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如何在电子游戏中创造有效的文本内容

发布时间:2016-08-23 15:07:30 Tags:,,,,

作者:Kevin Trepanier

在电子游戏中,出色的写作真的非常重要。我们需要注意的是,写作并不等于故事。故事只是写作中的一部分,而像菜单,教程,道具,技能描述等等也包含与写作中。当我在为游戏编写内容时,我经常为了将字数控制在最少范围内而需要反复编写同样的文本5,6遍。从这点看来,面向Nintendo DS发行的《英雄的黎明》便缺少了这种效能。即如果他们能够删除游戏中70%的文本内容,最终呈现出的效果便会更出色。

《英雄的黎明》

《英雄的黎明》是一款战略RPG,在游戏中玩家需要控制战场上多达5个角色并使用他们的能力去对抗一系列敌人。这款游戏的机制非常有趣,游戏本身也拥有非常华丽的图像以及3D卡通渲染的战斗内容。它拥有各种不同的能力并且为了让玩家能在战斗中做出更明智的决定而总是要求玩家去阅读他们的效果描述。因为这是游戏中一个重要部分,所以我将在本文着重讲述其中的技能描述。

Nayeli无所不知的能力

DoH_Omniscient(from gamasutra)

DoH_Omniscient(from gamasutra)

乍看之下这个描述好像有点长。其中的重要信息用黄色字体突显了出来,这虽然有点帮助但是其它重要的信息却被隐藏在其它文本内容中。

第一行:“技能使用者(The skill-user)”对于该页面来说其实是多余的。因为当我们着眼于一个角色的技能时我们便清楚这是在描述谁。

第二行:“不管何时当这一能力被使用时(Whenever an abilitiy is used)”是一个重要信息。再一次地“技能使用者(the Skill user)”又是多余的,紧接着的“承担负面效果(suffers from a debuff)”也不能为之后的“在2轮游戏中不能移动(locks down Move for 2 turns)”这一重要信息添加任何效果。

所以我建议将其改为:

所有能力具有无限使用范围(Grants unlimited range to all abilities)。

使用一种能力去锁定2轮游戏的移动(Using an ability locks down movement for 2 turns.)。

这样的2个短句能够呈现出“点句”般简单明朗的阅读风格。文本也被压缩了一半左右。

Yuji的扫堂腿

DoH_sweepkick(from gamasutra)

DoH_sweepkick(from gamasutra)

这一描述比之前的短了些,但仍有许多可删除的无用信息。

重要信息:“不能移动(disables Move)”,“1轮(1 turn)”,“影响范围(area of effect)”。

无用信息:“放置一个负面效果咒语(Places a Curse debuff)”和“这一负面效果(This debuff)”。即使删除了这两个信息也不会影响到其它重要信息。

建议将其改写为:

在影响范围内所有敌人将停止移动1轮(Disables Move for all enemies within area of effect for 1 turn)。

像“放置一个咒语”和“负面效果”都与玩家毫无干系。在这里唯一重要的是这一技能是面向哪些人。改写后的内容将能力效果(不能移动)放置在文本的开始位置而不是最后—-毕竟这是这一描述中最重要的信息。

Reynald的健忘症

DoH_Amnesia(from gamasutra)

DoH_Amnesia(from gamasutra)

重要信息:“一个敌人(an enemy)”,“锁定消耗魔法值的能力(locks down Abilities that cost MP)”,“1轮(1 turn)”。

这一描述也包含了之前文本中使用了的多余的“负面效果咒语(Curse debuff)”和“这一负面效果(This debuff)”。实际上我发现到现在为止游戏中的所有文本内容都是基于这样的结构(游戏邦注:虽然这样缺少效能但至少能够保持一致)。

我们可以删除第一句话中的“1轮(1 turn)然后删除“锁定能力(Locks down abilities)”之前的所有内容。即变成:

锁定会消耗魔法值的敌人能力1轮(Locks down Abilities of an enemy that cost MP to use for 1 turn)。

但其实如果能使用一个单词或表达方式去解释游戏规则中“消耗魔法值的能力”,那么这个句子便可以进一步压缩(并且能让人更好理解)。例如“咒语(Spells)”。如此我们可以将这一句子再次改为:

锁定敌人的咒语1轮(Locks down Spells of an enemy for 1 turn)。

如此小小的改变也将影响到其它有关“消耗魔法值的能力”的描述并能大大减少整个游戏的文本长度(以及玩家的阅读时间)。

禁用魔法是RPG和TRPG中的的常见规则,我们通常将其称为“安静”状态。

使敌人安静1轮。

这样不就更短了!看起也更好吧!

暗杀

DoH_assassination(from gamasutra)

DoH_assassination(from gamasutra)

这一描述非常让人困惑,因为它要求玩家必须做心算才能理解其中的含义。为什么要用800%?让玩家去阅读百分比是否有帮助?计算机是擅长计算的,但似乎游戏作者觉得让玩家去执行计算机的工作会更有趣。

让我们直接将其改写为:

创造5个实体伤害。拥有25%的可能性去多创造40个额外的伤害。这是不可避免的(Deals 5 Physical Damage.25% chance to deal 40 additional damage. Cannot be avoided)。

文字缩短了一些。虽然这里没有更多可删除的内容,但通过完善某些内容能够有效改变原话的解释方式。即用具体数字去取代800%,我们可以避免用户不必要的脑力消耗。

与现有游戏的比较

让我们着眼于另一款成功的战略RPG游戏《最终幻想战略版》。这款游戏的过程更复杂,更深入,但是他们却可以将其有效呈现在Gaemboy Advance小小的显示屏上。

FFTA(from gamasutra)

FFTA(from gamasutra)

也许新手需要花些时间才能适应在这个屏幕上的内容,但对于资深玩家来说他们可以非常轻松地找到自己想要的信息。而这只是非常简单的攻击准备内容。我们可以看到攻击者和防御者的生命值和魔法值,伤害点数以及成功率。

我们可以看到屏幕上最突出的地方应该就是敌人属性中的红色“Counter”。这个单词能够提供给玩家所有他们所需要的信息:攻击这个角色能够触发反击。而对于这一单词的理解是隐藏于游戏规则中的。因为玩家已经知道反击是什么,所以如果这是他第一次遇到这一技能,他便需要一次能够学习并记住这一含义的机会。

FFTA(from gamasutra)

FFTA(from gamasutra)

在这里,由玩家所控制的忍者正在准备一次特殊的攻击。再一次地我们可以看到能力的伤害点和成功率。“Counter”再一次出现在这里,告诉玩家敌人有可能反击,但是因为现在忍者离他太远所以这里的Counter是灰色的。而颜色的改变也能够有效传达信息。

最后我们会看到屏幕上方的一句话:“火焰伤害与混乱!(Fire damage & confuse)”。关于攻击的所有必要信息都包含在这几个字中。玩家将通过之前对游戏规则的理解去明白这几个字的含义。这是多么简单直白!

总之游戏必须先有效传达这些规则。通常情况下规则都是一个一个传达出去的,如果传达合理,玩家便能够轻松理解。就像《最终幻想战略版》便是通过使用之前系列游戏中所使用的语言而轻松做到这点。

结论

写作对于游戏设计以及玩家对于规则的理解至关重要。首先你必须确保你的内容足够清楚;玩家做选择所需要的所有信息都必须是容易理解的!除此之外屏幕上的任何额外内容都有可能隐藏一些重要信息或者让玩家感到困惑。所以游戏作家必须反复阅读并编写游戏中的所有文本内容并删除所有无意义的内容。

简明扼要才是关键!

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

Efficient writing : get to the point!

by Kevin Trepanier

Good writing in video games is crucial. Note though that writing does not equal story. Story is part of the writing but let’s not forget menus, tutorials, items and skills description, etc.. When I write for games, I often rewrite the same texts 5 or 6 times with a strong emphasis on reducing the word count to the strict minimum. In that regard, Dawn of Heroes for the Nintendo DS is appaling by it’s inefficiency. It seems 70% of the texts could have been removed for a better effect.

What is Dawn of Heroes?

DoH is a regular tactical RPG where you control up to 5 characters on a battlefield and use their abilities against a range of enemies. The game’s mechanics are interesting and the game itself features nice pixel arts along with a cartoony 3D renderings of the battles. It features a very large range of abilities and often require to read their effects descriptions in order to take good decisions in battle. Since this is an important part of the game, I’ll focus on the skills descriptions in this article.

Nayeli’s Omniscient ability

At first sight, the description is a bit long. One important information is highlighted in yellow, which helps a little but other important informations remain “hidden” in the block of text.

First sentence : “The skill-user” is totally redundant to the screen itself. We are looking at a character’s skill and as such know who it is affecting.

Second sentence : “Whenever an abilitiy is used” is the trigger, which is important informations. “the skill user” is used again with the same redundancy effect, followed by “suffers from a debuff”, which doesn’t add anything to the important information following : “locks down Move for 2 turns.”

Suggested rewrite :

Grants unlimited range to all abilities.
Using an ability locks down movement for 2 turns.

Two small sentences, displayed one over the other for easy “bullet point” style reading. The text is reduced by almost 50%. It went from 28 words down to 15 words.

Yuji’s Sweep Kick

It’s a bit shorter than the previous text but there is still a lot of uninformative bits that can be removed.

Important informations : “disables Move”, “1 turn” and “area of effect”.

There’s a redundancy : “Places a Curse debuff” and “This debuff”. What’s more is that both can be removed without losing any important information.

Suggested rewrite :

Disables Move for all enemies within area of effect for 1 turn.

All this babble of “placing a curse” and “debuff” is totally irrelevant to the player. The only thing that matters is what this skill does to who. And as such, the text has been reduced from 18 words down to 12. The new rewrite also places the effect of the ability (Disables Move) right at the start of the text, instead of at the end. This is a good thing since it is the most important information.

Reynald’s Amnesia

Important informations : “an (one) enemy”, “locks down Abilities that cost MP” and “1 turn”.

This text contains the same redundancy than the previous one with the use of “Curse debuff” and “This debuff”. In fact, all texts I’ve seen in the game so far are pretty much consistent with this structure (while not very efficient, at least they are consistent).

We could move the “1 turn” to the end of the text and then remove everything before “Locks down abilities”. This would get us :

Locks down Abilities of an enemy that cost MP to use for 1 turn.

20 words down to 14. This sentence could be made even shorter (and easier to understand) if there was a single word or expression to designate “abilities that cost MP to use” in the game’s rules. Let’s say it is “Spells” (as opposed to “Abilities”, which would be abilities with cooldown effects instead of MP cost). We could rewrite this sentence again :

Locks down Spells of an enemy for 1 turn.

I’m down to 9 words. This little change would affect all other places were “Abilities that cost MP to use” and would considerably reduce the word count (and reading time) over the course of the game.

Disabling magic is a common rule in RPGs and TRPGs and is often known as the “silence” effect.

Silence an enemy for 1 turn

6 words. From 20 words we went down to 6. Feels good doesn’t it?

Assassination

This one is totally confusing as it requires the player to do mental maths in order to understand it’s meaning. Why write 800% ? Is it relevant to the player to read a percentage? Computers excel at doing math but the writer on this one decided it would be more interesting to let the player do the work.

Let’s go straigth to a rewrite :

Deals 5 Physical Damage.25% chance to deal 40 additional damage. Cannot be avoided.

19 words down to 14. There is not much to remove here but there is great improvement in changing how it is explained. By replacing the 800% with the actual number, we remove a useless strain on the user’s brain.

Comparison with an established title

In comparison, let’s look at another successful tactical RPG : Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. The rules of this game are deeper, more complex, yet they manage to elegantly fit it all in the tiny display screen of the Gameboy Advance.

It might take a while to the untrained eye to read the whole screen here but an accustomed player will have no problem finding what he needs to know. This is the preparation of a simple attack. We see the health and magic points of both attacker and defender, the damage dealt and the success rate.

To be fair, DoH does it too with as much elegance. However, where the writing shines in this screen is in the red “Counter” word over the enemy’s stats. This single word gives all the information the player needs : attacking this character will trigger a counter-attack. The understanding of this word lies in the rules of the game. The player already knows what a counter is and if by chance it’s the first time he encounters this skill, he needs but a single time to learn and remember it’s meaning.

The little ninja here, controlled by the player, prepares a special attack. Again we can see the damage and success rate of the ability. The “Counter” word is here again, showing that the enemy will counter-attack if possible but it is now gray as the ninja is too far from him to allow a counter. The change of color is all that is required to convey that information.

Finally, we can see a short text at the top of the screen : “Fire damage & confuse!”. 4 words. Can it get any shorter than that? All the required information about the attack is in these 4 short words. The player recognizes the meaning of those four words through his previous understanding of the game’s rules. Elegant!

Getting to this level of abstraction though does require the game to efficiently convey those rules first. Typically the rules will be introduced one by one and if done right should be easily assimilated by the player. Finaly Fantasy Tactics Advance here have it easy by re-using a common language established in previous games of the series.

Conclusion

Writing is crucial to the design of a game and to the player’s understanding of it’s rules. Clarity first ; all informations required to make a choice should be easily available but also easily readable! Every extra word on screen has the potential to hide important informations and / or confuse the player. It’s important to re-read and re-write all texts in a game and eliminate everything that do not bear any informations.

Short and to the point, nothing there without a reason.(source:Gamasutra

 


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