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开发者谈《殡葬师的故事》是如何在游戏中诠释死亡的

发布时间:2018-05-11 09:01:47 Tags:,,

开发者谈《殡葬师的故事》是如何在游戏中诠释死亡的

原作者:John Harris 译者:Willow Wu

死亡在游戏中是非常普遍的, 但是很多游戏的死亡都是虚幻的,不会让我们联想到现实世界的死亡,更不会让我们想到人终有一死。从街机时代开始,游戏中就有了复活机制,大肆杀敌已经成了游戏界的常见设定,《神秘海域4》甚至还恶搞似地给玩家赠送了千人杀成就。

然而,Laundry Bear Games的第一个游戏《殡葬师的故事》( A Mortician’s Tale)对死亡这个主题有不同的表现方式。这是一个小型的剧情游戏,场景设定在一家殡仪馆,主角是一名殡葬师,玩家可以从这个独特而又深刻的视角来直面死亡。

Gamasutra有幸邀请到了游戏的设计师和主要开发人员Gabby DaRienzo来进行一场直播访谈。她和我们谈到了游戏中对死亡的解读、游戏本身的开发过程以及独立游戏开发者们能从这个游戏中学到什么,让小众游戏获得成功。

A Mortician s Tale(fromgamasutra.com)

A Mortician s Tale(fromgamasutra.com)

Bryant Francis——Gamasutra编辑

Alex Wawros——Gamasutra编辑

Gabby DaRienzo——Laundry Bear Games的合伙创始人、游戏设计师&主要开发人员

死亡可以是令人反胃的

Wawro:我之前在读Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,这本书还有《殡葬师的故事》这个游戏将一些人们避讳的话题搬上台面——至少在美国,我没见过谁会主动谈论这些事情。我觉得很新鲜,我从没想过人死了之后会发生什么。但是这些内容太令人疯狂了,游戏中的各种处理方法令人惊奇、反胃,但又给人一种意外的美感……游戏的核心机制之一就是让玩家经历这些仪式,清理、擦拭、按摩逝者。我想问,你们是怎么把握这个度的?根据书里面的描写,有些过程真的是挺令人想吐的。

DaRienzo:是的。

Wawro:但是目前为止,游戏给我的感觉是很引人深思,而且还有点美,完全不觉得瘆人或者是恶心。因此,我想知道你们是如何确定游戏的现实还原度。

DaRienzo:《殡葬师的故事》归根结底还是个游戏,这点要意识到。如何鼓励玩家接触这些内容、掌握好还原度和玩家舒适度是非常关键的。其中很多细节问题,不能就查查书,任凭自己想象,然后就开始着手设计。

游戏的大部分内容我们都做了调整,其中一种办法就是利用艺术手法——正如你们所见,游戏的主色调是紫色。这在一定程度上是借鉴了我几年前做的一个游戏原型,它并没有多少色彩。游戏真的“非常紫”,我很喜欢这种艺术感,想让整个游戏都充斥着这种感觉,它和游戏的忧郁但并不绝望的氛围相搭。

单色调也能掩盖很多会引起玩家不适的内容。尸体没有用病态的颜色来呈现,也不会出现血或者是内脏或者是任何液体。我们也调整了人物的比例,所以他们的头会看起来比较大。虽然变化不是很大,但足以让我们避开“恐怖谷陷阱”(角色与真人相似到一定程度的时候,玩家会对游戏人物产生其反感)。处理一个跟真人外表差不多的尸体和处理一个偏卡通风格的尸体感觉是完全不一样的。

这种平衡还表现在游戏的其它部分,就比如游戏的音效,我们的音效设计师处理得相当出色。她非常愿意倾听,为游戏做大量的研究,接受了一大堆令人不适的内容。我们把游戏展现给一些殡葬业人士,他们都表示十分喜欢。游戏中的很多音效都很棒,有些会处理得比较卡通化。有很多声音其实是会比较恶心的,但是音效师处理得非常好,减轻了这种令人不适的感觉。

Wawro:对,整个游戏给我的感觉就是这样,非常卡通化,让人满足。就比如插套管针那里,能让人有种奇怪的满足感。操作也很简单,我挺欣赏这种设计的。我很好奇,在开发过程中你们有没有做过头了然后再调回来的?

DaRienzo:有少数是这样的。我们之前有讨论过游戏中要不要出现孩童遗体,这是我们必须谈的话题。但是团队中没人有过失去孩子的经历,所以我们觉得这部分不太适合继续研究下去,于是就没有在游戏中加入。

除此之外,在尸体准备部分原来还有些更令人反胃的内容。我尝试着划定一条分界线,想尽可能地展示出更多的内容,但是有些特定的东西是不能展现出来的。就比如说,Smoke Gets In Your Eyes书中有讲到一个环节,要给遗体穿上尿布,这样尸体才不会“漏水”。我们就觉得……不能把这个加入到游戏中。我们不能牺牲游戏的舒适感,尿布无疑会产生反作用。

给小众独立游戏定价

Francis:之前有人提出一个问题:这是一个独特而有意思的游戏,但流程有点短。我花费的时间大概是1小时20分钟,而且尽量把所有东西都看全了,而你们给游戏的定价是15美元。在决定了这就是你们想做的游戏,而且要通过线上游戏商店销售之后,你们是如何达成一致决定要标价15美元的?要如何向那些对游戏感兴趣的玩家推销?

DaRienzo:我们在这些事项上讨论了很多。我不同意根据游戏流程长短来定价,并不是说这个游戏只要几个小时就能玩完了,所以它就只值一美元。我们在《殡葬师的故事》上花了很多时间、精力,它完全值得更高的价格,15美元并不是不合理的。有些玩家确实会觉得太贵了,但目前看来还是支持游戏的玩家占大多数,

价格并没有成为玩家的阻碍。目前在Steam上有30人不喜欢这个游戏,但这跟价格没关系,而是因为这个流程短、由剧情主导的游戏包含了女权以及女同性恋。我觉得总是会有那么一些人因为某些荒唐的理由给你的游戏差评。回顾我们对这个项目所付出的心血,我想15美元对游戏来说还是挺值的吧。我不知道还能怎么证明,我觉得也没有那个必要。

有很多流程不长的剧情主导游戏给自己标了个低价,我觉得游戏开发者不能轻视自己所付出的努力。如果有玩家觉得这个价格不合理,那我只能表示抱歉了。

Francis:是啊,游戏评价都挺积极的,这就证明了你们在游戏中所达到的这种平衡是很多开发者都需要学习的。我们采访过很多不同的独立开发者和多人团队,关于定价大家都有很多不同的看法。唯一的共同点是他们都觉得自己游戏的标价可以再低一点,但由于生活所迫,他们又在自己认为最合适的价格基础上又提高了一点。

Wawro:是啊,这种情况总是不可避免的。游戏是一款产品,还是开发者的一种表达方式?答案是二者都有。无论你的游戏最终会更倾向于哪边,另一边的受众总是会有意见——比如有人会说这款游戏性价比太低,或者说这游戏还称不上是艺术品。

独立游戏的商业成果

Wawro:我想谈谈游戏的商业方面表现。独立游戏大灾变(Indiepocalypse)来了又走,走了又来,到现在也依然持续着这种状况。我们从开发者那边听到的是现在的生存环境真艰难,这是个非传统游戏,它在Steam上架,你们对这个游戏有什么期望吗?目前表现如何?

DaRienzo:它已经大大超出了我们的预期。关于游戏的销量,我们在之前就有谈过了。我们有一个月目标,然而游戏发行仅一天销量就超过了目标的一倍不止。我们之前不期望有人会喜欢这个游戏,我们清楚这个游戏太小众了,它是个剧情游戏而且流程不长。但对游戏感兴趣的玩家人数远远超出了我们的预期。

好像是两天之后,也就是我们发行这款游戏的两天后,我们收到了很多积极反馈,而且每一条都写得很棒,邮件、评论多到看不过来。

Wawro:都是好消息啊。

DaRienzo:人们喜欢我们的游戏,这非常好,销售方面也表现得不错。

Wawro:真是棒极了,要讨论这样的游戏并不是一件容易的事。显然你们做这个游戏也不仅仅是为了让工作室能够顺利运转下去,这是一款注入了信念、认认真真做出来的好游戏。游戏的收入也足以满足你们的生活基本需求。有些开发者们也想着做自己的项目,你认为为什么游戏能再发行几天后就获得这么好的成绩?

DaRienzo:我觉得很有必要要说到Ontario Arts Council。我们很幸运能够生活在这么一个乐于为艺术提供资金支持的地方。我们确实有得到帮助,钱不是特别多,但足以解决合作所需的资金问题。有了这笔资金,我们就不用再次抵押房子了。Ontario Arts Council对我们很重要,必须要提出来让大家知道。

至于建议,我能给出的最好建议就是面对这行业要抱着切实的态度。有些事情是没办法计划的,或许这听起来有点令人沮丧,但有人跟我这么说过:你要降低你的期待值,学会接受。合理规划时间、金钱是很重要的。认清市场,明白你的游戏所在的市场怎样的,但我认为最终还是要归结于运气。我讲的这些东西似乎起不到鼓励的作用啊。抱歉啦!

Wawro:不不,没必要觉得抱歉!

游戏中的安息

DaRienzo:我之前也跟别的开发者讨论过游戏中的死亡,得到了很多不同的看法。我当时就觉得这个话题挺有意思的,打算继续探讨下去。

Wawro:没有人谈过这个话题。你在游戏中死了,然后重头开始,或者读取存档,或者还有其它的方式。你觉得还有哪些游戏对于对死亡这个概念有独特的诠释方法?

DaRienzo:很多啊!就近期游戏来说的话,What Remains of Edith Finch。

Francis:这游戏真的非常棒!

DaRienzo:是的,特别出色。

DaRienzo:游戏的作者Kaitlin Tremblay之前跟我们说了很多想法,非常酷。我觉得Night In The Woods对死亡的解读也挺有意思的。游戏中的死亡并不是字面意义上的,指的是一个小镇的衰败。Guacamelee的开发团队在2016年发行了一款名为Severed的游戏,也是一款不错的游戏。它把传统游戏机制做了更改,对死亡稍加了一点“积极正面”的感觉。

主角的目的就是找到家人的尸体。在每个关卡中,玩家需要找到过去所爱的人,给他们举办一个体面的葬礼。你在《塞尔达》中也能遇到类似的设定——玩家进入地牢寻找宝藏,而所谓的宝藏就是主角的兄弟。Severed并没有什么大团圆的结局,只是安葬家人,整个游戏过程是一场悲伤之旅。

以上提到的游戏是我当下想到的,当然还有很多游戏对死亡以及悲伤有独到的诠释方法。

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Death is ubiquitous in games, but it’s far removed from the every day reality of death, and the fact that we’re all going to die someday. Players have been racking up extra lives since the arcade era, and mass murdering enemies is so commonplace in games that Uncharted 4 gave a tongue-in-cheek trophy for your thousandth kill.

Laundry Bear Games’ first release A Mortician’s Tale takes a different tack. It’s a small narrative game set in a funeral home that presents players with a view on death from the perspective of a character deeply entwined with its effect, but not so much with its victims.

Gamasutra had the pleasure of talking to designer and lead developer Gabby DaRienzo about making the game in a recent Twitch stream. She talked to us about the game’s message about death, as well as about the game’s development, and what other indies hoping to find success with niche games can learn from A Mortician’s Tale.

We’ve transcribed some of the more interesting passages of the conversation below.

You can watch the stream embedded above, or click here to see it. And for more developer insights, editor roundtables and gameplay commentary, be sure to follow the Gamasutra Twitch channel.

STREAM PARTICIPANTS:

Bryant Francis – editor at Gamasutra

Alex Wawro – editor at Gamasutra

Gabby DaRienzo – co-founder of Laundry Bear Games, designer and lead developer of A Mortician’s Tale

Death can be gross

Wawro: I was reading this book (Smoke Gets In Your Eyes), and the thing about it and this game is, it opens up something that is very taboo and not talked about at Aall, at least here in America in my experience, and I was fascinated, I never thought to ask: “What happens after you die?” But it’s crazy. It’s marvelous and gross and beautiful in all kinds of measures. In this game that seems to be one of the core components, letting players go through the ritual, of cleaning and rubbing and scrubbing. This is going to sound weird, but how did you know where to set the bar on that? Because in the book, it can be real gross.

DaRienzo: Oh yeah.

Wawro: But the game so far has been really meditative and kind of beautiful and not at all icky or gross. So, I kind of wanted to know how you decided how far to go with that?

DaRienzo: I think, with the game, and understanding that it is a game, and encouraging players to interact with this stuff directly, it’s really important for us to find the correct amount of accuracy versus comfort. It’s very different to read about a thing, and imagine it, and directly interact with a dead body, like you are right now. There’s a lot of things we did to try to find that balance, and I think we did an “okay” job at it? (laughs)

One of the things is the art, which as you can see is very purple. Part of that was inspired by the prototype I made a couple of years ago in Pico8, which has a very limited palette. It was really purple-y, and I really liked that aesthetic and wanted to bring that over to the full game. It matches the melancholy-yet-hopeful vibes we’re bringing to it.

This monochromatic-ist color scheme also masks a lot of really gross things in the game. The body is not jaundiced, there’s not any blood or guts or any kind of bodily fluids. We also distorted the people a bit, so their heads are a little big bigger. Not by much, they still are people, but they’re distorted enough that we break any kind of uncanny valley vibes we’re getting. It’s very different to work on a body that looks like you than one that’s a bit more cartoony.

That kind of balance we’ve also extended to quite a few things. Our sound designer did a good job at finding that balance, she was really comfortable with listening and doing lots of research for the game, and listening to really gross stuff. You don’t have the sound on, but the embalming machine, every mortician that we’ve shown the game to says “You nailed it,” it sounds so good. There’s a lot of sounds that sound really good, but some are more cartoony and satisfying. It’s well done in a way that’s not too gross, there are a lot of sounds that could be gross, but she did a good job of making it not too bad.

Wawro: Yeah, that’s exactly the word I would have used as I was playing through it, it’s very animated and cartoony, it’s very satisfying, like jabbing with the trocar, it’s very satisfying in a strange way. Pop it in, pop it out, stuff comes out, it’s very approachable in a way I appreciated. I was wondering if you had set the bar farther than that, then taken it back during development?

DaRienzo: There are a few things, yeah. We had talked about having children in the game. It was something we felt we had to talk about, and be honest about it. But at the same time, none of us on the team have had the experience of losing a child, so we didn’t feel like it was appropriate for us to explore that so we decided to take that out.

Another thing, there are some grosser procedures when it comes time to preparing the body for burial. I tried to find a line, we wanted to show as much as we can, but there are certain things we can’t show. One of the things, I think it’s in (Smoke Gets In Your Eyes), it’s talking about putting diapers on people so their bodies don’t leak. And so we were like, there was no way that we could do that, there are certain stores we can’t bring this to. There’s a certain level of comfort that we need to aim for, and as soon as we bring in diapers we lose that.

Pricing a niche indie title

Francis: There was a question earlier. This is an interesting, a different kind of game to sell on Steam. It’s kind of short, I’m actually doing my best not to run through the whole thing here. It’s about an hour and 20 minutes, and you’re selling it for 15 dollars. Once you realized that this was the game you wanted to make, and that you wanted to sell it through traditional online game marketplaces, how did you arrive at the decision to sell at this price, and how did you figure out how to market it to people who’d want to buy this game?

DaRienzo: We talked about this a lot. I don’t like the idea of pricing your short games low, that idea of, like, “It’s only a couple of hours long, it should be a dollar.” We put a lot of time, effort and craft into A Mortician’s Tale, and I think it deserves to be at a larger price point. I don’t think $15 is an unfair price-point for what the game is, and for how long it is. Some people have been very upset by that, but overall so far it has been overwhelmingly positive. In every piece of media and press, 99% of feedback we’ve gotten has been positive.

This price point has not detered anyone from playing it. There are 30 people on Steam who are unhappy about it, but those people would be unhappy no matter what the price point is, because it is a short, narrative-driven game that has feminism and lesbians in it, and I think that some people are always going to be unhappy with what you make. So we looked at this game, we looked at how much effort we put into it, and we thought $15 was a good price for this game. I don’t know how else to justify it, and I don’t think I should.

There’s so many short narrative games that come out that price themselves way too low, and I think, as game developers, we need to value our hard work, and value what we do. I’m sorry if a person in chat is upset about the price point, but that’s where we landed on that decision.

Francis: Yeah, I think those comments are good, that standing up for yourself and the work you put into a game is something a lot of developers have to balance. We’ve talked to a lot of one-man teams and multi-person teams throughout the year about how they priced their games, and I don’t think we’ve gotten a consistent answer all year. The only consistency is, they thought it should be lower, then they ticked it up a bit so that they could eat.

Wawro: Yeah, we’re going to walk this line to the end of time. Are they products or are they works of expression, and they’re both. No matter which side your game ends up leaning on, you’re going to hear from people on the other side who’ll say this isn’t a well-priced product for me, or this isn’t enough of an artistic statement for me.

Indie business results

Wawro: I want to jump back to the business of putting this game out. It’s 2017, the Indiepocalypse has come, and gone, and come and gone again, and is still going on, but everything we hear from devs is that it’s real rough out there, right now, to put a game out, and I wanted to get your take on this this has been. This is a non-traditional game, it’s out on Steam with everything else, what are your expectations for this at all, how well has it done so far?

DaRienzo: It has exceed our expectations, by a lot. We had a conversation about what numbers we were expecting, in terms of sales. We had a month goal, what we expected to make in the first month, and we more than doubled it in the first day. We didn’t expect anyone to like this game, we knew it’s super niche, we knew it’s a narrative game and that it’s short. But the amount of people who were interested in it just exceeded our expectations.

It’s been like two days… it’s been two days since we put this game out, and again we’ve had lots of positive press, and every single piece of press we’ve seen so far has been really wonderful. We’ve gotten a lot of messages from people, emails and comments, overwhelmingly into… unless you’re talking about money-wise. (laughs)

Wawro: Both are good to hear about.

DaRienzo: It’s nice that people like the game, is what I’m trying to say, but it’s also nice that we’re doing okay sales-wise too.

Wawro: That’s fantastic. It can be tricky to have these conversations with a game like this. Clearly you didn’t just make it to keep the business going, this is clearly something you guys believe a lot in, that you took very seriously and that you put a lot of yourselves into. But it’s also good to be able to eat, pay rent and pay your collaborators. For fellow devs out there who might be thinking about doing their own projects, as you look back now, after only a handful of days after releasing this, what do you think helped this do as well as it has done?

DaRienzo: I think it’s really important for me to bring up Ontario Arts Council. We’re really privledged to live in a country, in a province, that has really good art funding. So we did receive, it wasn’t a ton, but we did receive a little bit of funding which helped us pay our collaborators. So that was a bit thing, I thought it was really important for me to point that out. We didn’t have to remortgage our houses to make this game. So that put us at a great advantage.

I think the biggest advice that I can give is, you can’t plan for this kind of stuff, all right? It sounds depressing, but I think someone in the chat said, this, you gotta lower your expectations, that anything good that happens is good. It’s such a depressing thing to say, but I think it’s important to be realistic about this industry. I think it’s really important to come into it with a really good plan for how you’re spending your time and money. I think it’s really good to be aware of what the market is when you release and you’re working on it, but I think ultimately it comes down to luck. I don’t think I’m saying anything positive or motivating. I’m sorry!

Wawro: (laughs) No no no, don’t be!

Good Death in Games

DaRienzo: I was having conversations with other game developers about death in games, and it was kind of neat to hear about how different their feeling were about it. And I was like, obviously this is a subject I’m interested in, I’m going to interview people about this. That’s kind of where it came from. I don’t know what else to say, clearly I’m a fan of death in games. It’s a topic I’m into.

Wawro: It’s fascinating because no one talks about it. It just is. You die in video games and it starts over, or you load a checkpoint, or whatever. What other developers have done an interesting thing with the concept of death, that you appreciate or that you think is fascinating?

DaRienzo: Oh god, there’s so many. Just recently? What Remains of Edith Finch.

Francis: That’s so good!

DaRienzo: So good.

DaRienzo: Kaitlin Tremblay, who’s the writer, I think she’s in chat, talked about it a bunch. It was really cool. I think Night In The Woods did a really good job. It’s not as explicit there but they deal with the topic of a community dying really well. I think Severed is a really good game, they guys who made Guacamelee made a game called Severed last year. It does an amazing job of taking traditional games mechanics and flipping it on its head to make it a bit more death-positive.

The goal of the game is to find the bodies of your family. At the very end of the game the goal is–I guess I’m kind of spoiling it? It’s in the trailer. The goal of Severed is to find your loved ones so you can give them a proper burial. It’s using mechanics that you would find in Zelda, you’re going through dungeons to get the treasure, but the treasure is just your brother. And at the end there’s no “everyone’s magically better and everyone’s alive!” No, you’re just able to give them a proper burial, and the process of the game is like the process of grief.

I could go on, there are so many games that do good thing with death and grief, but those are a couple that spring to mind.(source:gamasutra.com


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