作者：E McNeill

“游戏玩法的目的是为了隐藏秘密。”

我是从去年开始听到这一说法，即在它出现于Arcane Kids的告示中之后。一开始这似乎是在说大话，但当我开始更深入地理解“秘密”这一理念时，我便对这一说法越来越感兴趣。对于我来说，明确一个获胜策略就像找到隐藏的知识一样。基于这种方法来看，丰富的游戏玩法只是一堆秘密，并且发现它们便能够带来乐趣。在设计《Darknet》时我便牢记这一理念，并且到目前为止它一直都很有用。我们可以透过这一镜头看到几乎整款游戏：

不可思议的复杂性

《Darknet》表层故意看起来特别复杂。关卡和谜题是由无数相互作用的对象所组成的。玩家总是需要在许多选择中做出选择。它想要传达的是William Gibson关于网络空间最初描述的“不可思议的复杂性”。

这打破了许多可用性规则，但我认为这适用于网络朋克黑客游戏中。当我在思考为什么黑客会这么酷时，我总是认为黑客能够理解复杂性。电影中所描述的黑客总是被源源不绝的数据流炮轰着，这对于任何正常人来说都是极端复杂的，但尽管如此黑客却能够理解它们并根据自己的目的进行使用。他们会使用这一能力去阻碍其他人。

复杂性匹配主题，但我并不想要设计一款基于机制复杂性的游戏。这是《Darknet》的第一个“秘密”：在复杂的外表下，游戏的规则其实非常简单。虽然看起来很难，但实际上却很容易学习并能够有效地开始游戏（游戏邦注：这与电影不同，即在电影中图像总是会意味着某些内容）。甚至是初学者也能够看透复杂性的外表，并参透自己所看到的一切，就像巫师一般。

动态

我希望《Darknet》的游戏玩法具有易用性，但我同时也希望它具有深度，所以简单的规则只是其中的一半。其它成分便是来自机制的丰富动态。

就像我之前说的，隐藏于大多数策略游戏中的“秘密”是对于系统以及潜在获胜策略的理解，《Darknet》也不是例外。这是一个奇怪的三明治结构：机制的简单性被视觉效果的复杂性所遮掩，一些有能力看懂游戏吓人的图像的新玩家可能会认为他们已经完全理解了，但这是在游戏开始添加挑战到不可能的关卡前不久。为了进一步前进，我们需要对动态做出特别的理解，而深入系统并发现如何获胜的过程便是游戏的独特乐趣。

Spelunky(from xbox)

这并不是什么新理念；这只是一个技能上限，你可以在许多优秀的游戏中找到它。举个例子来说吧，我是一个忠实的《洞穴探险》玩家，但与著名的Spelunker Bananasaurus Rex相比较我真的什么都不是，我只会对它所做的任何不可思议的事表示惊讶。当我看到专业的《魔兽争霸》或《星际争霸》的玩家时我也会有这样的感受，我希望我的玩家在看到专业的《Darknet》玩家时也会如此。大部分玩家可能会像巫师或新手，但专家看起来可能会是所有人的向导。我认为这是具有深度的游戏的标识，我希望能够通过《Darknet》唤醒玩家的这种感觉。

难懂的机制

除了机制和策略外，《Darknet》中还有更深入的秘密。与我之前描述的广义“秘密”不同的是，这些并不是忠实玩家想要在游戏过程中发现的内容。它们更像是被置于整个玩家社区中的谜语。

例如，你可能会看到一个独立的UI面板寻求一个密码，并未预示如何找到适当的字母顺序。或者你可能会看到一个没有明显意义的疯狂数据效果。也许这只是一种装饰。但我花了许多时间去执行能够提供给想要找出答案的玩家优势的隐藏机制。（或者更有可能的是那些不想在前面几个玩家写了游戏攻略后在网上阅读它们的玩家。）

这些隐藏的机制主要有2个目的。首先，它们添加了另外一个秘密层，提高了游戏的技能上限，并发展了真正专业玩家的声誉。其次，它们在游戏中添加了神秘的光环。我计划谨慎地对待我所要揭示的宝藏的数量。尽管我已经投入了许多精力于这些功能中，我仍觉得如果玩家永远都找不到其中的某些功能的话我便会非常高兴。我希望玩家觉得，也许游戏中存在某些自己永远都不可能找到的东西。

也许兔子洞该挖得更深？但我认为永远都不知道问题的答案具有无穷的乐趣。

（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）

Hiding Secrets

by E McNeill

“The purpose of gameplay is to hide secrets.”

I started hearing that phrase thrown around last year, after it was posted on the Arcane Kids manifesto. It seemed like an overstatement at first, but it grew on me once I started to interpret the idea of “secrets” more broadly. Figuring out a winning strategy feels, to me, like discovering hidden knowledge. Viewed that way, rich gameplay is just a big pile of secrets, and uncovering them is a delight. I’ve taken this idea to heart when designing Darknet, and it’s proven useful so far. Almost the entire game can be viewed through this lens:

Unthinkable Complexity

The surface layer of Darknet is meant to look extremely complex. The levels and puzzles are enormous webs of hundreds of objects that are all interacting with each other. The player often has to choose between dozens or hundreds of options. It’s meant to convey the “unthinkable complexity” of William Gibson’s original description of cyberspace.

This breaks a lot of rules of usability, but I think it works well for a cyberpunk hacking game. When I think about what makes hacking so cool (at least the Hollywood idea of hacking), I always land on the fact that the hacker can understand complexity. Movies depict hackers being bombarded by endless streams of data, which looks impossibly complex to any normal person, but somehow the hackers can read it all and use it toward their own ends. They wield a power that baffles everyone else.

Complexity fits the theme, but I don’t actually want to design a game that’s mechanically complex. This is the first “secret” of Darknet: underneath the complicated surface, the rules of the game are downright simple. It looks like a lot is going on, but it’s actually pretty easy to learn and to start playing effectively (and unlike in the movies, the graphics actually mean something). Even newbies will be able to see through the veneer of complexity, act intelligently on what they see, and look like a wizard in the eyes of those who have never played.

Dynamics

I want Darknet’s gameplay to be accessible, but I also want it to have a lot of depth, so simple rules are only half of the recipe. The other ingredient is the rich dynamics that emerge from the mechanics.

As I said above, the “secret” that’s hidden in most strategy games is an understanding of the systems and the potential winning strategies, and Darknet is no exception. It’s a weird sort of sandwich structure: the simplicity of the mechanics is masked by the complexity of the visuals, but if you go one layer deeper, you find that the simple mechanics are themselves masking the complexity of the dynamics. A newer player, freshly armed with the ability to read the game’s intimidating graphics, might assume that they’ve figured it all out, but it isn’t long before the game starts ramping up the challenge to impossible levels. It takes an exceptional understanding of the dynamics to progress further, and the process of delving into the systems and discovering how to win is a unique joy of games.

This isn’t a new concept; it’s essentially just a high skill ceiling, and you can find that in plenty of great games. For example, I’m a decent Spelunky player, but I’m nothing compared to the famous Spelunker Bananasaurus Rex. He knows things that I don’t, and I can only marvel when he does something incredible. I get the same feeling when I watch professional Dota or Starcraft, and I want my players to feel the same way when they see a master Darknet player. An average player might look like a wizard to a newbie, but an expert looks like a wizard to almost everyone. I think that’s the mark of a deep game, and I hope to evoke that feeling in Darknet.

Esoteric Mechanics

Beyond the mechanics, and beyond the strategy, there are even deeper secrets embedded in Darknet. Unlike the broadly-defined “secrets” I describe above, these aren’t things that dedicated players are expected to discover over the course of the game. These are more like riddles that are posed to the entire community of players.

For example, you might see an isolated UI panel that asks for a password, with no indication of how to find the proper sequence of numbers of letters. Or you might see a crazy data visualization with no apparent meaning. Perhaps it’s just decoration, in some cases. But I’ve spent a fair amount of time implementing hidden mechanics that will give an advantage to the players that are dedicated enough to figure them out. (Or, more likely, the players who bother to go read about them online after the first few players write a walkthrough.)

These hidden mechanics serve two purposes. First, they add yet another layer of secrets, raising the game’s skill ceiling and adding to the renown of truly expert players. Second, they add an aura of mystery to the game. I plan to be very careful about how much I reveal about these buried treasures. Even though I’ve put a lot of work into these features, I’d be totally happy if some of them were never discovered at all. I want players to feel that maybe, just maybe, there might be something they haven’t discovered yet.

Maybe the rabbit hole goes even deeper? Half the fun, I think, is never knowing the answer to that question.(source:gamasutra)