开发者从几款游戏的设计角度谈游戏不应该只有乐趣

原作者：Thais Weiller 译者：Willow Wu

“电子游戏应该是有趣的”

听到这种说法，我们只能互相拍拍背表示理解。我想起了井字游戏、鸭鸭鹅，回忆起我们玩耍时的那种简单快乐时光。旧时的这些小娱乐真是令人怀念。

随着年龄的增长，市面上的游戏发生了很大变化，但其有趣的本质没有消失，这就是我们继续玩下去的原因。对于我们这群投入大量时间研究这些有趣实体的人，游戏开发就成为了一种职业选择。

我们带着许多疑惑进入这个圈子，面对科技、同行甚至是我们自己的创作有时会不知所措。而当我们把自己沉浸在游戏的极乐世界中，疑虑就会慢慢消失。我们一开始的时候并不会问为什么要选择这个行业，不是吗？这一切再清楚不过了，就跟我们从来都不会质疑伟大的圣经一样。

乐趣，这就是我们开发游戏的原因，不是吗？让人们脑内的内啡肽活跃起来。

说实在的，真的是这样吗？

如果从众多被认为是游戏和电子游戏相关的学术研究来看的话，答案是肯定的。所有研究玩家沉浸的理论都聚焦在乐趣或其它积极情绪上，这些都是玩家的动力来源。无论是Koster的乐趣理论，或者是Nick Yee的游戏动机理论都是基于玩家的积极反馈。

所有的这些研究都可以被总结为行为心理学的正面强化。如果实验对象在做某件事的时候受到了积极刺激，重复多次后，行为和积极刺激就会融合在一起。到最后即使没有刺激，行为本身也会被视为奖励。

比如，当你移动角色去与一个黄色的球形物体碰撞时，我们播放一个悦耳的声音，给你加分数，这个声音迟早会变成正面的。同样的道理，如果在不好的事情发生时播放刺耳声音，那么它最终会和不好的感觉联系在一起。

强化是核心循环概念的基础，也是我们每天在谈论游戏设计时不可或缺的内容之一。

这些核心循环是游戏中最常用的一组连续行动。根据游戏的不同，行动也会发生变化。比如，在三消游戏中，玩家的行动就是移动单位，奖励要取决于具体的游戏，但是通常的玩法都是摧毁相同的单位。大多数游戏都不会对玩家的失误加以惩罚，但可能会有间接性的惩罚，比如限制行动或者是计时器，所以走错一步玩家可能就会失去行动机会或者是时间。

animal crossing(from theguardian)

关于基于奖励的正面强化，无论是应用过程还是结果分析，行为科学能起到非常有效的帮助作用。

但是科学并不是人类知识的公正旁观者。科学是由问题驱动的，我们倾向于对自己更了解的领域提出疑问。1930年代Huizinga游戏理论的出现并非偶然，奥运会逐渐成为了一种文化（政治）现象，因此游戏和运动的社会地位飞速提升。我们花更多时间学习和情绪、盈利相关的内容，例如正面强化引起的上瘾，这也不是偶然。

自从上世纪70年代末电子游戏成为娱乐商业的一员以来，游戏就与乐趣&享受联系在一起。最初游戏针对的是儿童，实体化产品就是家用游戏机，或者是酒吧里的投币游戏机供人们消遣——也就是后来街机。

寻找所有的感觉

但当下早已过了电子游戏萌芽的阶段。现在的电子游戏是一个蓬勃发展的产业，只要能上网就能玩得到。

作为一种全新的媒体，游戏能够也应该激发出人类的各种情绪和反应，引起不同国家、地区玩家的共鸣。然而，电子游戏在最初被打上的趣味体验标签直到今天都很难摆脱。

人并不是只有一种心理状态，还有悲伤、愧疚、冷漠、痛苦、后悔、焦虑等等，它们在电子游戏中有容身之处吗？

有些游戏已经用引人入胜的方式展现了负面情绪，我个人建议这些游戏应归为一个新的类型。

苦涩的结局

当一款游戏在最后阶段呈现的是消极情绪时，它便会依赖于已建立的正面强化游戏机制。一般来说，这些消极情绪都属于剧情转折，意味着与其关系更密切的是游戏内容而不是玩法。《时空幻境》就是一个例子，玩家们一直把拯救公主当成是终极目标，直到结局才发现公主其实并不想被拯救，至少是不想被主角拯救。你是她眼中的恶人，完全不想有接触，惊喜吧？

还有很多很多游戏也是这样的设计，我就不剧透了。

意外的苦涩

对于游戏中的某些特别场景，设计师有时需要重点表现紧张或者是危险的内容。游戏的主要机制和游戏玩法都按计划设计得十分有趣，让玩家沉浸其中。然而，到了游戏的某个特殊时刻或者场景，机制发生大转变，促使玩家感受到主角的痛苦，或者是加强情节的渲染效果。

就比如《合金装备》中的折磨场景，玩家的行动受到限制，反映了Snake的危险境地。这一限制跟游戏的整体玩法相悖，无论是之前还是之后，但它的存在只是为了向玩家传达Snake的痛苦。玩家不再是旁观者，他们成为了《日内瓦公约》破裂的受害者。

出其不意或者戏剧性的悲苦情节可以有效地让玩家聚焦这个特殊时刻，而且风险不会很高，因为主线体验并不会受到破坏。

苦乐参半

苦乐参半指的是玩家在游戏时会感受到负面情绪，但他们还是会沉浸在游戏中。这个平衡工作不好做，尤其是在相关学术研究、实际应用例子都很少的情况下。

然而，有些游戏确实树立了典型。

1.《请出示文件》（Papers, Please）——玩家每天都要决定一堆申请人的命运，这会让玩家产生各种不同的情绪。尽管机制很有意思，但每个申请人的背景叙述和希望会对玩家的决策产生关键影响。除此之外，在每天工作结束后，玩家要面对决策所带来的后续影响，不仅是家庭层面（分数界面），还有国家（从报纸新闻和上司的警告可以得知）。简单的机制结合压抑的游戏氛围以及困难的道德选择，游戏的深度就是这么来的。

2.《这是我的战争》（This War of Mine）——损失规避机制不断在提醒玩家当前的紧迫情况以及资源的短缺。

3.《亲爱的请将我埋葬》（Bury me, my love）——虽然机制非常简单，只是在模拟两个人的短信交流，但是游戏的主题和剧情让玩家一直很牵挂。玩家的角色是丈夫，和妻子居住在叙利亚（内战时期），两个人一直在存钱，盼望有天能远离战争。但是受战乱影响，叙利亚通货膨胀严重，于是两个人决定先让妻子Nour踏上前往欧洲的旅程。在遇到选择困境时，Nour总会询问你的意见，因为她相信的你的判断，但有时她也会坚持自己的选择。你们会分享彼此的日常。结局无疑是令人心痛的，但玩家还是会被二人的羁绊打动。

4.《焦虑》（Dys4ia）——Anna Anthropy把她每天的挫折和作为一个局外人的感受通过一系列令人不安但有趣的机制展现出来。尽管这个游戏不能让玩家完全体验跨性别人的社会生活，但至少大家能有一个较为客观的初步了解。

机制设计和剧情促成苦乐参半的游戏结局，然而核心循环才是一切的关键。

从多个角度切入这些具有争议性的复杂话题（例如道德选择和社会问题）能增加游戏循环的深度，但如果游戏本身就缺少苦乐参半的核心循环，那你无法表现出这类游戏的精髓所在——也就是多重意义。

以后，我们再分别展开讨论。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

“Videogames are supposed to be fun”

We pat ourselves in the back in understanding. Finally, some good old sense was spurred in this mad conversation. Tic tac toe comes to mind, duck duck goose, remembrances of the simpler times when we discovered ourselves playing. What a joyous distraction these days were.

As we grew older, the games we played changed in character and risk, but one thing keeps us going, something amusing and gleeful. Something we learned to identify as fun. And, for those of us devoted enough to this entity of fun, it became our trade of choice.

We enter this activity with many doubts, bewildered by the tech, by our peers or even by our own creations. The doubts fade when we immerse ourselves in this playful bliss, drip by drip. We never question why we engage it in the first place, do we? That’s all too clear, questioning that would be equal to query the truthiness of our holy scriptures.

Fun.

That’s why we create games, right? To create that lovely, lovely endorphin rush.

In all seriousness, are they?

If you take into consideration most of what is considered as academic research on games and videogames, definitely. All theories researching the players’ engagement focus on fun or other positive emotions, which motivate the player to go on. Theory of fun, from Koster, or even Nick Yee’s Motivation of Play, are all based on the positive feedback players encounter in games.

All these researches can be summarized in behavioral psychology’ positive reinforcement. If the subject receives a positive stimulus while doing the action, both things become intertwined to a point when the action itself becomes the reward, even without the stimulus.

If, when you move your avatar to collide to with a yellow spherical object, we give you imaginary points and play a pleasant sounding effect, sooner or later the sound itself becomes positive. In the same way, if a not so pleasant sound plays every time something not so good happens, the sound itself becomes entangled with bad feelings.

Reinforcement is the basis of the core loop concept that we use on an everyday basis to talk about game design. The core loop is the single, most used sequence of actions done in a game. This is the essence of a game core loop:

Depending on the game, the actions change. For instance, in a match-three game, the action would be moving the pieces, the result would be forming a block or not, the reward depends on the game but generally involves the blog of similar pieces being destroyed. Most of these games don’t have harsh punishments for error, but they might have an indirect punishment such as having an action limit or a timer, thus a wrong move makes the player lose an action or time.

Behaviour science is very advanced in the of the use and results of reward-based reinforcement.

But science is not an impartial bystander of human knowledge. Science is question-driven and we tend the ask the questions on subjects we are more aware of. It is not by chance Huizinga study appeared in the 1930′s, when the Olympics was becoming a cultural (and political) phenomenon, making games and sports status on society skyrocket. It is also not by chance that we study more frequently pleasant and profitable (as in: addiction caused by positive reinforcement) areas.

Since the commercial establishment of videogames as entertainment, in the late 1970s, games are associated with fun and enjoyment. That’s a reminiscence of their origins, being first targeted at children as home consoles or as a bar pastime as penny-operated machines later called arcades.

Finding the feels (all of them)

But we are way past these days of introduction. Videogames are a thriving industry, on the reach of every human on this planet that has any access to the internet.

As a whole new medium, games can and should provoke all rage of human emotions and reactions and question the boundaries of its language in every opportunity. And yet, videogames started as fun experiences and it is hard to break through this stigma.

But human psyche is much more than a bunch and happy experiences, how about sadness, guilt, apathy, grief, sorrow, regret or angst? Do they have a place in videogames?

Some games have already portrayed negative feelings in compelling ways, ways which I propose a new categorization.

Bitter Ending

That’s when a game presents negative feelings towards the end while relying on established positive reinforcing game mechanics. Generally, these negative feelings are a plot-twist, which means they are much more content related than gameplay related. Braid is an example of this structure, the player is lead to believe they are progressing toward saving the princess, realizing only in the end that the princess does not want to be saved (at least, not by the protagonist). You are the creep she wants to get away from, boo hoo.

There are many many other games that do that, but I don’t want to give you spoilers if you haven’t played them. If you don’t mind, here is a handy list of some of them.

Surprise Bitterness

That’s when designers want to highlight the tense or dangerous content of a particular moment in a game. The main mechanics and gameplay are crafted as pleasant and engaging as intended throughout the game. However, in a particular moment or space in the game, mechanics are subverted to force the player to feel the protagonist’s distress or the thickening of the plot.

For instance, on the torture scene in Metal Gear Solid when the player’s movements are restricted, conveying Snake’s precarious situation. This restriction is an opposition to the whole gameplay, before and after, and exists solely to convey Snake’s distress to the player. The player is no longer a bystander, they are part and victim of this break on the Geneva convention.

Surprise ou dramatic bitterness is a very effective way to draw player’s attention to this particular moment in the game while not being too risky since the main is intact through the game.

BitterSweet

Bittersweet is when the game can make the player feel negative feelings while they are engaged in the game itself. This is not an easy balancing to do, especially since we have so little studies around it and only a few games to use as examples.

Some games, however, do this seamlessly.

·Papers, Please – The player has to decide the fate of many applicants in every game-day. This involves mixed feelings because while the mechanic is compelling and interesting, the context of each applicant’s narrative and hopes weights in the player decision. Also, at the end of every game-day, the player is faced with the impact of their choices both in his family (“score” screen) and country (newspaper and warnings from their bosses) contexts. Complex gameplay emerges from a simple mechanic interweaved with very negative context and difficult moral choices.
·This War of Mine – The loss aversion mechanic in This War of Mine that constantly reminds the player of the scarcity and seriousness of the characters’ situation.
·Bury me, my love – Though it uses a very simple mechanic of emulating a chat between two people, the themes and the script take the player to the next step of caring. You and your partner live in Syria (yes, civil war Syria) and you two together have been saving money to get away from the conflict. Since you what you put together is not that much and in economies razed by war things tend to cost more than they should, you two decide it is better to Nour, your partner, to go alone. Nour is making her journey, but she trusts your judgment and will always ask your opinion when she comes upon a crossroad. She will not always follow your judgment but she always check-in to know what you have been up to. The result is both gut-wrenching and heartwarming.
·Dys4ia – Anna Anthropy took her everyday frustrations and the feeling of being an outsider and displayed in a series of discomforting and yet interesting mechanics. Though this game will not give the player the full experience of what it means to be a transgender woman in our society, it is a fair introduction.
·Rainy Day – I don’t feel like talking about this game again, please refer to this text.

Both design and content are used in these games to achieve the bittersweet result, however, the core loop is the basis of everything.

Approaching dubious and compounded themes (such as moral dilemmas or social situations) in a multifaceted way adds to the complexity of the loop, but without the bittersweet loop, you cannot achieve the ambiguity that is the heart and essence of a bittersweet game design.

Let’s talk about each these areas separately, in a future text.

（source:gamasutra.com ）