视觉小说往往将焦点集中在复杂的主角关系上，所以，简•奥斯汀的浪漫小说中能有什么更好的新意呢？Reflexive Arcade工作室的《Matches & Matrimony》将三部简•奥斯汀的经典名著改编为视觉小说以吸引休闲游戏玩家。Reflexive Arcade工作室的拉塞尔•卡罗尔（Russell Carroll）在最近的媒体采访中介绍了这款游戏的设计由来。以下是游戏邦编译的相关访谈内容：

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在开发了时间管理游戏《疯狂机场》、组合消除游戏《简约人生：动物园》和藏物解谜游戏《维斯帕森林》之后，是什么作品激发了你创作视觉小说的灵感？

《Matches & Matrimony》确实有它自己灵感来源。我是简•奥斯汀小说的超级粉丝，我发现她的小说可以激发人们积极向上，而我们现在的社会中却有如此之多的游戏和电影充斥着黑暗和沉闷。我很兴奋能够做些不仅光明且快乐，而且能够积极影响我自己的事情。读简•奥斯汀的小说总是使我更对周围的人更加关切，更加感恩，更加和睦。与他人分享这种感受是我做这种游戏的目标。

《Matches & Matrimony》结合了三部简•奥斯汀小说的元素。为什么选择这三部作品？

当我刚开始考虑制作《Matches & Matrimony》这款游戏时，我主想让玩家的选择有一个真正的结果。我不想让它变成那种《选择你自己的冒险》让玩家做出正确选择，否则就被淘汰出局的风格，我想让玩家能够拥有不同的故事结局。

为了达到这个目的，我需要大量素材和多部小说，这是突破的关键。我挑选了三部小说：《傲慢与偏见》、《劝导》和《理智与情感》，这不仅是因为这三部小说是我的心头好，也是因为我发现了这三者的重叠。这些交集提供了能够运用于这个游戏的额外文本。例如，我在游戏中提拣出两部作品中有价值的内容来设定出一个角色，将威洛比和韦翰结合起来。使用三部我喜欢并且三者之间存在重叠的小说，可以更好地融合成游戏内容。

《Matches & Matrimony》一开始确实像部小说，但随着玩家做出某种的选择，最终脱离了原来的情节主线。为何让游戏情节脱离小说版本？

如果游戏照搬《傲慢与偏见》的内容，那我建议大家还是直接读原著更好。我喜欢这部小说和电影，尤其是BBC版本的电影，但在制作《Matches & Matrimony》过程中，我想创造出一些玩家在其他媒介上看不到的东西。

电子游戏一大优势在于，它允许玩家操纵周围的游戏环境，探索游戏空间，看看其他玩家的成就，这非常像看一本书或者电影，但你还可以小小地改变游戏空间，使其成为你创作的内容。我希望《Matches & Matrimony》能够让玩家表现自我，多少调整下故事主线，从而创造出真正属于自己的故事。

和玩过这个游戏的玩家聊天是非常有趣的事情，我发现他们经常下意识地引用自己在游戏中的角色名称，就好像他们确实是从这两本名著中走出来的角色。只有电子游戏才能让玩家与故事主线的联系如此紧密，并且必然会一定程度上脱离原著故事情节。

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在制作《Matches & Matrimony》这款游戏时，你遇到了什么挑战？

制作这个游戏时遇到了许多挑战。设定出不同角色、故事发生的地点和场景是个巨大的挑战，也是整个游戏的开发流程。在游戏的网站上有个游戏流程图，它通常会显示各个独立章节的进程。事实上我并没想过要为游戏粉丝做出这种图，我只是为自己而做，为的是掌握所有可行性选择，以及这些选择如何影响彼此的可能性，这确实是最大的挑战啊。在开发这个游戏时，我把超多的电子表格和图表放在一起，从人物角色特色等不同角度考虑整个故事发展进程，以便掌握故事主线，编写出整个游戏。

然而，最大的挑战是“假如”情节。除了简•奥斯汀三本小说中所提供的素材，我还需要其他路线、人物对话和情节。我当然必须将三部小说中的故事相结合，但最大的挑战是设计出新的故事主线，以及游戏中有而小说中并不存在的每一句对话。

简•奥斯汀从来不写这种“假如”的情节。但我却不得不考虑：如果伊莉莎白爱上宾格莱怎么办？或者如果她从来没遇到韦翰又会怎样？如果她爱上的完全是另一本书中的人，比如《理智与情感》中的布来登上校又会如何？写这些情节时我可以大胆地自由发挥，但也有些比较困难的地方，例如努力使自己的创作不与简•奥斯汀的作品过度脱节。我尽可能选取来自原著的对话，并且将其改编得看似合乎情理。

我必须周全考虑游戏中的每一个“假如”情节，使其与整个故事背景一一对应。如果玩家做的每一个决定都产生完全不同的剧情，那么我还得写上百个故事，那可能得耗尽我一辈子的时间。

但我当然不是在写上百个故事，我把所有可以引回整体剧情的不同路线结合起来。几乎每个章节都有可以引向相同路线的故事情节，但在每个章节的结尾我都设法把不同路线串回在一起。即使这么做，在游戏中仍然有许多玩家可以选择的不同小叉路。说实话，我预计大部分玩家根本无法看到至少25%的剧情。

但这也未必是件坏事，这意味存在玩家一开始所看到的东西，背后还隐藏着大量内容有待他们探索挖掘。随着游戏不断发生意想不到的转折，我希望玩家在重复玩这个游戏时会发现它闪光的价值。将原著所有情节联系在一起，并写出所有的人物对话，以及简•奥斯汀不但没写过甚至没想过的故事主线，这可真是个有趣的挑战，我确实享受这种头痛并快乐着的过程。

对游戏的哪一方面最为自豪？

我最自豪的当然是写作部分吧。因为我得亲自写出一大堆故事和文本，这真是让人抓狂的差事啊。这已经足够令人望而生畏了，更何况还得将自己写的东西和简•奥斯汀的作品融为一体，这这样才不会让玩家觉得从简•奥斯汀的故事跳到我的故事会太突兀。把我的写作风格和世界名家相结合真是一种疯狂的尝试。我在制作游戏时常有一种想跑回家告诉我妻子的冲动，“我搞不懂我在想什么！我到底凭什么认为我能行？”

然而，我对这个自己千辛万苦终于完成的产品还是非常满意。这个游戏有将近15万个字，相当于375页的文本。我在文本里写进了好多的我个人想法，使其大多数内容更加贴近我个人的心意。我很高兴有这么多人对它加以好评。我真的很为这个游戏的文本自豪，也希望这个游戏能吸引所有的简•奥斯汀粉丝以及准粉丝玩家。

可有编写更多视觉小说的计划？如果有，能透漏一点吗？

作为一家游戏工作室，我们总是在考虑取悦玩家的新途径。我们针对一系列平台开发游戏，其中就包括Kindle，这种产品非常适合阅读视觉小说。事实上，我们已经在Kindle平台发布了一个更加生动的视觉小说，名为《Dusk World》。虽然现在还不便透露其中的细节，但至少可以公布我们正在计划向该平台推出更多视觉小说。

最后和粉丝们说几句吧？

我真很感谢所有玩家对《Matches & Matrimony》发表的评论。这个游戏发布时我既兴奋又紧张，一直在想大家会对这个非常规的休闲游戏有什么反应呢？没有一款游戏能够取悦所有人，但我真的很高兴这么多人能够尝试这款游戏，这么多喜欢它的人能够为它说话。在开发游戏过程中，没有什么比制作游戏并发现人们喜欢这款游戏更让人欣慰的事了。我觉得能够做出这个游戏真是太幸福了，真的很感谢粉丝们，感谢你们能积极接纳这样一款不走寻常路的游戏。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Jane Austen goes casual: A conversation about Matches & Matrimony

Visual novels tend to focus on the complex relationships of their main characters, so what better inspiration could there be than the romance-laced novels of Jane Austen? Reflexive Arcade’s Matches & Matrimony adapts not just one but three Jane Austen classics into a visual novel designed to appeal to casual gamers. Gamezebo learned more about the design process in a conversation with Reflexive Arcade’s Russell Carroll.

After developing time management games like Airport Mania, match-3s like Simplz: Zoo, and hidden object games like Wispa Forest, what inspired you to make a visual novel?

Matches & Matrimony really owns its inspiration to the source material. I’m a big fan of the works of Jane Austen. I find her writing to be uplifting, and in our modern day world where there are so many games and movies that feel dark and dreary, I was excited at the chance to do something that wasn’t just light and happy, but also that personally affected me. Readingher booksalways makes me more thoughtful,appreciative and kinder towards the people around me. It’s a daunting goal, but a big inspiration for the making the gamewas my hope of somehow sharing that feeling.

Matches & Matrimony combines elements from three Jane Austen novels. Why did you choose those particular novels?

When I first started thinking about doing Matches & Matrimony I wanted there to be real consequences for the choices you made. I didn’t want it to be Choose Your Own Adventure style where you either chose correctly or your story ended. I wanted you to really be able to have different stories.

To do that I needed a lot of material, and using multiple novels was the key to doing that. I picked the three novels I used, Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense & Sensibility not only because they were my favorites, but also because of the overlaps I sawbetween them. Those overlaps provided additional text that could be used in the game.For instance I combined Willoughby and Wickham in the game, which provided two books worth of material to draw upon for one character. Using multiple books that I loved and that I felt overlapped made it easier to put the game together.

Matches & Matrimony starts out exactly like the novels, but eventually deviates from that plotline as the player makes certain choices. Why was it important for the game’s story to deviate from the established version?

If the game was just like the book Pride & Prejudice, then it would be better to read the book. I love the book, and the movies, especially the BBC version, but in making a Jane Austen game I wanted to create something that you couldn’t get elsewhere.

One of the great things about video games is that they allow youto manipulate the world around you. You can explore the space and see what other people have created for you, much like a book or movie, but you can also change the space a little and make it your own. I wanted Matches & Matrimony to let players express themselves and twist the storylines around so that they felt like the storyline was reallytheir storyline.

It’s been fun talking to players who’ve played the game, and I find thatthey often, without evenrealizing it,they willrefer to their in-game character by name as though their character were an actual character from a book thatwe’d both read.That sense of connection the player gets to their storyline is only possible in video games and necessitated some deviation from the original stories.

What were some of the challenges you faced in developing Matches & Matrimony?

There were a lot of challenges in developing the game. Figuring out locations and scenes that could serve for different characters and storylines was a huge challenge, as was the overall flow of the game. On the game’s website there are flow-charts that show how, for the most part, each individual chapter progresses. It’s perhaps interesting to note, that I didn’t actually make those flow-charts for fans. I made them for myself as keeping track of all the options available and how they impacted each other was really a challenge stay on top of. While developing the game I put together MANY different spreadsheets and charts that each considered the story from adifferent angle, such as by characteror by attribute,so that I could keep track of the storylines as I outlined and then wrote the game.

However, the biggest challenge was the “What if?” scenario.In doing the game I neededadditional paths, conversationsand storylines beyond those provided by thethree Jane Austen novels. I needed to combine the storylines from those novels of course, but the biggest challenge was figuring outthe newstorylines, and every single piece of conversation that was in the game, but not in the novels.

Jane Austen never wrote the “What if?” scenario. I had to consider:What if Elizabeth fell for Mr. Bingley? Or what if she never met Mr. Wickham? What ifshe fell for someone from an entirely different book, likeColonel Brandon from Sense & Sensibility? I had alot of creative freedom in writing these scenarios, which was great, but also some terror as I needed to make it feel real to the world of Jane Austen. In doing them, I tried to pull as many conversations as possible directly from the books, and adapted them as seemed to make sense.

Each of the “What if?” scenarios had to be carefully thought out in the game, and they also had to fit back into the whole of the story. If every decision the player made led to a completely different story, then I would have had to write hundreds of stories, and it probably would have taken my entire life to finish writing it!

Instead of writing hundreds of storylines, I worked to combine all of the different paths that could be taken back into the whole of the story. There are points in nearly every chapterwhere the storylines diverge into parallel paths, but by the end ofeach chapter I try to bring the paths back together. Still, evendoing that, there are so many different little avenues that you can walk down in the game that honestly I expect most players won’t ever see at least25%of the text that I wrote.

However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It means that there is a lot more behind the cover than may, at first, be obvious to the player. My hope is that players will find on repeat plays that the value of the game really shines as it continues to take unexpected turns. It was a challenge to try and tie everything together and write all the snip-its ofconversationand even completely new storylines that weren’t ever written or perhaps even considered by Miss Austen, but it was an interesting challenge and one that, when it didn’t leave me with a pounding headache, I really enjoyed.

What aspects of the game are you most proud of?

I’m definitely most proud of the writing. It was a crazy thing to undertake the game as I had to personally write a great deal of the story and text. That was daunting enough, but what I wrote had to also mix with what Jane Austen had written so that players wouldn’t feel that it was jarring to jump from her text to mine. Trying to mesh my writing style with one of the world’s most famous was an insane thing to try and do. Often while working on the game I would go home to my wife and say “I have no idea what I was thinking! Why in world did I think I could pull this off?”

However, for all the toil and pain in putting it together I am very pleased with the finished product. The game has nearly 150,000 words in it, which equates to about 375 pages of text. There are a lot of personal moments that Iput into the text, which puts this game a lot closer to my heart than most.I’ve been really happy so many people have spoken so positively of it. I’m really proud of the game’s text and hope it will appeal to anyone who is a fan of Jane Austen, and hopefully would be fans as well.

Any plans to develop more visual novels? If so, can you give us any sneak peeks?

As a game studio we’re always thinking about new ways to delight and surprise our fans. We make games for a variety of platforms, including the Kindle, which naturally lends itself to visual novels. In fact, we’ve already released a more graphical sort of visual novel on the Kindle called Dusk World. Though I can’t let you in on any of the secret details, I can say we’replanning more visual novels being released on that platform in the future!

Any last words for your fans?

I’ve really appreciated all the kind remarks about Matches & Matrimony. When it was released I was both excited and nervous about how people would respond to something that was so different from the typical casual game. No game is for everyone, but I was very pleased that so many people gave this game a chance, and that so many of those have enjoyed it have been outspoken in their support. There is nothing better in game developmentthan making a game and seeing people really enjoy it. I feel blessed to have been able to create this game, and grateful to the fans who have so positively received something that was very different from the more typical game that theymight have been expecting.（source:gamezebo）