本文原作者：James Batchelor 译者ciel chen

今晨BAFTA宣布在下个礼拜的典礼上将为Brenda Romero颁发特别奖。这个奖项不仅是对她在电视游戏方面工作的认同，同样承认了她在提倡创新程序方面和鼓励新一代游戏开发者方面做出的贡献。

“直到现在我都不敢相信，”她告诉我们。“游戏相比像电影、音乐、艺术等总是排在次要、第三甚至第四位的，所以单单BAFTA能承认游戏的地位这个事实，这对于游戏产业本身及其作为一种形式的存在来说，就相当于迈出了极其重要的一步。”

“当我收到邮件时，事实上我检查过它是真是假。唯一一个让我相信这是BAFTA的理由是：我曾经出席过BAFTA活动以及我记得它们的字体。我曾经也得到过其他的奖项，我的家人也为我自豪，但当我告诉他们我赢得了BAFTA奖时，她们已经高兴得要飞起了。”

“我可能可以列出20个其他能获得这个奖的人，所以我能够获得这个奖项真的是无比的荣幸。我感到震惊、感激，对于游戏的创新体验方面，我觉得能获得最受尊崇的机构对游戏的承认简直是最伟大的事。”

Brenda Romero是从事游戏行业最久的成员之一，从她15岁在一次跟Linda Sirotek（其家庭企业Sir-Tech Software的共有人）的交谈后，第一次得到了一份工作。就是那次的交谈从此改变了Romero的生活。

“她正在寻找人来做一份青少年都梦寐以求的工作：玩游戏，记住怎么玩，然后当有人卡住寻求帮助的时候，你能够解答他们的问题，”她说。“我当时就是个活生生的常见问题解答者。”

“我去了她家，第一次玩了Wizardry.我仍然生动地记得我第一次看到那款游戏的感觉。那是一见钟情的感觉。那是我第一次踏入这个行业。我很显然是个超级棋类游戏粉，龙与地下城玩家、玩过弹子球、还玩过街机，但是我从来没想过游戏能变成一个让人成长的事业来做。”

她年轻的事业开端是她坚信从小教孩子编程很重要的其中一个理由——不止是让他们在这个越发数字化的世界能够拥有关键的技能，还是给他们在游戏领域中占据一席之位的最好机会，因此也为游戏行业输入新的人才血液。这种信念之坚甚至让Brenda为自己的儿子从爸爸(Doom的创始人John Romero)那里安排了生意诀窍的学习。Donovan Brathwaite——在Romero每星期的编程教学下，已经让他发行了他自己的第一款游戏：滑稽的动作游戏《Gunman Taco Truck》，这款游戏被证明非常成功，它的收益已经足以资助他上大学的学费了。

Brenda Romero and her son Donovan（from gamesindustry.biz）

Romero说明道：“那就是我们的总目标（让他成长）——尽管我会说那是用来资助以后上欧洲大学的费用的，这样我们就不用再说那得花好多好多的钱，因为那些大学差不多每年3000英镑学费，而他已经赚够学费了。我们给他收入的十分之一自由支配，但我们规定剩下的必须存起来。于是他拿着钱去给自己买了任天堂的Switch，这对于12岁的孩子来说，无异于出去买了一辆法拉利，你真该看看当时他脸上遮掩不住的欣喜。”

“他现在在构思下一个游戏，我们现在在代码方面不再像以前那样尽快地给予他帮助。而是给他20分钟来想办法弄清楚问题出在哪，所以我们现在在他代码方面的学习抓得更紧一点了。”

尽管《Gunman Taco Truck》大体上来说是Donovan制作的游戏，Romero透露说它实际上属于一个家庭项目，尽管她在事业中已经做过很多游戏了，但她说这是“她做过的最喜欢的一款游戏”。

Romero回想：“那简直太给人以冲击感了，能以家庭为团队做一款游戏——这是每个游戏开发者父母的梦想，而它真的成真了。家庭的每个成员都投入进来了——很明显Donovan负责设计和编程，不过我会把‘编程’表上重重的引号因为毕竟一个12岁的孩子的编程水平还没办法非常专业。”

“后来Maezza和Lillia也一起来帮助做游戏测试。Donovan的双胞胎妹妹Avalon也做了一些游戏测试，她还想开始Taco周边毛绒玩具的整线运作。能让整个家庭都融入进来真的太有趣了。John的大儿子Michael也在游戏中写了部分代码，我们这个团队除了家庭成员还有很多其他朋友：来自爱尔兰的Paul Conway做美工，Ian Dunbar协同John做了最繁重部分的代码编程。”

Romero不论是对游戏行业的其他成员，还是作为父母对自己的孩子，都鼓励他们在对游戏热爱的前提条件下从中探索自己的事业——但是关键的是，这些激情要能有效地指引他们，让他们有机会在这个行业里有自己的一席之位。这不仅适用于游戏行业，所有需要创意的行业皆是如此。

她还解释说：“对于喜欢游戏的孩子们来说，这还是有一些挑战的，因为游戏本身就是非常容易上瘾的，Donovan是希望能长大后进入游戏行业的，但是他很容易就会想歪觉得没完没了地玩游戏，以后就能入行了。为此我们就鼓励他尝试真正去设计一款游戏。我们要确保孩子不会在游戏中迷失自己，鼓舞他们参与到游戏的创作中，这就是教育的诀窍。因为，如果给Donovan机会的话，他会玩TF2玩一整天的。”

在完成《Guman Taco Truck》后，Romero现在专注于自己梦想的项目中了——不过现在细节部分她还没有透露给我们。

她笑道：“2003年的时候，我就开始超迷这个主题并且一直想要做一款该主题的游戏。我们现在有一个很出色的团队，看着角色在屏幕中移动着，我们知道我们即将看到这个概念变为现实，这感觉简直就像在度“蜜月”一样棒。我真的对这款游戏感到非常兴奋。要不是以前时机不对，我早就开始做了。”

在和她的谈话中，我们了解到这个神秘的项目似乎将处理一个比较严肃的题材，这可能跟Romero的成名作——桌上游戏或者模拟类游戏有关的项目。她把它们叫做“纪实游戏”，因为这是一个有关——一个典型的例子是2009年的项目《Train》,玩家将人质放到模型车厢运送到营地——这是暗示了大屠杀本质的游戏。

Romero从事实体桌上游戏的时间和她从事荧屏游戏的时间一样久，她坚信这样以新形式带来挑战的项目会让她成为一个更好的游戏设计者。

“这个游戏不会让美好的画面淹没游戏的可玩性，也不会有任何黑幕——它会保持它应有的样子。可玩性就是这个游戏的全部。当然了，在面板上会有各种视觉效果，不过这里只有你和这个游戏，这里是只属于你和游戏机制的对弈。”

“对我来说，这简直是对我设计能力的超级考验。为自己所创系统制定一份与之契合的三页规则，这让电视游戏的制作都显得不那么困难了。对我来说，这（为系统制定规则）才是最难的游戏设计形式。你写的一字一句都是在制定着允许或禁止的内容，所以《Trian》的规则是我写过最纠结的系列规则，尽管纠结了半天它还是只有三页。”

然而《Trian》,这个基本上属于Romero独家的魔幻系列游戏受到了广泛赞誉，她告诉我们她不仅从成功中吸取经验，同样也从缺陷中吸取教训。当她回首往昔事业，她承认她也失败过、也有过无法成型游戏概念、以及也做过不太如意的领导决策。

“我在游戏行业发生过最可怕的一件事就是项目流产。那真的太吓人了，但却也让我感到相当解脱，因为作为一个游戏开发者，我现在已经不惧怕失败了。我现在敢大胆尝试一些疯狂的事，或者对游戏做一些人们觉得不应该适合游戏的创造性举措——因为我觉得不适合什么的都是废话。游戏是一个丰富的媒介，跟电影、音乐和书籍一样，你可以在游戏领域中做任何你想做的事。”

“如果要我给一个建议的话，那就是尽早开始编程的学习吧，然后不断体验失败——那没什么可怕的。《Doom》是John做的第90款游戏了，所以说，要想成就一番大事就需要大量的练习与坚持。”

提到她的丈夫就会引发一个尴尬的问题了：Brenda会觉得自己跟丈夫John比起来显得相形见绌了吗？尽管Donoan Brathwaite-Romero是Brenda的儿子，但在《Guman Taco Truck》的发行即将到来之际，一些媒体称他是John的孩子，也许是因为他们觉得Doom的创造者是两位父母中更出名的那个。

“无论从哪点看，Donovan也是他的孩子呀。尽管是继子，但John承担了抚养他的责任，所以我并没有为此感到困扰。”Brenda这样说道。

“John的光彩把我比下去了？这是肯定啦——不过这没关系啊。他从15岁的时候就已经在给《Air Force》帮忙编程了，他还做过《德军司令部（Wolfenstein）》、《毁灭战士1（Doom1）》、《毁灭战士2（Doom 2）》、《Quake》、《Hexen》。他参与过150款游戏的制作，而我对这些不论从那个角度都没觉得不好过。”

Romero Games（from gamesindustry.biz）

“我们在用不同的方式在游戏行业贡献着自己的一份力。我基本一生都投入到游戏中了，游戏就是我所做的一切，希望以后也是如此。我做过很多不同类型的桌上游戏，这些纪实游戏是没人做过的。而我告诉过人们，做过很多宣传演讲，想让他们知道游戏的力量和能力，我曾经多次谈论过游戏需要多样性，并且主动自愿在很多项目中同女孩一起合作并教女孩们学习编程。”

“John的影响力可以比作巨大的陨石对地球的撞击，但是我的影响力更像是一块块小石头，但如果你把它们放一块儿也能跟陨石一个级别。唯一会让我觉得困扰的是，比如说，为了夺人眼球，有记者会写这样的标题‘John Romero的老婆发行了一款游戏’。这样的话我就不能忍了。”

Brenda Romero倡议让更多女性加入游戏行业、鼓励孩子们编程以及强烈建议开发者们探索更多游戏设计的新形式和新主题，全部这些部分出自——她坚信这样做会促进游戏行业的发展；另一方面，她还“深切自私地希望能听到不同的故事与经历”。在她过去几年玩过的所有觉得好玩的游戏当中，《1979Revolution》是她赞誉为“大师级设计”的游戏，也是作为证明游戏行业需要更多不同领域的人们的参与的证据。

“很多我们玩过超棒的游戏都是出自非传统游戏领域人士之手的。对于我来说，游戏行业非常需要有更多来自各个领域的人参与进来。因为我在过去几年里玩过几款这种类型的游戏，它们让我印象非常深刻——我不想有任何剧透——但它们真的太赞了。要做一款有关伊朗革命的游戏需要有【一种独特的视角】……如果我们想要看到更多这样的游戏，我们就要有来自更广泛领域的声音来扩展游戏的可塑性。”

Brenda Romero将会于4月6日星期三在伦敦举办的年度BAFTA庆典上获得她的BAFTA特别奖。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

BAFTA has announced this morning that it will honour Brenda Romero with its Special Award during next week’s ceremony. The accolade recognises not only her work in video games, but also her advocacy of the creative process and the work she has done in encouraging a new generation of game makers.

GamesIndustry.biz caught up with Brenda to find out more about her work, and how she feels receiving this award.

“It’s still unbelievable,” she tells us. “Games have always played second, third or even fourth fiddle to things like film, music or art, so just the mere fact that BAFTA acknowledges games is a huge important step for games themselves and how they are viewed as a form.

“When I got the email, I actually checked to see if it was fake. The only reason I believed it was BAFTA was I remembered the font”

“When I got the email, I actually checked to see if it was fake. The only reason I believed it was BAFTA was I’d been a previous BAFTA event and I remembered the font. I’ve won other awards before and my family were proud of me, but when I told them I won a BAFTA, they just lost their minds.

“I could probably give a list of 20 other people I think should win this award, but I’m completely honoured to receive it. I’m shocked, I’m grateful, and more than anything I think it’s a great thing for games that one of the most respected bodies that rewards the creative experience is acknowledging games.”

Brenda Romero is one of the longest-serving members of the games industry, having first gained a job at just 15 years old thanks to a conversation with Linda Sirotek (now Currie), part-owner of her family’s company Sir-Tech Software. It’s a conversation that changed Romero’s life.

“She was looking for someone to have the perfect teenage job: play the games, memorise them and then when people called because they were stuck, you would know the answer to their question,” she says. “I was basically a live FAQ.

“I went to her house and played Wizardry for the first time. I still vividly remember the feelings that I had when I first saw that game. It was love at first sight. That’s when I first got into the industry. I’d obviously been a huge board game fan, a D&D player, had played pinball, had played arcade machines, but I had never really thought of that as a career that someone could grow up and do.”

Her young start is part of the reason she believes it’s important to teach kids to code – not only to equip them with vital skills for an increasingly digital world but also to give them the best chance at securing a role in games, thus bringing fresh talent into the industry. It’s such a firm belief that Brenda has even arranged for her son to learn the tricks of the trade from her husband, Doom creator John Romero. Donovan Brathwaite-Romero’s weekly coding lessons have already resulted in his first release: comical action game Gunman Taco Truck, a title that has proven to be so successful it has already funded his college fees.

“That was the whole goal of it – although when I say that, it’s funding for a European college so we’re not talking tons and tons of money, because they’re like £3,000 per year,” Romero clarifies. “He’s done that, and we let him blow 10% of what he earned. He can spend that but the rest of it he has to save. He went out and bought himself a Nintendo Switch, and for a 12-year-old kid, that’s probably the equivalent of going out and buying a Ferrari. You should have seen the absolute delight on his face.

“He’s thinking of the next game idea, and we’re at a point with him code-wise where we aren’t solving his problems for him as quickly as we used to. We give him 20 minutes to work out where the problems are, so we’re pushing him a little bit more code-wise.”

While Gunman Taco Truck was very much Donovan’s game, Romero reveals it became something of a family project and, out of her already prolific career, is “probably my favourite game I’ve ever worked on”.

“It’s what every game developer parent dreams could happen, which is you’re really making a game as a family”

“It was an absolute blast,” she recalls. “It’s what every game developer parent dreams could happen, which is you’re really making a game as a family. All parts of the family got into it – obviously Donovan handled design and code, but I’ll put that ‘code’ in cautionary quotes because obviously he’s 12 and his coding is not quite at a professional level yet.

“But then Maezza and Lillia helped with testing. Avalon, Donovan’s twin sister, did some testing too and wants to start a whole line of Taco plushies. It’s really fun having an entire family involved. John’s eldest son Michael also did a bunch of coding on the game, and to get the game out of the door there was a bunch of other people on the team: Paul Conway from Ireland did the art and Ian Dunbar did most of the heavy lifting on the code along with John.”

Romero is keen for other members of the industry, and parents in general, to encourage their children to explore a career in games if that’s where their passion lies – but it’s crucial that this passion is directed productively to improve their chances to securing a role in the industry. It applies to not just games, but to any creative outlet.

“Making sure that kids don’t get swallowed by the medium they like and encouraging them to start participating in its creation, that’s the trick”

“With kids who are into games, there’s a little bit of a challenge, because games themselves are so incredibly immersive,” she explains. “Donovan wants to grow up and get into games, but it’s easy for him to trick himself into thinking that playing games endlessly will get him there. But we’ve encouraged him to try actually designing a game. Making sure that kids don’t get swallowed by the medium they like and encouraging them to start participating in its creation, that’s the trick. Because, given the choice, Donovan would play TF2 all day.”

With Gunman Taco Truck completed, Romero is now focusing on a dream project of her own – although she’s keeping most of the details to herself for now.

“It’s based on a topic I’ve long been fascinated with and wanted to make a game in this area since 2003,” she teases. “We’ve got a really good team, and we’re in that awesome honeymoon stage where you’re starting to see this idea come to life, watching characters walking around the screen. I’m really excited about this game. If ever I had all the right ingredients, I’ve got them now.”

From conversations with her, it sounds as if this mystery project will tackle a more serious subject, something Romero is known for from her work on board games or analogue games. She describes many of these titles as “documentary games” in that “they are about something” – a prime example being her 2009 project Train, which sees players loading pawns into model carriages and transporting them to camps in a game that hints at the nature of the Holocaust.

Romero has worked on board and physical games for as long as she has worked on screen-based titles, and fervently believes such projects have made her a better designer by challenging her in new ways.

“There’s no burying your gameplay beneath beautiful graphics,” she explains. “There’s no fudging things behind the scenes, there’s no fudging at all – it has to be exactly what it is. The gameplay is all that’s there. Sure, there are visuals on the board, but it’s still just you and the medium, you and the mechanics.

“Writing Train’s rules was the most agonising set of rules I ever wrote and it was still only three pages”

“For me, it’s an incredible test of my design abilities. Working on a video game doesn’t feel as hard to me when compared to creating three pages of rules that completely capture a system that I’m trying to create. That, to me, is the hardest form of games design. Every single word you write either allows or disallows something. Writing Train’s rules was the most agonising set of rules I ever wrote and it was still only three pages.”

While Train, the Wizardry series and more of Romero’s games have met with critical acclaim, the designer says she learns as much from her shortcomings as she does her successes. As she looks back through her career, she recognises the times she has failed, the game ideas that didn’t pan out, and the occasions where her leadership could have been better.

“One of the scariest things that ever happened to me in this industry is failing,” she says. “It was terrifying, but it was wonderfully liberating because as a developer I have now lost my fear of failure. I’m not afraid to try somewhat crazy things, or make games about topics that people say you maybe shouldn’t make games about – because personally I think that’s bullshit. Games are as rich a medium as film, music and books and you can make games about anything.

“If I could give one piece of advice, it’s start to code early, then fail and fail again. Don’t be afraid of that. Doom was John’s 90th game, so it takes a lot of practise and perseverance if you want to do something great.”

The reference to her husband brings up an awkward question: does Brenda feel her career is overshadowed by the legacy of John Romero? After all, Donovan Brathwaite-Romero is Brenda’s son, and yet in the run-up to Gunman Taco Truck’s release, some media outlets referred to him as John’s child, perhaps because they deem the Doom creator to be the more famous of the two parents.

“For all intents and purposes, Donovan is his son as well,” Romero says. “He’s his step-son, but John has raised him so that didn’t bother me.

“John’s impact might be measured in terms of massive meteorites hitting the earth, but mine are more like smaller rocks that when you add them up might amount to a similar level”
“Has John’s career overshadowed mine? Absolutely – and that’s okay. He was helping to code things for the Air Force when he was 15, he’s made Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom II, Quake, Hexen. There’s 150 games on his resumé and that doesn’t make me feel bad in any way, shape or form.

“We make contributions in different ways. I’ve been in games my whole life, it’s all I’ve ever done and hopefully all I’ll ever do. I’ve made a big range of different board games, these documentary games that no-one else has done. And I’ve taught people, I’ve done a lot of advocacy speaking about the power of games and what they can do, I’ve talked a lot about diversity and volunteered on so many initiatives about working with girls and teaching girls to code.

“John’s impact might be measured in terms of massive meteorites hitting the earth, but mine are more like smaller rocks that when you add them up might amount to a similar level. The only time it bothers is me when, for instance, just for hits someone will run something like ‘John Romero’s wife releases a game’. Then I’m probably going to go on a rampage.”

Brenda Romero’s advocacy of bringing more women into the industry, of encouraging kids to code, and of urging developers to explore new forms and topics with game design all partly stem from her genuine belief that it will benefit the games industry, but also from her “profoundly selfish desire to hear different stories and have different experiences”. Of the games that she has most enjoyed playing over the past few years, she highlights 1979 Revolution as “a masterclass in design” and proof that we need a wider range of people making games.

“A lot of the best games I have played have come from people that we wouldn’t consider traditional games industry voices,” she says. “To me, it’s important that we have a huge range of people making games from all walks of life, because some of the games I’ve played over the past few years have been really inspiring. There’s a single button-click in 1979 Revolution – I don’t want to give any spoilers – that was absolutely amazing. To bring a game about the Iranian revolution requires [a unique perspective]… If we want to see more games like that, we need to expand the range of voices that are heard and continue to expand the accessibility of making games.”

Brenda Romero will receive her BAFTA Special Award during this year’s ceremony in London on Thursday, April 6th.(source:gamesindustry.biz)