作者：Josh Bycer

游戏设计是任何专业水平的人都可以参与讨论的话题。讨论让你脑中所想的东西在电脑上实现所需的步骤则需要更为详细的思考考虑，也是任何对游戏设计感兴趣的人必须了解的情况。

全面地看待游戏设计

你很可能对游戏设计感兴趣，可能已经撰写了一个基本的设计文档或者向好友/信息公告板传达了一个游戏理念。这是一个很棒的开端：说明你能够形象化自己脑中的游戏机制和系统，并且对其进行解释。

但进一步推进和执行这一理念则完全是另一回事了，构思游戏和制作游戏的区别就在于此。要实现这一步，你必须理解高低层次的设计理念。不只是游戏设计，任何使用系统的专业都会用到这些术语。

xcom-aiming(from gamasutra)

高层次是指从一般或抽象视角来讨论系统：即你可能会对一些不熟悉游戏设计的人所说的内容，或者在设计预备阶段所说的内容。

而低层次是指技术细节以及何时开始在电脑上落实等问题。

以下是关于潜行游戏的基本侦察系统中这两者的区别案例：

高层次：玩家被侦察的机率取决于他们是站在明处还是暗处。当玩家被监视时，侦察计就会开始填满，完全填满的时候，玩家就会被侦察。

无论你是设计师，新人还是创造游戏的程序员，都很容易理解这一点。现在，描述低层次设计也是同样的道理……

低层次：玩家有两个统计数据称为“侦察等级”和“能见度”，前者取决于他们是站在明处还是暗处，后者则由玩家处在位置来决定。当玩家站在暗处时，他们的能见度就低了，这意味着敌人只能在3英尺的距离内侦察到玩家。

在暗中侦察的时候，玩家的侦察等级为1.5，意味着侦察计每秒会填充1.5个点。

正如你所见，低层次版本提供了更多细节，其中的内容可能比你看基本的设计文档或随意讨论理念更为详尽。但在与程序员或其他设计师进行讨论的时候，低层次的思考非常重要，因为它决定着你的游戏将如何运行。

现在我所使用的那些数据还只是一些随机数据，并非引导潜行设计的指南。从低层次出来来讨论设计的重要性在于，你可以从中看到游戏会发生什么情况，并富有针对性地进行调整。而如果你只是从高层次进行讨论，就不可能看到这些细节了。

深入思考

对于本文的设计师读者来说，我目前讨论的内容都是你已经熟知的常识。但对于想进一步了解设计的学生或业余人士而言，用这两种方法进行思考却是重要的一课。理解何时切换高低层次的思考同样很重要。

如果你仍然在创建原型甚至是设计文档，就不可被低层次的模式所羁绊，你在这一过程中将调整许多细节。但如果你已经创造了一个alpha甚至是beta版本，就很有必要从细节层面来思考，确保一切进展顺利，以便你的程序员执行操作。

现在，从高层次设计角度来思考相当容易，因为它与你的常规思考过程相一致。而低层次设计却更为棘手。

如果你学习过编程，你应该知道计算机逻辑的运行方式，它基于困难的理念和数据。

如果没有任何编程背景，你很难从玩电子游戏中学到低层次设计，因为这些信息一般不会被玩家所知。原因在于这些信息对玩家来说无异于天书，并且人们通常认为优秀的设计就是要让抽象或基本的机制易于理解。例如，你永远不会看到马里奥游戏出现显示马里奥跳高能力的具体数值。

对于一般用户而言，在动作游戏中找到低层次设计也同样不太可能，因为游戏信息中的一切内容都很抽象。战斗游戏在这方面有所进步，有许多此类游戏提供了一种选项，允许玩家关闭诸如攻击帧，攻击速度，命中区域以及更多服务于竞争型玩家的信息。

CivilizationV(from gamasutra)

有些战略游戏会提供一种开启更多详细信息的选项，允许玩家看到每个单位、研究和建筑的属性和等级。另一个选择就是观察高手级别的玩法，因为这类玩家能够全面了解游戏机制高低层次的设计，并且能够对其进行解释。

另一个可能的来源或许就是战略指南或者列出游戏详情的FAQ。但这些更难找到，因为多数游戏已经不采用纸质指南。

能够从抽象和技术角度来思考是游戏设计的重要步骤。它可以让你严格地检查游戏设计，并且更容易理解游戏运行原理。（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）

Understanding High and Low Level Game Design

by Josh Bycer

When it comes to talking about game design, it’s one of those topics that anyone of any expertise level can get into a discussion over. But taking that next step from going from your mind to a computer requires a more detailed thought process and is something that anyone interested in game design needs to know about.

Seeing the Forest and the Trees:

Chances are if you ever had an interest in game design, you’ve probably written a basic design document or pitched an idea to your friends or a message board. And that’s a great first step: Being able to visualize mechanics and systems in your head and being able to explain them.

But taking that idea further and being able to do something with it is another matter entirely and where the distinction between just thinking about games and making them comes in. To make that move forward you need to understand the concepts of high and low level design. These terms are used by any profession that makes use of systems, not just game design.

High level is talking about systems from a generalized or abstracted point of view: Something you would say to someone not familiar with game design or during the preliminary stages of design.

While low level refers to the technical details and when it’s time to start putting something down on the computer.

Here’s an example of the difference between the two when talking about the basic detection system of a stealth game –

High Level: The player’s chance at being detected is determined by whether they are standing in light or in the dark. When the player is spotted, a detection meter begins to fill up and when it completely fills, the player is detected.

That was easy to understand whether you are a designer, newcomer or a programmer building the game. Now, here’s the same idea but describing it with low level design. –

Low Level: The player has two statistics called “detection rating” which is based on whether they are standing in light or in dark and “visibility” which is also determined by where the player is. When the player is in the dark their visibility is considered low, meaning that enemies will only detect the player from 3 feet away or closer.

Strategy Games often show the numbers or inner workings of their systems, making them great for understanding low level design.

When detected while in the dark, the player has a detection rating of 1.5 which will fill the detection meter at a rate of 1.5 points per second.

With the meter having a max at 5 seconds, meaning that the player will be detected in 4 seconds.

If the player is not in the dark, visibility is considered high and the player can be spotted from at least 5 feet away. With a detection rating of 4, meaning that the player will be detected in 1.25 seconds.

As you can see, the low level version offers a lot more detail and probably more than you would want to know when reading a basic design doc or talking about the idea casually. But low level thinking is very important when talking to programmers or other designers as it is the nuts and bolts of how your game is going to work.

Now those numbers that I used were just random numbers and not some magical guide to perfect stealth design. The importance of talking in that level of detail is that you can start to see how things will play out and adjust them accordingly.  Something you couldn’t do if you were just talking still at the high level.

Thinking Deeper:

For designers reading this, everything that I’ve said so far is something that you are already well aware of. But for students or casual folks who are interested in taking that next step towards understanding design, it’s critical to be able to think in these two methodologies. Knowing when to switch between high and low level thinking is also important.

If you’re still building a prototype or even the design doc, getting stuck thinking in low level mode isn’t that useful as chances are, you’re going to be changing a lot of details as the design goes forward. But if you’re already building an alpha or even a beta, it’s important to start thinking in that level of granularity to make sure that things are working right and so that your programmers can implement them.

However action or console games tend to obscure or don’t show a lot of information about the design and are much harder to learn how things work.

Now, thinking in terms of high level design is pretty easy as it goes along with your regular thought process. However low level design is a bit trickier.

If you have ever studied programming, you should have been taught how computer logic works. In that it is very literal and based on hard concepts and numbers.

Without having any programming background it can be hard to learn low level design strictly from playing video games as that information is generally hidden from the player’s view. The reason is that it tends to overwhelm a player with information and it is normally considered good design to make the abstracted or basic view of the mechanics simple enough to understand. You’ll never see a Mario game that gives you the exact statistics for Mario’s height and jumping ability for example.

Finding out low level design in action games is just about impossible for the average user, as all in game information is usually abstracted. Fighting games have been making some strides in this front, with many of them now featuring the option to turn on information like attack frames, attack speed, hit location and more for competitive gamers.

Some strategy titles tend to have an option to turn on more detailed tool-tips, allowing you to see exactly the attributes and ratings for every unit, research and building. Another option would be to watch master level play or speed runs of let’s plays, as these players have a full understanding of both the high and low level design of the mechanics and can usually explain it.

While RPGs do show a lot of numbers and data, they are still abstracted and hard to get down to the low level of their design without a strategy guide.

One last possible source would be strategy guides or FAQs that list detailed notes on games. But these have become a bit harder to find as paper guides have disappeared for the most part.

Being able to think both from an abstract point of view and technical is an important step for going into game design. As it will allow you to critically examine game design and make it easier to understand how a game works.（source：gamasutra）