在GDC大会轻松愉快的“失败作品讨论会”上，Kyle Gabler和《粘粘世界》开发者2D Boy展示工作室失败作品《Robot and the Cities that Built Him》，这款Flash游戏的主题是机器人与人类间的战争。

据Gabler所述，工作室研发游戏半年后，宣布终结游戏的开发。2D Boy比较喜欢游戏主题的创意，却没有足够的心思让游戏充满娱乐性。Gabler笑着说：“我们应该在半年前先行规划游戏的可玩性，不知道为何我们遗漏了这一点。”他向观众展示了游戏雏形，说道：“半年后，我们发现游戏的开发并没有取得任何进展，几乎仍与最初的想法相同。这已不再是我们的作品。”最后，他从此次失败中认识到，任何主题都无法挽救拙劣的想法。

《粘粘世界》取得的重大成功使他领悟到，企图向上一款游戏看齐会令开发者麻痹大意。游戏邦觉得，别费心同自己竞争，应该制作与之前成功的作品不尽相同的游戏。

PopCap高级游戏设计师George Fan是著名游戏《植物大战僵尸》的制作者，他展示了自己2001年的失败作品《Cat-Mouse Foosball》。游戏邦了解到，用设计者自己的话来说，这款兼具《疯狂小旅鼠》和《炸弹人》特点的游戏简直就是垃圾，根本不像预想的那样好玩。

Robot and the Cities that Built Him

设计出蓝本后，Fan决定放弃开发这款游戏。他说道：“游戏中的剧情太多了，这种不愉快的游戏体验让玩家的感觉很差。”只是出于本次讨论会的需要，他才重新制作了这个游戏。作品依然很烂，旁观者哄堂大笑。游戏设计相当荒谬，玩家移动类似桌上足球所用棒状物，防止2D的猫抓住2D的老鼠，保证老鼠顺利走到迷宫的终点。

虽然现在Fan可以尽情地开怀大笑，但是2001年这个失败让他极具挫败感。他说道：“我意识到游戏设计确实很烂，这让我很难过，我简直难以想象游戏的可玩性与预想相差如此之大。”事实上，就在当时，他考虑过退出游戏设计业。

当然，Fan顽强地坚持下来，并因广受喜爱的PopCap游戏《植物大战僵尸》而闻名于世。他告诉与会者要尽力冲出困难时期，他说道：“别放弃，如果你喜欢自己所做的事情，就应该坚持下来。当年，我选择从失败中吸取教训，再接再厉。别让失败阻挡你前进的步伐，因为我身上也发生过同样的事。我发觉，只有亲自玩设计出的游戏，才能体验到玩家的感觉。尽早设计出游戏的原型，因为只有亲身体验后才能了解游戏的可玩性。”

《Flashbang》开发者Matthew Wegner在讨论会上展示了工作室失败作品《Off-Road Velociraptor Safari HD》。据游戏邦了解，游戏设计玩家于丛林中驾驶吉普车碾过各种恐龙。

这款游戏是早期基于Unity的网页游戏《Off-Road Velociraptor Safari》的续作，“HD”版本原本计划设计成为单机游戏，可在Steam上下载。但是据Wegner所述，“HD”是个错误的选择。即使在名称中加入“HD”也是错误的，因为这使得玩家和出版商期望它成为高清作品。

Wegner说道：“结果证明我们对继续开发这款游戏感到反感，仅仅是普通地图上的石头，艺术总监Ben Ruiz就得花上整整一天的时间。”研发过程变得枯燥无味，Wegner说当时工作室拟定了较为保险的方案，他们的想法是把上一个版本的游戏装饰漂亮点，仅此而已。他说道：“我们的错误在于忽视游戏是为玩家而制作的观念，设计师应当考虑的是玩家的兴趣点，提高游戏的可玩性。”Wegner说道，1个月后工作室终于全部翻新了游戏中的图形，但事实上游戏内容并没有得到扩展。

Off-Road Velociraptor Safari

Stardock总裁Brad Wardell也在讨论会上展示公司失败作品《元素：魔法战争》。公司在《银河文明2》上取得巨大成功，这款深受玩家喜爱的战略游戏制作成本仅60万美元，总销售额却高达1100-1200万美元。游戏所取得的成功使公司充满信心，要制作出一款超越前作的游戏。Wardell谈及公司当年的想法时说道：“我们想乘着胜利之威再开发出一款游戏来。”

为设计《元素》，Wardell将原本只有7人的Stardock游戏开发团队增加至18人。但是情况却不容乐观，他解释道：“游戏开发者的编制不再明朗，分工不明确，也没有全身心致力于游戏研发的项目经理。”游戏研发一度使Wardell每周待在办公室的时间多达100个小时，每周二和周四通宵忙碌。

游戏发布后，在Metacritic网站上的得分只有56分，而且游戏中到处都是需要修补的漏洞。不过据游戏邦了解，他否认Stardock在知道游戏尚未完成的情况下发布这款满是漏洞的游戏，据他所述，当时公司确实误认为游戏业已开发完成。Wardell说道，事实上Stardock提前两天发布了这款游戏，因为开发团队都迫不及待想看到游戏出现在市场上。他笑着说：“我们觉得游戏已完美无缺，希望能让玩家尽早看到自己的巅峰之作。”但是玩家和游戏评论员对这款游戏并不满意。Wardell说他遭到了许多严厉的批评，还有人咒他得癌症去世。

如今，Stardock的开发团队更注重游戏内容的创造。Wardell提醒其他开发者应当注意：决不能安排项目经理编码或绘图；团队中只能有项目经理与QA接触；如果项目进展缓慢，项目经理应予以督促；如果项目经理不是首席设计师，那么就应当选出一名全职首席设计师，并考虑挑选其他人员来填补这个空缺。

他笑着说道：“与以往发布的其他游戏不同，玩家在沃尔玛就可以买到这款游戏。”Wardell希望通过发布《元素》的扩展包来挽回公司在玩家心中的形象，在2010年购买原版游戏的玩家可免费获得扩展包。Wardell说道：“公司因这个大错误前路艰辛，这款游戏已花费数百万美元。”

富有朝气的Chris Hecker向公众展示其失败的攀岩类游戏。曾在Spore工作过的Hecker目前正运营着自己创办的独立游戏开发公司SpyParty，他认为这款攀岩类题材游戏错误有三：技术过剩、可玩性不强而且对玩家缺乏吸引力。

元素：魔法战争

Hecker展示了大量游戏编码，引得观众哄堂大笑，似乎游戏背后同样也潜藏着开发者的疲惫。他笑着说：“貌似混沌理论在我身上得以重现。虽然我曾经发现游戏已出现上述错误，但归根结底问题还是在于我对游戏设计的恐惧。”

据Hecker所述，他给自己制造了许多技术问题，只是为了不尽早开展设计工作。他说道：“设计确实令我感到恐惧，因为设计很困难且令人难以理解，而且带有不可预测性和不稳定性。但是现在，我已学会直接面对游戏设计问题。我所制作的游戏可玩性都不错。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

GDC 2011: Game Designers Confront, Learn From Failure

At the conference’s lighthearted “Failure Workshop,” Kyle Gabler with World of Goo developer 2D Boy showed off the studio’s failed game Robot and the Cities that Built Him, a Flash game that that has robots blasting humans.

Gabler said the game ended up being a waste of six months of work because 2D Boy was more in love with the concept of the game, and not obsessed enough with making the game fun. Six months into development, Gabler said, “We did what we should’ve done six months earlier… which is building a gameplay prototype. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner,” he laughed. He showed a prototype of the game to the audience. “The point of this is… aren’t you so bored? We realized our game had never evolved [from the initial idea].” Gabler explained that the game just “wasn’t us.” Ultimately, he learned from the failure that “No amount of theming will save a bad idea, also known as ‘you can’t polish a turd’.”

And coming off of the smash success of World of Goo he warned that “trying to live up to a previous game is paralyzing. Don’t bother competing with yourself.” Instead, make a game that can’t be compared to your previous success.

PopCap sr. game designer George Fan, creator of another hit, Plants vs. Zombies, showed his 2001 failure, Cat-Mouse Foosball. A bit of a mix between Lemmings and Bomberman, the game was, in his words, a mess, and just wasn’t as fun as he thought it would be.

He dumped the game after one prototype. “There’s just too much going on during the game,” said Fan. “… It just becomes this not-fun experience that overwhelms your brain in a bad way.” He remade the game just for the Failure Workshop. It was still bad, and he got big laughs from the crowd because the game was so ridiculous and manageable, with players shifting foosball rods trying to keep 2D cats from touching 2D mice before the mice got to the end of a long maze.

But even though he can laugh about it now, back in 2001, it left Fan very disheartened. “I realized it was really bad and that made me sad. I couldn’t believe how much disconnect there was between how much fun I thought it could be and how much fun it actually was.” It was then when he actually thought about quitting game design.

Of course, Fan continued, and is known for a beloved PopCap game in Plants vs. Zombies. He told attendees to work through the tough times. “Don’t give up. If you love what you do, you will persevere,” he said. “…I chose to learn from it. … Don’t let it stop you, the same thing happened to me.”

He added, “I realized the only way you can get to the mindset of the gamer is to play your game yourself. Start prototyping the game as early as you can. You can never truly tell how fun a game is until you play it.”

Flashbang developer Matthew Wegner brought his studio’s failure, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari HD, to the workshop. The game has players driving around in a jeep among jungle settings, running over dinosaurs.

The game was a follow-up to an early Unity-based web game Off-Road Velociraptor Safari. The “HD” version was supposed to be a console and Steam downloadable title. But trying to go “HD” was a mistake, said Wegner. Even calling the game “HD” was a mistake, because that creates certain expectations with gamers and potential publishers.

“It turned out we actually really hated working on this,” said Wegner. “[Art director] Ben Ruiz would be working on normal maps on rocks for an entire day.” The development process just became tedious. Wegner said that the studio just tried to play things too safe — they had a concept that worked with the first version of the game, and just tried to pretty it up. “Our mistake was that we stopped designing for players,” Wegner said. Designers should think about what does the player find fun. “Maybe we should make games fun,” he said. Over the course of about a month, Flashbang totally revamped the graphics to make them more stylized, but the studio isn’t really working on the game extensively any more, Wegner said.

Stardock’s Brad Wardell also took the stage to describe his studio’s failure in Elemental: War of Magic. The company was coming off of big success with Galactic Civilizations II — a very well-received strategy game that cost $600,000 to make and generated $11-$12 million in sales. The excitement from that game’s success led the studio to increase the scope of its next title. “Let’s make our next game much more ambitious!” Wardell said was the attitude at the time.

Wardell upped Stardock’s game development team from seven members to 18 for Elemental. Then it became a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. “There was no structure, no dedicated project manager,” he explained. “No one owned any part of the game.” At one point during the game’s development, Wardell was at his office 100 hours a week, pulling all-nighters every Tuesday and Thursday.

When the game launched, it earned an abysmal Metacritic score of 56 and was filled with bugs. He countered claims that Stardock launched the buggy game knowing that it was unfinished. But he said the studio was under the impression that the game was complete. Wardell said Stardock actually launched the game two days before the launch date because the team was excited about release. “We thought it was done,” he laughed. “We wanted our players to see the masterpiece that we put together!” But players and critics weren’t pleased. Wardell said he encountered relentless “nerd rage.” “I had people tell me that they hope I die of cancer,” he laughed.

Now Stardock has hired on staff that will help handle more production aspects of game development. Among some of Wardell’s tips for other developers included: the project manager shouldn’t be coding or doing art; the project manager should be the only interface to QA; the project manager must come down hard on scope creep; if the project manager isn’t the lead designer, bring on a full-time lead designer; and consider bringing on an associate producer to help fill in the role.

He laughed, “Unlike any of these games showed so far … this game shipped. It’s at the store right now! You can buy it at Walmart!” Wardell is trying to make things right with gamers by releasing an Elemental expansion pack for free to anyone who bought the original game in 2010. “We’re just going to bite the bullet, spend a couple million dollars – it was a pretty big mistake,” said Wardell.

The dynamic Chris Hecker then showed off his physics-heavy failure — a rock climbing game. Hecker, who worked on Spore and is currently at work on his independent game SpyParty, said there were three things that went wrong with the rock climbing title: technology ratholing (doing tech that isn’t necessary), non-game distractions and “lack of ass-in-chair.”

Hecker showed off a massive amount of code for the game, drawing laughs from the audience. Under the game’s hood was also an extensive fatigue model for the climber. “I kind of rediscovered chaos theory on my own,” he joked.

“I realized when I had some distance on this [situation] that these three things seem like distinct independent things… but all the things went back to one core problem: I was scared of game design.”

Hecker said he would create a lot of tech problems himself just to distract or postpone him from doing any actual design work. Design truly can be frightening: “Design is hard, unpredictable, mysterious and unstable,” he said.

But now he’s learned to approach game design more directly. “Everything I do is playable that day,” he said. (Source: IndieGames)