开发者经验谈：最好的想法不一定对游戏开发最有好处

原文作者：Skye Larsen 译者：Megan Shieh

刚开始制作战术RPG《Alkanaur》的时候，我和同事们在想要用什么主题，然后偶然间发现了一个新颖的想法，大家都兴奋极了：如果古希腊和古罗马的文化没有消亡，一直遗留到了工业革命，那会是什么样子？如果他们截然不同的意识形态引发了一场内战呢？这样的一场内战会不会影响到神明们自己？据我们所知，这种专题目前还没有人做过。古希腊和古罗马的文化影响肯定会让我们的游戏从其他的战术RPG中脱颖而出。

虽然这是一个绝妙的主意，但是我们最终决定抛弃这个想法。

slayer ideas（from gamasutra.com）

“修剪”并不是一个性感的词汇。但是如果不适当修剪，一些树木和灌木丛将永远无法充分发挥其潜力。同样，即使是最好的想法也可能需要一些删减。每一个创作的过程中都会出现许多伟大的想法、完美的情节线、非凡的故事，或是美丽的笔触。但是如果你让一个想法接管了你的整个项目，那么它将可能会扼杀项目中的其他分支。

从某种程度上看，这种“修剪”似乎有些不公平，尤其考虑到那些生长最快的枝条最终也会被砍得最多。然而，一棵树木的不平衡生长在后期可能会导致毁灭性的倒塌。同样的，我们也开始看到了我们游戏项目中的不平衡，尽管我们喜欢看着树上的“树枝”，然后想象它会结出什么样的果实，但是有的时候你不得不忍痛割爱。

在游戏开发的前几年里，我们尽力地不去放弃好的想法。比如说：将蒸汽庞克美学与古希腊和古罗马的文化融合到一起。但是作为一个小型团队，我们的任务最终超出了现有的资源。我们有一些很好的早期美术概念和想法，比如大理石柱子和金属齿轮的搭配，但是我们也知道若要全面实现这一点，所需的各种资源将会超出我们的承受范围。我们相信一个更有经验的团队再加上一大批概念艺术家，可能可以把大理石柱子和金属齿轮完美地搭配在一起，而且效果还会很赞。但是我们自己的主要设计任务是确保美术效果好看，保持一致，并且在我们能够承担的范围内。

你可能会认为，我们可以抛弃掉美术方面的东西，然后保留其他的概念。但是一个典型蒸汽庞克风格的游戏使用古希腊和罗马神话？我们试过了。毕竟如果这俩神话没有那么早夭折的话，几个世纪之后，希腊和罗马帝国可能会显得有些不同。也许他们会厌倦那些圆柱和战车，然后发明出一些蒸汽庞克风的东西出来。。？

古希腊神话和古罗马神话之间的意识形态对战，当我在为《Alkanaur》的世界建模的时候，这个想法是一个极佳的设计限制，但是慢慢地，这个设计限制变得越来越拖后腿。

有一天我坐在公园的长凳上，翻阅着我那丰富而杂乱无章的笔记，试图把《Alkanaur》的每一座城市与不同的希腊神明或罗马神明联系起来。仔细翻阅着这本笔记本，我意识到我们最初在想这个主题的时候产生了许多非常好的想法，而且就算没有希腊和罗马神明的加持，它们也能自己茁壮成长。然后我小心翼翼地跟其他的团队成员分享了这个想法，他们也都同意了。因此《Alkanaur》成为了它自己一个的世界，有着属于自己的神明。就这样，我们无情地把最初的伟大想法从这棵树上完全剪了下来。

但是《Alkanaur》里就真的完全没有希腊和罗马神明的影子了吗？你不会在我们的游戏中找到蒸汽庞克风格的百夫长（古罗马军队中的一个军职），也不会找到一个完全臣服于赫尔墨斯（希腊神话人物）的工业化城市。但是如果最初没有想出这个想法，然后在它的基础上延伸，那么《Alkanaur》就不会以今天的形态存在。尽管我们最后不情愿地把这根树枝剪掉了，但是我们的这棵树（请原谅我这讨人厌的比喻）是沿着那根树枝长出来的。我相信如果你仔细关注《Alkanaur》的话，就会时常看到这根树枝曾经存在过的痕迹。

因为我们最终放弃了这个主意，所以这是否意味着它其实不是那么好的一个想法？也许吧。但我不这么认为。要开始一个游戏项目，我们需要的不仅仅是一个普普通通的好主意，我们需要是当下最好的主意。一个可以给我们提供能量、激情和动力的超级好主意。但是随着项目的发展，我们需要照顾到整棵树的生长，而不仅仅是最漂亮的树枝。因此我们必须鼓起勇气来放下一些“最好的想法”。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

When my friends and I sat down to plan out the theme of our video game Alkanaur, we stumbled upon an exciting, fresh idea. What if the Greek and Roman cultures never died out and stuck around until the Industrial Revolution? And what if their distinct ideologies (at least according to pop culture) caused a civil war of sorts? A civil war that would impact the gods themselves? As far as we knew, these thematic questions were unique. And the Greek and Roman influences would stand out among other tactical RPGs—our chosen genre.

It was a great idea. But ultimately we made the best decision possible for that idea—we ditched it.

Prune isn’t a sexy word. But without proper pruning, some trees and bushes will never reach their full potential. Likewise, even the best ideas may need some pruning. Every creative process involves morethan one great idea, one perfect plot line, one remarkable riff, or one beautiful brushstroke. If you allow one idea to take over your entire project, it might choke out the other branches.

In some ways, the whole pruning process seems a bit unfair—the branches that do the most growing also end up getting the most chopping. However, imbalanced growth in a tree might result in a devastating collapse later in the tree’s life. Similarly, we also started to see imbalance in our project, even though we enjoyed seeing that “branch” on our tree and imagining the fruits it would bear.

As we continued to work on our indie game over the next couple years, we avoided pruning as long as we could. We loved the idea of fusing Greek and Roman culture with a steampunk aesthetic, but ultimately the task was beyond our resources as a small team. Marble pillars and metal gears don’t mix. We had early concept art and a few solid ideas, but we could also tell that a fully realized world would require a Herculean effort. A more experienced team with a legion of concept artists could likely figure out a great way to believably blend the two concepts. However, our primary focus was to make sure our art looked good, stayed consistent, and remained affordable.

But we could leave behind the art stuff and still keep the other worldbuilding concepts, right? A normal steampunk setting that still uses the Greek and Roman mythos? We tried. After all, with tons of centuries under their belt, the Greek and Roman empires would probably appear quite a bit different. Maybe they would grow tired of all those columns and chariots. While the idea of pitting Greek myths and ideology against Roman myths and ideology was a great design constraint as I molded the world of Alkanaur, that constraint became less and less helpful.

At one point I sat on a park bench, looking through my copious, unorganized notes and trying to connect each of Alkanaur’s cities to a different Greek or Roman god. Poring through my notebook, I realized that many of our best ideas, which had spawned from our initial thematic questions, would still thrive on their own in a different world without Greek and Roman gods. When I cautiously brought this up to the rest of our small team, they agreed. And so Alkanaur eventually became its own world with its own gods. We had zealously and ruthlessly pruned our initial great idea entirely out of the tree.

Or had we? You won’t find steampunk centurions in our game, and you won’t find an industrialized city wholly devoted to Hermes. But Alkanaur wouldn’t even exist as it does now without the remarkable growth it experienced from that one ambitious concept. Our tree—if you’ll pardon me for the obnoxiously extended metaphor—grew around that branch even as we (reluctantly) pruned it bit by bit. I’m sure if anyone pays close attention to our finished project, they’ll find frequent evidences of that first big idea.

Did all that pruning indicate that our initial idea wasn’t that great after all? Perhaps. But I don’t think so. To get started on our video game, we needed more than a good idea—we needed the best idea available at the time. That gave us the energy and excitement we needed to gain momentum on our project. But as the project grew, we needed to be brave enough to take care of the whole tree and not just the best-looking branch. （Source：gamasutra.com ）