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如何为电子游戏编写一则杰出的故事(2)

发布时间:2014-04-23 11:31:55 Tags:,,,

作者:Winston

在本文中,我们将贯穿更加理论化的分析,节奏,象征主义和锚定等等,我也将引导你们了解一些故事编写实践,这是每位作者的工具包中都必不可少的元素。让我们开始吧:

之前的文章中(确保你在阅读这部分前了解了之前的内容),我讨论了使用主题去创造故事的意义。每一位作者都应该掌握这一方面的写作,他们也应该能够分析任何特定故事的主题。这在中学的英语中是个重要的主题,但当时我却彻底栽在这上面,因为老师从未有效地教授我们这些内容。所以以下是帮助你分析一个故事的主题一种简单的实践:

writing your own story(from calendar.azwestern)

writing your own story(from calendar.azwestern)

1.选择你最喜欢的故事(可能是来自一本小说,一部电影甚至是一款游戏)。

2.检查开始和结尾。注意有时候电影是从一个次要情节开始,之后才会出现主要情节。在这种情况下,你变可以检查两种清洁。

3.列出所发生的主题变化,例如憎恨变成喜欢,不公平变成公平,或者变成死去。然后为此编写相对应的主题陈述。

4.明确为了组成故事的意义,这些主题是如何结合在一起的。每个人都会拥有不同的看法,但是你的看法是最重要的。

5.(可选择的)在评论中写下你关于这一实践的答案。你也可以评论别人的答案(但不要太过激昂)。

你也许会问这一实践的要点是什么?除了能够完善你的分析能力外,你也能够重新感受(或重新阅读)你最喜欢的电影/游戏/书籍,并领会作曲家是如何巧妙地通过故事传达这些主题。你将能够为自己选择技巧,并获得灵感去写下带有类似主题的故事。

因为故事是围绕着主题发展,那这是否意味着你应该将其作为故事的起点呢?不幸的是,事情并没有这么简单。你当然可以使用来自自己最喜欢的电影/小说/游戏的主题并对其进行适当的调整,但通常情况下,从头开始创造故事意义的确是一件烦人的任务。所以作者们该怎么做?他们可以开始编写自己的故事,而一旦他们写了故事的开始和结尾,他们便会发现这是一个关于什么的故事。在那之后,作者必须从头开始重新优化故事以适应主题。好消息是:故事的结尾通常是被当成前期编写的内容。我将在之后对此进行分析,不过在此之前你需要了解更多相关主题的内容。

创造多样性

新手最常犯的错误便是他们会觉得“我将围绕着诚实的主题编写一个故事。”然后他们编写了只从正面角度传达的诚实,如如果你足够诚实,好运便会降临在你身上之类。这便是所谓的静态主题,如果观众长时间地体验到同样的情感,那么习惯性便会涌现出来。习惯性是心理学中的一个术语,意味着反复受到某些事物的影响而逐渐不能做出回应。过分显露出幸福的情感将导致玩家在面对这种感受时变得更加平淡。

主题应该在整个故事中不断受到挑战:“如果你在这种情况下表现出诚实,事情会变成怎样?”“当某种情况发生时你表现得不够诚实是否合理?”要记得,不管你的故事所传达的是什么信息,这都依赖于结局。如果它是完满的结局,你便可以基于正面视角去传达诚实,反之亦然。故事也可以是伴随着正面与负面的结合而结束,那么在这种情况下,它便能够同时描绘出诚实的正面与负面。

需要注意的是主题可以结合着一起出现,例如幸福可以伴随着友谊出现。习惯性的出现不只是针对于主题,同时也有可能因为节奏,行动以及对话的数量。总是强调高节奏的电影将会慢慢失去其效能,所以它应该适时地强调较慢的时刻。行动和对话也是如此,如果你的故事有时候没有对话,而你为了形成反差在其它场景中添加了对话,那么突然间角色的言语将会变得异常珍贵。

作为一名游戏设计师,你不仅需要考虑场景的发展节奏,同时也需要考虑游戏玩法的节奏。在《Persona 3》和《Persona 4》中,较慢的生活模拟机制总是能够够与紧张的战斗机制形成鲜明的对比。但情况并非始终如此,就像有时候当你花太多时间于模拟元素中,但却发现故事线中未出现任何有趣的内容。玩家经常会在这种时候觉得无聊。也许ATLUS应该识别出这种情况并在模拟元素期间包含以下更快节奏的内容。

最后,在我结束这部分前,让我们最后一次强调,主题与游戏设计具有巨大的联系。Schaglund曾经与我聊过主题,他说道:基于主题而非游戏线去考虑游戏设计非常有帮助,如此你便能够创造适合这些主题的机制。《时空幻境》中的“倒带”便是一个典型的例子,它能够辅助谅解的主题。《Persona 3》和《Persona 4》的社交联系机制也能够帮助描述友谊这个主题(游戏邦注:当你要获得更多社交联系时,你的能量便会变得越强大)。这遵循着机制–动态–没学(MDA)框架,即机制创造了能够生成没学的动态。

接下来让我们谈谈一个全新的话题:

象征主义

为了解释象征主义,我要简单地说下一个名为经典性条件反射的心理学科。有个名为Little Albert的知名实验,即名为“Albert”(并不是他的真名)将看到一些白色毛皮小动物。一开始,Albert并不害怕这些动物,但是接下来,当他再次看到这些毛茸茸的动物时是伴随着一个巨大的敲击声,从而让这个小孩产生恐惧。这两种情况反复出现着,Albert最终停留在对这种毛茸茸的动物的恐惧中。这时候,当眼前出现的是一只毛茸茸的兔子或老鼠时,他便会开始哭喊。

这一研究充满争议。但是也多亏了这一实验,我们能够对如何适当地使用象征主义提供一些基础:通过将一些刺激元素与特定的结果(可能是好的或者坏的)进行配对,我们可以从观众身上唤醒一些情感。然而,我们必须牢记住4件事:

1.为了确保有效性而需要多次配对。你不能在自己的故事中只是将蝴蝶与“危险”或“自由”进行一次配对,并期待着下次当你呈现蝴蝶时便能发挥作用。配对必须多次出现,并且通常是在观众未注意到的情况下。

2.我们已经在日常生活中习惯了某些事物,所以不需要在你的故事中再次去适应它们。例如,糖果=甜,烟=危险,蜘蛛=害怕等等。

3,不要尝试一些遥不可及的内容,例如将棒棒糖与枪战(危险)匹配在一起。此类的内容永远不可能发挥作用,因为远比想象中复杂。然而你却可以将棒棒糖与甜之外的其它内容匹配在一起,例如毒药/疾病。

4.象征主义的出现必须是自然的,或者不能让观众察觉到它。只要象征是用于一个自然环境中,它便无需躲避观众的意识。

最后,我想说的是象征主义的对象不需要是100%一样,但却必须足够相似。就像你可以使用不同颜色的蝴蝶去取代同一种蝴蝶,只要观众不会意识到奇怪之处你便能够继续下去,

有时候分析象征主义会很痛苦,所以我不会要求你这么做。如果你好奇的话,可以在空闲的时候基于自己最喜欢的电影进行尝试。

锚定

这是我在编写故事时最喜欢使用的一种技巧,实际上是我朋友想出“锚定”这一词,所以我不确定你是否能在网上找到它。从根本上来看它意味着:在故事线早期包含某些内容,它会在之后变得更加重要且更有意义。就像在《去月球》中,知兔子,玩具鸭嘴兽,甚至是Johnny前往月球的最后愿望在你刚开始玩游戏时都没什么意义。实际上,这真的很神秘,并且能够有效地让玩家沉浸于其中。然而当你在故事中前进时,所有的一切将慢慢得到解释,同时也会出现更多秘密。直到最后,即一切真相大白时,这将变成故事的转折点。

这是具有才能的作者的标志——即使隐瞒重要信息也能够确保观众沉浸于其中,并随着故事的发展慢慢释放出更多信息并创造出更多神秘感。这些时刻创造了故事的转折点,并引起了高潮,即故事最强大且最激动人心的部分。用于引向高潮的时刻必须基于较快的节奏,并在高潮后放慢速度。这是否能够让你想起早前的节奏图?如果你曾经受困于编写转折点或高潮,你可以着眼于自己看过的最感人的电影或像《去月球》等游戏,并尝试着模仿它们节奏风格。

我将这一锚定技巧分解成一个较容易使用的格式:

1.当你对自己想写的故事拥有一个非常基本的理念时,开始编写结局,把它当成是最重要的事之一。要记得,作为作者,我们要将最好的留到最后,所以这里存在一个技巧:写下你的故事中可能发生的最糟糕的内容。这将是你的故事最深入且最黑暗的秘密,并且能够用于创造转折点。《星球大战》中“我是你的父亲”的时刻,《Persona 3》中你发现世界将毁灭的时刻,以及《去月球》中Johnny向River承诺再团聚。

lies vs truth(from gamingpoint)

lies vs truth(from gamingpoint)

2.接下来列出这些黑暗的秘密的“副作用”,并决定将哪个包含在自己的故事中。《去月球》中的例子:

副作用:实际上Johnny并不知道自己前往月球的动机是什么,这是归因于他在使用受体阻滞剂。

副作用:实际上River一直在制作那些纸兔子,以此去提醒Johnny他们的第一次见面。

副作用:Johnny的妈妈唤他“Joey”,因为他的兄弟已经死了。

《Persona 3》中的例子:

副作用:在你睡觉时神秘的男孩出现了。

副作用:神秘的地方叫做Tartarus。

副作用:神秘的群组被称为“Strega”。

其实在这两款游戏中不只出现了这些副作用,我并未将其全部罗列出来,但是你需要抓住要点。这些游戏喜欢使用秘密去吸引用户的注意。但你必须小心不要包括太多可能泄露故事秘密的线索。

3.评价这些“秘密”是否是可预测的。如果你认为用户没有多少机会去猜测它是什么,你就应该在故事中包含以下内容将他们带离真相。带给用户惊喜,并提供他们并未猜到的内容。

你可以将这些黑暗秘密当成是微妙的悬吊管,即不需要将故事带离其目的。举个例子来说吧,在《去月球》中,实际上Neil在最后使用了止痛药,实际上当他在与松鼠相抗衡时健康状况并不是很理想。这些都暗示着他正在失去活力,但这在第一章节时并未呈现出来。也许我们将看到Neil作为“一只鸟的故事”中的病人。

顺便一提的是,这并不是编写故事的一种格式,这只是我想要使用的一种方法。并非所有故事都遵循着“锚定”的原则,就像比起秘密还存在其它方式能够确保用户沉浸于游戏中。我只是喜欢提供给用户他们并未想到的内容并通过故事的秘密去刺激他们的理念。

你们必须牢记,实践和努力是成为一名成功的作者的关键。所以使用你今天所学到的内容并亲自去编写一个故事吧。(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

Storytelling in Games: Essential Writing Exercises for Aspiring Writers Part II

by Winston

Greetings everyone! In this post, we’ll be going through more thematic analysis, pacing, symbolism, anchoring and I’ll also guide you through some story writing exercises that are essential to every writer’s toolkit. There’s a lot to go through, so let’s begin:

In my previous post (make sure you’ve read that before you start this section), I discussed about the utilisation of themes to create the story’s meaning. Every writer should master this aspect of writing, and they should be able to analyse the themes of any given story. This was an important topic in high school English, but I utterly failed at it back then, because it was never taught properly. So here’s a simple exercise you can do to analyse the themes of a story (make sure you’ve read my previous post):

1. Pick your favorite story (it can be from a novel, a film or even a game).

2. Examine the beginning and the ending. Note that sometimes a movie begins with a subplot and the main plot begins later on. In this case you can examine both plots.

3. List the theme changes that have occurred e.g. hatred becomes love, injustice becomes justice, life becomes death. Then write the corresponding thematic statements for these.

4. Figure how these themes combine together in order to form the story’s meaning. Everyone will have a different opinion, but yours is what matters.

5. (Optional) Post your answers to this exercise in the comments. Critique other people’s answers if you want (but no flaming of course). I might even barge in the conversation

So what’s the point of this exercise you may ask? Well, apart from improving your analytical abilities, you get to replay (or re-read) your favorite films/games/books and study how the composer masterfully portrays these themes throughout the story. You’ll be able to pick up techniques for yourself and become inspired to write out a story with similar themes.

And since story revolves around themes, does that mean you should go set out and use them as a starting point for your story? Well, unfortunately it isn’t always this easy. You can definitely get away with using themes from your favorite movie/novel/game and slightly adjusting them, but often times, creating the story’s meaning from scratch is a daunting task. So what can writers do instead? They start writing their story and once they’ve wrote the beginning and ending of their story, they can discover what their story is about. After that, a writer must repolish the story from start to finish in order to suit the themes. The good news is: the ending is usually written as one of the first things in a story. I’ll talk more about this later in the post, but first, there’s still some more things you need to know regarding themes.

Creating Diversity

A common mistake I see beginners do is they decide “I’m going to write a story around the theme of honesty.” Then next, they only write scenarios where honesty is portrayed in a positive light e.g. if you’re honest, good things happen to you. That is called static themes, and if the same emotions are experienced by the audience for too long, habituation occurs. Habituation is a term in psychology which means: repeated exposure to something will lead to a decline in response. Too much exposure to the emotion of happiness will cause the player to experience a gradual decline in that feeling.

The theme should constantly be challenged throughout your story: “What would happen if you were honest in this situation… would your parents die?” “Is it okay to NOT be honest when…” Remember, whatever message your story portrays depends on the ending. If it ends on a happy note, then honesty is portrayed in a postive light and vice versa. It can also end with a positive tone with tinges of negativity (or the other way around) and in this case, it portrays both the good and bad of honesty.

Note that themes can occur in conjunction with each other as well, for instance, happiness can be accompanied by friendship. Habituation not only occurs for themes, but also pretty much everything else, including pacing, action and the amount of dialogue. A movie that’s always high paced will begin to lose its effectiveness, so instead, contrast it with slower moments. The same goes for action and dialogue, if your story has moments without dialogue and you contrast it with another scene with dialogue, all of a sudden the character’s words become more precious. I highly recommend you watch this video right now:

As a game designer, not only do you have to take into the account of pacing in scenes, but also during gameplay. In Persona 3 and 4, the slower paced life simulation mechanic is often contrasted with a higher intensity battle mechanic. This wasn’t true 100% of the time, because there were moments when you spent too much time in the simulation aspect without anything interesting happening in the storyline. Players often felt bored during these moments. Perhaps ATLUS should identify these times and include some faster paced moments during the simulation aspect.

And finally, before I wrap this section up, a final note about themes that has huge relevance to game design. Schaglund (a contributor on this site) was talking to me about themes, and he said: it’s useful to think of game design in terms of themes rather than storylines so you can create mechanics which suit these themes. A good example is the ‘rewind’ mechanic in Braid which aids to serve the theme of forgiveness. Another one is the social link mechanic in Persona 3 and 4 help portray the theme of friendship (as you acquire more social links, your powers grow stronger). This follows the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) framework which state that the mechanics create the dynamics which generates the aesthetics. The original paper can be found here: http://210.240.189.214/gamedesign/resources/06_personalweb/2006_web/20/paper/MDA_GameDesign.pdf

Or if you’re lazy, you can just look up a summary on wikipedia. Now, that’s enough about themes for one post, but you get how important they are. Let’s talk about a fresh new topic altogether:

Symbolism

In order to teach symbolism, I’d like to briefly touch on a subject on a psychology subject called classical conditioning. There’s a well known experiment called The Little Albert experiment, where a child called “Albert” (which isn’t his real name by the way) was shown some white furry animals. At first, Albert wasn’t afraid of any of these things, however, he was then shown these furry animals again except this time, they were paired with a loud banging noise, causing the child to cry. This pairing was repeated several times… and eventually Albert had been conditioned to fear these furry animals. When a furry white rabbit or mouse was shown alone without the noise, the child would begin to cry.

The study was highly controversial and it’s not something that can be carried out again nowadays. However, thanks to this experiment, we are provided some groundwork on how to use symbolism properly: by pairing a stimuli with a certain outcome (it can be both good or bad), we can evoke certain emotions from the audience. However, there are four things we have to keep in mind:

1. Several pairings are needed in order for this to be effective. You can’t just pair a butterfly with ‘danger’ or ‘freedom’ just one time in your story and expect it to be effective next time you show a butterfly. The pair must occur many times, and usually without your audience being aware of it.

2. Some objects have been conditioned in our daily lives, so it is not necessary to condition them again in your story. For example, candy + sweetness, smoke + danger, spider + fear and many more.

3. Don’t try anything too farfetched, for example, pairing a lollipop with a gun fight (danger). Something like that would never work because humans are just far more complicated than that. However, it is okay to pair a lollipop with something rather than sweetness, for example, poison/illness.

4. The appearance of symbolism must seem natural, or it must occur without the audience being aware of it. As long as the symbol is used in a natural setting, it doesn’t have to be kept hidden away from the audience’s consciousness, despite what many writers might say.

And finally, I want to say that the objects of symbolism don’t have to be 100% alike, but they must be similar enough. Using butterflies of different colors can substitute for using the same butterfly throughout, but there’s nothing wrong with either, so long as the audience doesn’t recognise the strangeness that’s going on.

Analysing symbolism can be a real pain in the @#&* sometimes so I won’t ask you to do it. You can to do it in your free time with your favorite movie if you’re curious enough. So before I wrap this post up, I’m going to treat you with one last technique in story writing.

Anchoring

This is my favorite technique to use when I’m writing a story… my friend actually came up with the term ‘anchoring’ so I doubt you’ll find it elsewhere on the internet (I don’t know whether it has an official name or not). It basically means: to include things early in the storyline which become more significant and meaningful later. In To the Moon, the paper rabbits, the toy platypus, and even Johnny’s last wish to go to the moon don’t mean much when you start the game. In fact, it’s quite a mystery and it’s what keeps the player engaged. However, as you progress through the story, things get explained gradually whilst more mysteries arise. It’s not until near the end, where everything gets revealed and this becomes the turning point of the story.

This is the sign of a very talented writer – the ability to keep the audience engaged by withholding important information, whilst gradually releasing information and creating more mysteries as the story goes on. These moments build up the turning point of a story, which then results in a climax, the most powerful, exciting part of a story. The moments leading up to the climax must also be at a fast pace, and the moment after the climax slows down. Does this remind you of the pacing graph from earlier? If you ever get stuck with writing the turning point or the climax, look to the most moving films you’ve watched or even games like To the Moon to try imitate their style of pacing.

I’ve broken down this anchoring technique into a very easy to use formula. Now before I share the technique with you, I need a quick favor from you. If you like the technique I’m about to reveal, then please share this article to your friends on Facebook/Twitter. This would mean a lot to me and all the other writers on this blog. So here goes:

1. When you have a very basic idea of the story you’re going to write… start writing the ending as ONE OF THE FIRST things. Remember, as writers, we save the best for last… so here’s the trick: write down the WORST things that can possibly happen in your story. These will be the deep, dark secrets of your story and be used to create the turning points. The “I am your father” moment in Star Wars, the moment you find out that the world is about to end in Persona 3, the part where Johnny promised River to re-unite on the Moon.

2. Next, list down what the ‘side effects’ of these deep dark secrets will be and decide which ones to include in your story. Examples in To the Moon:

Side effect: the fact that Johnny doesn’t know his motivation to go the moon, caused by his use of beta blockers.

Side effect: The fact that River keeps making those paper rabbits, in order to remind Johnny of their first meeting.

Side effect: Johnny’s mother calling him ‘Joey’ since his brother died.

Examples in Persona 3:

Side effect: The mysterious boy that appears during your sleep

Side effect: The mysterious place called Tartarus

Side effect: The mysterious group known as ‘Strega’

There’s plenty more in both games and I won’t list them all, but you get the point. These games like to use mystery to keep the audience engaged. Just be careful to not include too many clues that a will give the secrets of your story away.

3. Assess whether any of these ‘secrets’ can be predicted. If you believe the audience even has a slim chance to guess what it is, then include some things in your story which will stray them away from the truth. Surprise your audience, give them what they don’t expect.

You can even decide to use these dark secrets as subtle cliff hangers which don’t necessary stray the story away from its purpose. For example, in To the Moon, the fact that Neil uses painkillers, the ‘red screen’ at the end, and the fact that he didn’t have full health when he was fighting the squirrel. These things suggest he is dying, but this doesn’t get revealed during the first episode. Maybe we get to see Neil as the patient in “A Bird Story.”

By the way, this is not a formula for story writing, it’s just one that I like to use. Not all stories follow this principle of ‘anchoring’ as there are other ways to keep the audience engaged rather than through mystery alone. I just like the idea of giving the audience what they don’t expect and exciting them with the secrets my story entails.

So… thanks for reading this far! Remember, practise and diligence is the key to becoming a successful writer. So take what you’ve learnt today and put it to good use by writing a story. Remember to share this article on Facebook and Twitter if you want to see us writing more often!(source:gamingpoint)


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