本文原作者：Darran Jamieson 译者ciel chen

开发者从多角度谈游戏设计的四要素（上篇，选择与挑战）

在上一篇文章，我们主要研究了游戏设计中有关挑战和选择方面的一些问题。挑战和选择为玩家创造娱乐，但是光靠挑战和选择是无法做成一款游戏的——否则一次小测都可以被当做是游戏了。

为了满足游戏的标准，玩家不仅需要进行不止一次的测试，他们得要连续不断地进行测试。这里我们需要游戏设计的第三个要素。

3. 变化

一款游戏不仅只是一个挑战而已——从本质上来说，它是由很多个小型挑战组成的——我们在游戏过程中可能会面对成百上千的各种挑战。比如“搜集钱币”或者“杀死敌人”或者“跳过陷阱”。

有时，玩家会故意“输掉”一个小挑战好获得游戏整体的利益（故意制造破坏来是自己的能力提升），而这种反向操作通常是复杂的游戏机制以及明确的游戏目标结合产生的现象。一款游戏应该要含括非静态的挑战，并且要把玩家先前所作过的选择都考虑到游戏挑战的制定中。

而变化就是游戏内容的来源。我们在玩超级玛丽的时候，我们不会一次又一次重复第一关的内容，因为我们会想去到下一个关卡挑战更多——这不仅关乎我们想要完成游戏的欲望，而且是一种跨越了更难挑战所获得的成就感在驱使着我们如此。

玩家在把所有挑战都完成后算是获得游戏的胜利；所以如果这些挑战太容易玩家就会觉得无聊。如果做出一些改变能提供更多的游戏内容给我们（更多的挑战），玩家就会话更久的时间在游戏中直到他们下次感到无聊为止——这也是一些“骨灰级玩家”之所以会嘲笑像《开心农场》这类的休闲游戏的原因：他们觉得这种游戏太小儿科了。当然了，玩家对容易（还有无聊）的定义是因人而异的。

没有变化的游戏是什么样的？

游戏没有变化会让玩家很快就变得无聊。变化不仅为游戏提供了呢日用，而且让玩家有感觉到自己的进步。超级玛丽（对还是这个游戏作为例子）就是一个很好的例子。尽管在超级玛丽一代中的世界是同意的，而在《超级玛丽兄弟2》中，背景世界变了。一代中是绿草世界，而在二代中则变成了沙漠或者别的场景。不止环境变了，还出现了一些特定场景才出现的怪，因此2代的世界会给玩家带来特别的感觉。

主题关卡也可以给玩家些许不一样的感觉，即使只是一些图形的对调就足够让玩家感觉到游戏的进展了。其他游戏也会使用类似的小技巧，包括老套的“调色板对调”（即使换一些颜色）。老式的日本RPG游戏就会把普通级别敌人图上红色或者黑色来表示他们是“进阶级别”的，而著名的《真人快打》就包含了9个使用基本相同人物模型的不同人物。

他们是：Ermac, Tremor, Scorpion, Reptile, Chameleon, Sub-Zero, Rain, Smoke and Noob Saibot.

把游戏里的小挑战当做谜题是很有效的。谜题就是等着被解决的；重复解决相同的谜题并不会给你带来任何更大的成就感。然而，如果把谜题加之以细微的变化却可以让人感到无限有趣。

填字游戏可能是这里最好的例子——这个游戏的基本原则很简单，然而就只需要简单地改变一下这些词汇，就足以成为每天世界各地报纸中的一部分内容了

如果我们做出改变的方式上出错会怎么样？

正如我们所看到的，游戏内容如果不做点改变或者改变不够大都会让玩家很快就感到厌倦。然而有一款优秀的手游《Flow Free》就设置了1000个关卡（另外还有付费关卡）。然而有些人会喜欢这样多的关卡，不过基本上很少有人能完成所有的关卡。当然了，“内容太多”很难有个好坏的说法，不过大部分关卡最后都长一个样——尽管难度等级提高了，但其所出的谜题仍旧是静态的。对于一个有点水平的玩家都不需要花太久的时间来“解决”这个游戏，这个时候解决这些关卡的时间就又成了简单而无趣的了。

这就是程序自动生成的游戏内容需要面对的风险。尽管从理论上讲，内容无限听上去很令人惊艳，事实上这些公式算法做不成什么巧妙的设计，大部分产生的内容都很生硬，玩家很快就能摸透这里面的“核心谜题”。

就比如你可以想象一款游戏让玩家做两个随机数字的相加算数——玩家昨晚了11+8，然后做12+7或者18+1，请问这有什么好玩的体验吗?并没有。然后如果这样的游戏还要让玩家做多个数字的相加运算，玩家估计很快就会觉得烦了。

还有另外一种可能——游戏的变化速度太快。游戏中循序渐进的变化执行又可以叫做难度曲线。玩家想要这样的挑战，他们在理想的情况下会随着难度的增加而提升他们的游戏技巧。难度的突然性地高幅上升是没什么问题的，但你不能给玩家一堵越不过的墙呀。

《传说之下》中的战斗。这里，游戏难度从开始的合理发展到了“希望你喜欢这样死了又死”的节奏。

另外一个可能初夏你的问题就是——游戏本身改变得太夸张。也就是说——挑战的内容超出了我们的想象范围。你可以想一下，你正玩一个赛车游戏的时候，突然之间它变成了FPS；或者一个解谜游戏突然变成了横向卷轴游戏。

这些距离都会比较极端一些，不过还真的有活生生的例子。

《生化奇兵》就在“黑客游戏部分”使用了疯狂水管风格的解谜了游戏元素，尽管玩家多半还挺待见这个主要可选的游戏内容的。

而《杀出重围：人类革命Deus Ex: Human Revolution》中的强制性BOSS战相比之下就没那么受玩家待见了。尽管大部分玩家没什么意见，但那些之前决定将能力点存起来的玩家们突然发现自己没法这么干了。这不仅仅损害了游戏（对玩家）的游戏性，而且意味着玩家之前做出的选择（决定把一些能力点先存起来的选择）变成了“错误的”选择——一种给玩家设下的陷阱。

所以，改变的重要性毋庸置疑，但是它也只是“内容创造”的一半构成而已——如果玩家玩游戏只需要挑战、选择和改变就够了的话，那他们干脆去玩填字游戏、拼图玩具或者七巧板好了——这些都只是有游戏性的活动，并非真正意义上的游戏。还有最后一个要素——它确保了游戏对玩家的吸引力，还能避免玩家一下子就知道怎么“搞定”游戏。

4. 机会

机会是游戏设计的最后一个要素。在我们玩游戏的过程中，我们制定了如何获取黄金，击败敌人，以及实现我们目标的计划。然而，我们不是每次都能成功：当我们能够适应没有预先计划的临时情况时，我们的游戏技巧就能被充分地测试。即使你整体计划得再棒也不可能施行得非常完美的。

机会可以以很多种形式存在于游戏当中。最普遍的形式就是骰子、卡牌还有随机数字生成器，不过人类也会为自己提供机会——可以是人为误判、剑走偏锋的策略或者预料外的玩法等等。如果没有人为因素，像国际象棋这样的游戏就会变得很枯燥——可以想象两个玩家面对面玩着每次结果都一样的游戏有多无聊。

要是游戏没有了随性概率会是什么样？

一款没有随机概率存在的游戏就像在解题——一个可解的题目一旦被解出来就不再有趣了。这也是为什么报纸上每天都有新的填字游戏，而不是天天都重复发布雷同的题目一遍又一遍让读者玩的原因。

那么随机概率对游戏设计有什么影响呢？想象一下，我给了你一张世界地图，现在有4种颜色的彩笔，然后让你给每个国家涂颜色，相邻的国际颜色不能相同——这是你能完成的事情，只是需要一些些时间和脑力。它可能会短暂地让你开心，但这并不是真正的游戏——这是一个题目，它是有解决方案的。

应用于世界地图的四色理论。（尽管大海的颜色是第五种颜色，不过并不重要，它只是为了让地图看上去更清楚。）

但是，如果现在我要在你每次给一个国家涂色的时候也随机地给一个国家涂色，那情况就不一样了。你最后的目标本质上还是保持不变，但是现在你有了新的需要担心的参数了——你不能简单地只想着把一个国家的颜色涂上一种颜色就好了;你需要开始考虑如何避开我涂的国家颜色。

游戏将不再只有一种答案——它现在有了选择“最适”答案的余地——玩家不再是从第一步就能知道怎么解开谜题了，他需要一步一步根据不同情况来“多次地去求解”。事实上，这场游戏甚至有可能以无法获得胜利的情况展开。

就是概率事件给了游戏真正意义之所在，并界定了游戏和谜题区别。你正在做的是试图在一个不断变化而且无法预测的世界里做出最佳决策——这个决策可以是通过信息分析或者通过运算分析，但是这里始终不会有一个能称之为正确答案的决策——我们只能说有相对最合适的决策。

如果我们错误地运用了随机概率这个要素会发生什么？

做到游戏的随机概率平衡是意见很巧妙的事。因为游戏是一个对玩家技巧的直接测试，我们发现那些随机程度高的游戏比较受那些游戏技巧能力低的玩家（比如儿童和不怎么玩游戏的玩家）欢迎，却不受拥有高游戏技巧的玩家（骨灰级玩家或者有竞争力强的玩家）喜欢。这是意料之中的情况，因为玩家都想赢，而运气往往能抵消技能的影响。

当在游戏中运用概率这个要素的时候，最主要的风险是概率事件会推翻先前选择所产生的结果。玩家做出的选择可能会因为骰子的滚动而变得不再重要。当玩家发觉他们做出的选择失去意义的时候，他们就会对游戏失去兴趣。想象一下一个玩家在整个游戏里摇骰子一直只摇到1的风险。当然了，有些玩家还是挺喜欢这种变数大的游戏的，不过这个还是跟你对自己玩家基础的了解有关。

我们之前已经多多少少聊过有关游戏中随机性使用的问题了，不过这里有一个基本原则：要让玩家有一种——自己能赢，并且赢的原因跟自己之前做出的决策是有关联的感觉。以这样或那样的方式去拨弄概率的天平可能会造成不利影响和沮丧情绪的。

将四要素整合在一起

当我们在做自己的游戏的时候，我们要用上这四个要素，让它层层相叠，环环相扣，从而实现我们的游戏概念。我们可以这样想：

游戏就是为了给玩家制定挑战的地方。玩家可以做出选择来克服这些挑战，即使概率可能会使玩家无法保证他们做出的选择是正确的。但玩家做出的选择可以改变游戏的状态，因此玩家必须不断地根据变化的任何情况来评估从而做出最佳选择。等玩家做出的选择达到一定数量，就会知道他们是赢还是输了。

上述就是游戏设计的精髓所在。还有更多可以建立在诸如叙述、探索和音乐这些想法上的概念，但都只是些花瓶而已。它们可以增强游戏体验，但未必与游戏本身相关。

为什么我们这么重视这四要素？

当然，最重要的问题是，为什么这些要素那么重要?我们都知道游戏是什么，为什么要花那么长时间分解这个问题进行回答?

很简单，因为我们很多人没能正确地理解游戏是什么。许多初出茅庐的设计师制作的游戏光顾着炫耀了自己作为游戏设计师的聪明程度，却没能意识到游戏应该是用来玩的。即使是在大公司工作的经验丰富的游戏设计师有时也会在这里出错，他们的内心自我是抗拒去接受批评的。去看看随便一款失败的游戏，你肯定能找出他们有哪里违反了这些规则。

当然，有时你可以打破规则而不用有什么负面影响——没人会去批评《我的世界》的设计者没有把自创模式难度调够。但是《我的世界》的自创模式并不是真正意义上的游戏——它是一种玩具。他就像一幅画布，你可以在这里创造美丽的世界，而不用被怪物吃掉；而这个世界激发了玩家惊人的创造力——从《星际迷航》“企业号”的复制模型到在游戏中使用的移动电话。

所以在你做游戏之前，想象你的目标是什么。游戏设计是一个复杂的领域——你需要去兼顾故事叙述、音乐指导、美工设计还有其他超级多的事。但是，如果你在核心问题上失败了，也就是说你的游戏基础建设不牢固，那么你就是在沙子上建房子，这房子早晚得塌。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

In our previous article, we examined some of the aspects of game design, in particular challenge and choice. Challenge and choice can create something which is entertaining, but by themselves do not make a game—otherwise a quiz could be considered a game.

To fulfil the game criteria, the player needs to be tested not just once, but continually. We need a third element.

3. Change

A game is more than a singular challenge. It is, essentially, a series of micro challenges—we might face hundreds or thousands during the course of the game. Things like “collect a coin” or “kill an enemy” or “jump the pit”.

Sometimes, the player might deliberately “fail” a micro-challenge in order to benefit overall (intentionally taking damage to reach a powerup) but doing counter-intuitive moves is often a result of complex gameplay and a clear overall goal. A game needs to contain challenges which are not static, and revolve around choices the player has previously made.

Change is what provides content. When we play Mario, we don’t repeat the first level over and over; we want to progress to the later levels. It’s not just the desire to complete the game, but the satisfaction of overcoming more difficult challenges which drives us.

Mario 1-1 level

By now, most gamers are familiar with level 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. (Image taken from Mario Wiki)

A player wins a game when all challenges have been completed. A player gets bored of a game when all challenges become trivial. If changing things around provides us with more content (more challenges), then the player will take longer to get bored of the game. This is partly why some “hardcore” gamers choose to deride casual games such as Farmville: they see the game as trivial, and therefore boring. Of course, the definition of trivial (and boring) varies for every individual.

There are many ways to provide the stimulus of change within a game. The most obvious is simply having multiple levels, but achievements can also provide an aspect of change. Completing a game shows you’re good at it, but a pacifist run where the player doesn’t kill shows mastery of a different sort. It provides more content to the player and in some cases can double the lifespan of a game.

What Is a Game Without Change?

Without change, players become bored very quickly. The use of change not only provides content, but allows the players to feel as if they’re making progress. Mario (again) is a great example of this. Although in the first Mario, worlds were uniform, in Super Mario Bros 2, the worlds changed. World 1 was a grass world, World 2 was a desert, and so forth. Not only did the environment change, but some monsters were also world-specific, so the worlds had specific feels to them.

Theming levels is one way to provide a certain feel, and that slight graphical swap can sometimes be enough to reaffirm a feeling of progress. Other games have used similar tricks, including the old “palette swap”, aka changing a few colours. Old JRPGs would take standard enemies and paint them red or black as “upgraded” versions, and Mortal Kombat famously includes nine different characters who utilise the same basic character model.

Mortal Kombat ninjas

Ermac, Tremor, Scorpion, Reptile, Chameleon, Sub-Zero, Rain, Smoke and Noob Saibot. image by Chakham on deviantart.

It’s useful to think of the micro-challenges within a game as puzzles. A puzzle is something that can be solved; solving it again doesn’t provide you with any greater accomplishment. Minor variations on that puzzle can keep things interesting indefinitely, however.

Crosswords are probably the greatest example of this—the basic principle behind the crossword is simple, but by simply varying the words, enough content can be produced for newspapers across the world every day.

What Happens When We Do Change in the Wrong Way?

As we’ve seen, no change or not enough change simply means the player will get bored quickly. The otherwise excellent mobile game Flow Free comes with over 1,000 levels, with more purchasable. While some people will love this, it seems likely that most players will never get near to completing them all. Of course, it’s hard to argue that “too much content” is a bad thing, but most of the levels end up looking very samey—and although the levels change, the puzzle behind them remains essentially static. It doesn’t take long for a decent player to “solve” the game, and at that point solving the levels themselves becomes trivial.

This is the risk that procedurally generated content faces. Although, in theory, infinite content sounds amazing, the fact is that without some very clever design behind those algorithms, most of the content generated will become stale very quickly as players solve the “core puzzles”.

Imagine creating a game which asks the player to add two random numbers. Once the player has solved 11+8, then solving 12+7 or 18+1 doesn’t actually provide a new experience. And if all your game consists of is adding numbers together, then players will get bored pretty quickly.

On the flip side, it’s also possible to implement change too quickly. The gradual implementation within a game is often referred to as a difficulty curve. Players want that challenge, and ideally the difficulty should increase in line with their skill. There’s nothing wrong with the odd difficulty spike, but the player shouldn’t find themselves hitting an impossible brick wall.

Undertale undyine battle

Undertales Undyne fight. Here, the game goes from being a reasonable challenge to “hope you like dying repeatedly”.

One other possible problem is changing too much about the game itself. That is, changing things outside our expectations. Imagine playing a racing game that suddenly switches to a first-person shooter, or a puzzle game that suddenly switches to a platformer.

These are extreme examples, but they do happen.

Bioshock utilised pipemania-style puzzles for its hacking section, although for the most part, this mostly optional content was well received.

Less well received was the mandatory boss combat for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. While most players had no issues, players who decided to put character points into stealth suddenly found themselves against a brick wall. Not only did it break what the game (for these players) was about, but it meant that the choices the player had made before (choosing to invest points into stealth) was “wrong”: a trap choice for the player.

So, change is important, but it’s essentially just one half of the “content creation” coin. If players only need challenge, choice, and change, then what stops crossword puzzles from being games? What about jigsaws, or sliding block puzzles? These things are “game-y”, but they are not games. We need one last thing—something which ensures the player is constantly engaged, and cannot just “solve” our game immediately.

4. Chance

Chance is the final element of game design. As we play our game, we make plans on how to acquire gold, defeat our foes, and otherwise accomplish our goals. However, we won’t always be successful: our gaming skill is fully tested when we are able to adapt to conditions which weren’t initially planned. You’re not expected to play perfectly, as long as your overall strategy is sound.

Chance can exist in games in many forms. Most common are dice, cards, and random number generators, but humans can provide their own chance as well. Humans misjudge, make gambits, and otherwise play unpredictably. Without that human element, games like chess would be remarkably dull—two players facing each other would have the same outcome every time.

What Is a Game Without Chance?

A game without chance is simply a puzzle. It can be solved, and when a puzzle is solved, it no longer provides entertainment. This is why newspapers publish a new crossword every day, rather than simply republishing the same one over and over.

So how does chance affect game design? Imagine that I give you a map of the world and four coloured pens, and ask you to colour in the countries in such a way that no two colours touch. This is something you should be able to accomplish with a bit of time and brainpower. It might briefly keep you entertained, but it’s not really a game. It’s a puzzle, and it has a solution.

World map in 4 colours

Four-colour theory as applied to the world map. (Although a fifth colour is used for the sea for clarity, it’s not necessary.)

If, however, I randomly colour a country in every time you make a move, things change. Your end goal is essentially the same, but now you have an additional parameter to worry about. You can’t simply colour countries in one at a time; you need to start thinking about how to avoid my countries.

The game no longer has a singular solution—it has a selection of “best fit” possible solutions. The game cannot be solved on the first move: every move requires “resolving” the game. Indeed, the game might unfold in such a way that winning isn’t even possible.

This is what really defines a game, and separates games from puzzles. You are trying to make the best decisions in an ever-changing world, and that change is unpredictable. You can make informed decisions and calculated choices, but there is very rarely a correct choice—simply a best choice.

What Happens When We Do Chance in the Wrong Way?

The balancing of chance within a game is a delicate act. Because a game is a direct test of players’ skill, we tend to find that players of low skill levels (such as children or non-gamers) favour games with a high chance aspect, and high-skill players (hardcore gamers or competitive players) dislike it. This is, unsurprisingly, because players like winning, and luck tends to neutralise the impact skill has.

The main danger when implementing chance is that it can override choice. Choices a player makes might be rendered unimportant by the roll of the die. When a player feels as if the choices they are making are pointless, they will lose interest. Imagine a Risk player who only rolled 1′s for the whole game. Of course, some players will like high-variance games, but that’s part of understanding your player base.

We’ve talked before, both briefly and in depth, about the implementation of randomness within games, but the basic principle is this: a player needs to feel both that they are capable of winning and that the choices they make are relevant. Tipping the scales of chance one way or the other can affect that and cause frustration.

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Putting It All Together

When we make our game, we use these four elements, layered on top of each other, to bring our vision to life. We can think of it this way:

A game is something where a player is set a challenge. The player may make choices to overcome the challenge, although chance dictates that the player cannot guarantee the choices they make are correct. The choices the player makes change the state of the game, so that the player must constantly be re-evaluating the best choice for any situation. Once a player has made a sufficient number of choices, the game is won or lost.

This is the essence of game design. There are further concepts that can be built upon this—ideas like narrative, exploration, and music—but these are all dressing. They enhance the experience of a game, but they are not necessarily relevant to the game itself.

Why Care?

The most important question, of course, is why is any of this important? We all know what a game is, why spend so long breaking it down?

Simply, because so many of us get it wrong. Many fledgling designers make games that show off how clever the designer is, but fail to appreciate that a game is supposed to be played. Even experienced game designers working for large companies can get it wrong on occasion, individual egos refusing to take on criticism. Look at any game that failed critically, and you’re guaranteed to be able to identify where they broke these rules.

Of course, sometimes you’re able to break the rules and get away with it. No-one is really criticising the developers of Minecraft for not making creative mode hard enough. But Minecraft’s creative mode isn’t really a game—it’s a toy. It’s a canvas where you can create beautiful worlds without the risk of being eaten by monsters. A world that has inspired amazing feats of ingenuity, from replicas of Star Trek’s Enterprise to a working, in-game mobile phone.（source：tuts plus  ）