篇目1，举例阐述开发者设计游戏难度的难处

作者：Muir Freeland

《活克人之无限》于上周发布。从名称上看，它的粉丝应该是《洛克人》系列的玩家。这款做了五年才问世的游戏令人眼前一亮：迷人、聪明，完美地再现了经典原作的风韵。对于一支由一人领导的小团队，它简直就是一项辉煌的成就，值得钦佩。

我唯一不满的地方就是它的难度。这款游戏太狠了——敌人伤害太高、一碰就死的地刺和无底洞太多、保存点间隔太远，以至于当你做错某事时，（你会经常）不得不穿越相同的一大片地图只为跑回去争取把事情做对。甚至按《洛克人》的标准来说，这款游戏也太苛刻了，拖累了整个游戏体验。

我敢说，游戏的设计师完全没有发现这一点。

这是一个可怕的念头。作为设计师，知道自己永远不会像其他人那样体验自己的游戏，是很可怕的。当我玩《Blowfish Meets Meteor》时，我看不到潜水员探索水下城市是为了寻找他失踪的美人鱼女儿；我看到的是有效射击区，绿色、粉色和蓝色的色块，以及使它们移动的物理公式。我听不到音乐；我只是偏执地觉得它会突然停止或有一个循环播放的间隙，或者评估音乐是否合适。总之，我不觉得困难；我对这款游戏了如指掌。当你可以准确地预测时，游戏的某个对象就只剩下单一的像素了，无论它是玩家、敌人还是场景，没有神秘之处，也正因为没有神秘之处，也不会犯错误。

当游戏在你眼中只剩下这些时，它的任何东西都会让你觉得太容易了。BOSS战简直是小孩子的把戏：当你已经非常熟悉BOSS战开始的确切时间点时，还需要动画来提醒你危险即将来临吗？关卡太容易找路了：当你不仅知道出口在哪里而且还能主动决定它的位置时，甚至最曲折的迷宫也像线性路径一样简单。你自己的角色的机制就更是小菜一碟了：毕竟花了那么多时间微调每个姿势、动作和攻击的帧和数字，当你最终拿起控制器玩游戏时，你对最佳操作已经产生第六感了。

作为设计师，我希望我的设计是有趣的、平衡的、公平的。我想让难度刚刚好。对我而言，那意味着友好和坦率，以可控的方式引导玩家，然后逐渐增加难度，使玩家得到更好的游戏体验。为了达到这个目标，我不断地调整关卡和深层机制，试图切中那个平衡点。我认为这是件好事，而且是件要事。设计师应该渴望平衡，而要达到平衡，就必须不断修改和测试。

但，你的第六感会干扰你。

如果你已经知道游戏的方方面面，那么你就精通游戏了。当你已经掌握某物，你就觉得它简单了，而且是太简单了。所以，在追求平衡时，你要增加难度。

奇怪的是，这么做似乎是负责的表现。

我对《Blowfish Meets Meteor》的设计感到内疚。我太希望游戏显得巧妙、平衡、公平和有挑战性了，所以我增加游戏的难度，因为我觉得这么做是对的。出于这种奇怪的观念，我把“邪恶”当成“高明”、“立即死亡”等于“礼貌的打招呼”。我没有认真考虑许多客观上看是糟糕的东西——如需要反复尝试才能避免失败的益智空间，或者在玩家发觉前就杀死他的陷阱。我知道这些是可怕、懒惰的设计支撑。但因为我对自己的创作产生了歪曲的理解，我认为它们很不错。

在《Blowfish Meets Meteor》中有一个关卡叫作“食人鱼之患”。不说它的真正优点，但它是并且总是我在游戏中最喜欢的关卡之一。它很可能是我为这个项目制作的第一个益智题型关卡；在一款关于快速爆炸和傻大个BOSS战的游戏中，加入这种要求玩家慢慢思考的关卡，确实让人觉得眼前一亮。

这个关卡的目的很简单：有一群美人鱼和一群吃美人鱼的食人鱼，美人鱼必须游到屏幕底部，也就是你的水下圆屋所在之处。玩家作为深海潜水员父亲，有一块四处飞弹和破坏障碍（注意，不是水虎鱼）的陨石和大量可随处放置并破坏一切的TNT炸药。

美人鱼的移动路线是可以预测的，即沿着平台左右移动，遇到墙或食人鱼就转向，否则就会立即被一口吞掉，尽管美人鱼跟一头小牛差不多大。按严格的标准来说，这款游戏的机制确实不太聪明。

你在这里的作用就是，用陨石掩护美人鱼——有可能，但并不太有趣，也可以使用TNT改变地形和/或阻断食人鱼的进程。你通过连续快速破坏障碍来积累TNT，因为你附近的障碍数量有限，这意味着你只能获得少量的TNT，所以你必须非常谨慎地使用。

这个关卡的第一个版本非常糟糕，只有设计师本人才会喜欢。关卡开始时，两只美人鱼会直接朝食人鱼走去，玩家只有几秒钟进间来执行正确的活动，否则就美人鱼就会被吃掉。当朋友帮我测试时，他们大多立即就失败了，且他们的第一反应通常是“怎么回事”。这个关卡的难度设置错误了：惩罚玩家没有超人般的反应能力或没有预知关卡以及危险。

奇怪的是，我花了好一段时间才明白自己的偏见。当我看他们玩这个关卡时，我没有想到“不公平”，我想到的是“狡猾的”。我没有想到“反复出错”，我想到的是“巧妙”。我看不到“游戏结束”的画面，我看到的是食人鱼吞掉美人鱼的滑稽动画。甚至当别人非常直接地告诉我，这个关卡太折磨人了，我也很难接受他们这么说；我认为那是他们自己对游戏不熟悉，或反应能力太差，需要手把手教他们。

如果听他们的是错的，会怎么样？如果我听了他们的话，降低关卡难度以至于完全没有难度，那又会怎么样？如果玩家通关太快、太轻松，那么他们不就看不到我花了那么多时间设计的关卡的高明巧妙之处了？在我看来，这个关卡就是完美的，要我破坏完美，我绝不答应。

我发表“食人鱼之患”的截图至今约有一年时间了，直到一个月前，我才开始考虑改变关卡，甚至是那时，我也不太肯定我为什么突然开窍了。也许只是因为已经过了好一段时间，足够我更加客观地看待最初的设计；也许是因为做了许多新关卡、或从头到尾玩了接近完工的游戏，启发了我；或者也许是因为我对自己的要求更加严格了，学会倾听了。无论是什么原因，现在的“食人鱼之患”已经没那么“虐”了。美人鱼不会死得那么快了；我在她们前进的路上添加了障碍，这样玩家就有更多时间熟悉关卡以及思考下一步行动。另外，现在的食人鱼是静止的，这样玩家要应付的变量就更少了。至于能给玩家提供有增益效果的河豚，我把它移到屏幕中央，使玩家更容易使用到它。

我希望这些改变能达到效果、是正确的，但也许我永远也不知道是否如我所愿。我可以向玩家征求意见，但我永远也不能像他们那样玩我的游戏。我对自己的作品的体验是并且总是间接的。

所以当我玩像《洛克人之无限》这种创意、才华和热情毕露但稍微有些“虐”的游戏时，我就非常理解了。难度是一种暂时的、变幻无常的东西，特别是如果你正是掌控难度的人。当我玩别人的游戏时，难度问题暴露得非常快非常明显，但玩我自己的游戏时，我常常要花几个月甚至几年才能看到难度问题。讽刺的是，越是了解设计，一定程度上也意味着越不了解；无论你花了多长时间制作某物，你的体验永远不如第一次体验它的人的那么多。这一直是一个非常难接受和领悟的真相，但它是并且将永远是我的游戏设计师生涯中最重要的学习经验之一。

篇目2，探讨《暗黑之魂》难度曲线的设计技巧

作者：Robert Boyd

《暗黑之魂》因其超高难度而得名，但尽管如此，该游戏还是大获成功，名利双收——该游戏发行商上一财年中在欧美的《暗黑之魂》销量超过100万份，它在Metacritic网站也斩获89分。

为何《暗黑之魂》能够如此成获而不仅仅是昙花一现？我认为一个主要原因就是该游戏的成功在于，人们所设想的难度与其实际难度存在区别。《暗黑之魂》从表面上呈现了不可攻克的挑战，但其内在设计却在处处帮助玩家实现这些不可能的目标。

（注：本文含有一些剧透内容）

1.营销

《暗黑之魂》发行商从第一天起就将该游戏定位为困难的游戏，在营销推广中突显游戏的难度，这可以在无需变更实际难度的前提下，增加游戏的感知难度。

2.它让玩家自己制定规则

在在玩家连续撞霉运之后（即让玩家置身于一个巨大可怕的世界），游戏开始给玩家助运。首先，它并没有迫使玩家以特定方式玩游戏。无论你想扮演重盔甲的骑士，轻装上阵的斗士，法师、祭司还是以上所有角色，游戏都能如你所愿。该游戏允许玩家尝试自己想要的英雄风格。虽然玩家在游戏之初只能选择这些职业中的一者，但这种职业选择只能决定玩家的起始状态和装备，之后将向何处发展则可完全听凭玩家自己的意愿。

3.不会让玩家打乱自己的状态进程

《暗黑之魂》允许玩家在升级时自由分配自己的状态加成。这就为高手玩家提供了极大的灵活性，他们能够根据自己所需创造终极必杀技。

但经验不足，不知底细的新手又该怎么办？这也不必担心，《暗黑之魂》的设计也已经考虑到了这一点。针对那些不是很了解状态显示设置的玩家，游戏则提供了基本武器、盔甲（会增加重量但没有特定状态值需求的盔甲），以及强大的火力魔法pryomancy等一些有效工具。这样玩家就能使有这些有限的选择让自己摆脱困境。

所有的升级都会提升玩家的整体防御性，所以无论你选择升级哪种东西，你都会更加张驰有度。最终玩家也有可能最大化所有的状态值，所以总体来看，玩家可以通过刷任务弥补选择上的不足。

4.它让玩家产生并肩作战之感

虽然游戏可让玩家彼此争斗，但玩家也可以相互帮助，例如向他人发布某些提示消息，或加入他人游戏共同打败众多boss。

比起普通敌人，boss可提供更多灵魂（即游戏中的虚拟货币），并且在许多情况下，玩家只有借助他人之力才可能打败某些boss，这就为玩家创造了帮助他人的有效动机。这款游戏创造了一种“我们共同对抗游戏”而非“我们彼此对决”的同盟感。

5.看似极为非线性的游戏世界

非线性世界一直就比严格的线性世界更有难度，因为玩家在此很容易迷失自己的方向，不知道下一步该做什么，并且也更有可能踏入一些未曾料想的区域。

《黑暗之魂》乍一看极为非线性，但实际上却比看上去更为线性。一开始，个别区域都非常线性——尽管其中的分支路径隐藏着不少有待发掘的珍宝。但随着游戏总体进程的发展，《黑暗之魂》开始呈现一种分段之感。游戏会逐个向玩家呈现下个区域，特定任务或一系列有待完成的任务。

如果不算新手教程区域，这款游戏中可分为三大主要目标，玩家完成这些目标才能见到最后一个boss。首个目标是去敲鸣两个钟（每个钟都有一个boss守卫）。从Firelink Shrine（最初的中心区域）开始，玩家都有三个去向——The Catacombs、New Londo Ruins以及Undead Burg。

杀死The Catacombs守卫后，强大的骷髅就会复生，而New Londo Ruins则遍布着许多无敌的灵魂（除非玩家被诅咒或者使用了特定道具）。Undead Burg则有许多与新手教程区相似的敌人，显然玩家更容易从这一区域入手。在一开始，《黑暗之魂》就在巧妙的将玩家角色引向阻力最小的所在，在此则通过提供密钥将玩家引导玩家完成这一任务。

在完成鸣钟任务后，游戏的第二部分始于一个过场动画，告知玩家有一个曾被封锁的巨大堡垒现在已经开启。玩家的任务很明显——探索堡垒及其之后的区域。这部分游戏内容是最具线性特点的环节之一，其中有两个必须连续完成的的区域，只有一个是可选区域。这部分内容主要测试玩家的能力：如果玩家可以完成这两具区域（它们可以说是该游戏目前最难的环节），那么他们就可以挑战游戏的第三部分内容，届时整个游戏世界就会向玩家敞开大门（但最后的boss区域除外）。

通过以这种方式划分游戏区域，《暗黑之魂》就体现出了比真正的非线性游戏更容易衡量的难度曲线。游戏第三部分所开放的区域比第二部分中的区域更为困难（第二部分则比第一部分更难），比起一开始就允许玩家探索整个游戏世界，这种做法更有利于避免玩家在游戏中迷失方向或不知所措。

6.对玩家进行提示，但不要太露骨

这款游戏在早期向玩家透露信息的方式也是我对它的欣赏之处，在Undead Parish初始阶段，玩家会遇到一个身着盔甲的野猪敌人，它远比玩家之前遇到的任何对手都更有威力。与之正面交锋不会让玩家占优势，但玩家却可以从旁边的一些阶梯中逃脱。

登上阶梯后玩家会发现一些怪物诱饵，接下来玩家该采取什么行动就很明显了——就是将一些怪物诱饵扔到近旁的火堆中，诱使野猪飞蛾扑火般地自寻死路。

当玩家拾起这些怪物诱饵时，较为平庸的游戏可能会向玩家呈现“向火堆丢出诱饵来除掉野猪”这种明显的信息，但这款游戏却并未明确告知玩家该如何行动，而是将他们引向正确的做法，其巧妙设计令玩家感觉是自己想出了解决方法。

7.可补充的资源

《暗黑之魂》超越前作《恶魔之魂》的一大明智之处在于，引进了篝火系统。《恶魔之魂》使用的是传统的资源管理系统，玩家可以使用自己能够找到或购买的道具来恢复自己的命值和魔法值（MP）。在《暗黑之魂》中，玩家可以得到一定数量的治愈药水，但无法找到额外药水。不过，玩家每次在篝火旁休息时，就可以恢复药水。与之相似，玩家也只有一定数量的咒语，他们每次在篝火旁休息时就能使用。

这种可补充资源的篝火系统比《恶魔之魂》的做法更有优势。它鼓励玩家运用自己的所有魔法武器，而不只是能够产生最大MP投入回报的咒语。它让玩家免于囤积大量命值及MP道具，避免资源系统沦为无用之物。有了这个系统，玩家在药水所剩无几的情况下，就不会通过刷任务的途径去找钱和掉落道具。玩家由此可放心使用自己的所有资源，因为他们知道自己下回休息时一切都会恢复原样，他们无需担心管理大量资源的问题。

8.探索就是一种无尽的资源

《塞尔达》拥有可爆破的墙壁。《暗黑之魂》却有伪墙壁。区别在哪？在《塞尔达》中，你只有在仍有库存弹药的情况下才能测试能不能打破墙壁，而在《暗黑之魂》中，你的任何攻击行为（游戏邦注：即使是毫无杀伤力的翻跟斗）也足以检测出看似坚固的墙体中究竟有无隐藏的过道。这可以鼓励玩家积极探索游戏的秘密，因为就算他们的尝试错了，也不会受到任何惩罚。

9.以表面假象掩饰实际难度

让游戏令人感觉很有难度的一个简单方法就是以外表来取胜。这方面的典型案子就是恐怖游戏《寂静岭2》。《寂静岭2》实际上是一款很简单的游戏，但它通过让其中的怪物和场所看起来极为吓人而塑造了一种超过实际情况的难度假象。

《暗黑之魂》中的敌人看起来几乎都十分奇形怪状，并且块头都比玩家角色更大。《暗黑之魂》许多早期的boss是采用从玩家上方朝下猛撞的方式出场，这其中的暗示很明显——在这些怪物看来，玩家实在是无足轻重之物，它们不屑于像捏死一只臭虫一样对去付玩家。

但玩家老手很快就会意识到《暗黑之魂》中的许多看似可怕的boss实际上也是一些最容易对付的敌人，他们只要使用一些很简单的咒语或攻击就能躲过或回击这些boss。通过让boss及怪物看起来具有威慑力，游戏成功提升了其感知难度，尽管其实际难度并没有那么大。

10.战斗并不考验玩家的快速反应能力

许多很困难的游戏都要求玩家能够做出快速反应，但这并非《暗黑之魂》的做法。这款游戏中的战斗更讲究方法：先阻止然后攻击，躲避然后进攻。进攻可以缓慢，但如果失手则可能受到惩罚。即使是饮用命值药水也需要数秒时间（而在多数动作RPG中，喝药水只是一瞬间的事情）。这款游戏鼓励玩家运用智慧占胜敌人，并惩罚那些盲目乱摁按键的玩家。

11.敌我双方都有很高风险

没错，《暗黑之魂》中的敌人可以对玩家造成极大危害。但聪明的玩家也能够对敌人造成重创。例如游戏中拥有可以一剑杀死一帮敌人的大刀，也有可以远程向一大批敌人同时施法的神秘咒语，总之玩家可以通过多种方式成为《暗黑之魂》中最可怕的对手。

我在游戏早期中最喜欢使用的“伎俩”之一就是利用双手按钮。配备最易获取的手斧（游戏邦注：也可以用其他的一些游戏早期武器，但手斧最适合这种策略），如果你看到持有盾牌的敌人，就转变为双手操作状态，然后杀向敌人。你不断挥舞手斧砍向敌人，很快就可以敲掉对方的盾牌，这样就可以轻易拿下敌人。在常规游戏是，敌人的盾牌一般都会坚不可摧，但在《暗黑之魂》中，敌人的游戏规则与玩家基本相同。

细心的玩家会发现游戏中还有更多可以利用的技巧，例如主路径中隐藏的强大武器，以及一些不同寻常路的捷径。《暗黑之魂》鼓励玩家探索整个游戏世界并打破常规。

12.有时候死亡会受到惩罚

在死亡/惩罚这个频谱的一个极端中，常规的roguelike游戏会采用这种做法，即只要死一次就会让你从头开始玩游戏。而在另一个极端中，无论你死几次，都可以在上一个关卡中复生。

《暗黑之魂》则采取了折衷的做法，如果玩家连续死两次，他们就会丧失当前的灵魂和人道（游戏邦注：这是游戏中一个重要但可再生的状态值）。但如果他们可以成功返回上次死亡的地点，他们就不会有任何损失。此外，玩家死亡时的灵魂和人道还可以储存在特定道具中（只要这些道具没有丢失）。玩家还可以通过最近休憩的篝火复生，这意味着玩家的体能进展并不会丢失。

总结

《暗黑之魂》是一款困难的游戏，这一点毋庸质疑。但通过让游戏看起来比实际上更困难，并以多种方式微妙地降低游戏难度，开发者们成功地让游戏难度变得更容易掌控。这样当玩家获得胜利时，就会因战胜这些困难而获得更大的快感。

篇目3，阐述游戏高难度挑战的相关设计对策

作者：Matt Christian

对于玩家来说，最糟糕的游戏体验之一是遇到“不可能的任务（自动保存）”，即玩家遇到了一个极端困难的挑战，或者因为游戏的自动保存设置的问题而不可能完成某些任务。

玩家是这种情况的受害者，但这并不是他们的错，一切都归咎于游戏设计。以下是我最近在游戏中遇到的一些问题，以及游戏开发专业人士的相关解决方法。

简单模式

我并未亲自接触过这种体验，但它或许可为今后的游戏所借鉴。有人认为Capcom的《恶魔猎人3》是一款非常困难的游戏，Capcom自己也意识到了这一点，因而玩家在游戏的“一般模式”中失败3次后，游戏系统就会弹出信息，“祝贺”他们解琐了“简单模式”！

Capcom的解决方案是让玩家在碰壁后自主选择是否继续游戏。也许这不是最佳解决方法，但却是近几年来游戏设计中最管用的策略之一。

自动保存

与之前的《光晕》游戏系列一样，Bungie的《光环: 致远星》在游戏中的某些场景中也使用了自动保存系统。有时候，游戏系统在玩家通过某些关卡，完成一些特定任务（游戏邦注：例如杀死某个空间中的所有敌人）进行自动保存，或者在玩家长期逗留在某个地点时显示出保存的图标。

当我在玩《致远星》时，有一个场景是我驾驶着Warthog行走在路上，旁边跟着我的团队。毫无预兆地，前方突然出现了一个弯道，我们一行人便瞬间掉进一个可怕的悬崖中，全军覆没。

没想到的是，这款游戏在发生转折点的前1，2秒进行了自动保存。但是不管游戏如何反复让我和团队复生，我们最终都会掉到悬崖中去。因为Warthog的设计以及一些物理系统，我们根本不可能“急刹车”或者快速阻止这种情况的发生。

这种问题就真的是一种设计“漏洞”了。其核心游戏设计与保存系统本身都很稳定，但是当两者结合在一起时便很容易出现一些问题，需要融入其他设计才能解决。

我认为Bungie开发者非常完美地解决了这个问题，并且这可能是我遇到的最棒的解决方法。当我在游戏中失败了5至10次后，我将会重新回到1分钟前的关卡中。如此让我在面对“不可能的任务”时不用回到最初场景重新开始一切挑战。

增加生命值

我最近接触了Visceral Games工作室的游戏《但丁地狱》。因为自信自己的游戏水平没问题，我便选择从困难模式开始玩这款游戏。在一开始的一些关卡中一切都进展得很顺利，直到我遇到板机的部分，在这里我必须拉动控制杆以延伸桥的长度，在这里我会遇到6个敌人。但是这时我的生命值还很低，这意味着我很快就会被杀死。幸运的是，我能够再次复苏在拉动控制杆之前的生命，虽然仍然只是拥有较少的生命值。

我反复因这些怪兽而生生死死，最后游戏弹出一个类似于“如果你不喜欢这个机制，可以在暂停菜单中更改它的难度”的提示信息。直到我又再次“死亡”时，我才发现游戏中的一些变化，即当我再次复苏时，我的生命值提高了。而后来的每次复苏都能让我拥有更多的生命值，直到最后生命条完全满格。

这种方法很适合解决游戏的自动保存漏洞问题。虽然Bungie的方法也挺管用，但是如果不能拥有更多生命值，我在接下来的关卡中只能继续反复丧命了。

但是，也许是我的玩家自尊在作祟，我并不喜欢这种解决方法，因为游戏在复苏过程中实在给予了太多“帮助”。在后来的游戏关卡中，我发现我之所以能够完成一些关卡是因为游戏给予我足够的生命值，并以此帮助我提高技能而最终完成任务。事实上，有些地方甚至让我觉得自己好像是为提升了生命值，而并非要攻克这个难关，所以有意采用了这种“作弊”方法。

结语

每一款游戏都有自己解决难度的问题以及自动保存机制的方法。开发者必须根据游戏及用户特点有针对性地选择解决问题的设计方案。针对于这种漏洞作出的调整很多时候可助你吸引到更多玩家，让游戏变得更具普适性和易用性。应该多留意其他公司是如何解决这些问题，并有针对性地调整他们的方法，将其合理运用于自己的游戏。虽然你也可以无视这个问题，任游戏变得越来越困难，但是你要想清楚，当玩家在游戏中只会反复死亡时，还会有多少人愿意继续玩你的游戏？

篇目4，解析以达尔文难度设计游戏的原理

作者：Josh Bycer

游戏难度是一个非常主观的话题，许多制作精良的游戏都希望能够呈现一个具有平衡性的难度曲线。

在这个设计师们都力图以更简单的游戏吸引玩家的年代，有些出色的游戏移除了关键路径上的难度障碍，有些游戏则向那些勇于挑战最困难任务的玩家提供奖励，还有些游戏则隐藏困难内容，让玩家自己探索发现这种挑战（游戏邦注：《Kirby’s Epic Yarn》就属于这种例子，这款简单的游戏将更具挑战性的路径设置成一种玩家难以轻易接触的自主选项）。

但是，也有些游戏却选择将玩家直接丢进遍布鲨鱼，危机四伏的水中——而这也不失为一种妙招。

这种方法为何行得通？

《忍者外传：黑之章》（Ninja Gaiden Black）以及《恶魔之魂》（Demon’s Souls）就是这种做法的典型。这两者都是备受嘉奖的好游戏，不少人都认为这类游戏从一开始就极具难度，在整个过程中从未降低水准。

《忍者外传：黑之章》开头的第一场战斗很可能会让新手玩家望而却步，许多玩家甚至无法闯过第一关。《恶魔之魂》略微“仁慈”一点，它至少在开头提供了一个10分钟的新手教程，不至于让玩家刚进入游戏就被敌人一次击毙。

乍一看，这种设置听起来极不合理，甚至可以说有点残忍，但换个角度来看，我们也可以将这种做法理解为“严厉的爱”。

这两款游戏从开头起就围绕一些关键机制而设计，《忍者外传：黑之章》的起步就要求玩家持续移动，破解敌人的玄机，知晓何时进攻何时转移。《恶魔之魂》与此类似，但添加了一个追踪玩家精力的机制，它允许玩家屏蔽或显示这个功能。

假如玩家在刚开始时不得要领，无法掌握这种机制的用法，他们就不可能完成游戏，因为这两款游戏的战斗模式与这些机制密不可分。

在刚开始玩游戏时设置一个较高的起点而非普通的难度，这种做法可以引申出“达尔文难度”这个概念，我们可以用“适者生存”来简述其含义。在这两款游戏中，玩家胡乱按键，静止不动或一直按住阻止键都是无效操作，它们都需要玩家采取强有力的进攻，并且会提示玩家他们是否已遭遇致命攻击。

让玩家通过这种“危险的考验”需具备一定要素。首先，这种游戏的难度曲线不同于其他游戏，如以下图表所示：

一般游戏最开始时都较为容易，然后会随着游戏进程及时间发展逐渐增加难度，虽然中间偶尔会有中断，但多数游戏都会让挑战越来越困难。但一开始就颇具挑战性的游戏则不然，它们的难度曲线就像上图的绿色线段。

达尔文难度一开始较为困难，而且从未中断，其难度曲线与一般游戏存在差别的原因是，随着玩家在游戏中的发展，游戏却似乎变得愈加容易，随着时间发展逐渐降低难度。这里就会涉及到一个所谓的“主观难度”这种概念，我们稍后再详谈。

达尔文难度还会迫使玩家掌握自己所有装备的功能和使用方法。动作类游戏的一个普遍缺陷在于，它提供了一个精心设计的战斗系统，但其功能却并未完全派上用场。玩家通常会依赖那些更为简单的动作（例如胡乱按键），这就会造成两种结果：玩家觉得游戏过于无趣，因为它缺乏挑战性，或者他们最后遇到一场让自己手足无措的激战，因为他们之前并没有去探索游戏机制。

《忍者外传：黑之章》开篇就会玩家提供了多数玩法动作，而这也正是这类游戏为何吓退许多新手的原因所在。在游戏第一关，玩家必须用到所有的这些玩法机制。这种游戏的玩法并不会在其发展过程中发生太多变化，玩家也不会在半途中发现彻底改变玩法的道具或者升级系统。

如何利用达尔文难度设计游戏？

如果要围绕达尔文难度设计游戏，就需要事先考虑一些因素。首先，这种游戏必须以动作为重心，这样才好激励玩家不断提高技能，让他们意识到自己才是成功与否的最大决定因素。

此外，这类游戏不能有太多需要玩家应付的抽象元素。在传统的RPG游戏中，角色等级和属性通常会决定玩家的输赢。而达尔文难度需要的是一种RPG游戏无法提供的特殊挑战。即使是roguelikes（游戏邦注：根据维基百科的解释，这是一种角色扮演游戏的子类，起源于1980年的电子游戏《Rogue》）这种难度极高的游戏，也不能划入达尔文难度之列。因为roguelike挑战性取决于随机性和角色属性，而非玩家技能。

另一个考虑就是，这类游戏还是需要提升玩法。假如玩家从头到尾都在做同种事情，那么游戏就会变得极为枯燥乏味。但我们可以通过提高角色技能来增加这种层次感。在《忍者外传：黑之章》中，玩家可以增加自己的最大健康值，升级武器，提高攻击力和连击的持续时间。

增加新敌人和场景是提升玩法的捷径，在设计之初就需要引进这些元素。《恶魔之魂》中的boss变化很值得借鉴，每个boss都会给玩家带来独特挑战，例如二对一的食人族大战，或者与Old Hero这个只能通过声音识别玩家的无眼boss。

虽然说玩法也要有所发展，但也要警惕添加太多内容的危害，这就会引申到下一个考虑:

不可让玩家获得取代其技能的升级或能力。因为玩家技能才是决定游戏进程的主要因素，如果提供其他会贬低玩家技能的辅助内容，就会破坏整个游戏体验。在《忍者外传》中，开发者赋予玩家在前几个台阶的还击能力。通过把握好阻碍的时机，玩家可以避开所有的损害，并将其返还给敌方。开发者认为这种设置让游戏过于简单，因此在《忍者外传：黑之章》中移除了这项功能，因为他们希望玩家发现持续的移动才有望获胜。

这也正是健康升级机制最为保险的原因，这个机制为玩家提供了生死之间的缓冲时间，但却不会影响其发挥技能。《恶魔之魂》中有许多boss随便几招就能让玩家丧命，但如果有了更强大的健康条，玩家就有更多幸存的机会，但如果玩家不趁缓冲时间掌握技能，避开敌人的攻击，最终也还是难免命丧黄泉。

这种设置还需考虑到另一面，即开发者不可更改之前的游戏机制和技能，以免玩家无处施展之前投入大量心血磨炼的技艺，从而让他们产生自己白费精力的受挫感。

在《魔兵惊天录》（Bayonetta）中，玩家刚开始会接触“Witch Time”这个机制，他们可以在特定时刻躲过攻击，游戏进程开始放缓，以便玩家进攻身手比自己更矫捷的敌人。

但游戏半途中，设计师突然又引进一种“刀枪不入”式的敌人，“Witch Time”对他们的攻击豪无影响，而“Witch Time”正好又是玩家在多数时候仅有的两种可躲避攻击的途径之一，遇到这种敌人时，玩家只能束手无策，自认晦气。

最后一个考虑是，即使这些游戏都比一般游戏更困难，但也还是可以设置一个可选择的难度系统。通常来说，这种达尔文难度游戏的“简单模式”也还是会比普通游戏更困难，但为了让缺乏经验的玩家继续探索更困难的设置，还是可以给他们“开个小灶”。《忍者外传：黑之章》就设置了多种难度关卡，例如非常简单、仅限高手等级别。

防御

将所有的考虑综合在一起，我们就可以更深入地理解《忍者外传：黑之章》以及《恶魔之魂》这类游戏充满挑战性的原因。

《忍者外传：黑之章》中的敌人主要是为促使玩家不断移动而设计，设计师让游戏中的每一个敌人（包括boss）都采取抢攻行动，玩家几乎无法阻止这种会造成巨大损害的攻击手段。有些抢攻并非无法提防，但也有些抢攻会在玩家阻止敌人的一些攻击之后立即闪现。

玩家越早掌握躲避技能越好，随着游戏发展，敌人进攻速度会越来越快，“固定和移动”的挑战性也会越来越大。

有两种方法会让游戏挑战性达到颠峰状态。一种是镜战。具备一定技能的玩家可以挑战更具难度的关卡，并与自己的同行者决战。同行者会使用与玩家一样的武器，以及玩家所有的招术和技巧，能否取胜完全看玩家如何与实力不相上下的敌人过招。

第二种是不考虑难度级别，在玩家将挑战最后一个boss之前，设置一场严酷的boos战和竞技战。如果玩家之前已经受到太大损伤，他们在这些战斗中就会处于劣势，迫使他们尽量“完美发挥”技能。在更困难的级别中，游戏还会引进更多战斗和boss的严酷考验，包括玩家之前从未遇到的挑战。

一般来说，特殊的boss就是游戏中最难对付的敌人，把握时机以躲避攻击是进攻和防御都需要具备的技能。这个boss头目的主要手段就是使用能量光束，玩家只有在她使出这一招前快速闪躲才可逃过此劫。更棘手的是，只有躲过她才能让自己的攻击生效。若要安然无恙地通过这场战斗，玩家技能需达到“大师级别”的水准，而这也表明玩家实力已足以通关。

再看《恶魔之魂》，游戏要求玩家理解所有的防御选项。为了避免损害，玩家可以阻止攻击，躲出敌人攻击范围，或者进行反击。阻止和躲避都要消耗一定的精力，而精力则决定了玩家能够进行攻击的频率。

当玩家采取阻止动作时，其盾牌的强度决定了玩家是否会受害。攻击力越强，精力耗损就越多。躲避耗损的精力更多，但其成本却固定不变。躲避的另一个好处在于，玩家不会遭遇任何损害，方便玩家找机会进攻敌人弱点。

最后一个选项就是还击，它要求玩家在碰撞之前揪准移动的时机。采取这种行动无需消耗精力，而其后继的还击也会给敌人造成额外损伤。但如果丧失时机就会遭遇惩罚——敌人的攻击就会接踵而至。

玩家最沉重的一课就是学习掌握躲避的技能，并且在最后一招时才使用阻止功能。在对付boss和更强大的敌人时，玩家无论如何都不要使用阻止功能，因为这个时候会让精力耗损得更快。当游戏引进火力和魔法攻击时，再强大的盾牌也无法保护玩家，在这种情况下，玩家更需要采取躲避行动。

与《忍者外传：黑之章》一样，游戏中的最后一战甚为关键。《恶魔之魂》的最后一个boss每一击都会造成巨大破坏性，而玩家如果阻止其行动就会耗损大半部分的精力。如果吃下对方的连击就会很致命，敌人最频繁使用的攻击手段就是冲撞，玩家此时就只能在其靠近之前躲避，但躲得太早或太晚都会让玩家被击中。

这个boss还有两个极强大但很少使用的攻击力，其一就是轰炸，它会让整个受到影响的区域变成所有人的死亡之地，只有穿戴强大护甲的玩家才能幸免。此时玩家就只能选择逃得越远越好，或者去攻击这个boss，让战斗早早划下句号。

其二就是近身抢夺手段，使出这一招时的boss会让玩家不断地丢失经验值。要对付这个boss，玩家得有精湛的躲避技巧，并且明白何时才是最佳进攻时刻。这两款游戏都是达尔文难度的典型代表，同时也可以说明这种游戏设计的优点和劣势。

优点

达尔文难度的优点要先从前文提到的“主观难度”说起。由于此类游戏一开始就让大部分的游戏机制登场亮相，随着玩家技能的提升，他们玩游戏的时间越长，就会越觉得游戏简单。

原因在于，游戏中所有的敌人、boss和形势都与核心机制紧密相连，只有玩家在游戏中的遭遇有所不同。

掌握了游戏核心机制，玩家就知道如何适应新的挑战。游戏开始之初的经历对技能得到提升的玩家来说也不再是难题。

以达尔文难度设计游戏可以让设计师站在玩家角度，深入了解玩家的技能水平，掌握更多的设计自由。而在普通的动作类游戏中，设计师经常难以把握玩家在特点环节的水平如何。

有些玩家可能在半途中就掌握了所有的连击方法，有些则还是只会胡乱按键盘。而从达尔文难度的角度出发，设计师就会知道通过第一关的玩家已经理解所有的机制，他们就可以从容设计下一个环节。

这种设计的另一个优势是，它可以激励玩家。克服困难或挑战可以让人产生一种满足感。靠自己的技能通关的玩家通常也很享受这种满足感，这种满足感就是一种强大的刺激因素，因为它实际上就是玩家的一种本能。

另一个长处就是重复可玩性。由于这类游戏要求玩家掌握较高的技巧，如果玩家很长时间过后再返回游戏，就可以获得一种新鲜感。就好像是举重训练，如果很久不练，运动员的肌肉就会开始松驰，他就得重新练起，然后恢复以往的水平。达尔文难度游戏也同此理，玩家通关之后过了数月再玩游戏，就会发现自己技艺生疏，功力大减，必须重新学习技能。

劣势

达尔文难度也有些劣势需要设计师铭记在心。首先，游戏开头这种高级别的难度会降低游戏对大众的吸引力。当今许多游戏的设计宗旨就是获得大众用户，所以它们的难度相对较低。而一款玩家在任何时候都可能丧命的游戏通常并不招人待见。《恶魔之魂》其及续集《黑暗之魂》（Dark Souls）虽然占据了许多媒体报道版面，但它们并非主流游戏。

其次，鼓励玩家提升技能是个不错的刺激因素，但也存在一些风险。“主观难度”这个概念的核心就在于“主观性”（一千个玩家就有一千种不同看法）。某位玩家可能不费吹灰之力就通过某项挑战，但对另一名玩家来说，这个挑战可能会让他萌生退意。不管怎么说，因为设计问题而输掉游戏，玩家心里总会好受些。但如果是因为自己技不如人而失手，玩家心里总是难免不快。

比起RPG游戏，玩家更容易在基于技能的游戏中手足无措。因为在RPG游戏中，玩家还有其他可救自己于水深火热之中的选择，例如刷任务机制，或购买更强大的装备。而在基于技能的游戏中，玩家基本上没有这种选择，只能凭自己的实力一步步熬过去。

在这种情况下，玩家很容易因受挫而退出游戏，这个阴影也会让他们怯于再次尝试游戏，最后就会影响他们对游戏开发者后继作品的看法。

达尔文难度是一个很难设计游戏的机制，它要求设计师投入更多时间润色游戏玩法。其设计要旨不在于创造一种不平衡的体验，而是为玩家提供所有的工具让他们获得成功。但玩家是否能够使用这些工具却是个大问题。可是当设计师能够成功把握难度的平衡性时，玩家就能够获得今天只有少数游戏才能提供的非凡体验。

篇目5，解析“滑坡效应”机制在游戏设计中的运用

作者：Brice Morrison

游戏中的“滑坡效应”是指当你落后时，你还会因此落到更后面；遭受损失时，这个损失还会继续对你造成伤害（有点像“雪上加霜”的意思）。

比如，篮球赛游戏中，每当一方得分时，另一方则损失一名队员。在这里，落后的损害是双倍的，一是每次投篮都是计分的，二是落后方更加不可能得分。尽管现实的篮球赛并没有这个别扭的特征，所以真正的篮球赛中并不存在“滑坡效应”。在现实的篮球赛中，得分只是让你更接近胜利，但完全不会损害对方的得分能力。

“滑坡效应”的另一个名称是正反馈，就是一个扩大自身效应的环路。因为人们总是很容易就混淆正反馈与负反馈，所以我更倾向于称之为“滑坡效应”。

滑坡效应在游戏中造成的结果通常是不好的（游戏邦注：当然，这是对对“滑坡方”而言）。如果游戏的滑坡效应太过强大，这意味着当一名玩家稍微领先一点，他就更可能离最终的胜利再进一步，再再进一步。像这样的游戏，赢家其实早有定数，无论你是玩家还是看客，游戏的过程基本上是多余的。

《星际争霸》和象棋中确实存在滑坡效应，但撇开这个消极属性不提，这两者都是好游戏。在象棋中，玩家损失一个棋子，他的攻击能力、防御能力和控制能力都会稍逊一筹。当然，象棋中还有其他许多因素——定位、势头、布阵等，决定着玩家到底是不是“失败”，当然损失一枚棋子也确实产生了一定的效应。显然，损失太多棋子，比如8个，玩家就彻底处于劣势了。要赢回来简直是猴子捞月了。所谓的胜利，其实是“赢”了很多、很多步，最后来一个“致命一击”的累积效应。

这就是为什么象棋中存在那么多惩罚。如果意识到对方最终会赢，好玩家其实不会再作无谓的挣扎。象棋玩家认为游戏存在这种经常性惩罚很好，没什么不合适，但与不存在滑坡效应的游戏相比，这是个令人扫兴的特点。但不论如何，象棋仍然是一种好游戏。

《星际争霸》中也有滑坡效应。当你损失一个单位时，你受到的是双重打击。第一，你离最终的失败更近一步了（完全没有单位事实上相当于损失了所有建筑）；第二，你更难进攻和防御，因为你不仅损失了得分，用于进攻和防御的单位也减少了。

在篮球赛中，得分与玩法完全是分离开的。你的得分能力并不取决于当前的得分。无论你是领先20分还是落后20分，再次得分的机会都是一样的。在《星际争霸》（和象棋）中，得分与玩法密切相关。损失一个单位意味着离失败更近一步，并且更难反击。

说到游戏的经济系列方面，《星际争霸》的滑坡效应表现更为明显。假设对方提前进攻你，你hold住了。其他方面损失不相上下，但你还多损失了一个生产单位。放到其他游戏中，这大约就相当于落后一分。但在《星际争霸》里，后果就严重多了，因为采矿量的增长接近于指数型，你的对手在资源上只领先你一个生产单位，收益就比你翻了好几番。在你损失那个生产单位起，你就已经在斜坡上往下滚了，此时的劣势效应正在无限放大。

格斗游戏

格斗游戏中一般不存在滑坡效应。比如在《街霸》中，你的角色即使只剩一口气了，仍然行动自如。被打中只是让你的命值（得分）受损，但并不会限制你的行动选择，这点和象棋中损失一个棋子或在《星际》中损失一个工作单位造成的恶果是不一样的。《武士之刃》中倒是意外地存在滑坡效应。在游戏中，被打中腿，玩家就会行走蹒跚；被打中手臂，可能那手臂膊就算是残了。这在格斗游戏中是极为罕见的。

虽然，从现实一点的角度讲，快死的角色也是可能慢慢地爬着，至于能爬多远就另当别论了，但这样的游戏也太没意思了。（游戏邦注：至少在《武士之刃》中，这部分会持续数秒钟，然后你才挂掉。）在《街霸》中，复原是很频繁的，所以所有玩家都能“笑到最后”。其实《街霸》中还是存在一点点滑坡效应的（如果你气数将近，你肯定很担忧被堵在角落，而当你的血条全满时，你从来不担心这个），但总的来说，这是个中性的滑坡效应。

有一款格斗游戏因为是个例外而显得格外突出，它就是《Marvel vs. Capcom 2》。在这款游戏中，各名玩家选择3名角色。在任意给定的时间内，屏幕是只出显一名可活动的角色，其余二名则在屏幕之外的地方恢复受损的精力。玩家可以召唤屏幕之外的角色来辅助主角色，之后再切换屏幕。主角色可以与辅助角色一起发动攻击，从而丰富进攻策略和技巧。玩家可以任意转换活动角色，但如果他已经损失了所有角色，就算是失败了。在这里，滑坡效应就出现了。当玩家只剩最后一个角色时，而其对方仍然有两个甚至全部角色无损，那么前者就明显处于下风。玩家的当前角色没有办法得到辅助攻击，胜算可谓微乎其微。恢复在这款游戏中相当少，游戏往往在玩家“技穷”以前就结束了。

带有“出圈即败”设计的格斗游戏，如《Virtua Fighter》和《Soul Calibur》就尤其不具有滑坡特征了。在这些游戏中，如果一名玩家的角色被推出圆圈，则玩家马上失败，无论此时角色的血条还有多长。从根本上说，无论你目前落后对手多少、无论你的血条还有多少，出了圆圈对你的造成的伤害都是100%的。很久以前，我曾认为这个概念并不高明，除了速战速决，不见得有什么好处，但事实上，“出圈即败”的危险给游戏加分不少。因为“出圈即败”的危险度太高了，无形中给游戏增加了一个“定位”的玩法；也就是，玩家必须在打击对手的同时稳住自己的位置，以免被推出圆圈。

有限的滑坡效应

格斗游戏的滑坡效应范围非常小、非常有限，这对格斗游戏来说是一个优良的特点。如果游戏在任何时候都不存在滑坡效应，那么各个环节之间可能会让人觉得比较脱节。虽然，如果你做出的决定始终会引发某种结果，进而影响到后面的游戏，那样会比较有趣。但问题是，如果这种影响发展成了“滚雪球”呢？

在受限的滑坡效应中，你能“滑”多远存在上限，造成的后果也是暂时的。在《街霸》中，被击倒了确实会引发一点滑坡效应。你的命值（得分）受损，同时，角色的活动受到短暂的限制。角色摔倒，显然是劣势情况。这里我们要注意到两点：1、击倒结束后，你恢复所有动作；2、你不能进一步被击倒。

图中的Ken被击倒了，暂时处于下风，但这个劣势不会像滚雪球一样越滚越大。

将对手击倒的影响确实在后面体现出来了，但这个优势很快就被重新组合，不会再“滚雪球”了，因为不存在“进一步击倒”对手这种事。如果你已经摔倒了，你当然不可能“再摔倒”。

另一个例子是把对手逼到角落（游戏界面的边缘）。如果你这么做了，你就占据了“地利”，因为对手的行动受限了。但还是存在一个限度——一旦对手被逼到角落了，他不可能再被逼进“角落的角落”了。对手所处的劣势程度是有限度的。

再举一个更直接的例子，任何时候你采取阻挡动作，你就得到一定的复原量。此时，你的恢复速度会领先于正在进攻的对手，所以在下一次进攻时，你在时间上有可能先出手。这是你的优势，因为如果你们双方都打算发动相同速度的进攻，你的角色会赢（因为它会先行动）。你的阻挡动作的成效就在这里表现出来了，但这个效益是转瞬即逝的，可能仅仅过了一秒，优势就不复存在了。

所以，格斗游戏中充满了小型滑坡效应，这确实给游戏增添了乐趣。但从宏观的角度看，这些不算真正意义上的滑坡效应，因为其效果不会像滚雪球般随着游戏进程渐渐变大。与象棋相比，相当于你是在几个回合后就把失去的棋子拿回来了。

没有滑坡效应的RTS

这里我有一个想法，就是把完全的滑坡效应（通常是恶性的）变成有限的滑坡效应（通常是良性的）。双方玩家一开始均持有相当的资本去购买单位。当你的单位被摧毁后你的资本就会得到偿还。一方面，偿还需要一定的时间，另一方面，重新生产新单位需要一定的时间，这两方面意味着损失单位确实产生了消极影响，但这种劣势会渐渐消失，这与格斗游戏中的被击倒是一样的。即时策略游戏《World in Conflict》正是这么做的，不过我本人没有玩过。

我说这些的目的不是评判《World in Conflict》这款游戏好不好，或者讨论上述的“恢复系统”可取不可取。我只是想表明，如果你能努力研究一下，消除RTS中的滑坡效应还是可能的。那些非常乐衷于此的人可能会想出更高明的解决方案吧，然后一款更高深的游戏就此诞生。

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

篇目1，Designing Difficulty

by Muir Freeland

This past week saw the launch of a game called Mega Man Unlimited. As the name hints, it’s a fan game based on the Mega Man franchise, and one that’s been in the works for over half a decade. It’s an incredibly impressive project: it’s attractive, it’s clever, and it positively nails the classic Mega Man feel. For a small team spearheaded by a single person, it’s nothing short of a beautiful achievement, and it’s something I have nothing but admiration for.

The only thing I can’t get behind is the difficulty. The game is simply too spiteful; its enemies do too much damage, its instant-death spikes and bottomless pits are too numerous, and its checkpoints are too far apart, ensuring that when you screw up – and you will, often – you’ll have to slog back through the same huge, deadly stretches of terrain just to get another shot at doing things right. The game is cruel, even by Mega Man standards, and it drags the entire experience down.

And I’d wager that this was completely invisible to the game’s designer.

Everything is better with instant-kill spike ceilings.

This is a scary thought. As a designer, it’s terrifying to know that I will never, ever play the same version of my games as everyone else will. When I play Blowfish Meets Meteor, I don’t see a diver scouring an underwater cityscape for his lost mermaid daughters; I see hitboxes, all green and pink and blue and rigid, and I see the formulas behind the physics that make them move. I don’t hear the music; in its place, I feel a constant paranoia that it will suddenly stop, or that there will be a gap where it’s supposed to loop, or that a sound effect will trigger improperly. Above all, I don’t feel difficulty; I’m too intimately familiar with the bones and guts and impulses behind this thing. When you can accurately predict – or premediate, even — the behavior of every single aspect of a game down to a single pixel, be it the player, the enemies, or the environment, there’s no mystery, and without mystery, there’s no error.

When you see a game in this light, everything feels too easy. Boss patterns become child’s play to recognize: who needs a fancy windup animation to warn them that an attack is coming when you’ve internalized the exact time interval that precedes it? Levels become a cinch to navigate: even the most obtuse, gnarled maze feels like a linear path when you not only know where the exit is, but actively influenced its position. And your own character’s mechanics are the easiest thing of all to wrangle: spending hours or days fine-tuning the frames and numbers behind every motion, maneuver, and attack gives you a sixth-sense about how to best handle things when it’s finally time to pick up the controller and play the damn thing.

As a designer, I know, somewhere up in the more logically-wired part of my brain, that I want my creations to be fun and balanced and fair. I want the difficulty to be tuned just right. To me, that means being friendly and accommodating up-front, showing the player the ropes in a controlled way, and gradually making things more difficult to push them to get better and more comfortable with the game itself. To that end, I’m constantly fine-tuning both the levels and the base mechanics to try and hit that perfectly-balanced mark. I view this as a good thing, and an incredibly important thing. Designers should aspire for balance, and doing so requires constant tweaking and testing.

But then your sixth-sense interferes.

Blowfish Meets Meteor bares its hitboxes.

If you already know everything there is to know about a game, that makes you a master of playing it. And when you’ve mastered something, it feels easy. Too easy. And so, in pursuit of proper balance, you make it harder.

In a weird way, it feels like the responsible thing to do.

I’ve been guilty of this a lot with Blowfish Meets Meteor. I want so badly for the game to be clever and balanced and challenging-yet-fair that I’ll make things incrementally more difficult because it’s what feels right to me. From this bizarre perch I’m sitting on, “devious” simply looks “clever.” “Instant death” looks more like “polite punch in the arm.” I flirt with a lot of things that I objectively recognize are bad – things like puzzle rooms that require trial-and-error to avoid instant Game Overs, or traps that kill the player before they’ve even had a chance to get their bearings. I know these are horrible, lazy design crutches. But from up here, with this skewed sense of understanding of my own creation, they look amazing.

There’s this level in Blowfish Meets Meteor called “Piranha Peril.” Regardless of its actual merit, it is and always will be one of my favorite levels in the game. It was quite possibly the first puzzle-style level I created for this project; in a game about rapid-fire explosions and stupidly-big boss battles, making a level that focused on slowing things down and asking the player to think critically felt incredibly refreshing at the time.

The goal of the level is simple: there are a bunch of mermaids, and a bunch of mermaid-eating piranhas. The mermaids need to navigate to the bottom of the screen, where your underwater dome-house is. You, in the role of their deep-sea-diver father, have a meteor, which bounces around and destroys blocks (but, critically, not piranhas), and a bunch of TNT, which can be placed anywhere on the screen and will destroy pretty much anything. Go.

Piranha Peril, Mk. I

The mermaids move in a predictable pattern, walking left or right along solid ground until they hit a wall, which causes them to turn, or a piranha, which immediately devours them in a shower of blood and whatever the mermaid equivalent of veal is. If we take the game’s mechanics as canon and gospel truth, they’re simply not very smart.

Your options here are to break them out with the Meteor – which is possible, but not very fun – or to accrue TNT, and use it to destroy the terrain and/or piranhas impeding their progress. You get TNT by destroying blocks in rapid succession, and since there are only a limited number of blocks in your immediate vicinity, that means you’ve only got a few pieces of TNT to throw around, and you’d better use it carefully.

The first version of this level was terrible in a way that only a designer could love. Each of the two mermaids started the level by walking directly into the piranhas on their tier; players had a matter of seconds to start the level and flawlessly perform the exact right set of actions to liberate them or face a Game Over. When I asked friends to playtest it for me, most of them immediately lost, and their first response was often to ask “what killed them.” It was difficult in all the wrong ways, punishing players for not having superhuman reflexes or advance knowledge of the level and its hazards.

Chomp.

The weird thing is, it took a while for that to sink in. When I watched people play the level, I didn’t think “unfair;” I thought “devious.” I didn’t think “trial-and-error;” I thought “clever puzzle.” I didn’t see “Game Over screen;” I saw a goofy, entertaining animation of a piranha chomping up a mermaid. Even when people outright told me that the level was frustrating, it was hard for me to accept it; I chalked it up to them being inexperienced with the game, or poor sports who needed things spoon-fed to them.

What if listening to them was the wrong thing? And what if, in doing so, I made the level so easy that it removed the puzzle? What if people blazed through it so quickly, so painlessly, that they never got to see that wonderful, clever brain-teaser that I spent so long bringing to life? To me, the level felt perfect, and messing with perfection was a tough sell.

It’s been nearly a year since I originally posted that first screenshot of Piranha Peril. It took until maybe a month ago for me to consider changing the level, and even then, I’m not sure what exactly triggered it; maybe that was simply the amount of time it took for me to distance myself from the original creation enough to be objective about it. Perhaps creating dozens of new levels, or playing the game from start to finish in its currently near-complete state, helped give me perspective. Or maybe I just became more critical of myself, or learned to listen more. Whatever the reason, today’s Piranha Peril is a much less masochistic affair. The instant-kills are gone; there are now blocks preventing the mermaids from walking straight into the piranhas, giving the player as much time as they need to initially process the level and figure out how to handle things. These new piranhas are all stationary, giving players one less variable to contend with. And the blowfish, who gives the player a useful power-up, has been moved to the center of the screen, where it’s much easier to utilize.

Piranha Peril Mk. II

I hope these things make a difference, and I hope they make the right one, but ultimately, I’ll never know. I can solicit feedback from people, but I can never experience what they do. My understanding of my own work is and always will be secondhand.

So when I play games like Mega Man Unlimited – games that ooze creativity and talent and passion but feel slightly spiteful, all the same – I understand. Difficulty is a fleeting, fickle thing, especially if you’re the one in charge of it. When I play someone else’s game, difficulty issues feel immediately obvious, but with my own, they hide away, beady eyes in the shadows, for months or even years. Ironically, knowing more about a design means that, in some ways, you’ll always know less; no matter how long you spend creating something, you’ll never know as much as the newcomer who just experienced it for the first time. That’s been an incredibly difficult lesson to accept and digest, but doing so has been and will always be one of the most important learning experiences of my game design career.

篇目2，Deep Dungeon: Exploring the Design of Dark Souls

by Robert Boyd

Robert Boyd, designer of Cthulhu Saves the World and Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 carefully explores the design of the popular but often misunderstood action RPG hit.

Dark Souls has gained a reputation for being an excruciatingly difficult game. Yet despite that, the game has seen a great deal of success, both commercially (selling over a million copies in the U.S. and Europe as of the end of the publisher’s last fiscal year) and critically (with a current Metacritic rating of 89).

Why has Dark Souls achieved mainstream success and has not remained merely a cult favorite? I’d like to argue that a major factor behind Dark Souls’ success is the disconnect between its perceived difficulty and its actual difficulty. Dark Souls presents itself as an impossible challenge to the player outwardly, but inwardly, the game is subtly designed in many ways to help the player achieve the impossible.

(Note: this article includes a few spoilers.)

1. Marketing

The publisher of Dark Souls actively sought to brand the game as a difficult game from day one. Just look at the name of the game’s official website: PrepareToDie.com. Marketing the game as being extremely difficult increases the game’s perceived difficulty without changing the actual difficulty at all.

2. It lets the players make their own rules

After stacking the odds against the player (with a huge, hostile world), the game starts stacking the odds back in the player’s favor. First things first — Dark Souls doesn’t force the player to play the game in any particular way. Want to play a heavily armored knight, a light-on-her-feet warrior, a mage, a priest, or all of the above? Sure thing. The game lets you use the style of hero that you feel most comfortable with. Although the player chooses one of several set classes at the beginning of the game, class selection only determines the player’s starting stats and equipment; where you go from there is entirely up to you.

3. It’s difficult to truly mess up your stat progression

Dark Souls lets the player allocate their stats bonuses from level-ups however they wish. This gives the expert min-maxer a great deal of flexibility to create the ultimate Dark Souls destroying machine.

But what about the less experienced player who doesn’t know what they’re doing? No problem — the design has taken that into account as well. There are several effective tools available to the player that have little to no reliance on stats, like elemental weapons, armor (armor increases weight but doesn’t have specific stat requirements), and powerful fire magic called pyromancy, that the player can use to dig themselves out of the hole they’ve created with poor level-up choices.

All level-ups give a slight boost to the player’s overall defense, so no matter what you choose, you’re always getting slightly more resilient. And it’s possible to max out all stats eventually — so in the end, poor choices can be fixed with grinding.

4. We’re all in this together

Although it’s possible for players to fight amongst themselves, players can help each other, both through posting hints for other players and by joining other players’ games to help defeat Dark Souls’ many bosses.

Bosses give drastically more souls (the game’s currency) than normal enemies do, and helping another player is the only way to defeat a boss more than once — so the player has a definite incentive for helping out others. The game creates a feeling of “us vs. the game” and not just “us vs. us.”

5. A deadly non-linear world… except, not really

Non-linear worlds are inherently more difficult than strictly linear worlds because the player is less likely to know what they’re supposed to be doing and is more likely to run into areas that they’re unprepared for.

Dark Souls appears to be very non-linear at first glance, but in actuality it’s a lot more linear than it seems. To start, individual areas tend to be very linear — albeit with hidden treasures to be found in various side paths. But as far as the game’s overall progression goes, Dark Souls has a heavy reliance on gating. The game opens up a portion of the game to the player and then to access the next set of areas, a certain task or series of tasks must be undertaken.

Excluding the tutorial area, there are basically three major goals that must be accomplished in order to reach the final boss. The first goal is to ring two bells (each of which is guarded by a boss). Starting in Firelink Shrine (the initial hub area), there are three areas the player can travel to — The Catacombs, New Londo Ruins, and Undead Burg.

Powerful skeletons that come back to life soon after being killed guard The Catacombs, and New Londo Ruins is filled with ghosts that are invincible unless the player is cursed, or uses a certain item. In contrast, Undead Burg has enemies that are similar to the enemies in the tutorial area and is the obvious choice to start out with. Right from the start, Dark Souls is subtly funneling the character into the course of least resistance, and it continues to funnel the player through the entire two bells portion of the game, by giving the player keys that indicate where they should go next.

After the two bells have been rung, the second part of the game begins with a cutscene that shows the player that a huge fortress that was previously locked has now been opened. The player’s course is clear — explore the fortress and the area beyond it. This portion of the game is one of the most linear, with two areas that must be completed in succession and only one optional area. This section acts as an exam: If the player can completes these two areas (some of the hardest in the game so far), they’re deemed worthy for the third main portion of the game, where the entire world (minus the final boss area) is opened up to them.

By gating the areas of the game in this manner, it allows Dark Souls to have a more measured difficulty curve than a truly non-linear game would allow. The areas opened up in the third part of the game tend to be more difficult than the areas in the second part of the game — which, in turn, are more difficult than the areas in the first part of the game. This helps to prevent the player from getting truly confused and lost like they might if the entire world was accessible right from the beginning.

6. Provide hints to the player, but don’t be too obvious about it

Probably my favorite example of how the game provides hints to the player is early on, at the beginning of the Undead Parish. The player runs into an armored boar enemy that proves to be much more powerful than anything the player has had to fight so far. A frontal assault is likely to prove ineffective, but there’s a set of stairs to the side that the player can escape to.

After a few relatively easy fights up the stairs, the player discovers several monster lure items on a ledge directly above the armored boar. What the player should do soon becomes obvious — throw a few monster lure items into a nearby fire, and watch as the armored boar commits suicide by running into the fire.

A lesser game would have had given the player a message like “Try throwing the monster lure at the fire to kill the armored boar!” when they picked up the monster lure items. By not explicitly telling the player what to do but by leading them towards the answer, Dark Souls allows the player to feel clever for figuring the solution out.

7. Combat is a replenishable resource

One of the smartest changes Dark Souls made over its predecessor was the switch to the bonfire system. The previous game, Demon’s Souls, uses a traditional resource system where the player can restore their health and magic points (MP) with items that they can find and purchase. However, in Dark Souls, the player is given a set number of heal potions to use. Additional potions cannot be found; however, the player’s potions are restored every time the player rests at a bonfire. Likewise, the player is given a set number of spells they can use each time they rest at a bonfire.

The replenishing resources bonfire system has a number of advantages over the way that Demon’s Souls did things. It encourages the player to use all of their magic arsenal instead of just the spells with the greatest return-on-MP investment. It prevents the player from stockpiling huge quantities of health and MP items, thus rendering the resource system largely irrelevant. And it removes the need to grind out money and item drops when you’re low on potions. Through the bonfire system, the player is encouraged to use all of the resources at their disposal, since they know they’ll recover them next time they rest rather than having to worry about hording resources.

8. Exploration is a limitless resource

Zelda has bombable walls. Dark Souls has fake walls. The difference? In the Zelda games, you can only test walls as long as you still have bombs left in your inventory — but in Dark Souls, any kind of attack (even just a harmless roll) is enough to test if there’s a hidden passage behind a seemingly solid wall. The player is thus encouraged to search for the game’s many secrets — because there is no penalty if they guess wrong.

9. Their bark is bigger than their bite

An easy way to make a game feel harder is through appearances. A great example of this is the classic horror game, Silent Hill 2. Mechanically speaking, Silent Hill 2 is a pretty easy game, but by making the monsters and locales in the game look horrendous, the game feels a lot harder than it actually is.

Dark Souls enemies are almost universally grotesque and are frequently much bigger than the player character. But Dark Souls takes it even further with many of its early bosses appearing above the player before crashing down in front of them. The implication is clear — the player is insignificant to these monsters and they won’t hesitate to squash him or her like a bug.

However, the experienced player will soon realize that many of the scariest-looking bosses in Dark Souls are also some of the easiest bosses, with easy-to-read tells and attacks that are easy to dodge and counterattack. By making the bosses and monsters look intimidating, their perceived difficulty is increased even if their actual difficulty isn’t.

10. Combat doesn’t require fast reflexes

Most difficult games require lightning-fast reflexes. Not Dark Souls. Combat in Dark Souls is a methodical affair: Block then attack. Dodge then attack. Attacks are slow, and easily punished if missed. Even drinking a health potion takes several seconds (unlike most action-RPGs, where it’s instant). The game rewards the players that can keep their wits about them and actively punishes mindless button mashers.

11. The stakes are high… for both sides

Yes, enemies in Dark Souls can deal massive damage to the player. But you know what? The smart player can deal massive damage to the enemies as well. From massive swords that can kill a group of enemies with a single strike to arcane spells that can decimate bosses from a distance in next to no time, there are many ways the player can become the scariest thing in the entire Dark Souls world.

One of my favorite “tricks” to breaking the game early on is through the use of the 2-handed button. Equip the easily obtainable hand axe (a few other early game weapons will work as well, but the hand axe is the best for this strategy). When you see an enemy with a shield, switch to the two-handed stance and then just go to town on them. The hand axe has a high stagger stat so, in no time, your assault will knock the enemy’s shield out of the way, allowing you to defeat them easily. In a typical game, enemy shields would be impenetrable, but in Dark Souls, the enemies play by the same rules that you do (at least, until the enemies start to dwarf you in size).

Observant players can find even more tricks to break the game, like powerful weapons hidden just off the main path, and shortcuts that allow access to areas long before they are traditionally reached. Dark Souls rewards the player who isn’t afraid to fully explore and then break the rules.

12. Death is punished… some of the time

At one end of the death/punishment spectrum, you have your typical roguelike with perma-death, where a single death means you need to start the entire game over. At the other end of the spectrum, you have your average game these days, where death sends you back to a recent checkpoint.

Dark Souls finds a happy medium between the two extremes. If the player is killed twice in succession, they lose their current souls and humanity, an important (but renewable) status. But if they can successfully return to the place where they died last time, they don’t lose a thing. Also, both souls and humanity can also be obtained via certain items that are not lost upon death, allowing the player to safely save them up for when they need them (like for the next new merchant). The player also spawns from the most recently used bonfire, meaning that even physical progress isn’t necessarily lost.

Conclusion

Dark Souls is a difficult game; there’s no question about that. However, by making the game appear even more difficult than it actually is and then by subtly lowering the difficulty in a variety of ways, the developers have made the difficulty in Dark Souls manageable — and fair. And when victory is achieved, it is made all the more sweet for appearing to be more difficult than it actually was.

篇目3，Fixing the “Impossible (Auto Save) Scenario”

by Matt Christian on 08/03/11

One of the most aggravating things a player can experience is the “impossible (auto save) scenario”, a situation where the player finds themselves in a portion of the game where they’re presented with a challenge that is either extremely difficult or actually impossible due to the game auto saving in an unfortunate spot.

Sadly for the gamer, this isn’t their fault and is completely an issue with game design. Here are some experiences I’ve had in recent games and the solutions presented by game development professionals.

Precursor

This is the one item I haven’t experienced first hand, but is definitely a precursor to the ideas presented in the next sections. A major point of interest reviewers had for Devil May Cry 3 by Capcom was the fact that the game was very difficult. Capcom knew this and after dying three times in Normal mode the gamer was given a congratulatory pat on the back and told they’ve unlocked Easy mode!

Capcom’s solution provided the player with the option to continue the game after hitting a difficulty wall. It may not have been the most elegant solution (we’ll see some great ones coming up) but it definitely was one of the most publicized inclusions of this design a game has had in recent years.

Cliff Diving

Bungie’s Halo: Reach implements an auto save system that fires in the game at certain points, similar to the previous Halo games. Sometimes the save seems possibly triggered by the player progressing through a level, a certain event completed (such as killing all enemies in a room), or even time-based as you can run around a single spot for a long time and sometimes are granted with the saving icon.

At one point in Reach I found myself cruising along a road in my trusty Warthog with my dedicated team beside me. Without warning, a hairpin turn appears and we all go hurtling off the cliff in the most horrifying of space-marine related auto deaths known to man (or SPARTAN).

Little did I know, the game had recently autosaved… about 1-2 seconds before the turn. Over and over the game would respawn my band of crash test dummies only to shoot us off the cliff. Due to the design behind the Warthog and the included physics system, it was physically impossible to turn that sharp or stop fast enough to prevent this situation.

This issue is really a ‘loophole’ (or logic hole) in the design. The design of the core game is rather solid and the save system is solid, but the way the two work together just creates problems that need to be solved through additional design.

In my opinion, the developers at Bungie solved this extremely elegantly and is one of the best design decisions I’ve noticed in a game. After dying between 5 and 10 times, the game seemed to revert to a previous checkpoint which happened to be only a minute or so before the turn. This solved my impossible scenario without feeling like I was overly set back in the game.

The Devil is in the Details

A recent game rental provided me with a copy of Visceral Games’ “retelling” of Dante’s Inferno. Feeling confident in my gaming abilities I started a new game on hard mode (note, there is one higher difficulty but is locked the first play through). Everything was going well for a few ‘levels’ until I hit a trigger section, a spot where I was supposed to pull a lever which would extend a bridge and, to no surprise, spawned 6 enemies. I only had a sliver of health at this point so I was quickly killed. Thankfully the game spawned me just before the lever pull but still with that sliver of life.

Over and over these demonesque beasts would take me out until finally after respawning several times the game popped up a little tooltip: “You know, if you suck this bad, you can change the difficulty in the pause menu” (loosely translated). It wasn’t until dying again that I noticed the game had done something else, it actually had filled my life bar a bit when respawning me. Every subsequent respawn would provide me with more and more health until eventually my life bar would be completely full.

In the context of this style of game it was a good solution to a problem with the auto save loophole. The Bungie solution would possibly have worked but without that extra life I might just be stuck in a longer area and dying over and over.

But, maybe it’s my gamer ego talking, this solution irritated me because the game was giving me more than just a little helping touch on respawn. Later in the game I knew I could complete a section but by the time my skill was there I was already being handed free life gain. In reality, in some areas it felt like I was somehow cheating by taking a boost in life when I didn’t feel I needed it only to beat the system.

Take Away

In the end, every game has a different way of dealing with difficulty and with implications with auto save. The design choice for solving this issue should be appropriate for the game and the audience. In most cases this kind of loophole fix will probably even expand your audience as you’re trying to make the game more accessible to more ability levels. Keep in mind how other companies have provided solutions for these issues and even try to leverage them with some added changes. Sure you can just ignore it and make your game hard, but how many players are going to give your game a fourth and fifth chance after dying in the same manner over and over and over and….

篇目4，Darwinian Difficulty: How Throwing Players In Headfirst Can Work

by Josh Bycer

Game difficulty is a very subjective topic, as many of the best-crafted games strive to deliver a balanced difficulty curve.

In an age where designers are attempting to attract more gamers with easier games, some of the best games move their difficult moments off of the critical path. Some games offer achievements for those that brave the hardest setting, while others hide the difficulty for the players to discover (see Kirby’s Epic Yarn as an example of an easy game that hides its more challenging paths in optional, hard-to-reach areas).

However, there are games that throw the player into shark-infested waters from the get-go — and that can be a good thing.

How Does It Work?

Ninja Gaiden Black and Demon’s Souls are two such titles. Both games are considered by many gamers to be among the best out there, garnering numerous awards. One area that everyone can agree on is that these games are hard from the minute they start and never let up.

The first group battle in Ninja Gaiden Black can easily take apart a novice player, and many gamers couldn’t even get past the first level. Demon’s Souls was kind enough to give players a 10 minute tutorial… before introducing them to an enemy who kills them in one shot.

From the outside, this sounds unfair — maybe even cruel. However, there is a method to the madness, and that method is “tough love.”

Both Ninja Gaiden Black and Demon’s Souls, from the very beginning, are designed around several key mechanics. With Ninja Gaiden Black it’s constant movement, reading enemy tells, and knowing when to attack and when to move. Demon’s Souls is similar, with the added mechanic of keeping track of the character’s stamina, which allows them to block and roll out of the way.

If the player doesn’t learn these mechanics at the start of the game, there will be no way for them to finish the game, as both games’ combat models are designed around these concepts.

Starting the game at a higher than normal difficulty introduces the concept of “Darwinian Difficulty”, which can be summarized by the motto “adapt or die.” Button mashing doesn’t work with either title, nor does standing still and holding the block button down all day. Both titles rely heavily on telegraphing strong attacks, cluing the player in that if they get hit, it could be fatal.

Putting players through a “trial by fire” does several things. First, is that the difficulty curve for a game like this is different from other titles. The following chart shows the differences:

Normal game difficulty starts out on the easy side and gradually gets harder. There may be a lull here and there, but for the majority of the game, the challenges will be getting progressively more difficult. The difference is that in a game with a higher starting difficulty, such as the games mentioned in this article, the difficulty curve looks like the green line.

Darwinian Difficulty starts out harder, and there aren’t any lulls. However, the difficulty of the game doesn’t curve up as a normal game. The reason is that as the player improves at the game, the game will becomes easier for them, lowering the curve over the time. This act of basing the difficulty off of the player — otherwise referred to as “Subjective Difficulty” — will be looked at later on in the article.

Darwinian Difficulty also forces the player to learn all the tools in their arsenal. One common pitfall of action titles is offering an elaborately-designed combat system that goes completely underutilized. Players will often rely on simpler actions (button mashing, for example.) This leads to two results: the player will find the game boring because it’s not challenging, and they’ll eventually face a fight where they don’t know what to do, because they didn’t explore the game’s mechanics.

Games like Ninja Gaiden Black offer the player the majority of gameplay actions available from the start, which is one of the reasons why these games are so daunting for newcomers. Within the first level of the game, the player will be asked to make use of all the available gameplay mechanics. In a game like this, the gameplay doesn’t change as much over the course of the experience as compared to other games. The player is not going to find an item or power-up that completely changes how the game is played halfway through.

How Do You Design For Darwinian Difficulty?

In order to design a game around Darwinian Difficulty, there are several considerations that the designer needs to keep in mind. First, in order to build a game around this concept, the game has to be predominantly skill-based. The reason is that in order for the player to be motivated to improve, they need to realize that they are the biggest factor to their success or failure.

Design-wise, there need to be as few abstractions as possible for the player to deal with. In a traditional RPG, the character’s level and attributes determines who wins a fight. Darwinian Difficulty requires a specific type of challenge that RPGs don’t have. Even roguelikes, which are known for their high degree of difficulty, don’t fall into the category of Darwinian Difficulty. The reason is that the aspects that make a roguelike challenging are randomization and character attributes, not player skill.

The next consideration is that there still needs to be gameplay growth. If the player is doing the same exact thing from beginning to end, then the game will become boring. There are several ways to introduce growth, such as improving the character’s abilities. In Ninja Gaiden Black, players can increase their maximum health and upgrade their weapons, which in turn improve damage output and combo durations.

New enemies and situations are the easiest way to implement growth, and they must be implemented in the design. The boss variety seen in Demon’s Souls is one of the best, with each boss providing a unique challenge for the player — such as the two-against-one Man-eater battle, or fighting the Old Hero boss, who is blind and can only detect the player via sound.

Even though there should be gameplay growth, there is a danger in adding too much — which leads to the next consideration.

The player should not earn any upgrades or abilities that supersede player skill. Because the player’s skill is the main factor in the game, giving the player something that undervalues skill can break the game. In Ninja Gaiden, the developers gave the player the ability to counter-attack after the first few stages. By timing their blocks, players could avoid all damage and deal it back to the enemy. The developers saw that this was making the game too easy and removed the feature for Ninja Gaiden Black, as they wanted the player to see that constant movement was required to win.

That is why health upgrades are the safest bet; they give the player a greater buffer between life and death, but don’t get in the way of player skill. Many of the bosses in Demon’s Souls can kill the player in a few hits; having a greater health bar may give the player a little more of a chance to survive, but if the player doesn’t learn how to avoid the attacks, they’ll lose no matter what.

The flipside of this consideration is that you should never change the game in a way that negates previous mechanics and skills. Getting rid of a mechanic that the player spent time learning and improving at will make the player feel like that wasted their time — and this hurts the design.

You can find an example of this in Bayonetta. At the start, the player is introduced to the concept of “Witch Time”. By dodging attacks at the precise moment of impact, the world slows down for the player, allowing for an increased window for attack. Slowing down time also allows players a chance to hit enemies which are more agile then the player.

However, halfway through the game, the designers introduce “gold-plated” enemies, whose attacks will not trigger Witch Time if the player dodges them. Because Witch Time is one of the only two ways of avoiding damage for much of the game, players are left severely handicapped while fighting these enemies.

The last consideration is that even though these titles are harder compared to other games, it is alright to throw the player a bone by implementing a difficulty selection system. Granted, an “easy mode” in a game with Darwinian Difficulty is still harder than in normal games, but it does give less experienced players a chance to “pump up” before trying the higher settings.

Ninja Gaiden Black featured multiple difficulty levels, ranging from very easy to experts only.

It’s All About Defense

Putting all the considerations together, we can take a closer look at Ninja Gaiden Black and Demon’s Souls, and what makes them challenging.

Ninja Gaiden Black’s enemy design is built around forcing the player to keep moving. The way the designers did this was giving just about every enemy (including bosses) a grab attack. Grab attacks are unblockable and do immense damage. Some grab attacks are telegraphed, while others are used immediately once the player blocks a few attacks by an enemy.

The sooner the player masters the dodge roll, as oppose to regular blocking, the better. As the game goes on, enemies will become faster, and the challenge of “sticking and moving” will become greater.

The challenge culminates in two ways. First are mirror battles. Players who are skilled enough to play on the higher difficulty levels will run into battles with their doppelganger. The doppelganger will use one of the player’s weapons, and all the same tactics and techniques the player has, and it will be up to the player to deal with an enemy who is their equal.

Second, regardless of the difficulty level, before the player can fight the final boss, they will be put through a gauntlet of boss fights and arena battles. Taking too much damage early on will leave the player in a bad position to finish the fights, forcing the player to get as close to a “perfect run” as possible. On the harder difficulty levels, the gauntlet is extended with more battles and bosses, including one that was never shown to the player until now.

The unique boss is easily one of the toughest enemies in the game, as mastering the timing needed to dodge attacks is required for both offense and defense. Her main attack is a beam of energy that can only be avoided by dodging just before she uses it. To complicate matters, only attacks issued after dodging her moves will connect. Getting through this fight without a scratch requires “master level” play, and is a sign that the player is good enough to finish the game.

Moving onto Demon’s Souls, the game also requires players to understand all defensive options available. To avoid damage, players can block attacks, dodge out of the way, or attempt a riposte to counter. Blocking and dodging will consume stamina, which also affects how often the player can attack.

When the player blocks, the strength of the shield will determine if any damage “leaks through”. The stronger the attack, the more stamina is drained. Dodging uses more stamina with each individual use, but its cost remains fixed. The other benefit is that dodging guarantees that the player will not take any damage, and it can be used to set up a follow-up attack from the enemy’s blind side.

The final option is the riposte, which requires the player to time the move just before impact. Pulling this off uses no stamina, and the following counterattack will do extra damage.

Missing the timing will punish the player — the full hit from the enemy will connect.

The toughest lesson for the player to learn is to master dodging and only use blocking as a last resort. Blocking should be avoided at all cost against bosses and larger enemies, as the stamina drain is intense. When fire and magic attacks are introduced, normal shields will not absorb either damage regardless of their strength, signaling the player even more that dodging is needed.

Like Ninja Gaiden Black, this lesson culminates with a final battle. The last boss in Demon’s Souls does immense damage with each attack — along with a major stamina drain if the player blocks. Taking its full combo attack is fatal. One of its most frequently used attacks is a dash that requires the player to dodge just as it reaches the player; dodging too soon or too late will result in the player getting hit.

The boss also has two powerful attacks that it uses rarely. The first is an explosion with an area effect that is fatal to all but the most heavily-armored players. The only options available to the player are to get as far away as possible, or to hit the boss, canceling the attack.

The second is a close range telegraphed grab. If it connects, the boss will permanently remove one experience level off the player. Beating the boss requires players to have mastered dodging and fully understand when there is an opening to attack. Both games are clear examples of Darwinian Difficulty and highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the design.

The Advantages of Darwinian Difficulty…

There are several advantages to Darwinian Difficulty. Let’s return to the concept of “Subjective Difficulty”. Because the majority of the mechanics are available from the start, as the player improves their skills, the game should become easier the longer they play.

The reason is that all the enemies, bosses, and situations are based around the core mechanics. The only changes that happen in the game are the encounters the player will face.

By learning the core mechanics of the game, players will learn to adapt to the new challenges the designers throw at them. Sections that gave the player a lot of trouble at the start of the game should no longer challenge the player once their skill has improved.

Developing the game using Darwinian Difficulty gives the designers a greater understanding of the skill level of the players, allowing them more freedom with their design. In a normal action game, the designer can have a hard time determining how good the players are at specific points in the game.

One player may have mastered all the combos by the halfway point; someone else may still be button mashing. With games designed with a Darwinian view, the designers know that anyone who got past the first level knows all the mechanics at hand, and can design around that.

The other advantage is motivating the player. Overcoming hardships or challenges brings a sense of a satisfaction. That sense of satisfaction can be felt by gamers who got through a game by their own skill. That satisfaction is a great motivator, as it is intrinsic to the player.

Replayability is another plus, because of the high degree of skill required; coming back to a game with Darwinian Difficulty after a long time can be a fresh experience. Similar to how if someone lifts weights, then stops for a long time, the muscles will atrophy, requiring the person to start small again and work their way up. This can also happen with games based on Darwinian Difficulty. Someone who beats the game, then stops playing for several months, will come back to find that they’ll have to relearn those skills again.

Demon’s Souls

…and the Disadvantages

With all this said, however, there are a few problems with Darwinian Difficulty that the designer has to keep in mind. First, is having such a high degree of difficulty early on hurts the appeal of the game. Games these days are being designed around having as much appeal as possible, which in this case means having a lower difficulty. A game where the player can die at any moment is not something a lot of people enjoy. Demon’s Souls and its sequel, Dark Souls, may have created a lot of buzz, but they aren’t truly mainstream hits.

Second, requiring the player to improve their skill is a great motivator, but there is a risk involved. The concept of “Subjective Difficulty” is just that: subjective. A challenge that one player breezes through without any effort can be a brick wall for another, stopping all progress. Losing a game because of issues with the design is easy to take. Losing a game because the player themselves was not good enough is a harder pill to swallow.

Getting completely stuck in a skill-based game is easier than in an RPG, due to gameplay abstraction. With an RPG, the player has other options of getting out of a tough spot, such as grinding levels or buying better gear. In a skill-based game, however, those options are not available, forcing the player to keep trying until they get past the section.

In this scenario, it’s quite possible that that the player will get discouraged and stop playing. Stopping because of a brick wall will leave a bad taste in the player’s mouth that will discourage them from playing again — or outright quit the game — which can leave a negative impression for future games from the developer.

Darwinian Difficulty is a hard mechanic to design around, requiring the designers to put in extra time fine-tuning the gameplay. The design is less about creating an imbalanced experience, forcing the player to climb out of a proverbial pit, and more about giving the player all the tools they need to succeed. Whether or not they’ll be able to use them, however, is the big question. When designers successfully pull off the balance of difficulty, players will get an amazing experience few games these days deliver.

篇目5，Game Design Profile: Slippery Slope (Part I)

by Brice Morrison

[Editor: In this guest post from David Sirlin, he discusses a common design that shows up often in games called the slippery slope, and how it works.]
If a game has slippery slope, it means that falling behind causes you to fall even further behind.

For example, imagine that every time your team scored in basketball that the opponent’s team lost a player. In that game, falling behind is doubly bad because each basket counts for score AND it makes the opposing team less able to score points of its own. The actual game of basketball does not have this screwy feature though, so real basketball does not have slippery slope. Scoring in real basketball puts you closer to winning but does not at all hamper your opponents’ ability to score.

Slippery slope is another name for positive feedback, a loop that amplifies itself as in a nuclear reaction. Because people confuse the terms positive and negative feedback so easily, I prefer the more descriptive term slippery slope.

Slippery slope is usually a bad property in a game. If a game has a powerful slippery slope effect, that means that when one player gets a small early lead, he is more likely to get an even bigger lead, which in turn makes him more likely still to get yet an even bigger lead, and so on. In a game like this, the real victor of the game is decided early on, and the rest of the game is futile to play out (or to watch).

StarCraft and Chess do have slippery slope. They manage to be good games anyway, despite this anti-climactic property. In Chess, when a player loses a piece, his ability to attack, defend, and control space on the board is slightly reduced. Sure, there are many other factors in Chess–positioning, momentum, pawn structure–that determine if a player is actually “losing,” but losing a piece does have an effect. Clearly, losing a lot of pieces, say 8, puts a player at a significant disadvantage. It’s pretty hard to make a comeback in Chess, and a game is usually “won” many, many moves before the actual checkmate move.

This is why there are a lot of forfeits in Chess. Good players don’t actually play out the pointless part of the endgame when they recognize the opponent will definitely win. Chess players would say that forfeits being a regular part of the game is fine and not awkward, but it’s a disappointing quality compared to games without slippery slope. Still, Chess is a pretty good game anyway.

This guy just lost a Chess piece.

StarCraft also has slippery slope. When you lose a unit, you are penalized doubly. First, you are closer to losing (having no units at all is so crippling as to be virtually the same as the actual loss condition of losing all your buildings). Second, you are less able to attack and defend because the unit you lost was not just part of a score, but also part of the actual gameplay of attacking and defending.

In basketball, the score is completely separate from the gameplay. Your ability to score points doesn’t depend at all on what the current score is. You could be ahead by 20 points or behind by 20 points and have the same chances of scoring more points. But in StarCraft (and Chess), the score is bound up with the gameplay. Losing units pushes you closer to loss AND makes it harder to fight back.

StarCraft has even more severe slippery slope when it comes to the game’s economy. Imagine that your opponent rushes you (sends an early attack to your base) and you fend it off. Let’s say you each lost about the same value of units in the exchange, except that you also lost one worker unit. In a different type of game, this might equate to being one “point” behind. But in StarCraft, that can be a crippling loss because gathering minerals is nearly exponential. Your opponent is ahead of you in the resource curve, increasing his earnings faster than you are. You’ve fallen down a very slippery slope here, where an early disadvantage becomes more magnified as the game goes on.

Fighting Games

Fighting games don’t usually have slippery slope. In Street Fighter, for example, your character still has all of his moves even when he’s about to lose. Getting hit puts you behind in life totals (in “score”) but doesn’t limit your gameplay options in the way that losing a piece in Chess does or losing a unit in StarCraft does. An unusual example of a fighting game that does have slippery slope is Bushido Blade. In that game, getting hit can cause you limp around or lose the use of an arm. This is extremely rare in the fighting game genre though, and for good reason.

While it might be “realistic” for a nearly dead character to limp, move slowly, and have generally less effective moves, it’s not fun. (At least in Bushido Blade’s case, this part of the game lasts only a couple seconds, then you lose.) Meanwhile in Street Fighter, comebacks are frequent and games are often “anybody’s game” until the last moment. Street Fighter does have some very minimal slippery slope aspects (if you’re very near death you have to worry about taking damage from blocked moves which aren’t a threat if you have full life), but overall it’s pretty “slippery slope neutral.”

There is one fighting game that stands out as an exception: Marvel vs. Capcom 2. In this game, each player chooses 3 characters. At any given time, one character is active and on-screen, and the other two are off-screen, healing back some lost energy. The off-screen characters can be called in to do an assist move, then the jump off screen again. The main character can attack in parallel with the assist character, allowing for a wide variety of tricks and traps. The player can switch the active character at any time, and he loses the game when he loses all three characters. But here, slippery slope rears its bitter head. When one player is down to his last character and the other player has two or even all three of his characters, the first player is at a huge disadvantage. The first player has can no longer attack in parallel with his assists, which often means he has no hope of winning. Comebacks in MvC2 are quite rare and games often “end” before they are technically over.

Fighting games with “ring out” such as Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur as especially devoid of slippery slope properties. In these games, a player instantly loses if his character is ever pushed out of the ring, no matter how much energy he has. Basically, no matter how far behind you are, no matter how close you are to losing, you always have a 100% damage move: ring out. Long ago, I thought this concept was “cheap” and served only to shorten games while adding little benefit, but actually the threat of ring out adds quite a bit to both these games. Since the threat of ring out is so great, another whole element of positioning is added to the game. A player must fight both to do damage to his opponent, and fight for position to avoid ring out.

Limited Slippery Slope

Fighting games do have very localized, limited kind of slippery slope that’s actually a good quality. If a game truly has no slippery slope whatsoever at any point, then it can feel like a series of disconnected decisions. It’s interesting though, if a decision you make at one point in a game echoes forward through time, and can influence later moves in the game. The problem is if this influence is allowed to snowball into a greater and greater advantage.

In limited slippery slope, there is a cap on how far you can slip and the effect is temporary. In Street Fighter, getting knocked down (hit by a sweep) does have a bit of slippery slope. You lose health (“score”) but you also have temporary limitations on what your character can do. Your character falls down, then gets up into what is usually a disadvantageous situation. The two things that are important about this are: 1) after the knockdown is over, you regain all your moves and 2) you cannot get doubly knocked down.

Ken is at a temporary disadvantage here from being knocked down, but the disadvantage can’t snowball into deeper levels of knockdown (there aren’t any) and it fades with time.

Hitting the opponent with a sweep does echo forward through time, but this advantage is reset soon after and can’t snowball into “getting REALLY knocked down” because there is no such thing as degrees of knockdown. If you are already knocked down, you can’t be knocked down “even more.”

Another example is backing the opponent into the corner (the edge of the stage). If you do this, you have a natural advantage because the opponent has fewer movement options. But again, there’s a limit here. Once the opponent is in the corner, he can’t be “more in the corner.” There’s a limit to how disadvantaged he can get.
An even more basic example is anytime you block a move that has a fair amount of recovery. In these case, you recover from your block stun before the opponent recovers from his move, so you have a few frames to act first. This gives you an advantage because if you both try to do a move of the same speed, yours will win (it will start first). Your good decision to block echoed forward into the future, but the effect is very fleeting. Even one second later, this advantage fades.

So fighting games are full of small, temporary slippery slope effects that actually help the game. And yet, on the macro level, they do not have the real kind of slippery slope, the permanent kind that snowballs until the game ends. Compare this to Chess where you don’t just get your captured pieces back a few turns later.

And RTS Without Slippery Slope

Here’s an idea for turning the full-on slippery slope (usually bad) into the limited kind (usually good). Both players start with the same amount of resources to buy units. When your units are destroyed, your resources are refunded. A delay in the timing of this refund combined with the build-time for making new units means that losing units really is a disadvantage, but that the disadvantage fades over time, similar in nature to getting knocked down in a fighting game. The real-time strategy game World in Conflict does exactly this, but I’ve never actually played it.

My point here isn’t about whether World in Conflict is a good game, or even whether the exact refund system stated above is good. It just shows that it is possible to remove slippery slope from an RTS if you try hard enough. Someone very dedicated to that problem could probably come up with an even better way to remove it that results in a deeper game, rather than a shallower one.

Readers, have you used a slippery slope in a game you’ve developed? How might you use (or avoid using) a slippery slope?