原文作者：Max Pears  译者：Megan Shieh

游戏核心体验指的是开发者意图传递给玩家的3-5种主要元素或情绪。

那么，游戏核心体验的作用是什么？为什么我们需要将游戏限制在这些范畴之内？

读者可能会回复我说：“Max，我的游戏潜力无限，我不想给它设置限制。”

那么我可以告诉你，设置限制是为了保持游戏的连贯性。

游戏开发的过程中，如果你什么都想要，什么都想做，那么做出来的成品就可能会像一盘散沙——玩家找不到你的核心，你计划构建的这些元素或情绪也只会呈现一般水准。

此外，游戏核心体验能够帮助全体开发人员理解游戏的整体构想。即使处于游戏的制作阶段，部分开发者还是会不可避免地‘偏航’。有了明确的方向，游戏开发会变得更加顺畅、团队的工作会变得相对容易一些、整体工作氛围也会更加轻松！

有了这些核心体验作为参考，他们就可以问问自己，这个机制/想法是否符合我们设置的游戏核心体验？如果答案是“否”，那么最好还是尽早放弃这个机制。（我的意思不是说每个机制都必须服务于这些核心体验，你可以用‘不相关’的机制来构造不同的情绪，但是这些想法通常会在开发后期才出现。）在颠覆体验之前，开发团队可以先专注于游戏的核心元素。

下面让我们从核心核心体验方面来看看几个游戏的案例。

实例分析一：《The Last of Us》

道具合成：武器弹药稀缺，所以为了分散注意力或给敌人造成更大的伤害，最好的方法是使用游戏中的各种物品——与游戏的核心世界观一致，符合了资源稀缺这一特点。

The Last of Us(from 3dmgame.com)

剧情：《The Last of Us》是一款线性剧情游戏，该作中的所有剧情都是围绕着‘资源稀缺’这一主题而构建的，着重描写了两位主人公的故事而不是玩家自己的故事。

AI伙伴：游戏主要是关于玩家控制的主人公在旅途中与AI伙伴Ellie和其他角色建立关系的故事。

潜行：该作包含了战斗元素，不过近身快攻的战术在游戏中并不吃香，因此玩家最好是采取潜行的方式进行战斗。

如果你有玩过这款游戏的话，就会发现游戏中的大部分元素都符合了它的核心准则。各种谜题、对AI 伙伴的需求、任务中的潜行部分、剧情为王，即使是在多人游戏中，‘道具合成’也是非常重要的一环。

实例分析二：《Zelda: Breath of the Wild》

探索：《Zelda: Breath of the Wild》鼓励玩家去探索，玩家可以去到游戏世界中的每个角落（游戏邦注：完成新手教学后）。与育碧的开放世界游戏不同，本作对玩家隐藏了部分特定的信息，在屏幕上显示了多个支线任务，意思是玩家必须自己去探索并找到这些隐藏信息。

遍历：本作提供了多种传送模式，每种都很有趣。从登山、游泳、跑步、滑翔伞再到别出心裁的盾牌滑行，移动方式的多样性使得探索过程变得极其有趣。

搜寻：玩家们时常需要在游戏世界中游历，寻找特定的物品。比如武器或者食物，因为武器用过几次后会损坏，而食物则是穿越危险环境的必需品，能够用来补充生命值。

选项：本作为玩家了提供各种各样的选项。从可以用多种方案解答的谜题，到各种战斗场景，再到玩家移动的方式，等等，只要是玩家想要尝试的东西，几乎都可以实现。与其他游戏相比，这是一个决胜性优势。

战斗：我把它看作是这款游戏的次要核心体验之一。游戏中含有大量的战斗场景和敌人类型，我个人认为它的战斗系统不咋地；但无论如何，它是核心体验之一，因为这是玩家与游戏世界中的大多数生物交互的方式。

以上就是《The Last Of Us》和《Zelda: Breath of the Wild》的核心体验。设计支柱可以让开发者们集中精力去推动游戏中最精彩的部分，然后围绕这些部分来优化游戏中的其他特性。它是一款非常强大的工具，可以帮助你和你的团队保持游戏的连贯性，同时也可以引导团队成员作出更为明智的设计决策。

我建议你腾出几分钟的时间，想想你最欣赏的一两款游戏，然后分析一下它们的核心体验，看看你是否能够从中学习到一些东西，以及游戏是如何围绕着这些核心体验来展开其他丰富内容的。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

During the early stages of design, you will be working on creating/answering the question of

“What is the game?”

There are many ways to answer this but the one method I want us to focus on today in this post is the games ‘Pillars’.

Some of you may be wondering what I mean by this or may not be familiar with this term. What I mean by this term is think about the 3 – 5 main elements/emotions your game is trying to explore and make the players feel?

So why is it important to figure this out? Why do I need to limit my game to these amount of categories?
“Max, my game is going to tackle and do so many amazing things” Replied the reader.
Well sir or madam, as always I appreciate the question. The reason behind this is to keep your game coherent. If you are trying to do everything in one game then players may be getting lost or you will not be able to deliver all these elements/emotions to a high standard when you have 100s.

Another reason why is it helps all your teammates understand the overall picture of your game. Most people do not realize that even while in the production stage of the game not all the answers are there. We all wish they were trust me, it would make game dev a lot smoother. Yet giving your team these key elements to work with during the production process it allows them to make informed design decisions. Giving your teammates guidelines will make your team’s life easier and overall a happier team!

As with these pillars, they can start to ask themselves, does this mechanic/idea serve or fit into the pillars of our game? If the answer is ‘No’ then it may be best to remove this mechanic. (Now I am not saying every mechanic must serve these pillars, you can use “off topic” mechanics to create different emotions and make the player feel a way uncomfortable. Yet these ideas will come later on during development) The team can focus on the core elements of the game, before working on subverting the experience.

So now that you have an understanding of a Game Pillar let’s take a look at a few examples of games and break them down into their core pillars.

The Last of us is one of Naughty dog’s many master pieces. If you have not played it yet (then seriously why?) go and check it out.

A lot goes into making Last of Us a truly an amazing game, that so many of us enjoyed. So let’s take a look at the core pillars of this game:

Crafting: Ammo is scarce, so to distract or cause a higher amount of damage to one’s foes it is better to use items populating the world. This works in unison with the environmental story telling of how this is not many resources left in this world

Story: Last of Us is a linear game which is heavily narrative lead, they want everything to tie in with the story as mentioned with crafting. The game focuses on the story of the two main characters rather than the player’s own story.

AI partners: The game is all about building a relationship between the player’s character with the AI partner Ellie and other partners you meet throughout your journey

Stealth: Combat is used in this game, but if you were to run and gun, then the game would make your life extremely difficult. So player are encouraged to play more stealthily

As you can see (if you have played the game) that most of the game fits with these core principles. Puzzles, requiring AI help, there are stealth section in the missions, the story is king and even in multiplayer crafting is important to the players.

That is only one game, so let us break down another.

Hhhmm I have recently picked up a Switch

Which means I want to break down Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I am only just passed the tutorial but have seen a lot of videos breaking this down, (If you feel I have missed anything please Tweet me with your thoughts)

Exploration: Player are encouraged to explore, by being able to go to any area they wish whenever they wish (Once they have finished the tutorial) the designers have hidden certain information from the player compared to Ubisoft open world games, where they litter the player’s HUD with side missions. Meaning players have to look for these.

Traversal:  BoW offers so many modes of transport, each being as fun as one another. From, climbing, swimming, running, paragliding to the amazing shield surfing. Moving through this world is made into a fantastic experience through the diversity and (sorry for lack of a better word) fun of the movement in the world.

Scavenging: Players are constantly needing to go through the world and search for items. From weapons which break after a few battles, to the food players must use to regain health or help them traverse through all kind of environmental hazards.

Options: This game is praised all around for a number of options that are given to the player. From multiple ways to solve puzzles to the combat scenarios or how the player makes their way around the world. Anything the player can think of in terms of trying, the most likely will be able to do it. Compared to most games, there is no one way to solve the issues, which is laid in front of the player.

Combat: I see this as one of the lesser pillars for this game personally. Now you have loads of combat in this game and a number of enemy types but again my personal opinion is that the combat is not the most amazing combat system out there. Still, it is a pillar as this is how you interact with most creatures in the world

Those are two games broken down into their core pillars, I am hoping that you can see how using just a few pillars it has allowed the creators to focus and push the best part of their game, working around these to enhance everything. This is a great tool to bring more coherence to your game as well as a good guideline to help your teammates when working on a game of your own.

I would like to ask you to take a few mins and think about one or two of your favorite games and break them down into their key pillars. See if you learn from this, how the game actually bases a lot of its challenges around these pillars.（Source: gamasutra.com ）