篇目1，Sid Meier关于让游戏选择更有趣的设计分析

作者：Leigh Alexander

Firaxis创始人Sid Meier表示：“游戏是一系列有趣选择的结合体。”这是他过去所做出的陈述，并且他自己也意识到这一观点引起了各种争论。但是他始终坚持这是形容游戏设计的最佳方式，所以他在2012游戏开发者大会上进一步解释了这一观点，即什么样的游戏决策才能够吸引玩家，以及设计师需要明确那些内容。

这位《文明》系列之父表示：“我们总是能够很容易发现哪些决策不够有趣。”如果玩家总是选择3者中的第一个，那么这就不是一种有趣的选择；或者也不能算是一种随机选择。虽然某些游戏类型（游戏邦注：例如有赖于不同输入方式的韵律游戏或益智游戏）的关注重点并非有趣决策，但是不管怎样，Meier都相信自己最初的这一理念能够帮助我们更好地理解游戏这种媒体。

Meier继续说道：“在设计阶段这一理念非常重要。我发现许多游戏设计都是将其它游戏中的某些内容组合在一起。”大家可能会认为，如果那些游戏是有趣的，那么其游戏元素的组合体也必然是有趣的。

“但是很不幸的是，这种做法却并不总是奏效。相反，我认为如果游戏设计师能够仔细思考自己该为玩家呈现何种决策，玩家真正感兴趣的内容是什么，并围绕这些想法设计新游戏，也就是从玩家的角度进行抉择，他们肯定能够设计出更棒的游戏。”

哪种选择才算有趣？

一般来说，有趣的决策常需要玩家进行一番权衡，如获得一把强大的剑需要耗费500个金币，或者在赛车游戏中跑得最快的汽车往往更难以操作。而在Meier的《文明》中，创建一个防御单位建筑则需要玩家付出一定的资源才能发挥作用。

Meier解释道：“好决策要视游戏情境而定。当设计师在向玩家呈现游戏决策时他们必须清楚，决策必须符合游戏当前的情境。”《文明》中有一些复杂系统便呈现给玩家一些情境式选择，即何处呈现这些选择，以及玩家需考虑这些选择将对游戏进程产生的影响。

也有一些较为个性化的决策，它们取决于玩家的游戏玩法。例如，谨慎的玩家会选择创建一座安全的基地并慢慢扩展；而好斗型玩家则会投入更多精力去创建攻击型建筑。Meier表示：“这种有趣的决策设置必须让玩家能够表现出自己独特的游戏玩法。”

一般来说有趣的决策将能够长时间影响游戏（只要玩家总是能够拥有足够的信息并做出决策），而当早期选择在一段时间后开始破坏玩家的游戏体验时，开发者就需要对其做出适当调整而更好地匹配当前的游戏形式。

一种经典的决策类型是关于风险与奖励的权衡，即让玩家判断获得一定奖励前将会面临怎样的潜在风险。Meier说道：“我们几乎可以在任何游戏中发现这种决策类型。”而另外一种决策类型则是关于长期决策与短期决策的衡量，就像在《文明》中创造一个奇迹虽然需要花费玩家许多时间，但是却能为游戏的发展带来长远的影响，而创造一架二轮战车虽然不需要太长时间，但却不足以影响整体的游戏发展。

当提到如何让游戏设计适应不同玩家的游戏玩法时，Meier说道：“设计师很容易想当然地将自己的游戏玩法贯穿于游戏中，并且整个设计团队或开发团队也很容易从自己的角度去思考玩家的想法。”这就是为什么好游戏设计需要尽可能顾及更多选择和各种类型的游戏玩法。

Meier表示，《文明》的一大优势就是在短期，中期和长期事件中会同时发生多种情况。而玩家在游戏中的任务则是区分不同事件的重要性，为近期和长期目标制定相关策略，并努力让短期目标辅助实现长期目标。

定制功能也能够创造出有趣的决策，即使有时候这种功能只是让玩家为自己的城市命名或决定车子的颜色。Meier说道：“这种设置能够让玩家深度融入到游戏中。通过让玩家在游戏中做决策去表达出自己的个性，或表现自己独特的游戏玩法，这能够进一步吸引他们玩游戏。”

明智的选择

设计一个有意义的决策便需要确保玩家清楚自己所做出的任何选择；如果玩家做出选择但却因为不知道结果而陷入恐慌中，他们肯定不会认为游戏是有趣的。Meier建议：“如此看来如果能够提供给玩家大量信息反而更好，或者至少你应该让玩家清楚自己为何要做出这个选择。”

说到如何让玩家轻松地作决策就不得不提到游戏类型的相关惯例—–例如大多数射击游戏都带有标准界面，让玩家能够更加安心地做出选择。Meier提醒道，如果你的玩家在游戏中按压了一个按钮（与同类型其它游戏的设置一样），但是却出现完全不同的结果，“玩家定会对此感到不安。”

Firaxis的游戏中之所以会包含许多历史主题是因为这么做能够让玩家面对更多熟悉的信息。“你应该为玩家呈现他们所了解的信息，就像在《文明》中如果玩家碰到了成吉思汗，那么他就一定是个暴躁且好斗的形象；而如果你创造的是一款与铁路或海盗有关的游戏，你也可以将玩家所熟知的主题添加到游戏中。”

僵尸类游戏之所以如此受欢迎便是因为这类游戏的主题非常明确，不管是游戏动机还是僵尸本身的属性都是玩家再熟悉不过的内容了。“在这种类型的决策中你不需要为玩家呈现过多信息，因为他们本身就了解这些内容了。”

另一方面，当玩家做出决策后，游戏的反馈也很重要：“最糟糕的游戏反馈是对玩家的决策置之不理而继续前进。对于玩家来说，没有什么比自己做出决策却遭到游戏忽视更让人厌烦了。游戏至少应该提示玩家：‘我知道你的选择了，我会执行这个任务。’”就像在《文明变革》中，玩家很高兴能够在与其它区域首领协商时移动一些单位时获得游戏反馈。

反馈信息能够让玩家在游戏世界中的更有存在感。Meier解释道：“你必须让玩家感受到你知道他们的存在，你在游戏中始终陪伴着他们，支持着他们。你可以告诉玩家‘你是一个伟大文明中最优秀的首领’或者‘你是一名伟大的赛车手’之类的话语。不论是用声音，文本还是图像表达形式，这些内容都能够更加坚定玩家的游戏信念并让他们深刻感受到游戏的乐趣。”

玩家类型

为了为玩家创造出更多有趣的决策，设计师必须进一步理解各种不同的玩家类型。看重胜负的玩家希望游戏能够提供更高级别的内容；而看重类型的玩家则喜欢一些特定的游戏类型，追求那些自己所钟爱的内容，并讨厌各种偏差。这些玩家的反馈能够帮助设计师更好地理解类型惯例，但希望这不会因此束缚他们创造新内容。

有一些玩家希望能够理解所有的游戏法则，并引导出最佳的游戏结果。这种类型的玩家能够帮助你平衡游戏，因为他们的游戏目的是揭开并明确游戏系统。还有一些偏执型玩家总是认为游戏中的一切内容都对自己不利，就像他们会认为掷骰子永远都是不公平的一样。还有些历史迷们会不断批评游戏中的背景元素，并抱怨各种不符合原始资料的内容，或任何偏离历史背景的设定。

还一些总是纠结于自己遇到的任何不幸游戏体验的玩家。“你需要明确地指出他们所遇到的任何挫折，让他们知道为何会发生这些事以及他们下次该如何面对。因为对于这类型玩家来说，任何一件偶然事件都可能影响到他们的整个游戏体验。”同样也有一些带有评论性观点的设计师玩家，他们便更加关注于游戏中的任何细节问题，并琢磨为何这些内容与自己的创造有所差别。

设计师必须深刻理解各种类型的游戏玩家，从他们的反馈中寻找有价值的内容，并落实行动。

更有趣的决策

当你的游戏执行了一次有趣的决策之后，你该思考如何做才能让这些决策更加有趣。通过平衡风险与奖励选择；调整选择让它们更具有效力，提供给玩家适当的信息，或者给予玩家一定的时间范围做决定；以及整合游戏中的选择数量等行为都有利于优化游戏设计。当然了，你还可以为游戏添加一些不同的“调味料”，Meier表示：“这是游戏的呈现方式。要善于利用美术人员或文案人员的才华为游戏添加不一样的特色。”

Meier继续说道：“我们应该谨慎地处理决策的平衡问题。如果你在游戏中接二连三地设置复杂决策，这会让玩家感觉难以招架。而反之，如果你总是慢条斯理地给予玩家一些过于简单的决策，他们也会很容易对此感到厌烦。”

创造出更有趣决策的另外一种方法便是抛弃那些无效的决策。Meier说道：“如果你在反复尝试后发现自己所面临的是一些无效的内容，请果断地抛弃它们。也许有三分之一的内容是你应该删除的，但是不要对此感到心软，因为即使你现在不这么做，这些决策也会因为无趣而最终遭到淘汰。”

最后Meier还强调道：“要记住游戏并不只是关于各种决策。”我们不能因为过分强调决策的开发细节而忽视了为玩家创造一个有趣生动的游戏世界。将强大的游戏世界与有趣的决策设置结合在一起，我们才能有效且长期地维系玩家与游戏之间的关系。

Meier总结道：“将你所创造的神奇游戏世界与玩家其中所做出的各种有趣决策结合在一起，这才是一款真正的优质游戏。”

篇目2，解析决策制定因素对游戏设计的影响

作者：Shay Pierce

今天我阅读了一篇发人深思的博文，作者是我很欣赏的一位游戏设计师Chris DeLeon，但是他在文中的一些观点却是我不能苟同的，即他在文中驳回了关于《大蜜蜂》这类型游戏是基于一些有趣的决策而创造出来的论断。（这个论断曾经出现在他早前博文“很多游戏并不只是选择”的回复中。）

我想要果断地回答这个论断：《大蜜蜂》确实是一款基于有趣决策的游戏，而任何包含有“挑战”因素的游戏设置都可以说是基于有趣的决策而制作出来的游戏。我主张采用Sid Meier的说法，即“一款好的游戏就是一系列有趣的决策组合”（而Chris则认为这一说法只适用于特定游戏类型而不予以考虑），并采用一种有别于传统的方法（游戏邦注：即更深层次且更整体化），如此才能帮我们更好地看清楚游戏设计中一些最重要且最基本的法则。

这么看来我们将再次思考关于“决策”的定义了。但是我认为我们这么想的话至少能够看清楚游戏设计的基本真理，而摆脱那些拿着经验说事的游戏设计者的束缚。

自学开发游戏

在继续阐述之前我想要提供一些背景内容。在正规教育中我学的并非游戏设计，而是软件工程。但是我却非常喜欢游戏设计，所以在几年前我便开始系统地自学这门专业。但是很大程度上，我经常因为缺少足够严谨的学术材料而烦躁不已，因为我来自计算机科学这种高分析性的领域，所以总是认为在像“游戏设计101”这种学习资料背后必定也隐藏着一些深刻的观点，能够帮助我真正理解什么是游戏设计，然而我却往往把握不了它们。总之，我关于游戏设计的教育基本上来说都是自学的，我也几乎找不到一个关于“优秀游戏设计的普遍理论”，所以我便自己下了这个定义。

（要注意还有许多“外粗内秀”的理论，特别是Marc LeBlanc所提出的；还有很多来自于纽约大学游戏中心的书籍，特别是 Eric Zimmerman和Katie Salen共同编著的《Rules of Play》是我现在正在阅读并且非常喜欢的一本书。）

科学家一直在研究爱因斯坦所编写的统一理论文件，但是最终却发现它们只是《Rolling Stone》这首歌的一些和铉。

《吉他英雄》和统一理论

我自己所定义的“有趣游戏设置的统一理论”是在几年前才慢慢形成的。在那之前，我关于“有趣的游戏设置”和“优秀的游戏设计”等理解都非常模糊且很笼统：在我的脑子中形成了各种理论和定义，但是关于这些理论和定义间的联系我却始终没有头绪（我现在也意识到这种状况就像当前游戏设计理论的现状。）这些定义中有的是来自Sid Meier的“有趣的决策”举证，而我也只是通过直觉认定它的重要性，并说不上是为什么。

随后我阅读了Chris Bateman的一篇博文，这篇博文正面挑战了Meier的举证，并列举《吉他英雄》作为反面论据：

“…这款节奏动作类游戏并未依赖于一系列有趣的决策，极大程度上来看，它并未依赖于任何决策。”

我认为这个问题非常重要：是否有趣的决策便是优秀游戏设计的基本因素？我们应该选择它还是抛弃它？

我仔细思考了这个问题，并最终认为应该选择它，即所有优秀的的游戏设置都是由一些有趣的决策所组成，但是前提是我们必须理解这个“决策”的真正定义。一旦我去深入了解这个定义，我将会找到一直困扰我的“优秀游戏设计的统一理论”。

在这些类型的游戏中决策制定是否失效了？如果Princess Peach与Kerrigan打起来了会变成怎样？

与玩其它游戏一样，我也很着迷于《吉他英雄》：一直努力地去闯关，尝试着去完成关卡，如果失败了我也会再次挑战直到最后取得成功，而这时我便会开始挑战下一个关卡。我发现这与我在玩《Advance Wars: Dual Strike》时所体验的游戏模式相同。尽管这两款游戏存在很明显的差别，但是也同样存在着一些基本上的相似点。《Advance Wars》（一款回合制战略游戏）很明显是一款关于制定有趣策略的游戏。但是《吉他英雄》却不是。对吧？

研究以下的一些游戏类型，并说出它们在什么时候开始脱离“有趣的决策”：

回合制战略游戏（例如《Advance Wars》）

动作缓慢的即时战略游戏（例如《Kohan》，《Neptune’s Pride》）

动作迅速的即时战略游戏（例如《星际争霸》）

“动作类”战略游戏（例如《魔兽争霸》）

纯动作类游戏（例如《超级马里奥》，《大蜜蜂》）

节奏动作类游戏（例如《吉他英雄》）

在这些游戏中，它们是从哪里开始脱离“有趣的决策”？

我的答案是：它们都未脱离有趣的决策。每一款游戏都在不同时刻里渗透着决策制定。可以说每一款游戏都有决策制定机制，它们只是一些不同的决策，且出现在人类不同的大脑层面罢了。

在这些范围的最底端，决策便不再是我们传统意义上所说的“决策”了。换句话说：在《吉他英雄》中你用手指去按压按钮准备进入下一个音符也是一种做决策的表现。

但是，这也不是我们平常所说的“决策”，我们可以将其称之为“选择”或者“行动”。不过基本上来说，它们指的都是相同的东西。

这些游戏都需要你通过不同的大脑层面进行思考。它们都很难，甚至需要你较劲脑子去思考对策。

决策之间的差异

关于我在《吉他英雄》中的短短几毫秒里决定手指要如何变化，以及在《Advance Wars》中的决定坦克要如何转向这两种选择是否存在着不同点？这是当然的：在《Advance Wars》中，我的意识心态将着重考虑战场这个大环境，并相对地做出明智的决策；但是在《吉他英雄》中，我却不需要意识心态，反而需要的是身体本能，肌肉记忆以及直觉性，以此决定我的手指应该落在哪里以及如何移动。

尽管它们依赖于不同层次的意识水平，但是从根本上说它们都是相同的东西。既然我们已经掌握了它们的不同之处，现在我们就来说说它们的共同点：

每一个动作都是我由我自发定义的。我将采取何种行动，以及这个行动包含些什么等完全都是我自己决定的。如果缺少自我决策，我的手指将不可能控制《吉他英雄》，也只有我自己才能决定我的手指该如何移动。

这两种选择都将“优于”或“劣于”我所做出的其它决策。我的坦克可能位于最佳的防御战线；我的手指准备可能正位于最合适的下落位置。

在进一步学习后，我的决策制定有了改善。因为记住了游戏关卡，所以我在《吉他英雄》中表现得更好了：我的手指能够更灵活地移动并在键盘上挥洒自如了。随着时间的推移，我的技巧慢慢提高了，而我也能够面对一些新的且更棒的挑战。

我承认，玩家在时间压力下所做出的决策以及在拥有充足时间的情况下而做出的决策存在着明显的不同。玩我的益智游戏《Connectrode》（没有时间压力）便与玩《Dr. Mario》（有时间压力）存在着差异，尽管这两款游戏在机制上存在着相同点。但是这两种类型的决策也仍然属于决策，并不能因为其中一方受到时间限制而否定它。它们只是两种不同类型的决策。

反语义学

本质上来看，我在此扩展“决策”的定义将涵括人类意识的各个层面。如在《反恐精英》中，玩家必须在玩了一圈下来制定出“战略”决策（游戏邦注：例如玩家及玩家的队伍应该怎么做，什么时候能够发动最大攻击）；“战术”决策（使用何种载体或者如何选择最适当的躲避场所）；以及最小的“行动”决策（为了通过鼠标去打击敌人，你是否需要用手臂上的所有肌肉进行移动，还是巧妙地运用关节肌肉进行移动）。我认为我们应该在游戏过程中全面思考这些决策，而这些决策只是来自于人类大脑的不同层面。

现在，我不得不承认当我开始讨论《吉他英雄》中手指在虚拟吉他上移动并将其称之为“决策”确实有够愚蠢（或者至少是错误的）。在正规语言中没有人会把你在《吉他英雄》的行动称之为“制定决策”。如果我能换个表达方式，也许你们将更容易理解我的说法，即《吉他英雄》能够测试你的技巧，并测试人类心理（以及物理）性能的不同领域。但是我相信，所有的技巧都拥有相同的“结构”，它们终将能够构成一种行动。

最后，所有基于挑战因素的游戏都能用测试并挑战一种以上的技巧而做定义（如果你认为你的挑战游戏并未基于对玩家技巧的测试，那么你有可能做错了，未深入研究玩家的技巧……亦或者你是对的，但是你的游戏既未拥有挑战性也不存在趣味性。）。所有技巧的层次都是由你所做的决策以及这些决策的质量而定义。你在玩游戏的时候也能学到更多东西，而借此能够提高你制作决策的能力，其实这也就等同于“提供你的游戏技巧”。

《大蜜蜂》和Garrison Keillor

当我在玩《大蜜蜂》的时候，我以60秒的速度做出决策：是否要按照同一个方向摆放飞船，或者是否要按压发火按钮等等，我所采取的行动（或者不行动）都属于我所做出的决策。但是大部分的选择都是由我的“非理性大脑”或者“肌肉记忆”或者“直觉”所决定；而且我认为如果在游戏设计中能够按照不同类型的决策区分它们，便能够明确其角色和重要性，并让我们更好地理解并比较游戏设计了。

《大蜜蜂》中的何种决策能让我安置飞船，并在后来能力提高后再次收回它们？显然，这是一种高层次且特别的“策略决策”，可以用其压制住游戏设置中通常包含的低层次“行动决策”。许多优秀的游戏都包含了多层次的决策制定过程，并且经常同时发生–这便是一大典例。

最后，《大蜜蜂》中的一个决策比起许多小型的“关节决策”更加容易被察觉到，因为它总是出现在我们意识中的较高层次。但是真正有远见的游戏设计者都愿意承认所有不同类型决策的重要性，而这些类型将会包含各种心理及物理技巧。Garrison Keillor（游戏邦注：美国作家，讲故事，幽默，专栏作家，音乐家）说道：“人类的一切都值得作家去关注。”相同地，人类的一切决策制定能力都应该受到游戏设计者的关注，包括领导一个文明或者按压正确的按钮等。我们需要记住，如果没有决策制定，也就无所谓游戏设计了。

篇目3，游戏到底应该为玩家提供多少选择

作者：Jim Cummings

界面的个性化设置能够让玩家更深刻地感受到游戏资源和游戏体验，通过亲力亲为地处理一些游戏信息而进一步融入到游戏过程中。

有些人会认为，这种定制行为本身就是游戏设置中的刺激因素。的确，一些关于满足感，学习以及用户界面的文章都表示，人们总是希望掌握一定的控制权，也就是我们所谓的定制化或个性化。特别是在大型多人在线游戏（MMO）中，如果玩家能够自己设定游戏角色，他们便能够更加深刻地感受到角色在屏幕上的行动。

用于解释这种结果的一大原理便是自我决定论（游戏邦注：SDT，这是一种关于经验选择的潜能，是在充分认识个人需要和环境信息的基础上，个体对行动所做出的自由的选择）。SDT本身还带有许多次级理论。SDT主要说明人类总是希望能够控制生活中的环境，为自己的行动做出选择并拥有自主权。此外（也是对于我们本次讨论具有决定性作用的理论），根据SDT，因为受到自主权的驱动，人类总是会选择那些能够自己决定结果的条件。换句话说，我们希望对周遭环境拥有足够的发言权，因此我们会选择拥有选择权的选择。

如此倾向便解释了为何玩家能够在游戏中能够感受到乐趣，特别是那些允许玩家定制角色以及周遭环境的游戏。例如，角色扮演游戏允许玩家为角色命名，自我组队，创造角色的外观，设备，决定角色技能专业化的深度和广度，自己寻找各种获胜策略，并以一种非线形结构探索游戏故事和环境。

的确，这些元素在过去几年里也开始向其它类游戏渗透。第一人称射击游戏如《Modern Warfare》和《Borderlands》也包含了更多技术专门化以及设备定制化的系统。体育类游戏也加入了“专营模式”系统，即玩家不仅可以制定专属的体育活动，同时还可以决定上场比赛的阵容，挑选队员的标准以及合同内容等。甚至一些简单的益智游戏如《宝石迷阵闪电战》也在每一轮游戏中添加了一些可供选择的游戏奖励。如此看来，各种传统的游戏“类型”都通过添加更多选择以迎合玩家对于游戏体验和游戏环境控制权的需求。一些学术研究也表明，玩家认为那些能够给予他们更多选择机会的游戏更加有趣且更具有吸引力。

然而，尽可能多地提供给玩家选择是否真的是一种好方法？围绕现实环境的许多研究表明，尽管人们偏爱各种选择，但是如此被困在一个一味迎合需求的情境中将会导致一种负面结果（我们称之为“选择悖论”）。例如，过多的选择会让玩家失去动力，变得越来越迟钝或大大降低执行效率。除了如此行为反应，“过多的选择”也会影响玩家的程度。如在选择时出现犹豫或麻痹状态，做出一些错误的选择而留下遗憾等。出现这种负面结果主要是因为面对过多选择导致玩家个人必须处理更多信息而做出最后的决定。当选择范围变得越来越广泛时，压在玩家身上的任务便会变得越来越苛求并越来越艰难。然而，即使面对这些负面因素，人们还是义无反顾地希望拥有更多可能的选择。

“过多选择”所导致的这些负面问题还会继续长存于虚拟游戏环境中吗？如果这些选择所呈现的信息较少，只会导致一时的结果，且允许玩家能够简单改变选择，那么游戏便能够避免选择给玩家带来挫折、无力与后悔了。但是这种方法已经逐渐失去功效了。如今，游戏中的选择不仅数量越来越多，而且更具有永久性并需要玩家为此付出更高的代价——特别是在大规模的虚拟世界或者在线网络游戏中。除此之外，玩家定制的选择变得越来越重要，不论是克服了硬核挑战还是获得社交资本，这些选择甚至主导着玩家在游戏中的成功。

举个例子来说，在《魔兽世界》中，玩家面对着1万9363种类型的装甲，718种贸易商品，150至250种不同的能力级别，150至250种具有不同级别的能力，263种不同的动物坐骑以及1千999种消费商品（有限使用）。此外，玩家可以根据各种属性等级做出不同选择，如一种装甲的等级和性能等。如此属性，包括数量和效能，便是影响着玩家进行思考并做出选择的决定性因素。

对于很多面对这些选择的玩家来说，他们必须谨慎地做出正确的选择，因为这关系着角色能否完成新任务或者探索新领域，以及玩家在团体环境下能否获得社会期许（的确，不论玩家是属于成就者，探索者还是社交者，都能从“正确”的选择中受益）。在充满各种选择的环境中做出一个明智的选择需要一定的认知度。玩家需要投入一定的时间和努力去鉴定相关信息，衡量并比较每一个选择，做出最后的选择。虽然一些玩家热衷于测试不同选择的优势与劣势，但也还有一些玩家并不看中这种行为。这类型玩家（从游戏类型看这些玩家更偏向于休闲游戏而非硬核游戏）更希望自由做出选择，而如果局限于游戏中的“正确”选择便会让他们倍感挫折。

最后，游戏世界中的“过多选择”问题远远比现实世界来得严重。与现实世界不同，游戏希望能够将乐趣传达给玩家。而当玩家发现他们必须为了前进去面临那些让他们倍感挫折的选择时，他们的游戏乐趣便会大打折扣。

因此，如果玩家所面临的选择变得越来越多，越来越复杂且越来越苛刻时，设计师该如何做才能避免因选择过多而让玩家受挫？

1）减少选项。一个解决方法便是减少玩家在游戏中所面临的选择数目。但是这种方法往往得不偿失：虽然这种方法能够驱散选择带来的负面结果，但是同样也会破坏SDT原理中提到的玩家对于选择的内在需求。

2）减少信息量。另外一种方法是保持当前的选择数量供应，但是减少这些选择所承载的信息。例如减少玩家在选择时需要进行比较的多种组件属性。但是我们必须适当地使用这种方法，否则将只会导致更多肤浅且无意义的选择的泛滥。

3）减少信息加工。使用决策辅助工具，以简化玩家需要承担的信息负荷，并且同时也保证他们能够做出真正的决策。上文提到的改变用户界面在某种程度上就等于认可了这一方法。还有一些有益的工具，如玩家易用的数据聚合器以及整合资源的技能。尽管这些设备也有自己的缺陷（例如，降低了玩家融入游戏故事的沉浸感），但是比起减少选择或者选择属性，这一方法对于用户粘性的影响相对较轻微。

开发者目前还能够掌握玩家对于游戏选择的喜好，但是如果这种趋势持续前进，各种类型的玩家很快就会发现游戏选择的相关信息已经超出他们能够控制的范围了。这时候设计师便需要采取适当的方法，既迎合玩家的自由选择需求，并避免“过多选择”所造成的危害。如果能够做到这一点，便能够同时平衡玩家在游戏中的认知需求以及他们对于自主选择权的渴望。

篇目4，阐述游戏玩法深度和多样性的主要变化

作者：Lewis

此前我曾撰文探讨游戏如今所蕴含的深度及角色扮演游戏自《龙与地下城》发行以来所发生的变化。我发现二者存在某种联系，玩家在游戏中的追求在过去30-40年来发生巨大变化。

30-40年前，许多业余游戏玩家在游戏中追求的是玩法深度，而现在很多玩家不再追求玩法深度，转而瞄准多样性，这是一大变化。如今越来越多玩家也开始在游戏中追求故事叙述元素，但我不确定它们是着眼的是叙述深度，还是叙述多样性。就长远决策来看，游戏体验如今变得越来越被动，这和玩法深度相违背。是的，如今许多电子游戏都融入丰富操作和短期决策内容，但其中决策和选择没有长远意义。

多样性能够带来重玩价值，但游戏深度也会带来重玩价值。所以它们其实是殊途同归，目标都是促使玩家反复体验游戏。

多样性“不好”？显然不是。玩法深度就“很好”？显然也不是，但这是我在过去50年的游戏体验中所追求的元素。

我这里谈论的是游戏爱好者，那些常玩游戏的玩家。家庭玩家是截然不同的群体，他们既不追求游戏深度，也没有着眼于多样性，他们体验游戏的目的是同家庭成员和好友进行社交互动。

我所指的深度和多样性是什么？深度玩法需要玩家做出众多深度决策，这些决策会影响游戏结果，而且通常具有多种选择，因此玩家就能够选出最佳选择，但能够获胜的选择不止一个（游戏邦注：所谓的“可行”选择是指，其至少在特定阶段能够促使玩家走向成功，这和“貌似可行但实则不然”的选择不同）。这类游戏通常存在突然显现的元素，通常是玩家在初次体验时不会发现的选择。这通常和决策体系有关，一决策带来另一决策，而此决策又引出另一决策，周而复始，这就是所谓的树形结构，能够提高游戏的获胜机率。这有点相互矛盾：若游戏有太多决策和可行选择，那么如果各决策和选择对最终结果毫无影响，游戏就会丧失深度。

而多样性就是玩家进行众多类似操作和相关活动，游戏没有呈现额外重要决策和可行选择。多样性有时会以另一决策代替某决策，或者更多时候以另一选择代替某选择，但重要决策和可行选择的数量及决策体系的深度依然保持不变。多样性可以通过融入额外情节或关卡、各种地图、不同角色类型或随机事件形成。

变化情况

究竟发生什么变化？40年前，我们还没有接触过电子游戏，CCG（卡片游戏）也还没有诞生，此时棋盘和纸牌游戏及RPG游戏都才刚刚诞生。RPG游戏的出现反映30-40年的行业巨变。很多第1、2版《龙与地下城》的玩家都追求玩法深度。第3版《龙与地下城》的侧重点则转变成优化角色元素，游戏推出各种各样的级别、技能和特技，旨在呈现完美军队，进行策略斗争。《龙与地下城》变成虚幻版《Squad Leader》。玩家不会轻易在游戏中死去，人们的对“死亡恐惧感”慢慢从游戏中消失。

在电脑RPG游戏中，这点表现得更明显。若你死去，最糟的情况就是重新加载，回到之前保存的内容，然后继续前进。在众多电脑MMORPG游戏中，玩家无需保存游戏，会自动获得重生，然后继续游戏。毕竟MMO开发者没有将玩法深度当作自己的目标，他们的目标只是尽量让玩家继续游戏，这样他们每月都能获得营收。为留住用户，很多在线电子游戏都会持续奖励玩家，而非要求玩家必须取得进步和优势。若玩家无需一定要取得进步，那么决策就变得不那么重要，选择也就无足轻重。社交游戏将此发挥得淋漓尽致，这一领域的用户粘性完全取代玩法。

玩家不仅无需对游戏操作负责，死亡恐惧也在电子RPG游戏中消失。若死去与否无关紧要，若玩家在失败时能够再次进行尝试，那么决策对于未来将发生的内容就没有什么影响，所以它们就鲜少涉及玩法深度。《魔兽世界》是款鲜有玩法深度的游戏，专业“pharmer”会在操作具有经济可行性的时候将角色玩至较高等级，然后将角色售给那些贪图方便的玩家。“刷任务”是这类体验的特点，对于很多玩家来说这就像是“工作”。前面说到多样性已取代深度在游戏中的地位，但在《魔兽世界》中，玩家似乎对于多样性不怎么感兴趣，直到他们到达最高等级为止。角色在前进过程中获得的乐趣很少，这只有等到他们到达最高等级才会体现出来。对于那些处于最高等级的玩家而言，多样性是保持游戏趣味性的必要条件。

即便在最高等级，许多玩家依然持续操作相同内容，扮演相同的角色（游戏邦注：DPS和治疗者等）。据大家所述，此阶段的内容具有约束性，会自动重复，不涉及基于各种可行选择做出重要决策。

有些电子游戏包含“迷你游戏”，迷你游戏嵌于主游戏中，供玩家在对主游戏感到厌烦时体验的不同内容。此内容的吸引之处在于多样性，而非深度。

第4版《龙与地下城》反映此变化趋势。有些玩家责任依然存在，但死亡恐惧在游戏中完全消失，或通过提供充足初始生命值或复原力，或是令玩家在丧失能力后能够轻松返回操作中，抑或者是提供平价治愈选择等。角色无法再通过魔法收集战略信息。过去《D&D》玩家需要通过角色收集信息，或弄清如何通过魔法收集信息：现在他们通过掷骰子。这部分是因为在电子游戏中，裁判员（即电脑）尚不够聪明，无法处理各种对话和玩家意愿，所以内容就简化成对话分支、数据和掷骰子。如今的第4版内容是完全的“自然”形式，几乎是完全不涉及长期规划的策略战斗，因此包含较少策略元素。

若干博客评论家谈到玩家抱怨第4版《D&D》的暗门。这被玩家视作“险恶的DM诡计”。但游戏DM表示，他并没有使用暗门，因为他很清楚自己希望玩家朝何处前进，进行什么操作，隐藏路线毫无意义。换而言之，在将多样性和线性描述当作目标的游戏中，暗门只会起到阻碍作用。在以玩法深度作为目标的游戏中，暗门是个区分点，是否具有暗门选择会带来显著差异。

RPG内容的设计如今更多旨在让玩家感受到多样性、奖励及胜利感觉，而非体验玩法深度和遭遇失败感。它们变得更像是娱乐活动，而不那么像游戏（游戏邦注：这里假设我们所谓的游戏是指存在明显对立，需要深思熟虑，然后做出反应的内容）。

我觉得如今RPG游戏越来越普遍的特点是：裁判设计故事，玩家遵循故事发展。就如Monte Cook几年前在《Origins》中发现的，这款桌面探险游戏比过去更注重故事内容。传统选择就是设定情境，让玩家设计故事，而非要求他们遵循线性脉络。在电子RPG领域，电子/掌机风格的游戏通常要求玩家遵循特定线性故事。有些人将著名的《最终幻想》系列形容成夹杂无关紧要探险和战斗情节的故事内容。

最喜欢的游戏作品

30-40年前，多数玩家都有最爱的1-2款游戏，这些是他们愿意反复体验的内容。这种情况现在很少见。若你询问年轻玩家，尤其是电子游戏玩家，他们最喜欢的游戏作品是什么，他们多半回答不出来或者只是罗列几款他们现

在正在体验的游戏。有些甚至对于此问题感到惊讶。他们通常会将数十款游戏都列为自己的最爱。体验一款游戏数百次或连续体验同款游戏数百小时对于当代玩家来说已是罕见情况。那些具有最爱作品，会反复体验游戏的年轻玩家多数都集中于《魔法风云会故事》和《游戏王》。CCG的目标是逐步改变游戏，说服玩家购买新卡片；有时游戏规则也会发生改变。

许多AAA游戏都涉及谜题或故事元素，只要你顺利解决谜题或完整体验故事，就没有再继续下去的必要。有些游戏会提供若干不同角色，这样游戏就会呈现多样性。但其中鲜有玩法深度。具有深刻玩法的游戏能够供玩家反复体验，同时会呈现新元素和新可能。谜题最终会被被破解，破解后内容就鲜有趣味。

此根本变化也许体现在当前各种休闲活动中。相比30-40年前，如今的娱乐活动存在更多消遣内容和更多机会。现在我们拥有万维网，有众多电视网络，以及可下载电影和电视节目资源，我们拥有智能手机，能够免费发送短信，还有就是iPad和MP3，这些在30-40年前都不存在。用户不再像过去那样长久停留于某物，游戏领域同样如此。

体验具有玩法深度的游戏通常需要耐心，按游戏计划行事。这些内容如今非常罕见，因为人们如今越来越依赖手机等消遣休闲设备。

我们现在已经变成浅尝辄止的“娱乐体验者”。声音/配乐体验者喜欢在他们的MP3上存储成百上千首歌曲，但他们不会特别偏好其中的哪支曲子。游戏玩家也同此理，他们玩很多游戏，但也不会很常玩其中某款游戏。多样性是他们的目标。

这不是这段时间唯一发生的巨变。即便是对那些想要充分发挥聪明才智的玩家来说，解谜也被玩法深度所取代。在电子游戏领域，用户粘性慢慢取代玩法，成为设计师的首要目标。

篇目5，关于游戏设计中的正面的错误选择

作者：Josh Bycer

之前我曾着眼于游戏设计中的错误选择，我谈及了所有比你所使用的无意义选择更糟糕的选择。而在本文我想要进一步拓展之前的内容去谈论同一个问题，但却是从完全相反的角度进行分析，即关于太过优秀的选择。

正面的错误选择：

关于选择太过优秀这一理念听起来就像是一个古怪的抱怨，因为你总是希望玩家能够拥有优秀的选择。问题在于当选择非常优秀时，它便会因为其有用性而变得更必要。与我们上次谈论的内容一样，这些错误的选择会因为玩家未能选择它们而给予惩罚，就像之前的文章曾提到这些选择会因为玩家选择了它们而惩罚玩家。

为了明确两种类型的错误选择，我们将把正面的错误选择作为正例，并使用负面的错误选择作为反例。正面的错误选择通常出现在策略指南或最小最大建议中，即人们所说的这样的选择始终都是有用的，或者一组指令每次都是最有效的。

最后一行非常重要，因为它区分了玩家如何决定优秀的选择以及正面的错误选择—-如果一个选择始终都是优秀的选择，它便会被当成是一种正面的错误选择，因为你总是会想做出这样的选择。

以下是来自《Payday 2》的例子，在技能提升前，每种类别都能够获得奖励，即将X个点数添加到各自的技能树上。

技术员拥有的奖励是能够创造额外25%的攻击力。显然这在更高的难度水平上是非常有帮助的，并且会导致玩家一心只想选择这一类别。

正如你所看到的，这一选择之所以优秀是因为不管你处于怎样的架构中，不管你使用怎样的武器或者不管你如何游戏，它都是有用的。因为这种选择始终是优秀的，所以它便成为了正面的错误选择。开发者能够做的便是将其转移到全新创造的福利系统中，那么任何玩家便能够轻松获得奖励，而不管他们是基于怎样的游戏风格。

因为正面的错误选择与负面的错误选择是完全相反的，所以你可以在游戏过程中去识别它们。与所有玩家都想办法避开的负面的错误选择不同的是，正面的错误选择是关于所有玩家每次都会做出的选择，不管它是什么样的选择。如果你尝试着让玩家在两种选择中做出决定，那么这种选择肯定不会是最佳选择。明确正面的错误选择是很困难的，因为基于不同游戏玩法，游戏中总是会存在各种不同的选择类型。

必要vs随意的选择：

关于判断一个选择是否属于正面的错误选择是取决于游戏的设计方式，有些选择可能会因为游戏机制而变得更加必要。例如在《Payday 2》中，因为游戏是拥有潜行和公开两种关卡，所以存在一些对于有效潜行更必要的技能，如提高蹲伏速度和偷袭敌人。

在这种情况下，潜行技能便属于正面的错误选择，因为你需要它们去完成潜行任务。然而因为它们是潜行游戏玩法的基础，所以你需要为了利用特定技能而选择它们。当出现一些像这样的特定内容时，它便不再是一个正面的错误选择，因为玩家将为了利用它而将自己困在某些其它元素中。作为《Payday 2》中的一名潜行玩家，因为我选择了建造，所以我便不能快速修复钻头或获得最厉害的铠甲。

这么做意味着我的技能范围是基于不同情况从不错到优秀。而关于什么事都不做的例子，让我们看看《文明：太空》。

在游戏的零售版本中，你可以为了联系周边城市或车站而建立贸易仓库以获得补贴。做研究非常便宜，并且单位也不需要花费你太长时间进行建造。一旦创造了供应链，你便会不断从中获得补贴，并且在经过几个回合后你唯一需要做的事便是重启它。在这里，不管你面对怎样的情况，建立贸易仓库的选择始终都是有帮助的，它们所提供的利益总是多于研究和制作所花费的成本。

关于贸易仓库，我并未因为选择它而将自己困于某些区域中，所以这是一种双赢的选择，不存在任何缺点，因此这是一个正面的错误选择。

另外一个关于你拥有正面的错误选择的标志便是当你的玩家表示他们不会使用可能导致游戏变得更复杂的特定道具或选择时。如果你的游戏中的一个选择很有帮助，但是玩家却会因为一些不利因素而避开它，那么你便有麻烦了。

挑剔的选择：

优秀的游戏设计并不是关于提供给玩家正面的错误选择，而是让他们根据自己的感受决定最佳行动方案。一组优秀的选择是关于挑战玩家去适应游戏中的不同情况，并且不需要阅读任何指南或遵循检查列表。

通常情况下纠正正面的错误选择的方法与纠正负面的错误选择的方法一样—-即调整该选择或游戏中的其它选择。但是你需要谨慎地应对这一点，因为过多削弱选择可能会导致它变得过度情境化。如果某些内容的有效率只有1/10，即在大多数情况下都是无意义的，那就等同于你在创造另一个负面的错误选择。

多样性就像调味剂一样，但你也有可能遇到面对着太多没有真正价值的选择的情况。如果你的所有选择都是基于倍增或默默无闻的效果（游戏邦注：如+2攻击力或+1生命值），那么你的游戏便会缺少深度。这就像让玩家在更高的跳跃和更深的飞跃中做出选择一样。

优秀的选择设计是关于呈现给玩家均衡数量的选择，从而确保这些选择不仅具有多样性，同时还具有意义。任何选择都不应该太优秀或太糟糕，如果你可以有效地平衡它们，你便能够创造出一款真正有趣的游戏。

篇目6，阐述选择元素给游戏设计带来的负面影响

作者：Soren Johnson

没有什么比玩家选择的重要性更能定义电子游戏。互动性将游戏与电影和文学等静态艺术区分开来，如果评论家指责《亲爱的艾斯特》等游戏体验“并不是真正的游戏”，那这通常都是因为它们缺少有意义的玩家选择。

然而，因为选择被游戏设计师们当成一种典范（伴随着像“授权玩家代理”和“放弃原创性”等短语），所以在开发过程中他们往往都会忽视选择的负面性。实际上，每当设计师添加更多选择到游戏中时，他们就需要做出一定的权衡。

作为一种新选择的结果，游戏获得了某种程度的玩家粘性，但却也付出了其它代价。这些代价常常会因为太多时间，太多复杂性或太多的重复性而被组合在一起——甚至会大大超过额外选择的正面价值。

太多时间

如果游戏可以压缩成一次方程式，那么有可能的等式便是（所有的乐趣）=（有意义的决策）/（所花费的时间）。换句话说，对于两款带有相同玩家选择水平的游戏来说，需要较少时间的游戏往往更有趣。当然，通常这种比较都不明显；一个新的功能将添加一个有意义的决策，但这是否值得添加额外的时间到游戏过程中？

举个例子来说吧，《Dice Wars》和《Risk》都是关于征服领土的游戏，但却给出了不同的答案。在这两款游戏中，玩家通过掷骰子攻击彼此，胜者将在下一回合的开始获得额外军队作为奖励。在《Risk》中，玩家需要决定在哪里放置这些军队，基于当下的情境看来这将是有意义的选择。而在《Dice Wars》中，军队则是由游戏随机放置的，并因此加快了游戏速度。

到底哪种设计才是正确的？关于这一问题的答案其实很主观，不过对此的相关问题在于如果玩家花时间去安排自己的新军队，那么战斗决策是否会更有意义，或者会变得多有意义。不管怎样，在《Risk》中玩家可以追求更有目的性的策略，但是否这就值得他们花费更多额外的时间？

答案取决于用户（游戏邦注：《Dice Wars》是一款休闲Flash游戏，而《Risk》则是一款传统的桌面游戏），但是设计师应该理解他们决定的分叉。有时候，在《Risk》中的军队设置可能是一种生硬的决定，有时候在《Dice Wars》中对意外的管理做出回应会引起一种全新且更多元化的乐趣。最终，《Risk》必须向用户证明他们延长游戏时间的做法是合理的。

太多复杂性

除了时间花费，每个呈献给玩家的选择都附带着有关额外复杂性的认知负荷，需要进行有效的权衡。更多选择意味着玩家将更难做出决定；决定研究5个不同的技术与在50个技术中做出选择是完全不同的。玩家不只会担心自己选择了什么，同时也会担心他们没选择什么，如果他们面临了更多选择，他们就有更多担心的理由。

每种游戏类型都带有选择数目（即确保游戏的有效管理）的有效点，足以成为一个有趣的决定，并且不会压得玩家喘不过气。在过去几十年里暴雪的RTS会在每次回合都支持一定数量的单位；《星际争霸》，《魔兽争霸3》和《星际争霸2》的每个派别平均都拥有12个单位。对于第三款游戏，设计师更是明确说明了他们为了给新单位腾出更多空间而删除了一些旧单位。

的确，RTS作为一种游戏类型正遭受着来自更受欢迎的新兴游戏类型MOBA的攻击，这种游戏的主要代表有《英雄联盟》和《Dota 2》。MOBA是源自《魔兽争霸3》的mod：Defense of the Ancients，其游戏方法与RTS类似，除了玩家只能控制一个英雄而非整个军队之外。

这种改变通过降低了复杂性以及玩家所负荷的认知需求而拓宽了潜在的用户。比起需要管理大量的矿山，兵营，劳工和士兵（就像在经典的RTS中那样），玩家只需要担心一个角色便可。通过让摄像机锁定玩家的英雄而不是自由地穿梭于地图中（后者将赋予玩家更多压力去集中注意力）能够有效实现UI的简化。

当然，这种改变也会带走RTS游戏中许多有意义的选择。玩家不能再决定该将建筑放置在哪里，该使用怎样的技术，该瞄准哪个单位甚至该在哪里发送它们；游戏剥夺了所有的这些选择。再一次，这里所存在的相关问题也是关于这些被剥夺的决定是否等价于它们添加到一款经典RTS的大量复杂性。

而MOBA的成功证实了，尽管玩家喜欢RTS游戏中大规模实时战斗的刺激与壮观，但是他们却并不喜欢游戏要求自己去控制每一个元素。设计师Cliff Harris讨论了有关自己成功的RTS游戏《Gratuitous Space Battles》中一个类似的点，即允许玩家在战斗过程中控制任何单位：“《GSB》并不会要求你在一个复杂的战斗中控制300艘星舰。它容许你做不到这点，因此并不会将其作为一个选择。有些人讨厌它。但是有超过10万的人喜欢它并愿意购买它，所以我并不是唯一带有这一想法的人。”

太多重复性

太多玩家选择可能会不利于游戏体验的最后一点可能会让人略感惊讶，但的确拥有太多自由的游戏将会趋于不断重复。典型的例子便是，游戏在不同过程中呈献给玩家广泛但却静态的选择菜单；玩家通常都会创造出一套自己喜欢的选择组合，并专注于游戏空间中的一个小角落中。

有时候，如果玩家需要对各种环境做出反应，那么一套固定的选择便能发挥作用；《文明》中的随机地图便将玩家固定在技术指数的不同地方。但是几乎所有的游戏都可以从减少一些玩家选择去提高整体多样性而受益。

例如在《Atom Zombie Smasher》中，玩家将使用3种特殊的武器（如狙击枪，混凝土或锁）将平民从僵尸所带来的城市灾难中拯救出来。但是玩家需要在每次任务中，从8种武器里随机选择3种武器，即意味着玩家对于当前武器所做出的反应与城市布局或僵尸行为是同等的。比起基于一个特定且喜欢的组合，玩家必须学着创造不同寻常的组合，这便意味着游戏玩法将会不断变化。

同样地在《FTL》中，队员，武器和升级也会在不同游戏间发生改变，这主要是取决于随机生成商店所提供的内容。因此，游戏并不是关于发现并完善一个单一的策略，而是基于可用道具找到最佳方向。简单地来说，《Atom Zombie Smasher》和《FTL》的游戏玩法多样性是源自设计师限制玩家选择的决定。

而在另一头，带有巨大定制系统的游戏通常会退化为一些不切实际的选择，从而剥夺了其关联性的灵活系统。在《Alpha Centauri》中，玩家使用Unit Workshop去创造带有不同单位和能力的单位。但是最有影响力的组合很快便显现出来，并排斥了这一功能。

因此给予玩家太多控制（带有太多选择和代理）将会降低游戏的重玩价值。如果《暗黑破坏神》的玩家不能选择自己的技能的话游戏的乐趣是会增加还是减少？当然，如果失去一些特定的进程游戏便会变得不同，并会因此失去许多资深玩家，但是新的多样性也会吸引其它想要获得更加多样游戏体验的用户的注意。随机分布的技能也许会推动玩家去探索自己从未经历过的其它领域。重要的是这种有意义的玩家选择并不会破坏游戏。

从根本上看来，游戏设计便是关于一系列权衡，设计师们必须意识到选择本身只是游戏设计中的一大元素，需要与其它元素相平衡。尽管玩家控制是游戏的核心力量，但是它也不能超越其它元素，如简洁，优雅和多样性等等。

篇目7，探讨以约束条件限制玩家选择的问题

作者：Mark Venturelli

我将在本文讨论有关明智使用玩家选择限制的话题，其中包括可能性空间，涉及挑战，以及来自其他游戏的一些正反面案例。

约束对你有好处

游戏设计主要是选择的设计。我们作为设计师有相当一部分工作是为玩家创造体验，为之提供一系列有趣的选择——这在象棋或《万智牌》等回合制游戏中是个更容易理解的概念，但它也适用于即时游戏。在玩《Dungeonland》的时候，我是否会停止攻击去解救附近的一个同盟？我是否现在就使用自己的特殊药剂，还是留着之后备用？我是否要先躲避一下还是继续攻击那个敌人？

设计的基本要素之一就是“可能性空间”。我已经在数年前写过关于这个话题的一篇文章，所以不打算在此赘述，但通常情况下它代表玩家在特定时间点所拥有的选择。更少选择，意味着更小的可能性空间，更多选择就是更大的可能性空间。

我们很容易认为“越多越好”，但事实并非如此，正如《文明IV》设计师Soren Johnson去年所写的文章曾指出，如果你给予玩家过多选择，他们可能就只会随便挑选，或者坚持自己原来试过的方法。这两种情况都不能算是很有趣的玩法。

我一直在捍卫“高度集中”式，只保留绝对必要，删除任何“不必要”环节的游戏设计理念——《Dungeonland》几乎就是围绕这一理念而设计。我仍然认为这种极具约束性的方法是设计游戏的可行之道，但我还发现了一种更为平衡的方法。

约束并不适合你

那么当你限制可能性空间，只保留最重要的决策，并删减其他内容时，你的系统会发生什么情况？

简单性/复杂性与浅显/深度之间总处于一种恒定的紧张状态。当世界充满大量极富深度的简单游戏，以及极为肤浅的复杂游戏时，制作简单但富有深度的游戏就是一项罕见的成就。这一切都要取决于你的机制如何整合在一起：紧凑的游戏每次玩起来的感觉都极为不同，它们的配置只要有极小的变化就可以创造新的情境。所以，当我设计一款游戏时，我面临的个人挑战就是“我想用最简单可行的系统设计自己所能达到的最有深度的游戏”。

这非常困难，真的很难。虽然我很为自己在《Dungeonland》的战斗系统中所获得的成就而自豪，但它还是不够有深度。这就是问题所在：你得从极为简单的机制中提取良好的深度，但你的游戏深度够吗？《Dungeonland》当然还使用了一些额外的深度，我从那种体验中得到了许多收获。

我们最终想要的就是大量的即兴潜力。我们想让自己的系统发挥超出预期的表现，让我们感到惊喜，在每次我们每次接触时都会产生新玩法故事。有时候你可能会看似不经意地将自己的设计限制于一个单一的工具中。

创造更多优美的约束条件

我现在设计的是《Chroma Squad》这种战术性回合制战斗游戏。这个游戏题材拥有大量单位，每个单位都有不同的能力和属性，不同的地形/障碍和不可名状的东西，尤其是可从约束可能性空间得到的好处。我们将察看这个题材中关于单位移动和定位的两个采用了普遍约束方法的好例子，它们分别是《幽浮：未知敌人》和《韦诺之战》。

这两款游戏的设计师似乎都意识到了同样的情况：你可以使用“软”方法来限制玩家的选择，而不是完全限制选项。每个单位都可以向玩家所想要的方向移动，但这并非玩家“解读”每个回合的方式。

在《幽浮：未知敌人》中，每个地点都有一个“困难”属性，或者是无掩护，半掩护或是全掩护。让你的军队处于毫无掩护的状态无疑是个糟糕的主意，所以玩家几乎都会让自己的军队向全掩护方向移动（至少也要半掩护）。在执行良好的关卡设计中，这种做法创造的是移动单位时合理约束玩家可能性空间的结果：你总是有一大把“真正的”选择，即便你在必要的时候可以自由地离开安全路径。尽管在移动过程中还需要考虑其他许多因素，例如翼侧包围，视线和射程等，最终你要先通过掩护地点“筛除”这些选项。

在《韦诺之战》中，开发者采用了一种与《Fire Emblem》游戏所不同的地形系统——不同的地形拥有一个“防御”比例值，可以增加敌人攻击失误的概率。不同军队也可以用不同方法利用地形优势——Elven军队可以从森林中获得额外加成，而Dwarves在山上更易于防守。它创造了一种类似于《幽浮》系统的效果——即便你可以向任意方向移动军队，你可以首先通过最佳地理位置来筛选合理的行动。

移除约束条件

所以想象一下，如果新的《幽浮》并没有掩护规则，或者它们并不像当前设计一样看重保证玩家军队存活率，情况又会如何呢？玩家可能就得考虑关于射程、视线和翼侧包围等因素的更多选项，而突然提前想到两三个回合则是一个极为困难的任务。这样的游戏可能会令人感觉较不“紧凑”，其中的回合持续时间更长。

此外，如果《韦诺之战》中所有的地形都是平的，那就会出现相似的效果：敌人的行动会突然变得几乎不可预测，要想有效移动每个单位就需要玩家额外多花点时间分析可能出现的结果——换句话说，你可能会无所谓向任何方向移动，只能寄希望于出现最好的结果。由于游戏未来状态变得更加难以预测，玩家身上可能就会出现大家所不希望看到的分析麻痹症——游戏永远没有真正的选择，玩家就只能随机选择。

强化约束条件

现在从一个不同的角度来考虑：如果在《幽浮》中你只能向掩护地点移动单队呢？就好像在5th Cell的射击游戏《Hybrid》中一样，所有向非掩护地点移动的行为都会被禁止。在某些情况下，玩《幽浮》的体验会令人意外的完整，但你可能会失去大量即兴玩法。我记得有几次我的士兵疾跑到空旷地反败为胜，但如果Firaxis选择运用这种约束条件，游戏就不可能出现这种情况了。

这种做法值得一试吗？在我看来，答案是否定的。从许多方面来看，这正是他们的战略层次：仅浓缩最为基本的选择，结果就无甚新意了。你可能没听说过《幽浮》在战略层次方面的一种情况——有趣的事情只会发生在地面，这真是一个遗憾，要知道它继承了原版游戏丰富的即兴玩法。我在《Dungeonland》中多方面运用了这种“过于约束”的方法，事后看来我发现自己让玩家错过了一些冒险一搏的机会。

篇目1，篇目2，篇目3，篇目4，篇目5，篇目6，篇目7（本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao）

篇目1，GDC 2012: Sid Meier on how to see games as sets of interesting decisions

by Leigh Alexander

“Games are a series of interesting decisions,” says Firaxis’ Sid Meier. It’s a statement he’s made in the past – and he’s noticed (by Googling himself) that viewpoint of his has been a source of some debate. But it’s one of his favorite ways of thinking about game design, so in his packed GDC 2012 lecture, he explained the idea in depth – what makes decisions in gameplay interesting for players, and what do designers need to know?

“It’s easier to look at it as what is not an interesting decision,” says the legendary creator of Civilization. If a player always chooses the first from among a set of three choices, it’s probably not an interesting choice; nor is a random selection. While there are some types of games where the idea of interesting decisions isn’t the best way to look at things – say rhythm games or puzzle games based on different sorts of inputs — he generally believes the idea is a helpful way to look at the medium.

“It’s a useful concept during the design phase. One of the things I see often is that designs are kind of about putting together pieces of other games,” says Meier. There’s the idea that if some games are fun, then combinations of their elements will also be fun.

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work out,” he says. “And I think it’s a more useful way to look at a new game design in terms of, what are the decisions I’m presenting the player, and are they interesting?… Put yourself in the player’s chair.”

What Makes An Interesting Decision?

One common characteristic of interesting decisions is that they involve some kind of tradeoff – say, the opportunity to get a big sword costs 500 gold, or in a racing game the fastest car may have poorer handling. In Meier’s Civilization, the act of building a defensive unit has complex resource costs in exchange for protection.

“Good decisions are situational. There’s a very key idea that when the decision is presented to the player, ideally it acts in an interesting way with the game situation,” Meier explains. Civ contains complex systems that provide a number of situational choices, where the options presented to players and the factors therein depend heavily on what’s happening in the game world.

Some of these decisions are personal and tied to the player’s gaming style. A cautious player would choose to build a very secure base from which to expand; an aggressive player invests in its offensive units. “This interesting decision would allow you to express your personal play style,” he says.

Interesting decisions are persistent and affect the game for a certain amount of time, as long as the player has enough information to make the decision – when early choices can ruin the game experience down the road, developers need to present them in a fashion appropriate to that. “

One classic decision type is a risk-versus-reward scenario that asks the player to weigh potential penalties against the possibilities of rewards. “In almost any kind of game you’ll find opportunities for these decisions,” he says. Another decision category is short versus long-term decisions – like building a wonder in Civilization, which takes a long time but has a significant long-term impact – versus building a chariot, which is finished much more quickly but has much less effect on the overall landscape of the game.

When it comes to accommodating the player’s play style, “it’s very tempting as a designer to imagine that everybody plays a game the same way that you do, and it’s very tempting as a design and development group to feel that you represent all players,” he says. That’s why he finds it essential to good design to allow for as many choices and play styles as possible.

One of the strengths of Civilization in Meier’s own view, is that it has things happening on multiple levels at once in terms of short-, medium- and long-term events. The player’s task is to prioritize and to manage strategies for both near-term and long-term goals, and evolve the short-term goals to make the long-term goal more accessible.

Customization functions also create interesting decisions, even if it’s as simple as choosing a name for your city or a color for your vehicle. “It makes [the player] more connected to the game that they’re playing,” Meier says. “Think about ways of investing the player in your game by inviting them to make decisions that let them to express their personality or their gaming style.

Informed Choices

Key to making decision meaningful is to ensure players understand the full scope of their choices; it’s not fun for the player to be in a situation where they have to pick something, and then marinate in that gnawing feeling of wondering what might happen as a result of their choice or how severe the impact might be. “It’s almost worth erring on the side of providing the player with too much information, or at least enough that they’re comfortable with understanding the choices,” Meier advises.

When it comes to making players comfortable and happy as they make decisions, genre conventions help – the fact that most shooters have something of a standard interface help players feel assured. When a player presses a button that in every other game in its genre does a certain thing and receives an unfamiliar result, “there’s nothing more disconcerting,” he warns.

One reason that many of Firaxis’ games involve historical topics is that the player can come to the experience with a lot of information that they already know. “It’s important to reinforce that information for the player – if you run into Genghis Khan in a Civilization game, you’re going to expect him to be kinda angry and aggressive… if you’re building a game about railroads or pirates, there’s a lot that the player can bring to a topic like that that they already know.”

Zombies are popular because they’re very clear – their motivation is basic and their nature is obvious and well understood. “It’s an example of a decision where you don’t have to add a lot of information for the player; they pretty much know what to do.”

On the other hand, once the player makes a decision the response from the game is enormously important: “The worst thing you can do is just move on. There’s nothing more paranoia-inducing than having made a decision and the game just kind of goes on. At least have a sound effect that says, ‘I’ve heard what you said and I’m going to do it.’” In Civilization Revolution, players were so pleased to get feedback on some of their unit moves when they negotiated with leaders from other areas, for example.

Feedback helps players feel responsible and meaningful within the game world. “It’s really important to let the player know that you know that they’re there, that you’re a partner with them, that you’re right there next to them all the way,” Meier explains. “That yes, ‘you are the leader of a great civilization’, or ‘you are a great race car driver’. Whether it’s a sound or text, a visual or graphic… really reinforce the fantasy the player is creating in their mind and really allow them to enjoy that.”

The Player Types

In order to create lots of interesting decisions for players, it’s important for designers to understand the many types of players there are. There’s the player that cares mainly about winning, who can offer feedback on tuning the game’s higher levels. There’s the genre fan, who is a fan of the specific genre and loves anything that resembles things they love already – and resents deviations. This player’s feedback is useful for understanding how to use the genre conventions, but hopefully doesn’t constrain new developments.

There’s the player the one who wants to understand all of the game’s algorithm and calculate the best possible scenarios. This player can help with game balance – within reason, as the player really just wants to unravel and own the systems. Then, there’s the paranoid player, who feels that everything is stacked against him or her, assuming that dice rolls are rigged or unfair. The history buff will criticize elements of the setting and complain about loyalty to source material or accuracy of a historical setting.

The player who Meier calls “Mr. Bubble Boy” is the one who dwells on the one unfortunate game experience he or she had. “You need to prevent setbacks in a very sensitive way, where the player understands why it’s happening and what they can do next time… one incident colors their entire experience.” And there’ll always be that armchair designer who focuses on every detail of why a given game isn’t like the one he or she creates.

It’s useful to understand all of these player types and to benefit from their feedback, but all of them can cause consequences if their views are too highly prized.

More Interesting Decisions

Once a game implements interesting decisions, what makes them more interesting? A strong balance of risk-reward choices; adjusting how impactful choices are, giving the player more or less information, providing time frame within which to make decisions, or adjusting how many choices there are in the game can all completely define and refine a design. There’s a flavor slider, too: “This is really a presentation issue,” he says. “Take advantage of those artists, those writers that are working on your game to really add flavor.”

“Be careful to manage that balance,” he says. “If you’re playing a game with complicated decisions that come at you one after the other the player is going to feel out of control. On the other hand, if you give your player some very simple decisions at a very slow place, they’re kind of bored.”

The last way to make a game more interesting through decisions? Get rid of ones that are not working. “You’ve tried all these things and they don’t work. Maybe the decision is just one you should take out of your game.,” says Meier. “Be ruthless in terms of cutting things out… probably a third of the things that we try, if not more, end up getting taken out of the game because they’re not fun and interesting enough.”

“You don’t want to forget that your game is more than just decisions,” he emphasizes. The detailed minutiae of developing interesting decisions ought not to take away from the production of a rich, vivid world that feels real and fun for the player. A strong fantasy environment coupled with empowering and interesting decisions is a key coupling that creates a long-term relationship between a player and a game, he believes.

“It’s the combination of this wonderful fantasy world that you create and the interesting decisions that the player gets to make in that world that really is the sum total of the quality of your game,” Meier concludes.

篇目2，All Games Are About Choices

by Shay Pierce

Today I read a very thoughtful blog post by a game designer who I greatly admire, but with whom I absolutely disagree: Chris DeLeon wrote a scathing dismissal of the argument that games like Galaga are based on interesting decisions. (That argument was itself presented in response to Chris’ previous blog post, titled “Many Games Are Not About Choices.”)

I’d like to respond with an assertion: that Galaga really is a game based on interesting decisions; and that, in any game which includes anything that could possibly described as “challenge” (in other words, virtually all games), the gameplay is in fact entirely based around interesting decisions. My argument is that we should take Sid Meier’s definition that “a good game is a series of interesting decisions” (which Chris dismisses as only applicable to certain types of games) and apply it in a deeper and more holistic way than it’s typically applied; and that doing so will show how it is possibly the most important, fundamental law in the field of game design. Recognizing this may involve rethinking one’s definition of the term “decision”; but I believe that thinking this way reveals certain fundamental truths about game design which seem to elude even many experienced game designers.

Mario’s resume, like mine, is varied – though none of my jobs’ descriptions have been “killing baby monkeys.” Yet.

Learning the Ropes

I should provide a little background before I continue. My formal education isn’t in game design, it’s in software engineering; however, I’ve always had a great passion for game design, and several years ago I set about methodically self-educating myself in it that discipline. But for the most part, I was disappointed in the lack of rigorous academic material available – coming from a highly analytical and well-defined field like computer science, I kept feeling that there must be some hidden cache of “Game Design 101″ educational materials that really explained what game design was about, but eluded me. To make a long story short, my education in game design has almost literally been a self-education – I was basically unable to ever find a “universal theory of good game design” which I found satisfactory… so I set about defining my own.

(Note that there are diamonds in the rough… in particular: virtually everything ever written by Marc LeBlanc; and most of the teaching coming from NYU’s Game Center, especially the book Rules of Play by Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen, which I’m currently reading and loving.)

Scientists spent years trying to decipher Einstein’s coded Unified Theory documents before realizing they were actually chords for Rolling Stone songs.

Guitar Heroes and Unified Theories

My personal “unified theory of fun gameplay” didn’t begin to crystallize until a couple of years ago. Until then, my definitions of “fun gameplay” and “good game design” were rather fuzzy and non-rigorous: various theories and definitions floated about in my head, but it was unclear how they related to one another. (I now recognize that this is pretty much the current state of game design theory in general.) One of these definitions was Sid Meier’s “interesting decisions” quote, which I intuitively felt to be extremely important, though it was hard to explain why.

Then I read a blog post by Chris Bateman which directly challenged the Meier quote, holding up Guitar Hero as the ultimate proof against it:

“…these rhythm action games do not rely upon a series of interesting decisions, for the most part they have no decisions of any kind!”

I realized this was an important question: was the idea of Interesting Decisions fundamental to good game design, or was it optional and disposable?

I thought about it extensively and realized that it was the former: all good gameplay is comprised of interesting decisions … but only if one expands one’s definition (and understanding) of what a “decision” is. And once I expanded this definition, I finally found the “uniform theory of good game design” that I had sought all along.

Does decision-making break down somewhere between these genres? Also, what would happen if Princess Peach fought Kerrigan? That would be so sweet. Sorry, what was I talking about?

Who Turned Off the Choices?

I played Guitar Hero obsessively, and much like I played any other game: I’d go to a level that I hadn’t completed yet, attempt to complete it, and fail. I would then try again and again until I succeeded, at which point I would move on to the next challenge. I noted that this was exactly the same pattern that I applied to a game like Advance Wars: Dual Strike. And though those two games clearly had huge differences, it was clear that there was some kind of fundamental similarity between them as well. Advance Wars (a turn-based strategy game) was clearly about making interesting decisions. But Guitar Hero wasn’t… right?

But consider the following genres of game, and tell me when they stop being about “interesting decisions”:

Turn-based strategy [Advance Wars]

Slow-moving real-time strategy [Kohan, Neptune's Pride]

Fast-moving real-time strategy [Starcraft]

Tactical “action” games [Defense of the Ancients]

Pure action games [Super Mario Bros, Galaga]

Rhythm action games [Guitar Hero]

At what point in this spectrum does the gameplay stop being about “interesting decisions”?

My answer: they don’t stop being about interesting decisions. Each genre is fundamentally about making decisions during every moment of gameplay. There are decisions being made in every one of these games; they’re just extremely different decisions, which occur in different layers of the brain.

At the bottom of the spectrum, the decisions are so minute that they’re no longer what we would call “decisions” in a normal definition. In other words: the exact way you configure your fingers across the buttons to prepare for the next set of notes coming towards you in Guitar Hero is a decision that you make.

Again, this is not what we’d typically call a “decision” in day-to-day language – we might normally call it a “choice” or even just an “action.” But fundamentally, they’re all the same thing.

These games each use different parts of your brain. They’re also both so hard that they make you want to lobotomize yourself… but each in a different part of your brain.

Fretting Over Tanks

Is there a difference between choosing what configuration my fingers are going to be in during a given millisecond-long period of Guitar Hero, and choosing what configuration my tanks are going to be in during a given turn of Advance Wars? Of course there are differences: in Advance Wars, my conscious mind is rationally considering the battlefield and making an intellectual decision; in Guitar Hero, my unconscious mind, my physical instinct, my muscle memory, and my intuition are deciding where my fingers need to be this instant, and moving them there as best they can.

But though they’re happening on different levels of consciousness, they are still fundamentally the same thing. Now that we’ve acknowledged the differences, consider the commonalities:

Each are actions defined solely by my own initiative. What actions I take, and what exactly the action is comprised of, are defined entirely by myself. I never move my hand on a Guitar Hero controller without it being my decision to move it; and no one but me is deciding where my fingers are going and how they’re getting there.

Both are always decisions which may be either “better” or “worse” than other decisions I might have made. My line of tanks could be more or less optimal for defense; the arrangement of my fingers could be more or less optimal for allowing me to hit the notes currently moving down the screen.

My decision-making improves as I learn. I don’t just get better at Guitar Hero because I’m memorizing the level: my hand is also constantly learning better ways to move and arrange my fingers on the keys. With time, my skill increases and allows me to take on new and greater challenges.

I admit that there’s a big difference between decisions that a player must make under time pressure, and decisions that the player has infinite time to make. Playing my puzzle game Connectrode (which has no time pressure) is very different from playing Dr. Mario (which does), though the games have mechanical similarities. But both types of decisions are still decisions: just because a decision has to be made within a time limit doesn’t mean that it stops being a decision. They’re just different flavors of decisions.

Boom, headshot. No more decisions for you.

Counter-Semantics

Essentially I’m expanding the definition of “decision” here to encompass something that happens on all levels of human consciousness. Consider a game like Counter-Strike, where within one round the player must make “strategic” decisions (what configuration he and his squad should take and what points of the level to assault with what strength); “tactical” decisions (what vectors to approach from, what hiding places to choose); and minute “action” decisions (whether to use gross-movement muscles of the arm, or fine-movement muscles of the wrist, in order to maneuver the mouse so as to place the crosshair over an enemy player’s head onscreen). I think it’s best to holistically view all of these as “decisions” which are made during gameplay, but which simply exist in different layers of the operations of the human brain. (For a more detailed analysis of the varied decision-making in a Counter-Strike game, read Tynan Sylvester’s excellent Gamasutra feature Decision-Based Gameplay Design.)

Now, I’ll admit that calling these things “decisions” does seem silly (or at least inaccurate) once we start talking about minute movements of fingers on the buttons on a plastic guitar! In regular language, no one calls what you’re doing in Guitar Hero “decision-making.” I would probably be better understood if I said instead: Guitar Hero tests a skill, and so does Advance Wars; and though these are very different skills, they’re still both clearly skills, testing different areas of human mental (and physical) performance. But I believe that all “skills” have, fundamentally, the same “structure” – they’re composed of actions.

In the end, all games that are based on an element of challenge are by definition based on testing and challenging one or more skill. (If you think that your challenge-based game isn’t based on testing any player skills, then either you’re wrong and you’re not looking hard enough for the skill… or else you’re right and your game is neither challenging nor fun.) And all skill levels are essentially defined by what decisions you’re making and the quality of those decisions. As you play the game, you learn more, thereby improving your decision-making capacity – which is the same thing as saying “improving your skills”.

Letting your ship get captured: The classic risk vs. reward decision. Thing is, it represents about 1% of the decisions you make in this game.

Galaga and Garrison Keillor

While playing Galaga, I definitely make decisions, at a rate of about 60 per second: I’m either pointing my ship in a direction or not, hitting the Fire button or not… every moment of action (or inaction) is my own decision. But a large number of those minute choices are made by my “lizard brain”… or my “muscle memory”, or my “instincts”, whatever you prefer to call it. For some reason we don’t usually call such choices “decisions”; but I believe that classifying them holistically with other types of decisions clarifies their role, and their importance, in game design, and allows us to better understand and compare game designs.

And what of the decision in Galaga to allow my ship to be taken away, so that I might recover it later as a power-up? Clearly this is a higher-level, “strategic decision”, and it’s actually unusual and is used to break up the constant low-level “action decisions” that the gameplay is mostly comprised of. Many great games have multiple layers of decision-making, often taking place at the same time – this is an example of that.

Ultimately, that one decision in Galaga is the one that’s easier to talk about (and recognize) than the many tiny “wrist decisions”, because it’s the one occurring at the higher level of our

consciousness. But a truly far-seeing game designer is willing to acknowledge the importance of all types of decisions, which may compose all types of mental and physical skills. Garrison Keillor said “Nothing human is beneath a writer’s attention.” Similarly, no human capability for decision-making should be beneath a game designer’s attention… from leading a civilization, to moving a finger over the correct button – and remember, the former is never possible without the latter.

篇目3，How much choice do players really want?

by Jim Cummings

In his last post Matt discussed how players may modify different UI components so as to deal with the slew of motivationally relevant elements they encounter during complex and dynamic gameplay.

This personalization of one’s interface allows the player to attend to and process information in a manner that is maximally engaging by allowing a closer match between one’s pool of cognitive resources and the cognitive demands of one’s gameplay experience.

One might also note that this act of customization is likely in itself a motivating aspect of gameplay. Indeed, literature on gratification, learning, and user interfaces all find that individuals tend to prefer and become more engaged in exercises in which they are permitted at least some degree of control, customization, or personalization. And research specifically focusing on MMO gameplay like that discussed by Matt has found that players who are allowed to customize their avatar are actually more physiologically aroused by and cognitively in tune with their avatar’s onscreen actions.

One explanation for these sorts of findings stems from self-determination theory. SDT, which itself is comprised of multiple sub-theories, essentially suggests that we all have an innate, adaptive desire to exert control over the circumstances in our lives and that in being able to make choices for ourselves we exercise and validate a sense of autonomy. Further, (and key to our discussion) SDT reasons that because we are driven by a need for autonomy, we are more likely to be intrinsically motivated by conditions in which we can determine our own outcomes. In other words, we enjoy having a say in what happens to us, and therefore we enjoy having the option to choose.

Such a predisposition naturally explains the enjoyment one might find in the diversion of games, particularly those types of games in which players are permitted to define themselves and their conditions through customization and deciding between alternatives. Role-playing games, for example, do exactly this, as they typically allow players to name characters, assemble self-selected teams, customize character appearances and equipment, decide both depth and breadth of character skill specialization, discover multiple winning strategies, and explore both narratives and environments in a non-linear fashion.

And indeed, in the last few years other game types have become increasingly infused with such elements. First person shooters such as Modern Warfare and Borderlands are including progressively more intricate systems of skill specialization and equipment customization. Sports titles across the board have picked up “franchise mode” systems in which players not only enact the sporting events themselves, but get to make decisions regarding line-ups, draft picks, and athlete contracts. Even fairly simplistic puzzle games like Bejeweled now regularly include the player selection of alternate gameplay bonuses for each round. It would seem that titles found in all sorts of traditional “genres” are catering to a player desire for determining the circumstances of one’s own gameplay experience by including more choice decisions and more alternatives from which to select. And such commercial trends have been corroborated by academic research which has found that subjects report higher levels of enjoyment for and tend to spend more time playing games that offer relatively greater amounts of choice to their players.

However, can there be such a thing as offering players too much choice? A number of studies in real world environments have found that despite being driven by and showing a preference for an increased number of options and alternatives, people placed in scenarios that cater to this drive may experience certain negative consequences (a phenomenon termed the “paradox of choice”). For example, having an extended amount of choice options has been found to be demotivating, resulting in inaction or decreases in performance quality. In addition to such behavioral effects, “too much choice” has also been said to lead to specific cognitive detriments. These include delay or paralysis when faced with making a decision, negative affect or frustration in light of making a decision, and potential regret with one’s choice after a decision is finally made. Such negative consequences stem from the fact that having a large number of choices increases the amount of information an individual must process in order to make an informed/wise/rational decision.. This can become quite a demanding, challenging, and frustrating deliberative task as options are made more extensive. Yet, despite these negatives, people tend to nonetheless show preference for having an extended number of choices available.

Is there reason to believe that the problem of “too much choice” may carry over to virtual game environments? Well, to the extent that the choices they present are informationally sparse, have short-lived consequences, and allow for switching a decision at a low-cost, then games can likely avoid decision-paralysis, frustration, and regret on the part of players. However, this is increasingly not the case. In-game choices are not only becoming more numerous and extensive, but also – particularly in the case of large-scale virtual worlds and online networked gaming – more permanent and more costly to undo. Further, player customization options are increasingly non-trivial, as many decisions have real consequences for in-game success, in terms of both overcoming the hard-coded challenges and garnering social capital within a community of players.

Take for instance World of Warcraft, in which players currently face an environment filled with 19,363 types of armor, 718 trade good items, between 150-250 different abilities per player class, another 150-250 different talents per class, 263 different animal mounts, and 1,999 types of consumable (finite use) items (http://www.wowhead.com). Moreover, many of these different options are compared on a large number of attribute ratings – bonuses to one’s armor rating and stamina, for instance. Such attributes, both in their number and in their often incomparable effects, only exasperate the process of deliberating over and selecting from alternatives.

For many players facing these choices it is important to make the right decisions, as they often have implications not only for a character’s ability to complete new missions or explore new zones, but also for the social desirability of the player in the context of team-based group play. (Indeed, whether achievers, explorers or socializers, all types of players are often best served by making the “correct” decisions.) But again, to make an informed decision in such an information rich choice environment requires some cognitive heavy-lifting. It takes time and effort to identify relevant information, to weight and compare options, and to then make a decision. And while a given number of players may get their kicks from this process of testing out the relative superiority of alternative “specs” and gear sets, we may anecdotally assume that many players do not particularly enjoy such an exercise. Such players (likely more casual and less hardcore in their gameplay style) surely still take pleasure in the freedom to choose, but may find it frustrating to do the work necessary for ascertaining the “right” choice.

Ultimately, the issue of “too much choice” may pose a relatively larger problem for game environments than real world scenarios. Unlike the real world, games are constructed with the express intention of being enjoyable. However, if players who find it frustrating or paralyzing to deal with extensive options are required to do so in order to progress, frustration may increase and enjoyment may suffer.

Therefore, as player choices become more numerous, complex, and consequential (and thus more taxing and demanding), how might designers reduce the potential for players to grow frustrated or paralyzed when deliberating over what decisions to make?

1) Reduce choice. One solution would be to simply reduce the amount of choices players are permitted in games. But such an approach would throw the baby out with the bath water: a reduction in the number of options and decisions presented to a player would indeed dispel the negative consequences of choice, but would also junk the intrinsic rewards SDT tells us are conferred by the freedom to choose.

2) Reduce information. Another approach would be to continue the current trend of increased availability of choices, but to simplify the informational load of these choices. For example, this could be achieved by decreasing the number of component attributes players need to compare when deciding between multiple alternatives. However, such a tactic would have to be conducted in moderation, otherwise it may merely result in a multitude of choices that feel obvious, hollow, or insignificant

3) Reduce processing. An alternate solution may be the inclusion of decision-aiding tools that help streamline the information load placed on the player while still placing the actual decision in the hands of the player. Returning again to Matt’s post, UI mods already permit this to some extent. Other tools would include player-accessible data aggregators and the ability to crowd-source.

Though these devices may have their own drawbacks (for example, decreasing the player’s immersion into a virtual world’s fiction), they may still be less detrimental to player engagement than flat reductions of choice or choice attributes.

Developers have thus far been able to keep up with the increasing preference amongst players for more choice in their gameplay experiences. Yet, if current trends continue, players in all sorts of games may soon find themselves with more choice-related information than they can handle. At that point designers will need to find means by which to stave off the detriments of “too much choice” while still catering to a player desire for freedom. However it’s done, it will clearly require a careful balance of alleviating the cognitive demands placed on players with promoting the feeling of autonomy that makes our choices meaningful.

篇目4，Depth versus Variety: a Fundamental Change in Game Playing in the Past 30-40 Years

by Lewis

Recently I was discussing via blog posts what depth is in games (http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LewisPulsipher/20111219/9125/What_is_Depth_in_Games.php and elsewhere), and then ran across a discussion of how role-playing games have changed since D&D was first published . I’ve realized that there is a connection between the two, that what gamers are looking for in games has changed in a fundamental way in the past 30-40 years.

That fundamental change is that 30-40 years ago many hobby game players looked for gameplay depth (and occasionally narrative depth) in their games. Now most game players don’t look for gameplay depth but look instead for variety, which is quite a different thing. Many more people now also look for narrative in their games, but I’m not sure whether they’re looking for narrative depth or narrative variety. Game playing has become much more passive where long-term decision-making is concerned, and that’s incompatible with gameplay depth. Yes, there’s lots of activity in many kinds of video games, and short-term decision making, but the decisions and choices often don’t really matter in the long run.

Variety tends to lead to replayability, but game depth also leads to replayability. So they are two paths to the same objective, getting people to play the game over and over again.

Is variety “bad?” Certainly not. Is gameplay depth “good?” Not in and of itself, though it’s what I have tended to look for in over 50 years of game playing. Regardless of my preference, this discussion is a recognition of reality, what IS, not a criticism of the change.

(At this point I hope it’s obvious that I’m talking about trends and tendencies, about majorities, not about every hobby game player. Of course there are many, many exceptions in a group as large as ours.)

I’m talking here about hobby gamers, about people who play games frequently as a hobby. Family gamers are a very different group, and have never been people who looked for depth in a game. Nor did they look for variety, 30-40 years ago, their purpose in playing games was and is to socialize with their families and friends.

What do I mean by depth and variety? I’m working on a very long piece discussing gameplay depth and other kinds of depth in games. For our purposes here I’ll say that deep gameplay requires players to make many significant decisions, decisions that make a difference in the outcome of the game, and those decisions have multiple viable choices so the player can pick a better choice rather than a worse one, but more than one choice has a good chance to be successful. (A “viable” choice is one that, at least a reasonable part of the time, can lead to success, as opposed to “plausible” but not viable choices that look like they might work out well but rarely if ever will.) There is often an element of emergence in such games, choices (and sometimes decisions) that players don’t even recognize when they first play the game. This is often associated with decision trees, decisions that lead to others that lead to others and so on in a sort of tree shape, that give a good chance of success in the game. Yet perhaps paradoxically, if a game has *too many* decisions and *too many viable choices*, then it loses depth as each individual decision and choice becomes insignificant to the outcome of the whole.

Variety, on the other hand, is doing lots more of the same kinds of actions and related activity without providing additional significant decisions and viable choices. Variety occasionally replace one decision with a different one, or more often replaces a choice or choices with different ones, but the volume of significant decisions and viable choices, and the depth of the decision trees, remains the same. Variety can be added by additional scenarios or levels, variable maps, different character classes, and random events (among others).

How things have changed

So much for brief definition. How (and why) have things changed? 40 years ago we didn’t have video games, nor did we have CCGs, we had board and card games and we had RPGs just about to emerge.

The development of RPGs reflects the 30-40 year fundamental change. Many of the players of original, first, and second edition D&D wanted gameplay depth. In third edition D&D the emphasis changed to ways of optimizing characters using a stupendous variety of published classes and skills and feats, a striving to make the perfect one man army for tactical combat. D&D became fantasy Squad Leader. It was much harder to die and in fact the “fear of death” was slowly being removed from the game.

In computer RPGs this was happening much more strongly. If you died then at worst you just loaded your saved game and continued. In many computer MMO (massively multiplayer online) RPGs you don’t even need to save your game, you just respawn and continue. After all, the makers of the MMOs do not have gameplay depth as an objective, their objective is to keep you playing the game as long as possible so that they can collect the monthly fees. (Now monthly fees are much less common because we’ve gone to free to play games, but the objective is still to have people play as long as possible so that they will spend money on virtual goods and other advantages.) In order to retain players, many online video games reward players constantly rather than make them responsible for earning their advancement and advantages. If there’s no responsibility for earning advancement, decisions become much less significant, and choices matter much less. Social networking games have taken this to the extreme. Engagement has replaced gameplay. (See http://whatgamesare.com/2011/04/how-engagement-killed-gameplay-language.html for more.)

Not only responsibility for your actions but the fear of death has been removed from electronic RPGs, and with it most of the gameplay depth has been removed. If it doesn’t really matter whether you die, if you can try again when you fail, then your decisions no longer make a difference to what happens in the long run, so they are no longer significant in the gameplay depth sense. World of Warcraft is a game with so little gameplay depth to it that professional “pharmers” can, in an economically feasible period of time, play characters up to high levels and sell them to other people who don’t want to *bother* to play the game to get to the maximum level. “The grind” characterizes play, and for many people playing the game is “like work.” (See http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/ .) I’ve said that variety has been substituted for depth in games but in WoW there doesn’t seem to be much interest from the players in variety until after you’ve reached maximum level. As characters work their way up there’s little interest in the journey, only in the destination of maximum level. For those at max level, variety is essential to maintain interest in the game.

Even at maximum level, big raids amount to characters doing the same thing, their “role” (DPS, healer, etc.), for extended periods of time. By all accounts it’s regimented and repetitively automatic, and does not involve making significant decisions with multiple viable choices.

In some video games we have the phenomenon of “mini-games”, completely different games that have been inserted into the main game for players to play when they get bored of the main game. Again it’s variety that is the attraction, not depth.

The recent fourth edition (4e) of D&D reflects this change of emphasis. Some responsibility is still there, but the fear of death has been almost entirely removed through lots of beginning hit points, healing surges, easy ways to come back into the action when you’ve been incapacitated, cheap healing potions, and so forth. Characters no longer have much capability to gather strategic (or tactical) information through spells. In the past D&D players had to speak in character to gather information, or figure out how to use spells to gather information: now they roll dice. Some of this may derive from video games where the referee–the computer–is nowhere close to smart enough to deal with a wide variety of dialogue and a wide variety of player intentions, so everything is reduced to dialog trees and numbers and dice rolls. 4e is now, in its “natural” form, almost entirely tactical battles without much long-range planning and consequently with very little strategy.

The blog commenters I mentioned above talked about players complaining about secret doors in 4e D&D. This appeared to be regarded as a “nasty DM trick”. As a counter-comment a 4e DM said he didn’t use secret doors because he knew where he wanted his players to go and what he wanted them to do and there was no point in hiding the path. In other words, in a game where variety and linear narrative is the objective then secret doors only get in the way. In a game where gameplay depth is the objective then secret doors can be a differentiator, and the choice to look for secret doors or not look for them can be significant.

RPGs are now arranged much more for players to experience variety, rewards, and winning rather than to experience gameplay depth and the possibility of losing. They are becoming more entertainments (something like movies) than games, if by games we mean something where there’s a significant opposition that requires thoughtful reaction.

I also think it’s much more common in RPGs nowadays that the referee devises a story and makes the players conform to that story. As Monte Cook observed several years ago at Origins, the published tabletop adventures tend to be much more story-based than in the past. The old-style alternative was to set up a situation and let the players make a story rather than forcing them to follow a linear path. In video RPGs, the Japanese/console style has been to force the players to follow along a particular linear story. (The American/PC style is more like WoW.) In fact some people have characterized the famous Final Fantasy series as stories punctuated with repetitive episodes of exploration and combat that make virtually no difference to what actually happens in the stories.

Favorite Games

30-40 years ago most game players had one or a few favorite games, ones that they wanted to play over and over again. This is far less common now. Ask younger gamers, especially video gamers, what their favorite game is and most will be unable to tell you or will simply name the game they’re currently playing. Some are even surprised at the idea of having a favorite game. They want to name a dozen or more as their favorites, if they can narrow it down that far. The very idea of playing a game a hundred times or 500 times (I know people who have played my 4 to 5 hour tabletop game Britannia more than 500 times), or the video game equivalent, playing the same game for many hundreds of hours, is foreign to most contemporary gamers. Many of the younger people who do have a favorite game that they play over and over have settled on Magic:the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh. Yet the very nature of CCGs is to change the game over time (providing immense variety) in order to persuade players to buy new cards; sometimes the game rules are changed as well.

Many AAA video games involve a puzzle or a story, and once you solve the puzzle or experience the story there is no reason to continue. Some of the games will give you several different characters to play so that variety is added to the game. But there is little gameplay depth. A game with deep gameplay can be played again and again while revealing new aspects and possibilities. Puzzles tend to be solved, and once solved hold little interest.

This fundamental change may reflect all forms of leisure activity these days. There are many more distractions and many more opportunities for entertainment than 30-40 years ago. Now we have the World Wide Web, we have hundreds of TV networks, we have movies and TV programs on recordable media and available through instant download, we have smart phones and texting and free long distance and iPads and MP3 players and so forth, none of which was available 30 or 40 years ago. People just don’t seem to stick to one thing the way they used to and that applies to games as well as everything else.

Playing a game with deep gameplay usually requires patience and a commitment to planning. These characteristics are in short supply nowadays as people rely on their cell phones to provide both distractions (time killing) and a way to compensate for poor planning or lack of interest in planning.

We have become “entertainment bathers.” Sound/music bathers like to have 1000 or 10,000 songs on their MP3 players but likely don’t listen to any one of the songs very much. (Clearly of an older generation, I can listen to the same song over and over for an hour sometimes, if it’s a really good song; how many young people would even dream of doing that?) Game bathers like to have lots and lots of games to play but don’t play any one of them very much. Variety is the goal. We’ve become a jaded society.

This is not the only fundamental change over that period. Even among many who want to fully use their brains when playing games, puzzle-solving (which rarely involves gameplay depth, it is a different kind of skill) has displaced gameplay depth. And in the video game world, engagement has tended to replace gameplay as the objective of designers. But those are topics for another time .

篇目5，Discussing Positive False Choices in Game Design

by Josh Bycer

The last time I looked at false choices in game design, I talked about options that were across the board weaker than your other available options rendering the choice meaningless. For today’s post I want to expand on that discussion with a talk about the same problem but from the opposite end of the spectrum when a choice is too good.

Positive False Choices:

The idea that a choice could be too good sounds like a weird complaint as you want the player to have options that are great. The problem is when the choice is so good that it becomes required due to how useful it is. Similar to our talk last time, these false choices punish the player for not choosing them while the previous post talked about options that punish you for choosing them.

To help designate the two types of wrong choices, we’ll refer to the positive examples as positive false choices and the negative ones as negative false choices for this post. A positive false choice can typically be seen in strategy guides or min-max suggestions where the person says that one choice should always be used or one set of instructions that work the best every time.

That last line is very important as that is what separates having the player decide between good options and having something as a positive false choice — If the choice is always the superior option then it can be considered a positive false choice as you always want to take it.

Here’s an example of this from Payday 2, before the skill overhaul each of the classes had bonuses that unlocked for putting X amount of points into respective skill trees.

The technician class had a bonus where you could get 25% more headshot damage for going up it. Obviously this was very useful on the higher difficulties and became the go-to tree for players just for this one option.

As you can see, this choice was superior because it was useful no matter what build you were, what weapons you used or how you played the game. And because this was always good, it became a positive false choice. What the developers did to fix that was to move it to the newly created perk system and now any player can easily get access to the bonus no matter what their play style is.

Since positive false choices are complete opposites of negative false choices, so is the best way to spot them while play testing your title. Unlike a negative false choice where every player will avoid it, a positive false choice is when every player will choose the same option every time no matter what. If you’re trying to make the player decide between choices, one shouldn’t always be the superior option. But figuring out a positive false choice can be difficult as there is more than one kind of choice in games based on how the games are played.

Required vs. Optional Choices:

The problem with trying to determine if a choice is a positive false choice is that depending on how your game is designed, some choices may be required simply by the nature of the mechanics. For instance in Payday 2, because the game has both stealth and loud levels there are some skills that are just plain required for effective stealth such as increase crouch speed and quieter enemy take downs.

In this case the stealth skills appear to be positive false choices because you need them in order to stealth effectively. However because they are a foundation of the stealth gameplay, you’re going to have to take them in order to make use of that specific mechanic. When something is specialized like that, then it’s not a positive false choice as the player is limiting themselves in some other aspect in order to make use of it. As a stealth player in Payday 2, I can’t repair drills as quickly or get the best armor due to my choices with build selection.

By doing this, it means that my skills range from being okay to great depending on the situation, which is what you want your choices to do. For an example of what not to do, we turn to Civilization Beyond Earth.

In the retail version of the game, you could set up trade depots with nearby cities or stations for bonuses. The research was pretty cheap and the units didn’t take that long to build. Once a supply chain was established, you’d receive constant bonuses from it with the only thing to do was restart it after a certain amount of turns. Here, the option to set up trade depots is always good no matter what the situation is and the onetime cost to research and produce is outweighed by the benefits they provide.

With the trade depots, I’m not limiting myself in some area by taking it, so they’re a win-win with no downsides and therefore the use of trade depots is a positive false choice.

Another sure sign that you have a positive false choice is if your player base says that they will not use certain items or choices to make the game harder. If a choice in your game is one that is so instrumental to play that people avoid it for a handicap, then you have a problem.

Choosy Choices:

Good game design is not about giving the player positive false choices but having them decide on what they feel is the best course of action. A good set of choices is about challenging the player to adapt to the gamescape and situations, not reading a guide and following a check list.

Usually the ways to fix a positive false choice are the same as a negative — either tweak the choice or tweak the other choices in the game. But you need to be careful as weakening a choice too much may make it too situational. If something is only good 1 out of 10 times and the rest of the time worthless, then you’re just creating another negative false choice.

Variety may be the spice of life, but you can have a case where there are just too many choices without any real value to them. If all your choices are based on incremental or not noticeable effects like +2 attack or +1 health, then the game will lack depth. It’s like being asked to choose between a high jump and a tall leap.

Good choice design is presenting the player a balanced number of options, so that there is variety while making them viable as well . No one choice should be superior/the worse and if you can nail the balance right, you’ll have one very interesting game.

篇目6，GD Column 25: When Choice is Bad

by Soren Johnson

Nothing defines video games more than the importance of player choice. Interactivity is what separates games from static arts like film and literature, and when critics accuse a digital experience like Dear Esther of being “not really a game,” it is usually from a lack of meaningful player choice.

However, because choice is held up as such an ideal among game designers – armed with phrases like “enabling player agency” and “abdicating authorship” – the downside of choice is often ignored during development, hiding in a designer’s blind spot. In fact, every time a designer adds more choice to a game, a tradeoff is being made.

The game gains a degree of player engagement as a result of the new option but at the cost of something else. These costs can commonly be group together as either too much time, too much complexity, or too much repetition – all of which can far outweigh the positive qualities of the extra choice.

Too Much Time

If games can be reduced to a simple equation, a possible equivalence would be (total fun) = (meaningful decisions) / (time played). In other words, for two games with similar levels of player choice, the one which takes less actual time to play will be more fun. Of course, usually the comparison will not be so obvious; a new feature will add a meaningful decision, but is it worth the extra time added to the play session?

As an example, Dice Wars and Risk are similar games of territorial conquest which answer this question differently. In both games, players attack each other by rolling dice, and the victors are rewarded with extra armies at the start of their next turn. In Risk, the player decides where to place these armies, which can be a meaningful decision depending on the current situation. In Dice Wars, however, the armies are placed randomly by the game, and the result is a much faster game.

Which design is right? While the answer is subjective, the relevant question to ask is whether the combat decisions become more meaningful if the player takes the time arrange her new armies – or, as is likely, how much more meaningful they become. After all, the player can pursue a more intentional strategy in Risk, but is that aspect worth the not insignificant extra time taken by the army placement phase?

The answer may depend on the audience (Dice Wars is a casual Flash game while Risk is a traditional board game), but the designers should understand the ramifications of their decisions. Sometimes, army placement in Risk can be a rote decision, and sometimes, reacting to an unexpected arrangement in Dice Wars can lead to a new, more dynamic type of fun. Ultimately, the aspects of Risk which lengthen the play session must justify the time they cost to the audience.

Too Much Complexity

Besides its cost in time, each choice presented to the player also carries a cognitive load in added complexity that must be weighed in the balance. More options mean more indecision; deciding between researching five different technologies feels much different than choosing between fifty. Players worry not just about what they are choosing but also about what they are not choosing, and the more options they decline, the more reason there is to worry.

Each type of game has a sweet spot for the number of options that keep play manageable, enough to be an interesting decision but not too many to overwhelm the player. Blizzard RTS’s have maintained a constant number of units per race for decades; StarCraft, Warcraft 3, and StarCraft 2 all averaged 12 units per faction. For the third game, the designers explicitly stated that they removed old units to make room for new ones.

Indeed, RTS games as a genre are under assault from their more popular upstart progeny, the MOBA genre, best exemplified by League of Legends and Dota 2. The original MOBA was a Warcraft 3 mod entitled Defense of the Ancients, which played out like an RTS except that the player only controlled a single hero instead of an entire army.

This twist broadened the potential audience by radically reducing the complexity and, thus, the cognitive demands placed on the player. Instead of needing to manage a vast collection of mines and barracks and peons and soldiers, as in a typical RTS, the player only needed to worry about a single character. Consider the UI simplifications made possible by allowing the camera to lock onto the player’s hero instead of roaming freely across the map, which forced the player to make stressful decisions about managing his attention.

Of course, this change did take away many of the meaningful choices found in an RTS. Players no longer decide where to place buildings or what technologies to research or what units to train or even where to send them; all these choices were either abstracted away or managed by the game instead. Again, the relevant question is whether these lost decisions were worth the massive amount of complexity they added to a typical RTS.

The success of MOBA’s demonstrate that although players enjoy the thrill and spectacle of the large-scale real-time battles pioneered by RTS games, they do not necessarily enjoy the intense demands of trying to control every aspect of the game. Designer Cliff Harris discussed a similar point for his successful alt-RTS Gratuitous Space Battles, which does not allow the player any control of units during combat: “GSB does not pretend you can control 300 starships in a complex battle. It admits you can’t, and thus doesn’t make it an option. Some people hate it. Over 100,000 enjoyed it enough to buy it, so I can’t be the only person with this point of view.“

Too Much Repetition

The final way that too much player choice can negatively affect the game experience is perhaps a bit surprising, but games with too much freedom can suffer from becoming repetitive. A typical example is when a game presents the player with an extensive but ultimately static menu of choices session after session; players often develop a set of favorite choices and get stuck in that small corner of the game space.

Sometimes, a fixed set of options can work if the player needs to react to a variety of environments; the random maps in a Civilization game can prod the player down different parts of the technology tree. However, almost all games could probably benefit from reducing some player choice to increase overall variety.

Consider Atom Zombie Smasher, a game in which players use up to three special weapons (such as snipers or mortars or blockades) to help rescue civilians from a city overrun by zombies. However, these three weapons are randomly chosen before each mission from a set of eight, which means the player reacts as much to the current selection of weapons as to the city layout or zombie behavior. Instead of relying on a particular favorite combination, the player must learn to make unusual combinations work, which means the gameplay is constantly shifting.

Similarly, in FTL, the crew members and weapons and upgrades available change from game to game, depending on what the randomly generated shops provide. Thus, the game is not about discovering and perfecting a single strategy but about finding the best path based on the tools available. Put simply, the variety of gameplay in Atom Zombie Smasher and FTL emerges because the designers limited player choice.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, games with hefty customization systems usually devolve into a few ideal choices, robbing the flexible systems of their relevance. In Alpha Centauri, players used the Unit Workshop to create units with different values and abilities. However, the most effective combinations soon became obvious, marginalizing this feature.

Thus, giving the player too much control – with too many options and too much agency – can reduce a game’s replayability. Indeed, would Diablo be more or less fun if players couldn’t actually choose their skills? The game would certainly feel different as the loss of intentional progression would turn off many veterans, but the new variety might attract others looking for a more dynamic experience. Randomly distributed skills might force players to explore sections of the tree they would have never experienced otherwise. The important fact is that this loss of meaningful player choice would not necessarily hurt the game.

Ultimately, game design is a series of tradeoffs, and designers should recognize that choice itself is just one more factor that must be balanced with everything else. Even though player control is core to the power of games, it does not necessarily trump all the other factors, such as brevity, elegance, and variety.

篇目7，Constraining The Space of Possibility

by Mark Venturelli

In this week’s article I’m going to talk about the smart use of constraints for player choice. I’ll provide you with a quick view on space of possibility, the challenges involved, and some good and bad examples from other games.

Constraints Are Good For You

Game design is primarily choice design. The bulk of what we do as designers is to create an experience for the player that arises from providing them with a series of interesting choices – this is an easier concept to grasp in turn-based games such as Chess or Magic: The Gathering, where these moments of decision are discrete, but it also applies to real-time games. While playing Dungeonland, do I stop attacking to try and revive a nearby ally? Do I use my special Potion right now, or do I save it for later? Do I dodge roll to the right or do I keep attacking that enemy?

One of the fundamental things about design, then, is the “space of possibility”. I’ve wrote an article about that a few years ago so I won’t be going in-depth here, but generally it represents all the choices a player has at his disposal at a certain point in time. Fewer options, smaller space of possibility; lots of options, bigger space of possibility.

It’s easy to think that “the more, the merrier”, but this is hardly the case, as Civ IV designer Soren Johnson wrote about last year. If you swarm a player with too many choices, they will either pick randomly, or stick with what they have tried before. Both cases are usually not considered very interesting play.

I have always defended “laser-focused” game design that keeps only what is absolutely needed and cuts off any “unnecessary” parts – Dungeonland was mostly designed with this mentality. I still think this constraint-heavy approach is a valid way of designing games, but I’ve been exploring a more balanced approach.

Constraints Are Not Good For You

So what happens to your system when you constrain the space of possibility to the most important decisions and leave the rest in the cutting room floor?

There is constant tension between simplicity/complexity and shallowness/depth. While the world is filled with examples of simple games that are extremely deep and complex games that are extremely shallow, making a simple-but-deep game is a rare achievement. Everything comes down to how integrated your mechanics are: tightly-woven games will play very differently every time and make new situations emerge with very small changes in their configurations. So when I design a game my personal challenge always is “I want to design the deepest game that I can with the simplest possible system”.

This is very hard. Really hard. While I’m ultimately proud of what I achieved with Dungeonland’s combat, ultimately it wasn’t as deep as it should be. And that’s the question: you have extracted good depth from your very simple mechanics, but is your game deep enough? Dungeonland sure could have used a few extra feet of depth in there, and I have learned a lot from that experience.

Ultimately what we want is to have a lot of potential for emergence. We want our system to behave in unexpected ways, to surprise us, to be a generator of new gameplay stories every time we play. Sometimes you can inadvertently constrain your design into a single-note instrument.

Creating More Elegant Constraints

So I’m currently designing Chroma Squad, which features tactical turn-based combat. This a genre that, with multiple units, each usually with different abilities and attributes, different terrain types/obstacles and whatnot, especially benefits from a smart approach of constraining the space of possibility. We will look at two good examples of unit movement and positioning in this genre that share a common approach of constraining: XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Battle for Wesnoth.

Both games’ designers seem to have realised the same thing: you can use “soft” limits on player choice instead of limiting options altogether. Each unit is allowed to move pretty much anywhere the player wants, but that’s not how players “read” each turn.

In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, each location has one of 3 “hard” attributes: No Cover, Half Cover or Full Cover. Leaving your units out in the open is usually a terrible idea, so players will almost always move their units towards Full Cover (or at the very least Half Cover) locations. With well-executed level design, what this creates is an elegant constraining of players’ space of possibility when moving units: you always have just a handful of “real” choices to make, even though you are free to stray off the safe path every once in a while if the situation calls for it. While there are many other considerations to make when moving, such as flanking, line of sight and range, ultimately you are first “filtering” these options through the Cover spots first.

In Battle for Wesnoth (a brilliant open-source tactical game which you should absolutely play if you haven’t already), they adopt a terrain system not unlike the one found in the Fire Emblem games – different terrain types have a “defense” percentage value that increases the chance for enemy attacks to miss. Different units also take advantage of terrains differently – Elven units gain extra bonuses from forests, while Dwarves are more protected at hills. It creates a similar effect to XCOM’s system – even though you can move units anywhere, you are usually filtering the possible moves through the best terrain positions first.

Removing the Constraints

So imagine if the new XCOM did not have these cover rules, or if they were not as important to keep your units alive as they are in the current design. Players would have to consider a LOT more options for range, line-of-sight and flanking, and suddenly looking two or three turns ahead would be an herculean task. The game would feel less “tight”, if I may use a looser term, with turns lasting longer.

Also, if all terrains in Battle for Wesnoth were flat, there would be a similar effect: enemy movement is suddenly near-unpredictable, and moving each unit effectively would require several minutes of analyzing the possible consequences – in other words, you would just not care and would move anywhere, hoping for the best. As predicting future states of the game becomes harder, the generally unwanted effect of analysis paralysis occurs – a real choice never occurs, and the player ends up choosing randomly.

Reinforcing the Constraints

But now picture it from a different angle: what if in XCOM you could ONLY move your units to cover spots? Much like in 5th Cell’s shooter Hybrid, all movement to points that are not in cover would not be permitted. In several cases, the experience of playing XCOM would be surprisingly intact, but you would lose a lot of emergent potential. I can remember several occasions when I had soldiers sprint out in the open and save the day, and these stories would not be possible if Firaxis had chosen to apply this constraint.

Would it be worth it? In my humble opinion, absolutely not. In many ways, this is what happened to their strategy layer: boiled down to only the most fundamental choices, the end result is stale. You hardly hear a story about XCOM in the strategy layer – the cool stuff only happens on the ground, which is a shame considering the rich heritage of emergence from the original game.

In many ways, this “too-constrained” approach was the one I used in Dungeonland, and in hindsight I can see several missed opportunities for letting players venture off the beaten path.