作者：Josh Bycer

最近，Klei Entertainment发行了《隐形公司》中添加了第一组可购买的DLC。在这次行动中，他们不仅扩展了活动模式，同时也添加了其它功能。尽管人们总是欢迎更多内容的出现，但是我还是希望看到更多能够基于随机性或重玩性去完善游戏的特定内容的出现。在本文中我将谈论更多有关补充内容以及他们如何更好完善你的游戏的内容。

Invisible Inc(from game333)

增加vs补充

从发行扩展包那天起，电子游戏的新内容便会持续出现，在游戏发行后6个月至1年间，玩家可能能够看到价值20至30美元的全新内容。今天，数字化添加新内容的能力让游戏更新速度变得更快，并且扩展也将被微型DLC内容取而代之。

话虽这么说，我还是很希望能够通过大型DLC扩展去获得大部分内容，而关于这一话题我们已经在之前的文章中提过，所以我就不在此多说了。在本文中，我们将更多地专注于增加内容与补充内容之间的区别与设计理论。

在大多数电子游戏中，全新内容都是围绕着补充体验进行设计：之前你的游戏是10个小时，而现在多亏了新任务，它增加到了15个小时。或者在多人游戏中，全新的地图，模式和声誉系统都能够延长游戏时间。在这些例子中，所添加的内容便是增加内容；它们是被添加到基础体验中，并且能够让整体游戏变得更大且更长。

这种内容适合基于线性玩家体验的多人游戏和单人游戏。也就是说我们还要谈论另一种形式的内容。

许多rogue游戏或随机内容生成游戏都是拥有一种特定的体验或目标：如到达高塔的最后一层，完成X目标之类。

在这些游戏中，因为游戏的开始和结尾都伴随一个随机生成的中间内容，所以随着时间发展进行扩展并不适合它们。

如果你的游戏在一开始便很困难，那么扩展2个小时的游戏可能会让玩家感到精疲力尽。而作为游戏开发者的你该如何更好地完善游戏？答案便是补充内容：即用于充实玩家体验并且不会延长游戏的内容。

在这种情况下，你将拥有能够强化现有游戏系统和模式的内容，或者能够直接受益于现有系统的全新系统。通过这么做，你的游戏时间不仅不会发生变化，同时在特定时间内游戏体验将会与之前的游戏体验出现区别。

内部内容：

《幽浮：内部敌人》便是我最喜欢的游戏扩展内容。因为比起增加内容，Firaxis选择了补充内容。你在扩展内容中的前进路线与最初游戏是一样的，但是你经历这一路线的方式却是完全不同。首先便是全新的资源融合，即添加了仿生学和基因治疗。然后还有生活质量的改善，即添加了奖牌，全新装置，全新敌人以及全新活动编辑器。

基于这种方式，Firaxis为玩家呈现出了他们已经平衡且协调过的游戏体验和游戏节奏，并且未延长游戏而更好地完善了游戏。

还有一个例子是《以撒的结合》。

开发者以商店和暗室的形式在游戏最后添加了一些全新关卡，并且大多数这些内容都是补充性的：全新boss，全新敌人，全新房间，不同楼层，全新道具/活动以及全新角色。

我们知道《以撒的结合》游戏过程是25至40分钟，而这些补充内容能够保证玩家每次25至40分钟的游戏体验都会是不同的。

而现在我们将迎来一个较为棘手的部分：如何设计补充内容？

更新你的游戏：

想出补充内容并不是件简单的事，因为你并不是为了增加游戏长度去创造内容，而是创造一些已经存在的内容。你应该着眼于现有的游戏系统去判断是否存在可强化的空间。对于随机或程序生成内容的游戏，你可以在生成关卡或挑战时添加一些全新游戏内容。

《幽浮：内部敌人》伴随着扩展而拥有许多玩家能够在此对抗的地图，并因此让游戏变得更具吸引力。当然了我们也可以再次以《以撒的结合》为例，即看看在设计游戏关卡时每次扩展是如何增加空间数量。

添加全新系统也很困难，你需要添加一些能够强化现有内容的新内容。在大多数情况下，这些内容可能是你的用户在一开始并不知道自己想要的内容。《内部敌人》便拥有完整的MELD系统，并且它能够推动你更好地强化你的士兵以及在战场上的战术。

让我们回到本文一开始提到的《隐形公司》中，那时候我因为发现扩展的全新内容为游戏多添加了额外的48个小时而感到沮丧，这与结合每次游戏的基本内容是截然不同的。这也引出了我关于补充内容的最后一点，即这类型内容的最佳例子是出现在游戏的中间部分。

因为游戏的开始与结局大多都是决定好的；关于开始是因为玩家每次都是基于同样的方式开始游戏，而关于结局则是因为玩家总是要面对一个坏人或一种糟糕的情况。

而中间部分便有许多可改变的游戏体验空间，这也是添加补充内容的绝佳位置。

《以撒的结合》便表现得很好；我知道游戏的开始与结局是怎样的，但多亏各种不同的房间，道具以及等待战斗的boss，游戏中间部分存在许多可扩展的空间。

清楚如何发展你的游戏：

当你在决定如何在长期运行中发展你的游戏时，决定该使用增加内容还是补充内容便非常重要。

不同方法适用于不同类型的游戏；补充内容是围绕着游戏重玩性，而增加内容则是因为你希望游戏能够随着时间的发展而不断变大。

在今天的市场中，许多消费者都希望游戏在发行后仍然能够得到支持，所以你最好能够沿着这两条线更好地规划你的游戏开发。

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

Incremental vs. Supplement Content in Game Design

by Josh Bycer

Recently, Klei Entertainment put out the first piece of purchasable DLC for Invisible Inc. In it, it extends the campaign mode while adding in other features as well. While more content is always welcomed, I was hoping for more; specifically a certain kind of content that helps to improve games built around randomization or replayability. For today’s post, I want to talk more about supplemental content and how it can do wonders for making your game better.

Building up vs. Building out:

New content in video games has been going on since the days of expansion packs, and getting $20-$30 worth of new content maybe six months to a year after the game was released. Today, the ability to digitally add new content has made the ability to upgrade games a lot quicker, and with it, expansions have gone away in favor of micro DLC content.

With that said, I still prefer getting a good chunk of content via a major DLC expansion, but we already talked about that in an earlier post. In this post, we’re going to focus more on the differences and design theories between incremental and supplemental content.

In most video games, new content is designed around adding to the experience: Your game was 10 hours long before? Now it’s 15 thanks to new missions. Or in multiplayer games with new maps, modes, prestige systems, which extends the playtime beyond the original release. In these examples, the content that is added is considered incremental; adding to the base experience and making the game as a whole bigger and longer.

This kind of content works best for multiplayer titles and singleplayer games built around linear experiences. With that said, there is the second form of content to talk about.

Many rogue-like or randomly generated-based titles are about having a set experience or goal: Get to the final floor of a tower, complete X objectives and so on.

In these games, because the beginning and end are set with a randomly generated middle, expanding on the time spent playing doesn’t really make sense here.

If your game was already hard to get through to start, extending the playtime by another two hours may make your game grueling. With that said, how do you as a game developer make your game better? The answer is supplemental content: Content designed to flesh out the experience, without necessarily making it longer.

In this case, you have content that enhances the systems and modes you already have in the game, or a new system that directly benefits what’s already there. By doing it like this, your game will still last the same amount of time, but the experience during that set time will be vastly different than it was pre-content.

My favorite example and case in point, is something that I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about at this point.

Content Within:

XCOM Enemy Within is one of my favorite expansions to any game I’ve played, and I celebrated that in another post. The beauty of the expansion and how Firaxis worked was that they favored supplemental content instead of incremental content. Your path through a XCOM campaign hit all the same notes as the original release, but how you got through it was vastly different. The first thing was the new resource MELD that also added in bionics and gene therapy addition to your squaddies. Then there were quality of life improvements such as medals, new gear, new enemies and new campaign modifiers.

That way, Firaxis took the experience and gamespace that they already balanced and fine-tuned, and simply made it better without making it bigger.

Another example would be the work done to The Binding of Isaac.

While there have been new levels added at the end in the form of the shop and dark room, most of the content has been supplemental: New bosses, new enemies, new rooms, floor variants, new items/events and new characters to play as.

Once again, a typical Isaac playthrough can last about 25-40 minutes, but the supplemental content makes sure that those 25-40 minutes won’t be the same on each play.

With all that said, now comes the tricky part: How do you design supplemental content?

Renovating your Game:

Coming up with supplemental content can be tricky, as you’re not developing content designed to increase the length of the game, but to grow what’s already there. You should look at your existing game systems to see if there is any room to enhance them. With randomly or procedurally generated titles, you can always add new content that the game can pull from when generating levels or challenges.

XCOM Enemy Within had the number of maps you could fight on increased with the expansion, which right there made the game more appealing to players. And of course we can bring up Isaac again and how each expansion increases the number of rooms that the game can pull from when it’s designing a level for you to play.

Adding new systems is tough; you need to add something new that enhances the content that’s already there. In most cases, this is going to be content that your audience may not even know they wanted in the first place. Enemy Within had the entire MELD system that was added in, that augmented how you improved your squaddies and tactics on the field.

Going back to Invisible Inc from the beginning, I was somewhat dismayed to learn that the main bulk of the new content of the expansion was adding 48 hours of additional in-game time to the campaign; as opposed to radically mixing up how the base content of each play would go. This brings me to one final point about supplemental content, the best examples of this occur in the mid-game portion of your title.

The reason is that the beginning and end of most games are set; the beginning because the player starts out the same way every time, and the end because there is a set baddie or situation to deal with.

The middle is where a lot of the game’s experience can be shifted and altered, and is a good place to add supplemental content.

The Isaac example being perfect here as well; I know how the beginning of the game is and the ending, but everything between those two points is up for grabs thanks to the varying rooms, items and bosses to fight.

Knowing how to Grow Your Game:

Whether or not you use incremental or supplemental content is important when deciding how best to grow your game over the long run.

The different philosophies work best with different types of games; supplemental for games built around replayability and incremental for games that you want the experience to grow bigger over time.

In today’s market, many consumers expect games to be supported after their release, and being able to adequately plan out your development along these two lines can help you with that post release support. (source:gamasutra)