作者：Brandon Sheffield

在拉斯维加斯的DICE大会上，Comcept的首席执行官Keiji Inafune告诉我：“我并不想创造《洛克人》这样的游戏，而是想创造带有《洛克人》精神的游戏。”

回到2013年8月，Inafune成功地在Kickstarter为自己的新游戏《Mighty No.9》募集到了380多万美元的资金。他是第一个转向Kickstarter平台的日本开发者，日本游戏产业经常将众筹当成是软弱的象征，或者是在承认开发者自己没有能力创造出游戏。

Mighty No. 9（from gamasutra）

Inafune谴责了这种看法。他说道：“我一点都不认为这是软弱的标志。我们这么做是因为没有其它方法去执行这一项目，更是因为我们想要获得权利去这么做，如此我们便能够基于这一授权而发展。

他补充道：“从发行商手中获得400万美元并不是什么大问题。而如果你所获得的数目是这一数字的10倍，情况就不同了。我们使用Kickstarter的主要原因是保持对于游戏的所有权，所以这仍是我们的游戏以及粉丝们的游戏。这并不只是一个业务决策。”

这款游戏与《洛克人》具有不少的相似处，不管是boss进程还是角色设计，但Inafune表示这只是因为他知道粉丝们喜欢这些内容。他并不是想重现《洛克人》。他告诉我：“在创造这款游戏时我并未想到Capcom。我并未带有任何敌意也不是想向Capcom传达什么，我只是想着粉丝们想要玩怎样的内容，我的员工们想要怎么做等等。”

他继续说道：“你知道的，自从我离开Capcom之后，我便不曾致力于过去所面对的授权游戏中，如《洛克人》，《鬼武者》和《丧尸围城》。我也将自己与业务内容分割开来，在业务方面我们将获得这样的命令，像‘你必须创造这样的游戏，因为这是真正畅销的东西。’离开Capcom后，我可以创造自己认为粉丝们所喜欢的内容。如果粉丝们想要看到像《洛克人》这样的游戏，我当然也会创造出类似的内容。但我并不是有意想要创造出《洛克人》般的游戏。我并不想刻意摆脱那样的内容，但也不想直接创造出那样的内容。”

Inafune认为自己所创造的所有游戏都具有同一个灵活或感觉。他也希望《Mighty No.9》能够具有同样的新鲜感。

Inafune的设计机制

对于《洛克人》和《Mighty No.9》来说同样重要的一大元素便是boss的设计。boss也是你的道具，所以它们必须经过精心的设计才能满足该目的，尽管这也提供了一种挑战。我想知道，在Inafune的风格中，boss是如何创造出来的？

他说道：“我认为攻击风格是最重要的，即他们如何接触到玩家，以及他们具有何种特殊元素等等。我会在考虑视觉设计和游戏设计前思考这些内容。”

他还说道：“实际上，boss本身就是武器，所以我将他们联系在一起并思考他们是如何影响到其它boss。”Inafune是凭感觉做到这些，先思考哪个boss的武器能够与另一个boss有效地互动。“这是灵活的，即情况有可能发生改变，但通常情况下它将从着眼于所有的boss，其角色以及彼此间的关系开始。”

在这里游戏中最重要的一个互动便是跳跃。如果没有感觉良好（至少是感觉不从的）的跳跃，那么基于平台的游戏便不可能获取成功。比起框架，时间和像素，Inafune更多地是凭感觉去设计跳跃。

他说道：“关于跳跃，我并未太多地关注于帧速。这更多地是关于它所呈现出的感觉，并确保玩家会觉得不错。确保他们不会尝试着在平台边缘跳跃，并因为未跳到目标平台而掉落。这更多地是关于感觉和时间。Inti Creates（游戏邦注：《Mighty No.9》的联合开发商）关于创造这类型游戏更有经验，所以我相信他们能够创造出很棒的跳跃行动。”

Inafune说道：“优秀的动作游戏总是会有许多‘就做吧’的时刻。即使某些情况看起来很奇怪，你也能在通过一个平台后基于一毫秒而跳跃，我会采取玩家友好型方法进行呈现。”

他补充道：“这同样也可以应用于游戏中的其它部分。如果玩家觉得自己好似在撞击敌人，但却并未产生任何破坏力，他们便会受挫。所以不要太过严格，让玩家在某种程度能碰触到敌人。这将让玩家能够获得前进感。”

平台游戏和射击游戏是以精确度而出名，这意味着需要平和摆动空间的玩家友好型时刻与准确的行动。Inafune开玩笑道：“如果一家公司之前并未真正制作过一款动作游戏，并且他们尝试着这么做，那这将会是一个大问题。但对于我来说，当一切的本质是关于感受或精确度时，我将转向我们的员工，不管是在Inti Creates还是在Comcept。他们都已经致力于许多动作游戏，所以我将听取他们的看法，并在做出最后决定前仔细考虑。每当完成一个新的架构，我们便会使用一个道具列表去测试并平衡，并基于反馈而决定最终的方向。”

例如在射击时，按压按键便是最重要的动作。关于速射，Inafune喜欢按下按键而发射子弹的反应性，而不是按键释放后才做出的反应。但是当你在射击时，你按住并释放，所以子弹将基于按键释放而发射。

他说道：“在游戏中你可以装载枪支，将会出现一些不同水平的装载。你希望能从投入中获得更多回报，因为当你按下按键时，你便开始等待某些反应，也就是当你开始射击时你便会开始报以期待。你需要确保玩家需要等待的时间与你所给予的内容是成正比。不能太快也不能太慢。直到你觉得自己不能再坚持按下去为止。”

Inafune并没有特别喜欢的时间设定，但这都是关于期待与释放。不过在自动装载攻击与要求按压按键间他却有自己的偏好。他说道：“当然，按压一个按键更加困难。而自动装载太过被动。如果你拥有一个自动装载机制，它便会一直装载，这是任何人都能做到的，你便不需要为此投入任何努力。而自己动手装载的感觉更好，能够自己决定何时释放并射击敌人。”

他说道：“这就像是在拉斯维加斯，如果你在赌场里赢得了1千美元，那么这种感受将远不如你亲自在老虎机上拉动手柄而赢得1千美元的快感。所以从投入中得到回报真的非常重要。”

（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）

Jumping, shooting, and boss design with Keiji Inafune

By Brandon Sheffield

“I don’t want to make Mega Man,” Comcept head Keiji Inafune tells me at the DICE conference in Las Vegas. “I want to make something with the soul of Mega Man.”

Back in August of 2013, Inafune successfully Kickstarted his new game, Mighty No. 9, to the tune of over $3.8 million. He was one of the first notable Japanese creators to turn to Kickstarter, in a Japanese game industry that often (incorrectly) views crowdfunding as a sign of weakness, or an admission that the developer couldn’t make the game on their own.

Inafune decries this position. “I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness at all,” he says. “We didn’t do it because there was no other way to do this project, it was more because we wanted to have the rights to it, so we could expand upon the franchise.”

“It wouldn’t normally be a problem to get something like $4 million from a publisher,” he adds, referencing the amount of money Mighty No. 9 made. “It’d be a different story if it were 10 times that, of course. The main reason to use Kickstarter is to keep the rights to the game, so it’s our game and the fans’ game. It’s not just a business decision.”

The game bears no small resemblance to Mega Man, from the boss progression to the character designs, but Inafune says this is really just because he knows the fans want it. He’s not trying to reclaim Mega Man, necessarily. “I didn’t think about Capcom when making this campaign,” he told me. “I have no feelings of hatred, and I’m not trying to send a message to Capcom, it’s more that I’m thinking about what the fans want to play, and what my staff wants to do.”

“You know, since I left Capcom, I can’t work on the franchises I led in the past, like Mega Man, Onimusha, and Dead Rising,” he adds. “I’ve also separated myself from the business only side of things, where they’d give orders like ‘you have to make this sort of game because this is what’s selling.’ Separating from Capcom, I can make what I think the fans really want. If the fans want games sort of like Mega Man, I have no problem making a game with some similarities. But I have no intention at all of making just Mega Man. I don’t want to get away from that necessarily, but I don’t want to exactly make just that, either.”

Inafune feels that all the games he’s worked on, like the franchises mentioned above, have the same soul, or feeling to them. Mighty No. 9 will have that same kind of fresh feeling too, he hopes.

The mechanics of Inafune’s design

One element that’s important to both Mega Man and Mighty No. 9 is the design of the bosses. The bosses are essentially also your powerups, so they must be carefully constructed to fit that purpose, while also providing a challenge. I wondered, how does one go about creating a boss in the Inafune style?

“I guess the attack style is most important, and how they get involved with the player, as well as whatever special elements they may have,” he says. “I think of those things before I consider the visual design and the game design.

“The bosses are in effect, weapons themselves, so I line them up and think about how they’ll affect the other bosses,” he says. Inafune does this mostly by feel, thinking first about which boss’ weapon he thinks might interact well with another boss. “It’s flexible, and things may change, but generally it starts with looking at all the bosses and what their role is, in relation to each other.”

One of the most important interactions in a game like this is the jump. Without a good-feeling (or at least appropriate-feeling) jump, a game with platforms can’t succeed. Inafune, it turns out, designs his jumps more by feel than by frames, milliseconds, and pixels.

“With jumps, I don’t pay attention to the framerate that much,” he says. “It’s more about how it feels, and making sure it feels good to the player. Making sure they don’t try to jump at the edge of a platform, and falling off because the jump didn’t register. It’s more about the feeling and the timing. Inti Creates (the co-developer of Mighty No. 9) has had a lot of experience with this sort of game, and I don’t doubt they’ll be able to make a good jump action.”

“Good action games have a lot of ‘just made it’ sort of moments,” Inafune says. “And even if, for example, it looked weird that you were able to jump a millisecond after you passed a platform, I’d take that player-friendly approach over how it looks.”

“That also applies in other parts of the games,” he adds. “If the player looks like they’re sort of hitting an enemy, but damage doesn’t register, that doesn’t feel good. So we’ll make it less strict so they can touch the enemy to an extent. It’ll allow the player to get the possible feeling of progress.”

Platform and shooting games are known for their precision, though, which means balancing those player-friendly moments of wiggle room with precise action. “If a company hasn’t really done action games before, and they tried to do this, it’d be a big problem,” Inafune jokes. “But for us, when it comes down to going with the feeling or the precision, generally I’ll go to the staff, in Inti Creates and Comcept as well. They’ve all worked on a lot of action titles, so I’ll listen to their opinions, and consider those before making a final decision. Every time a new build is created, we have a checklist of items to test and balance, and based on these checks the feedback will determine which direction you’d go.”

Button presses, for example when firing, are also of paramount importance. For rapid fire, Inafune likes the responsiveness of firing a bullet on the press of the button, rather than when the button is released. But when charging a shot, you hold and release, so the bullet comes out upon button release.

“In games [in which] you can charge the gun, there’d often be several levels of charge,” he says. “You want as much return as you put in, because when you’re holding down the button you’re waiting for something, and you sort of have to anticipate when you’re going to shoot. You need to give the player as much return as you can get from the time they have to wait. It can’t be too fast or too slow. It’s sort of until you feel like you can’t hold onto it anymore.”

There’s no particular timing that Inafune prefers, but it’s all about anticipation and release. He does, though, have a preference between auto-charged attacks and those where you push a button. “It’s harder to hold a button, of course,” he says. “Autocharge is too passive. If you have an autocharge, it’s always charging, so anyone can do it, and you don’t need to put any effort into it in. It feels better when you charge yourself, and release that and hit the enemy.”

“It’s like here in Las Vegas,” he says. “If you go and win $1,000 at a casino, it’s not as important as the $1,000 you get if you’d actually pulled the crank yourself on the slot machine. It’s really important that you get out what you put in.”(source:gamasutra)