏的接替版本或者叫作迭代版本。

迭代过程包含以下三步：

1、设计原型

2、测试原型

3、分析结果（然后再返回第一步——把你的游戏修改成新的原型）

在游戏设计课上，大部分测试是由设计师自己完成的，特别是比较短小的作业。但当然，让其他人试玩游戏再给出反馈总是好的——比如设计师在课堂上试玩其他人的游戏。对于商业游戏开发，我当然建议更严格的测试过程。

迭代的原则

以下是几点关于迭代的原则应该牢记在心：

1、想法是廉价的。人们通常会美化创意过程，认为做某事最困难的部过就是想出“好创意”。我实在不敢苟同。想法本身——我指的是你的游戏概念，并没有那么重要。游戏设计想法必须经过测试才能证明其价值、高雅和意义。这个过程的艰苦工作，真正的游戏设计本身，是发生在迭代过程中，而不是在迭代过程之前的概念过程中。

2、不要头脑风暴，开始做原型。当团队开始讨论游戏项目时，他们往往无止境地解释自己的看法。谁的想法更好更有趣？谁的创意能做出好游戏？真相是，那并不重要——任何地方都是设计过程的好起点。迭代的挑战在于尽快做出可玩的原型。迭代的技术是，果断地挑中任何一个可以快速测试的想法。

3、从容面对失败。迭代过程中最让人难过的就是看到自己的想法失败了。但经历失败确实重要——大部分想法都不会按你所期望的方式变成游戏。这就是为什么必须反复实验想法，看什么管用什么不管用，然后根据从错误中吸取的教训改善设计。失败就像辛辣的食物——一开始你会觉得太刺激，过了一会儿才能体验到它的美味，之后你甚至还想吃更多。你永远不能避免刺激，但你开始学会享受刺激。

4、批判性。在迭代过程中，我们学会更加严厉地评价别人的和自己的作品。游戏设计的研究可以帮助设计师学会用一种语言和一系列概念来解释为什么游戏设计可行或不可行。但最重要的是，你要学会如何批判地看待自己的设计。

5、多做实验。想法越古怪或不寻常，迭代就越重要。如果你照搬已经存在的游戏，只修改了几个表面元素，那么你就不必测试太多了。但如果你做的是一种完全原创的或实验性的东西，那么你在这整个过程中都必须不断测试。

6、丑点没关系。反正是游戏设计原型，你不必担心你的游戏外观太粗糙。初始原型应该是游戏的丑陋版。不要设计插图漂亮的纸牌——只要使用一些索引卡片，手写你需要的东西。也许之后你会做出图形漂亮的游戏，但一开始只要保持东西简单就好，因为这样方便你实验其他想法。

游戏测试的陷阱

所以，在测试和迭代方面，我给人的印象其实并没有那么原教旨主义。我肯定也承认迭代并不适用于所有设计师和所有游戏，可以说，不加批判地测试设计可能是很危险的。

在纽约的Different Games大会上，我听了游戏设计师Mattie Brice的好演讲。她展示了游戏测试的改善法。她的要点是，测试有时候可能消弱游戏设计中个人的、有表现力的巧思——如果你让外行人参与测试，制作一款取悦他们而不是你自己的游戏，你可能会扼杀你的游戏中最独一无二的东西。

这是一个非常正确的观点。确实必须对测试抱有批判性态度，对修改游戏时是否要加入测试者的提议应该保持慎重。与所有设计概念或方法论工作一样，测试不是普通的真理，把测试做好或搞砸的可能性是有很多的。

老游戏新规则

我喜欢让学生赶速度做东西——即使是在第一次课上。因为从无到有制作游戏往往是令人生畏的挑战，所以我想出一个启动设计过程的方法，那就是让学生练习修改已经存在的游戏，而不是制作一款全新的游戏。

在第一堂课上，我通常让学生用《三连棋》游戏作练习。它是让学生理解游戏规则和“入门”设计活动的好工具。

课堂练习：修改《三连棋》

总结：分析《三连棋》，然后修改它的规则。

目标：1、理解游戏规则变化如何影响游戏系统

2、入门迭代过程

3、入门游戏设计练习

练习前的热身：通过课堂讨论，罗列出《三连棋》的规则。例如：

1、游戏区域是一个九宫格

2、两名玩家轮流在空白方格中画X或O

3、先把三个相同的标记组成一行或一列的玩家获胜

4、如果双方都不能再画标记，则为平局

然后讨论为什么大部分玩家玩《三连棋》都是平局。为了修改游戏，让学生在课堂上头脑风暴：方格的大小和形状、玩家数量、获胜条件、每个回合中可以做什么……

修改

为了扩展游戏的可能性空间，让学生组队——玩经典游戏《三连棋》比“解决问题”更有趣。

当学生开始设计时，让他们一次只做尽可能小的变动——一两条规则就够了，最多三条。他们应该遵循迭代的过程：做小小的变动，测试修改版，分析修改如何影响游戏，然后再次重新设计。

最后，小组分享自己的修改版游戏，看什么管用什么不管用。如果要分享的小组太多，那就把小组再次组对试玩彼此的游戏并讨论。

至今，我已经看到学生做出成百上千个《三连棋》的变体了。我最喜欢的一个版本是保持其他什么都不变，除了获胜条件——如果玩家让三个相同的标记排成一行或一列，就输了。玩这个版本的《三连棋》意味着迫使你的对手做我们通常认为“会获胜”的事。因为这个小小的规则修改把“解决问题”的《三连棋》变成一个扭转想法的益智题，所以我喜欢这个修改版。

拓展阅读

作为迭代设计的案例，我经常叫学生阅读Richard Garfield发表在《The Rules of Play Reader》（我与Katie Salen一起编辑的选集）的一篇文章《<万智牌：旅法师的对决>的设计进化》（The Design Evolution of Magic: The Gathering）。

我还给Brenda Laurel的书《Design Research》写了一个章节的内容，是关于迭代设计过程的，叫作《玩中学：迭代设计过程》（Play as Research: The Iterative Design Process）。

《三连棋》练习直接受到我的游戏设计偶象之一Bernie DeKoven的启发。在他的游戏设计书《The Well-Played Game》中，有一整个章节是在介绍修改游戏，其中就包括《三连棋》。（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）

How I Teach Game Design 1: The Game Design Process

by Eric Zimmerman

how and why to iterate + a game modification exercise

Iterative design

In the syllabus I shared in my last How I Teach Game Design post, graded assignments are given out on one week, and then one or two or three weeks later, they are due. So what happens in-between, during the actual work time? The answer is: the iterative design process.

Iterative design means a process focused on playtesting. You produce a playable prototype of a game as quickly as possible, then playtest the prototype, and you decide how to evolve the game based on the experience of the playtest. One way of understanding iterative design would be its opposite: a designer who works out all of the details of a game in advance, and creates a final set of rules and other materials without ever actually playing the game.

Of course, this caricature is absurd: no game designer I know has ever released a game without playtesting it. But I do have a particularly strong emphasis on iterative design in my teaching and my creative practice as a designer. The game designer Kevin Cancienne once called me a “playtesting fundamentalist’ – and perhaps he’s right. (So much for my stance against fundamentalism.)

What’s the big deal about iteration? The behavior of complex, interactive systems – like games – is incredibly difficult to predict. You generally cannot know exactly what players are going to do once they start playing your game. The only way to find out is to actually build some primitive version of your game, have people play it, and see what happens. Each time you playtest, you find out what does and doesn’t work, make some adjustments, and then play again. That’s why it is called the iterative process – you create successive versions, or iterations, of your game as you go.

The process of iteration consists of these steps:

1. design a prototype

2. playtest your prototype

3. analyze what happened

(then it’s back to step 1 – modifying your game to create a new prototype)

In a game design class, most of the playtesting will be done by the designers themselves, especially for short assignments. But of course it is always good for other people to play the games and give feedback – such as designers playing each others’ games in a class. For commercial game development, of course, a more rigorous playtesting process is highly recommended. (More details about playtesting methodology are coming in future posts.)

Principles of iteration

Below are a few ideas to keep in mind about the iterative process.

Ideas are cheap. People often romanticize the creative process, assuming that the hardest part of doing anything is to come up with a “good idea.” I could not disagree more. Ideas in and of themselves – by which I mean a concept you might have for a game – are not that important. Game design ideas gain value, sophistication, and meaning only when they are playtested. The hard work of the process, the actual game design itself, happens during the iterative process, not the concepting process that proceeds it.

Stop brainstorming and start prototyping. When a group begins discussing a game project, the tendency is for everyone to discuss their ideas ad infinitum. Whose idea is better or more interesting? Whose idea will make a better game? The truth is that it doesn’t really matter – any place is a good starting point for a design process. The challenge of iteration is to get a playable prototype happening as soon as possible. The art of iteration is to decisively pick one idea – any idea – that can quickly be playtested.

Embrace failure. One of the hardest things about iteration is seeing your ideas fail. But it’s really important to experience failure – most ideas will not work the way you expected them to play out. That’s why it is important to iterate like mad, trying out ideas, seeing what works and doesn’t work, evolving your design forward as you learn from your mistakes. Failure is like spicy food – it hurts at first… but then you acquire a taste for it – and soon you just can’t get enough. You never completely lose the hurt, but you also learn to enjoy the pain.

Be critical. As we iterate, we practice our ability to be rigorously critical with each other and with ourselves. The study of game design can provide a language and set of concepts to help designers see why a game design might or might not be working. But ultimately it is up to you to learn how to be critical with your own design.

More experimental? More iteration. The more weird or unusual an idea is, the more important it is to iterate. If you are doing an exact copy of an existing game, just changing a few superficial elements, you probably don’t need to playtest as much. But if you are doing anything at all original or experimental then you absolutely need to playtest throughout the entire process.

Keep it ugly. As a game design prototype, you should not worry if your game has gorgeous visual aesthetics. Initial prototypes should be down-and-dirty, skeletal versions of a game. Don’t design beautiful illustrated playing cards – just grab some index cards and handwrite what you need. Perhaps later on you’ll end up with a beautiful looking game, but at first, keep things fast and loose so that you can quickly try out different ideas.

Sidebar: the pitfalls of playtesting

Just so that I don’t come off as too fundamentalist about playtesting and iteration, I want to be sure and acknowledge that iteration is not a cure-all for every designer and every game, and that it can be dangerous to playtest your design uncritically.

At the Different Games conference in New York City last year, I saw a great talk by game designer Mattie Brice who presented a corrective to the idea of playtesting. Her point was that playtesting can sometimes dilute the personal, expressive quirkiness of a game design – that if you playtest with outsiders, and create a game to please them instead of yourself, you could end up killing what is most unique about your game.

This is a very valid point. It’s important to be critical of playtesting, and of the reactions your playtesters might have to your game. Like any design concept or methodological tool, playtesting is not universally valid or true, and there are many ways to playtest well or poorly.

New rules for an old game

I like to get my students making something as quickly as possible – even during the first class. Because creating a game from scratch is often a daunting challenge, one way to kickstart the design process is to give designers an exercise where they are modifying an existing game, rather than making a new one.

The Tic-Tac-Toe exercise usually takes place during the very first class meeting. It serves as a good introduction to understanding game rules, as well as an “icebreaker” design activity.

MODIFYING TIC-TAC-TOE

in-class exercise

Summary

Analyze Tic-Tac-Toe and then redesign the game by changing a few rules.

Goals

understanding how changing game rules changes the system of a game

introduction to the iterative process

icebreaker game design exercise

Before the exercise

Through class discussion, make a general list of the rules of Tic-Tac-Toe. For example:

1. play takes places on a 3×3 grid

2. two players alternate turns placing an X or an O in an empty square

3. three of the same symbols in a row wins

4. if no one can play, the game ends in a draw

Then discuss why Tic-Tac-Toe always ends in a draw for most players. Have the class brainstorm what they might modify in order to change the game: the grid size and shape, the number of players, the winning conditions, the things you can do on a turn, etc.

Modify!

Pairs of students try to redesign the game in order to increase the space of possibility of the game – to make it more interesting to play than the “solved problem” of classic Tic-Tac-Toe.

As they design, have them change as little as possible – one, two, or three rules at the most. They should follow the iterative process of making small changes, playing their modified version, analyzing how they affected the game, and then redesigning again.

Finally, groups can share their modifications with the class, and what did and didn’t work. If there are too many groups for everyone to share, then pairs of groups can play each others’ games and discuss.

At this point, I’ve seen my students create hundreds of variations of Tic-Tac-Toe. My favorite was an exceptionally elegant variation where nothing was changed – except the winning condition. If you got 3-in-a-row, you lost. Playing this version of Tic-Tac-Toe means trying to force your opponent to make what we normally consider a “winning move.” As a minimal rule-change that turns the “solved” game of Tic-Tac-Toe into a brain-twisting puzzle, I loved that modification.

Further Reading

For a great case study on iterative design, I often have my students read The Design Evolution of Magic: The Gathering, an essay by Richard Garfield that appears in The Rules of Play Reader, an anthology I co-edited with Katie Salen.

I also wrote a chapter in Brenda Laurel’s book Design Research about the iterative design process called Play as Research: The Iterative Design Process which is available to read at ericzimmerman.com.

The Tic-Tac-Toe exercise is directly inspired by one of my game design heroes, Bernie DeKoven. In his classic game design book The Well-Played Game, there is a whole chapter devoted to modifying games, including Tic-Tac-Toe. MIT Press just published a new edition of the book. (Full disclosure: the new edition’s *awesomely brilliant* foreword was written by me.)(source:gamasutra)