作者：Warren Spector

早在1997年或1998年的时候，我们Ion Storm奥斯汀团队刚开始着手开发《杀出重围》。团队中有不少人认为我们应该制作一款类似Ultima Underworld风格，以不久的将来为背景的角色扮演游戏，团队中也有相当数量的人问道：“为什么我们不制作一款射击游戏？”你所需做的一切就是考虑最终结果，因为我和团队中的小部分（但却是正确的）成员并不想制作这两种游戏。

如果游戏总监和制作人的关键职责就是确保整个团队朝同一个方向前进，在数年的开发过程中都不偏离轨道。为此，我撰写了一系列规则，“杀出重围的角色扮演规则”。

以下就是该规则列表，描述了游戏的宗旨：

1.总是呈现目标——应该让玩家在能够实现或者解释目标之前，总能够看到自己的下一个目标（或者遇到一个有趣的神秘事件）。

2.呈现问题而非困惑——这是一个障碍训练场，而不是拼图游戏。应该让游戏情境具有逻辑感，不要让解决方法建立于玩家对设计师的读心术之上。

3.多种解决方法——应该允许玩家以多种方法越过游戏障碍。永远不要事先计划，或是从玩家技能互动和模拟过程中自然冒出“这就是玩家执行X操作的地方”这类解说任务或任务情形的描述。

4.不要迫使玩家失败——失败并不好玩。在无意识状态下被击倒，并在一个陌生的地方醒来，或者说发现自己置身于一堆死尸中，手里还握着一杆正在冒烟的枪，这可能会是很酷的故事元素，但让玩家无法作出回应的情形却很糟糕。要谨用强迫失败的方法推进故事发展，千万不要滥用这一技巧。

5.尊重角色的选择——角色扮演是指玩家以多种方式（并不局限于战斗、交谈）同其他角色互动。这里的互动方式应该由玩家而非设计师来选择。

6.玩家做事，NPC围观——让玩家来观看NPC做事一点也不好玩。如果这件事情很有趣，就要让玩家来做。如果是很无趣和无聊的事情，那就不要让玩家动手了——让NPC来做就行了。

7.游戏越难，玩家就越聪明——确保游戏难度要随着玩家对界面的精通和游戏世界的熟悉而逐步上升。确保奖励能够让玩家在难度逐渐上升的游戏中变得更强大。永远不要将玩家置于其技能和智能都无法攻克的困难处境。

8.鼓励玩家——以随机奖励驱使玩家前进。确保游戏经常给予玩家奖励，但这种奖励要具有不可预测性。确保随着游戏发展，奖励越来越有份量，挑战也越来越有难度。

9.考虑3D技术——实际的3D关卡无法在纸质图表上展现。纸质地图也许是个不错的起点（但也仅限于一些特定的情况）。3D游戏地图必须从头到尾考虑到玩家的想法和行动。如果玩家在游戏中并不需要到处搜查，那就只需要制作2D游戏。

10.考虑连接状态——3D游戏世界中的地图以庞大的互联状态为特色。直接从A点到B点的渠道很糟糕：拥有大量入口和退出点的环路（水平和垂直）和地区是个不错的选择。

我们只要通过评估一个地图或游戏情况是否符合这所有的标准，就可以创造出多数游戏（至少一款《杀出重围》游戏！）——记住要符合以上所有标准，而不只是其中一些准则！我们是在尚未编写一行代码、完成一项美术设计、或创造一个关卡之前就拟定了这些标准。

但是在开发过程中，主设计师Harvey Smith建议为原来的列表添加一些附录。与平常一样，Harvey提出了一些很棒的想法。我认为他的附录很强大，也非常“杀出重围化”，所以它们就成了我们的部分决策筛选器。

以下就是Harvey添加的准则：

*所有任务、地点和问题都应该特别针对于：技能（以及技能级别）、增强（以及增强水平）、对象、武器。

*玩法要依赖一系列不同的工具而不局限于一项工具：角色属性（技能/增强），资源管理、战斗、角色互动。

*战斗不可局限于“我的库存中最大的是哪杆枪？”这种思维：更重要的问题应该是“我该如何对付这些智能而危险的敌人？”

*利用几何结构促进玩法：只要有可能，就要在玩家到达之前向其显示一个目标或目的地。这会鼓励玩家找到路径。该路径应该包含玩家所渴望的东西，或者应该迫使玩家穿过自己想避开的区域（但不可滥用这一方法）。确保玩家有多条到达目的地的路径。若非战术上的意义，要尽量避免玩家走向死胡同。

*整体基调和气氛应该明确而一致：恐惧、妄想、紧张、放松（通过战斗或实现一个既定的目标，或者与NPC进行对话来实现）。

我们所做的每个决定都要经过这些项目动工之前就确定的准则来筛选。这个规则列表以及附录为《杀出重围》指引了方向，并有助于确保我们所有人都在从概念到发布游戏的三年左右开发时间中保持正轨。

你会问，为什么我要把这些都告诉你？我想让每款游戏都遵从《杀出重围》所设定的准则吗？当然不是。坦白说，我并不在乎每款游戏是否都会遵从这些规则——这意味着我想玩更多游戏，但我知道这并不现实，可能除了我之外，对其他人也并不适用。

我所知道的是，设定一些规则的确对你推销游戏理念，或者投入数月乃至数年开发时间之前所做的决策很有帮助。

这些规则必须与你的团队相关，并且必须向那些向你的团队投资的人明确这些规则，它们对玩家来说也许最为关键（虽然表现方式并不那么明显）。这种设计诫律就是你的指南针，你的导航星，以及所有问题的答案——甚至是那些从未提到的问题。

若不考虑游戏范围、题材、发布系统或商业期望等要素时，这些诫律的持续可行性又让我开始思考是否可以经常将其再度提升一个层次？我们能否探讨其他游戏，甚至是整个游戏行业的诫律？

说实话，我并不确定这种普遍性的诫律是否可行，是不是一个好主意，但从上文的内容来看这似乎并无不妥。以下是我总结出的一些看法：

1.放弃你的预言

我并不了解你，并且对我们行业当前的复杂形势以及游戏媒体的状态感到困惑。我在过去两三年中曾反复强调，游戏中最棒的事情就是一切都发生在游戏之中。

缺乏明确的重心是一个公司的噩梦，我认为只有两种方法可以从这些麻烦的梦魇中醒过来：首先，确定哪个现象代表未来的游戏趋势，并进行全垒打，祈祷自己走对了方向；其次，要下好赌注，清楚没有什么万无一失的选项，只存在大量的可能性。

鉴于专家预言的历史情况，我认为从运营角度来看，后面一种才是幸存下来并获得成功的唯一选择。

2.找到自己的激情

商务人士可能要下好赌注，但创意人士却一定不能如此行事。这是一个“你不应该做的事”，它对我意义重大，对任何游戏开发者亦是如此。

如果你对自己的工作没有激情——无论你的工作是监督游戏，发布游戏，销售游戏，测试游戏，还是校正文本，你又怎么能指望玩家会对你的作品充满激情呢？

无论你在项目中的头衔、经验程度或发挥作用如何，无论你是程序员、美术人员、设计师、营销人员，你都可以找到自己兴奋的东西，无需让游戏核心愿景妥协并让项目更出色的方法。这样，你就可以确保玩家感受到你在游戏中投入的热情，并自己体会到游戏的神奇之处。

3.了解游戏的背景、虚拟角色、机制和动词

这里我们将背景、虚拟角色、机制（游戏邦注：即Setting，Avatar，Mechanics）简写为SAM，这三者的比例甚为关键，几乎每款游戏都有一个SAM比率。

这三者都处于滑动条上，不存在一者处于一个极端，而另一者却处于一个任意的“最大”极端中。

背景、虚拟角色是相当明确的元素，正如在多数媒体一样，它们可能有一些作用，也可能并不重要。换句话说，你有可能制作一款无背景和玩家角色的游戏。但却不可能制作出一款SAM比率为0：0：X的游戏。

这里的“X”指的就是机制。任何一款游戏都不可能没有机制。游戏设计和开发必须从核心机制入手。机制正是游戏区别于其他媒体的一个关键元素。所以这里的X数值必须大于1。

我们可以用多种方式来讨论，但最简单的方法就是以“动词”形式来考虑机制。游戏与操作，而非观看或沉思的游戏。如果你想告知人们一些事情，不妨写书或拍电影。游戏是对话——而对话要求双方都要一起发言。对话也存在规则，制作游戏就要遵从这些规则。

4.提出正确的问题

我想多数人看到这个标题时会纳闷我究竟在说什么，或者误解我所说的内容。

我认为每款游戏都是一个令玩家思考一些特殊问题的媒介。但你得让玩家以一种非常特殊的方式来思考。因此我将游戏视为“提问媒体”。

线性媒体——电影、电视、书籍等都会陈述。它们是独白。你体验和理解的只是作者或创意团队提供的内容。

而游戏却会提问。游戏从提出概念到发布阶段都一直是对话。每个游戏环节、挑战、问题、任务或支线元素都会问你“这会提出什么让玩家思考的问题，并通过他们的选择或行动作出回答？”如果是你在回答问题或者无法清晰地表达问题，那就要重要考虑游戏环节或整款游戏的设计了。

5.制定Act 2计划

这是一个主要针对叙事媒介的诫律。但鉴于我们对叙事定义的广泛性，与之相关解决方法的问题和规则也适用于更广泛的游戏类型。

很显然，游戏能够讲述故事。所以让我们假设亚里士多德提出的理论也适用于我们。同意吗？好，让我们开始谈谈亚里士多德并没有提到的一个叙事问题——也是其他媒体没有解决而我们必须解决的问题，我将其称为Act 2问题。

我们会设置一个故事（Act 1），并且很擅长结束故事（Act 3）。我们的收尾足够圆满。我们的起点和终占相当线性和简洁。

但Act 2呢？这部分定义英雄的问题的故事哪去了？这一部分我们却并不是很擅长。我认为我们在此出现麻烦的原因很简单——时间问题。

我一直无法理解为何玩家希望游戏能够填满他们15到100小时的生命。在这一点上其他媒体与游戏不同。即使是简短的游戏，从用户的时间投入来看，也是一般电视剧的等价物。想想一下，一款游戏就几乎等同于一整部电视剧了。

游戏是一个必须能够充实时间的媒体。所以我们将英雄引向Act 2时，就要让他们能够在此延续5……10……50……甚至100小时。

除非你制作的是极为简短的游戏（这意味着免费或者低价游戏），你最好还是在如何处理Act 2上多下点功夫。

其他看法？

我希望你们告诉我自己对《杀出重围》这些规则和诫律的看法，你们制作游戏时又会采用什么规则呢？（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）

Warren Spector’s Commandments of Game Design

By Warren Spector

The veteran looks at his old list of rules for Deus Ex and asks if there’s a set of rules games can all adhere to

Back in the day – that’d be sometime in 1997 or, maybe, 1998 – we, the Ion Storm Austin team and I, were just getting started on the development of Deus Ex. There were plenty of people on the team who thought we should make an Ultima Underworld-style roleplaying game set in a near future setting and probably an equal number who asked, “Why don’t we just make a shooter?” All you need to do is consider the end result, as neither of those was what I, and a small (but correct!) group, wanted to do.

If the game director and producer have just one job that matters it’s to ensure that the entire team heads in a single direction, staying on course throughout the years-long development process. To that end, I drafted a set of rules, “The Deus Ex Rules of Roleplaying.”

Here’s the list of rules, the mission statement for the game:

Always Show the Goal – Players should see their next goal (or encounter an intriguing mystery) before they can achieve (or explain) it.

Problems not Puzzles – It’s an obstacle course, not a jigsaw puzzle. Game situations should make logical sense and solutions should never depend on reading the designer’s mind.

Multiple solutions – There should always be more than one way to get past a game obstacle. Always. Whether preplanned (weak!), or natural, growing out of the interaction of player abilities and simulation (better!) never say the words, “This is where the player does X” about a mission or situation within a mission.

No Forced Failure – Failure isn’t fun. Getting knocked unconscious and waking up in a strange place or finding yourself standing over dead bodies while holding a smoking gun can be cool story elements, but situations the player has no chance to react to are bad. Use forced failure sparingly, to drive the story forward but don’t overuse this technique!

It’s the Characters, Stupid – Roleplaying is about interacting with other characters in a variety of ways (not just combat… not just conversation…). The choice of interaction style should always be the player’s, not the designer’s.

Players Do; NPCs Watch – It’s no fun to watch an NPC do something cool. If it’s a cool thing, let the player do it. If it’s a boring or mundane thing, don’t even let the player think about it – let an NPC do it.

Games Get Harder, Players Get Smarter – Make sure game difficulty escalates as players become more accustomed to the interface and more familiar with the game world. Make sure player rewards make players more powerful as the game goes on and becomes more difficult. Never throw players into a situation their skills and smarts make frustratingly difficult to overcome.

Pat Your Player on the Back – Random rewards drive players onward. Make sure you reward players regularly and frequently, but unpredictably. And make sure the rewards get more impressive as the game goes on and challenges become more difficult.

Think 3D – An effective 3D level cannot be laid out on graph paper. Paper maps may be a good starting point (though even that’s under limited circumstances). A 3D game map must take into account things over the player’s head and under the player’s feet. If there’s no need to look up and down – constantly – make a 2D game!
Think Interconnected – Maps in a 3D game world feature massive interconnectivity. Tunnels that go direct from Point A to Point B are bad; loops (horizontal and vertical) and areas with multiple entrance and exit points are good.

That was it – we could build most of a game (at least a Deus Ex game!) simply by assessing whether a map or game situation met all of these criteria – and it WAS all of them, not some! Still, these rules were created before we ever wrote a line of code, created a piece of art, recorded a sound or built a level.

However, over the course of development, lead designer Harvey Smith suggested some addenda to the original list. And, as usual, Harvey being a smart guy and all, came up with some great stuff. I thought his addenda were great, and very “Deus Ex-y,” so they became part of our decision-filter.

Here’s Harvey’s list of add-ons to the original commandment set:

All missions, locations and problems will be specifically keyed to: Skills (and skill levels), Augmentations (and augmentation levels), Objects, Weapons

Gameplay will rely on a VARIETY of tools rather than just one – Character Capabilities (Skills/Augmentations), Resource Management, Combat, Character Interaction

Combat will require more thought than “What’s the biggest gun in my inventory?” – A more relevant question might be “How do I deal with this situation involving a few intelligent, dangerous enemies?”

Geometry should contribute to gameplay – Whenever possible, show players a goal or destination before they can get there. This encourages players to find the route. The route should include cool stuff the player wants or should force the player through an area he wants to avoid. (The latter is something we don’t want to do too often.) Make sure there’s more than one way to get to all destinations. Dead ends should be avoided unless tactically significant.

The overall mood and tone will be clear and consistent – Fear, Paranoia, Tension, Release (through combat and/or reaching a predetermined goal or NPC conversation)

Every decision we made was filtered through questions implied by rules established right at the beginning of development. This list of commandments and addenda set a good course for the Deus Ex project and helped ensure that all of us stayed ON that course for the three or so years it took to go from concept to shipping game.

“Games are not about being told things. If you want to tell people things, write a book or make a movie. Games are dialogues – and dialogue requires both parties to take the floor once in a while”

Why, you ask, am I telling you all this? Do I expect every game to adhere to the set of rules we established for Deus Ex? Absolutely not. Well, honestly, I wouldn’t mind if every game followed these rules – that’d mean more games I want to play – but I know that’s not realistic and probably not even desirable to anyone but me.

What I do know is that it’s useful to have some set of rules, of some kind, for any game you pitch or work on before you spend months or years of your life (and someone’s money) working on it.

Those rules, whatever they might be, must be relevant to your team, must be clear to whoever’s giving you your development funds and maybe most important to players (though perhaps not explicitly in the last case). Commandments like these are your compass, your guiding star, the answers to all questions – even those that haven’t asked or been asked yet.

But something came to me as I was thinking about these commandments and their continuing relevance to games regardless of scope, genre, delivery system or commercial expectations. I started thinking about whether I could usefully take the idea of commandments up a level? Could we talk about commandments for other games – in other words, for “Games” with a capital “G” – or even for the Games Industry as a whole?

To be honest, I’m not at all sure such generalizable commandments are possible, or even a good idea, but given the stated purpose of this column, that seems fine. Read what follows as the beginning of a dialogue and not as the end of one and we’ll do just fine.

That out of the way, on with the show…

Throw away your crystal ball

I don’t know about you, but I’m both confused and humbled by the current complexity of our industry and the state of our medium. I’ve said repeatedly over the last two or three years that the coolest thing happening in gaming is that everything is happening in gaming.

That lack of clear focus is a business nightmare and I see only two ways to awaken from troubled sleep – first, decide which “this” represents The Future of Gaming, swing for the fences and pray you’re right or, second hedge your bets, play small ball and assume there’s no one “this” to go after, just a lot of possibilities.

Given the history of expert prediction, I think the hedged bet is the only way to survive and succeed, from a business perspective.

Find your passion

The biz guys may have to hedge their bets, but creative people must not do that. This is a “Thou Shalt Not” that means a lot to me and should mean a lot to any game developer worth his or her salt.

If you’re not passionate about your work – whether your work is directing a game, publishing a game, selling a game, testing a game, proofreading text, whatever – how can you expect players to be passionate about your work?

No matter your title, your level of experience or your role on a project… no matter if you’re a programmer, artist, designer, marketing person, whatever – you can always find something to get excited about, some way you can make your project better without compromising the core vision of the game (and getting yourself fired). In doing so, you can help ensure that players feel the passion you put into the game and experience some magic themselves.

Know your SAM and your Verbs

Know your “SAM?” What the heck does THAT mean? Bet none of you reading this has any idea. (Another time, I’ll write about the ongoing problem caused by the lack of a consistent language for talking about games…)

For me, the “SAM ratio” is critical. Whether you know it or not, nearly every game has one. (Frankly, I bet I could make a case that the qualifying “nearly” in the previous sentence is unnecessary – all games have a SAM…) Anyway, rather than keep you in suspense, here it is:

“SAM” stands for “Setting : Avatar : Mechanics.”

Setting, Avatar and Mechanics are all on sliders, with “none” at one end and an arbitrary “maximum” at the other.

Setting and Avatar are pretty straightforward and, as in most media, they can be of some or no importance. In other words, it’s possible to make a game with no setting or player avatar. In yet other words, you can have a SAM of 0:0:X

But let’s look at that “X” – Mechanics, can’t be taken down to zero in a game. Given that, it seems clear that game design and development must begin with core mechanics. Nothing else differentiates us from other media. “X” has to be > to 1.

“I have never been able to understand why players expect games to fill up 15 to 100 hours of their lives. No other medium is like that… a single game is roughly equivalent to an entire season of television”

Mechanics can be discussed in a variety of ways, but the simplest is to think about them in terms of “verbs.” (And, yes, I know I’m not the first to say this – it’s pretty obvious.) Games are about doing, not watching or thinking. Games are not about being told things. If you want to tell people things, write a book or make a movie. Games are dialogues – and dialogue requires both parties to take the floor once in a while. There are rules for conversation. Follow them when making a game.

Ask the right questions

I suspect most people reading this either have no idea what I’m talking about here, or are misinterpreting what I’m saying.

When I think about games, I think about each game as a vehicle for asking your players to think about something specific. But, more than that, you want players thinking in a very specific way. By that I mean that I think of games as “the questioning medium.”

Linear media – movies, television, books, etc. – make statements. They’re monologues. You experience and interpret only what an author or creative team offers you.

By contrast, games ask questions. Games are dialogues, from pitch to release. For each game moment, challenge, problem, mission or plot element ask yourself, “What question does this ask players to ponder and answer through their choices and/or actions?” If you’re answering questions or not able to articulate a clear enough question, rethink the game moment or (worst case) the entire game.

Have a plan for Act 2

This is a commandment primarily for narrative games. But given how broadly we can define narrative (and, man, do we not have time to get into THAT here), the problem and rules associated with its solution apply to a broader range of games than you might think.

Obviously games can tell stories. So, let’s start from the premise that all that Aristotle stuff applies to us. Agreed? Okay, now let’s talk about the one narrative problem Aristotle didn’t talk about – the one we have to solve that other media don’t. I call it the Act 2 Problem.

We’re fine setting up a story (Act 1). And we’re pretty good at ending one (Act 3). We do denouement well enough. Our beginnings and endings tend to be fairly linear and brief.

But Act 2? The part of the story where, having established the hero’s problem and gotten him up a tree you throw narrative rocks at the poor schmo? That part, we’re not so good at. And we have trouble with that for one simple reason, I think:

Time.

For some reason I have never been able to understand why players expect games to fill up 15 to 100 hours of their lives. No other medium is like that. Even a short game is the equivalent – in commitment of time on the part of the user – with the average television season. Think about that – a single game is roughly equivalent to an entire season of television.

We are a medium that must fill time. So once having gotten the hero up that tree to begin Act 2, we have to keep him or her there for five… ten… fifty… a hundred hours.

Unless you’re making an exceptionally short game (which means giving it away or charging very little), you better know how you’re going to deal with a long second act.

And please think of something more clever than the Fedex quest… the dungeon crawl… the wave after wave of enemies… or the dreaded random monster generator.

Anything else?

Obviously, I hope you’ll tell me what you think about the rules and commandments for Deus Ex and the more general list above.

But as important, what do you think about the need for rules at all? And what are your rules – for the game you’re working on now, a game you want to make someday or for the business and medium as a whole?（source：gamesindustry）