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完善石头剪刀布游戏的设计测试

发布时间:2015-06-03 16:35:10 Tags:,,,,

作者:Dan Felder

我将运行设计团队作为一种喜好。这种喜好开始于大学时期,我通过这种方式去模仿专业的制作环境并培养我们的技能。我们一周会投入30个小时去设计各种桌面游戏,纸牌游戏,桌面角色扮演游戏等等。

现在我已经进入了这个产业并成为了专业人士,但我仍然热衷于这种业余项目。这是探索理念并创造作品集的有效方式。我的Skype联系列表中有一群设计师,开发者和各种各样的人才,不管何时当我想出一个理念或听到一个优秀的想法,我便会联系列表中的人并看看有谁愿意加入我的团队中。我们会将其当成一个专业的自由系统,并设定一个严格的截止日期,同时也会召开开发会议。

通常情况下总是有粉丝想要在我所领导的一个项目中贡献自己的力量。我也是在这时候想到“THE TEST”。

The Test是我为了帮助自己识别这些潜在的团队成员作为设计师或开发者的优点而创造出来的。

直至今天。

我提供给申请者的其中一个挑战便是完善“石头剪刀布”游戏。这是一款非常适合解决争论的游戏,但是玩家很少是基于乐趣去游戏。

我知道,存在许多关于游戏的比赛—-有许多游戏比赛其实并不怎样。还有许多关于西洋棋的比赛。

这些比赛在情绪基调,机制优势等方面并不存在内在的区别,但是它们的名字或符号的名称却可以是不同的。你总是很难理解任何预测。这将创造出一款非常肤浅的游戏。游戏虽然宣称是关于预测,但它却只是呈现出你比敌人聪明的幻觉。

当所有人知道规则并且始终拥有游戏组件,但是他们却仍未出于乐趣去玩游戏时,这里便存在可以完善的空间。

Rock, Paper, Scissors(from zhushou.360)

Rock, Paper, Scissors(from zhushou.360)

在这些应用程序中我看到许多变量(最常见的是在你使用石头获胜时会提供给你3个点,使用布获胜时会提供给你2个点,而你使用剪刀获胜的话则是1个点—-游戏总共有10个点),但是最近网络上一个非常有名的设计师提交了一个很有趣的变量。

在这一版本中,符号变成了“砖块,小偷和陷阱”。2名玩家将创建高塔,第1个得到4个砖块的玩家获得胜利。如果你出砖块,你便能够获得砖块。如果你出小偷,而你的对手出砖块,你便能够得到他们所获得的砖块。如果你出陷阱而对手出小偷,他们便能够得到“陷阱令牌”。如果玩家拥有5个陷阱令牌便会输掉游戏。

在这一核心设计中存在许多明显的缺陷。然而小偷和陷阱的概念却让我充满兴趣。如果我们能够区分不同符号,为何不使用一个安全的符号以及一个具有较高风险但也具有较高奖励的符号呢?我选择将砖块换成了金子,因为小偷偷取金子是合理的设定,而玩家也清楚金子是自己应该去争取的对象,如此游戏也就变得更加明朗。

金子,小偷,陷阱

这里的三个符号分别是金子(紧握的拳头),小偷(打开手掌,掌心向下)和陷阱(打开手掌,掌心向上)。第1个获得5个金子的玩家获胜。

不管何时当你选择金子时,你马上就会获得1个金子。

不管何时当你选择小偷时,你会得到所有对手所拥有的金子。同时,如果他们选择的是金子,那么这一轮你们双方都能够得到金子。

不管何时当你选择陷阱时,除非对手选择的是小偷,否则这一陷阱便没有任何用处。如果对手选择的是小偷,你的陷阱便能够消灭他并且你也能够马上赢得游戏。

很明显,这里的所有选择都带有不同的心理层面。金子是获胜的最简单也是最安全的方法。它具有简单的吸引力,但却缺少风险和奖励性。

另一方面,小偷是最强大的符号。如果你的对手拥有2个金子,当你选择小偷而对方选择金子时,你便能够获得6个金子(游戏邦注:因为你自己获得3个而他们又要给你3个)。这是那些追求金子的玩家最喜欢的符号。

然而这同时也是最具风险性的选择。而陷阱具有较低的风险性与较高的奖励性,因为一旦你选择了这一符号你便能够马上赢得游戏,但是大多数情况下当你只有1个金子时你便会因此输掉游戏(因为对手可能会在这一轮选择金币)。

玩家会觉得每个符号都是不同的,因为当玩家选择陷阱时,这种关于预测的满足感会让他觉得自己就像天才一样。这同时也是非常公平的,因为玩家的对手也可以尝试着窃取他辛苦赚到的钱。

游戏同时也带有有趣的决策引擎,因为当对手拥有更多金子时,玩家便会越想选择小偷。而对手也知道这一点。

同时还能够添加追赶机制,这是游戏中紧张的来源。你所拥有的2/3的符号具有即时胜利或失败的潜能(如果你选择小偷或陷阱的话),不管你的对手所拥有的金子数领先你多少,你都可以尝试着你去窃取它们。

我知道这一版本的数值并不是最完美的,但从核心看来它们是能够有效运行的。这些选择都是不同的,游戏拥有足够的信息能够让你觉得自己正在做出合理的决定,同时适量的选择也能够避免玩家过度思考,而玩家选择的结果将显著影响游戏的发展。

你的迭代是什么?

所以你会如何完善“石头剪刀布”游戏?这是非常棒的设计实践,并且有可能成就一些很有趣的内容。我建议你们都可以尝试看看。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转发,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Design Test: Improving Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Dan Felder

So, I run design teams as a hobby. It started in college, a way to simulate the professional production environments and practice our skills. We used to sink 30 hours a week into designing various board games, card games, tabletop rpgs and more.

Now I’m in the industry and working professionally, but I still love these side projects. They’re a great way to explore ideas, develop a portfolio and crank out closer to those ten thousand hours my copy of Outliers keeps sternly reminding me to dig in. My Skype contact list is a pool of designers, developers and various talents. Whenever I get an idea, or hear about a great one, I’ll run it by people in the pool and see who wants to join that team. We treat it like a professional freelance system, complete with hard deadlines and development meetings. It’s a blast.

Often a fan will want to contribute to on one of the projects I’ve led, or otherwise enter the design pool. That’s when I break out… THE TEST.

The Test is something I’ve developed to help me figure out what, if any, this prospective team member’s strengths are as a designer or developer. There are many harrowing stages to the Test. Most have been kept a closely guarded secret.

Until today.

One of the challenges I give the applicant is to improve the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. While the game is a decent tool for settling arguments, it’s rarely played for fun.

Yes, I know there are tournaments for the game – there are tournaments for lots of games that aren’t that great. There are tournaments for Checkers too.

There’s no inherent difference between the signs in emotional tone, mechanical advantage or anything else but their names and the names of the signs they beat. There’s very little for you to latch onto as the basis of prediction. That makes for a pretty shallow mind game. The game claims to be about prediction, but it mostly just presents the illusion of outsmarting your opponent.

When everyone knows the rules and has the components literally on hand at all times but they still aren’t playing the game for fun… There’s room for improvement.

I’ve seen a lot of variants through these applications (the most common being giving you 3 points when you win with Rock, 2 if you win with paper and 1 if you win with scissors – playing to 10 points) but recently a prospective designer known to the internet as mjh6 submitted an interesting variation.

In this version, the signs became “Brick, Theft and Trap”. Two players were building towers, and the first to get 4 bricks won. If you played Brick, you’d gain a Brick. If you played Theft and your opponent played a Brick, you’d steal the brick they’d normally get. If you played Trap and your opponent played Theft – they’d get a ‘trap token’. If a player had 5 trap tokens, that player would instantly lose.

There are clearly some significant flaws in this core design (play a round or two if they’re not immediately apparent). However, the Theft and Trap concept made me very interested. If we were going to differentiate the signs, why not play with one sign being safe and the other side being high risk and high reward? I traded out bricks for gold, because it makes more sense for a theif to be stealing gold and players understand gold is a good thing to have, and streamlined the game to this…

Gold, Theft, Trap

The three signs here are Gold (represented by a closed fist), Theft (represented by holding your hand out palm down, as if grasping for something) and Trap (represented by holding your hand out, palm up). The first player to acquire 5 Gold is the winner.

Whenever you choose Gold, you will immediately gain 1 Gold.

Whenever you choose Theft, you gain all the gold the opposing player has. Also, if they chose the Gold sign this round you get the Gold they would have gained from that too.

Whenever you choose Trap, it does nothing unless the opposing player played Theft. If they did, your trap kills them in the act of thieving and you instantly win the game.

What’s neat here is that all the options have a different psychological aspect to them. Gold is the simplest and safest way to work your way to winning. It has a simple attraction do it, little risk and little reward.

Theft, on the other hand, is an extremely powerful sign. If your opponent has even 2 gold, playing theft while they play the gold sign is like netting yourself six gold (because you gain 3 and they lose 3). This is clearly the most tempting sign for those seeking to earn gold.

However, it’s also the highest risk. The Trap sign has low risk but insanely high reward, because it can instantly win you the game when played, and the most you’ll ever lose when playing it is 1 gold (because your opponent might choose Gold that round).

Each sign feels very different to play, and the satisfaction of predicting when to play trap can make you feel like a genius. It also feels like karmic justice, because your opponent just tried to steal your hard-earned money.

The game also has an interesting decision engine, because the more gold your opponent has the more tempting it is to play Theft. Your opponent obviously knows this.

There’s also a clear catch-up mechanic built in, and a constant source of tension. 2/3 of the signs available to you have the potential to end in instant victory or defeat (if you’re playing theft or trap), and no matter how far ahead of you your opponent is in gold – you can risk trying to steal it all away in one go.

I’m sure the numbers on this version aren’t perfect, but the core seems to work very well. The options feel very different from one another, the mind game has enough information to feel like you’re reaching reasonable decisions, there are few enough options to keep from over-complicating a player’s mind and the results of your choices have a demonstrable impact on the game.

What’s Your Iteration?

So, how would you improve on Rock, Paper, Scissors? It’s great design exercise and can lead to some very interesting places.If you haven’t already, I reccomend giving it a try.(source:gamasutra)

 


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