作者：Alexander Jhin

你是否可曾希望自己获得充满魔力的准则，让自己创造出《雷神之锤》或《无尽任务》这样的巨作？更好的情况是，如果你拥有不仅可以让你创造出下个游戏名作而且还能够从根本上理解为何获得成功的科学准则，那又会如何呢？这篇文章将提出某些想法，从科学化的角度来进行游戏设计，以帮助设计师真正理解为何他们的游戏能够吸引玩家。

介绍

目前，游戏设计更类似于炼金术而不是化学。如果像化学家那样的话，设计师就会在设计游戏时使用“猜想和检验”的方法。设计师根据“猜想”制作出最初的游戏玩法、游戏美术和故事，随后由发行商、其他设计师、试玩和测试进行“检验”。随后游戏根据反馈不断改变，直到看起来很“合适”或者时间和金钱耗尽。

在炼金术中，这种猜想和检验的方法使得设计师很难从基础层面上判定导致游戏成功或失败的因素。她知道某种改变会让测试用户感到高兴，但是她不知道为何这种改变能够发挥作用。

但是，化学家接触问题的方法是首先理解已证实的原则和理论，然后使用这些原则来实现她的目标。通过使用这些原则，化学家在失败之后会研究和理解她违背化学原则的地方，寻找方法来修改这些原则。无论结果是成功还是失败，她能够理解为何事情会产生那种结果。

比如，如果炼金术士想要从其他基本金属中制出黄金，她或许会尝试将铅和银混合起来，随后如果这个方法看似准确，她就会继续进行下去。但是对化学家而言，她知道黄金与其他金属有所不同，因为黄金的质子和电子数量不同于其他金属。那么，化学家就会专注于尝试给基本金属添加额外的质子和电子。化学家的方法显然更加恰当，因为她的工作有一定的理论基础。炼金术士仅仅是在猜测而已。

那么，如果设计师更像化学家那样工作又会如何呢？不幸的是，与化学家不同的是，设计师没有资源来执行发掘潜在游戏设计原则的原创研究。所以，设计师必须依靠其他领域研究中现存的合适原则，将它们运用到游戏设计中。许多可应用的研究领域已经有数百年的历史，能够为游戏设计提供可靠和真实的原则。通过借鉴这些原则，游戏设计师能够构建起坚实的原则理论基础，使设计师可以开始创造专门用于游戏设计的具体原则。

自由借鉴的过程

使用来自其他领域的原则的过程如下：

1、设定恰当的目标。

2、快速思索能够为目标的实现提供见解的研究领域。

3、从那些领域中选择合适的原则。

4、通过现有的游戏和题材来检验原则。

5、在游戏设计中执行原则。

这个过程可以创造出在游戏开发和游戏分析中同样有用的原则。

范例1：制作“现实主义”游戏

比如，假设我们的目标是“制作呈现现实3D环境的游戏”。要正确地确定目标，重点在于将目标重新构建，使其能够反映游戏的本质，游戏必然要与玩家产生联系。因而，游戏设计中的每个目标都应该包含“玩家”这个字眼。目标可以重述为：“制作玩家可以在平板电脑显示器上看到充满现实感的3D画面的游戏。”这个目标看起来显得没那么简单，但是却更贴近我们尝试达成的结果——我们正尝试让人们在2D设备上看到3D画面。

通过快速思索，我们发现有两个研究领域显然能够帮助我们实现目标。第一个是艺术，尤其是绘画和制图。千百年来，艺术师都在演习如何在2D的画布上展现3D效果。第二个选择便是心理学方面的原则，尤其是视觉感知原则。

使用心理学原则来实现我们的目标是个较好的选择，因为相比艺术而言，心理学可以被视为“深层次科学”。也就是说，心理学可以解释为何许多艺术师的原则能够发挥作用。心理学领域通常都会产生能运用于游戏设计的原则，因为心理学处理的是人类感知和行为方面的事宜。毕竟，游戏设计的目标是让玩家在游戏环境中感知和做出行为。

下个步骤是从心理学领域中选择可以使用的原则。我们打开高中心理学入门教科书，翻到视觉感知这个章节。书本上说，深度暗示共有7种：

1、线条透视——平行线逐渐倾斜，最后看似相交。

2、空气透视——随着距离的增加，越远处的物体看起来越模糊，包括粉尘和粒子的数量。

3、纹理梯度——更远处的物体看起来更加粗糙，似乎有更多的细节纹理。

4、干涉——掩盖其他物体的物体看起来更加接近。

5、相对大小——越远的物体看起来越小

6、光影——明亮的物体看起来比灰暗的物体更近。光线和不规则表面也能够提供深度暗示。

7、立体视觉——人类的左右眼接收有着细微差别的图像能够让大脑察觉到深度的存在。

那么，我们的3D游戏就应当拥有以上全部或者部分特征。

最后的步骤是用现有的游戏来检验这些原则。结果表明，所有这些原则都曾被运用到3D游戏中。在游戏设计中，这些原则各自通过对视景体、雾、纹理、z-buffer、视景体、Gouraud阴影和立体眼镜的使用而得到执行。虽然我们没有发现任何3D图像“新”原则，但是这项技术的强大之处有两个方面：首先，我们知道这个列表中的原则是“正确的”，因为它们已经被心理学家所“证实”。其次，我们完全不需要投入大量精力去研究这个领域，我们只要看看高中的教科书就找到了能够帮助实现目标的特征列表。

事实上，这些特征的执行需要大量的数学运算、创造性和编程。但是，在执行这些特征时，我们可以保证自己没有在浪费时间，我们正在使用的是“已证实有效的”3D深度暗示。

范例2：制作能够使人上瘾的游戏

现在，让我们假设一个更易令人兴奋的目标，那就是“制作能够吸引玩家投入尽量长时间的游戏”。你或许会注意到，这个目标中也含有“玩家”这个字眼。快速思索涉及“让某人投入尽量长时间做某件事情”的研究领域，我们发现了胁迫、营销和动机或成瘾心理学这几个领域。显然，心理学依然是最佳的选择，因为心理学能够解释为何营销和胁迫能够发挥作用。

我们将心理学入门教科书翻到动机和成瘾这个章节。有两个原则似乎比较合适：

操作性条件反射。简单地说，操作性条件反射是指人类根据之前做出动作后的奖惩状况，决定是否再次做出某项动作的心理学原则。操作性条件反射也解释了如何安排奖励来最大化开展某个动作的动机。Gamasutra上有些文章曾经探讨过在游戏背景下如何使用这些原则。

马斯洛的需求层次理论。马斯洛的理论指出，满足基本需求是人类的最初动机。当这些需求得到满足之后，人类就会开始尝试获得更大的需求。根据马斯洛所述，饥饿、安全、归属和爱意、尊敬和许可以及自我实现是最基本的需求。

我们可以使用这两个已经被科学方法“证实有效”的原则，创造能够让人成瘾的游戏并分析现有游戏的成瘾性。动机中还存在其他心理学原则可以运用到游戏中，比如化学成瘾、性成瘾和对抗过程理论。但是，这里我暂时不讨论这些。对抗过程理论似乎特别适用，因为该理论涉及成功和失败两个方面，应该进一步进行思考和探究。

为了简单地证实这两个原则可以运用到游戏中，我们只需要用《无尽的任务》和《模拟人生》这两款游戏进行检验。这两款游戏都无意地（游戏邦注：或许是有意地）利用这些原则，取得了绝佳的成果。《无尽的任务》（游戏邦注：下文简称EQ）因其成瘾性而闻名，它能够让玩家在游戏中投入很长的时间。我鼓励读者尝试列举EQ中使用的所有操作性条件反射，比如暴击、屠杀怪物、获得优良财宝、寻找良好的怪物和技能构建等可变计划增强。马斯洛的需求层次理论也别运用到EQ中。新玩家努力保护角色的安全，随着逐渐变得强大，他们开始形成友谊并寻找能够配合的组织和个人。最后，随着玩家逐渐满级，他们开始追求尊重和许可，形式有穿着独特外观的护甲和武器并达到非同寻常的力量和等级。因而，游戏使得玩家在需求层次上逐渐上升，拥有达到顶点的动机。

《模拟人生》显然使用了马斯洛的动机理论。新角色寻求的是生理需求，如食物、睡眠和肢体功能。随着玩家变得富有，他们开始更关注安全，随后是归属感和爱情，然后是尊敬和许可。操作性条件反射的使用并不那么明显，但是确实存在。奖励的形式有升级房屋、物品和好友奖励。这些奖励也会形成条件反射，使得游戏更容易让人上瘾。

在游戏中执行操作性条件反射使其提升成瘾性非常简单。只要确保游戏不定期提供奖励即可（游戏邦注：EQ和《暗黑破坏神》等游戏就成功运用了操作性条件反射）。在游戏中执行马斯洛的需求层次理论要稍微难些，目标较不明确。让玩家可以向其他玩家表达“爱意”，让玩家展示团队忠诚，让玩家逐渐获得成功都是使玩家感觉到他们逐渐在需求层次中升级的优良方法，从而鼓励他们进一步玩游戏。

这两个例子可以简要地阐述那些可以在游戏设计和游戏分析中使用的原则。

对立的观点

不幸的是，许多人并不同意这种方法。首先，有些人可能会辩解称，既然之前在不理解这些潜在原则的情况下都能设计出成功的游戏，那么为何要使用它们呢？诚然，诸如Will Wright之类的游戏设计师似乎有种天生的才能，可以不使用这些证实有效的原则来设计游戏。但是，仅仅因为某些人不使用这种方法而获得成功就否定使用原则的价值，这无异于仅仅因为某些炼金术士获得成功就鼓吹回归炼金术。尽管炼金术士获得了某些成功，但是化学家已经几乎完全替代了炼金术士，因为化学家的方法更加有效，让我们对潜在的问题有更具体的理解。这并不是说这种游戏设计方法会完全替代Will Wright之类的设计师。这种方法只是给其他开发者提供帮助而已。

第二种反对观点是，游戏设计是种艺术而不是科学，因而确立的原则不应当被使用。游戏设计确实是种艺术，但是，即便艺术也有确立有效的原则。画家使用感知原则来创作3D场景，多数剧本创造者都会使用冲突和高潮的普遍原则来保持剧情向前发展。而且，借鉴自其他领域的原则不会剥夺游戏设计的创造性。比如，假设我们尝试创造的是只有操作性条件反射而没有创造性的游戏，那么我们得到的东西就像是药剂师拿着棍子在可变加强计划下搅动食物。没有人会喜欢“玩”这种“游戏”。要使游戏变得有趣，就必须将这些原则中投入大量的创造性。但是，这些原则提供的是理解哪些能够发挥作用的基础。

最后一种反对观点是，游戏设计师没有时间来研究这些心理原则。首先，以上我举的那两个例子所需的调查时间只要15分钟左右，设计师应该能够腾出15分钟的时间来。其次，对基本原则的理解可以让设计师省去许多猜测性的工作，从而节省了未来的时间。最后，如果游戏设计师愿意分享他们已经发现的原则，那么其他游戏设计师就不用去深入研究这些心理学原则。而且，他们也可以更简单地在游戏背景下解读这些原则。

结论

从其他领域借鉴原则的过程很简单，就是树立目标、快速思索可用领域、从这些领域中选择合适的原则、通过现有游戏检验这些原则和执行这几个步骤。

你是愿意当炼金术士还是化学家呢？

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2003年3月20日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Evolving Game Design from Alchemy to Science

Alexander Jhin

Do you ever wish you had a magical formula that allowed you to create the next Quake or Everquest? Better yet, how about if you had a scientific formula that allowed you not only to create the next hit, but also understand, fundamentally, why it was successful? This article presents some ideas how to approach game design from a scientific tilt that will help designers to truly understand why their games work.

Introduction

Currently, game design more closely resembles alchemy than chemistry. Like alchemists, game designers often use a “guess and check” approach when designing games. The designers take a “best guess” at preliminary game play, game art, and story, which are then “checked” by publishers, other designers, beta tests, and play tests. Based on feedback, the game is then tweaked until it seems “right” or time and money run out.

As in alchemy, this guess and check approach makes it difficult for the designer to nail down, at a fundamental level, what caused her game to succeed or fail. She knows what tweaks made the test audience happy, but she is left guessing as to why they worked.

The chemist, on the other hand, approaches her problem by first understanding proven principles and theories, then using these principles to achieve her goal. By using principles, the chemist knows that if her work fails she can research and understand where she violated chemical principles or find a way to modify the principles to explain her failure. Whether she succeeds or fails, she has an understanding why things turned out as they did.

For example, if an alchemist wanted to make gold out of base metals, she would try melting lead and silver together, then, if that approach seemed right, she would continue. A chemist, on the other hand, would understand that gold differs from other metals because of the differing number of protons and electrons. The chemist would then focus on trying to add extra protons and electrons into base metals. The chemist’s approach is obviously favorable, as the chemist actually has some basis for her work. The alchemist is merely guessing.

So how does the designer act more like a chemist? Unfortunately, unlike chemists, designers do not have the resources to perform original research in order to discover and isolate underlying game design principles. So the designer must rely on appropriate, existing principles from other fields of study and apply them to game design. Many applicable fields of study are hundreds of years old and can offer tried and true principles to game design. By borrowing principles, game designers can build a concrete foundation of principles to work from and can allow designers to begin to create their own concrete principles specific to game design.

The Process of Liberal Borrowing

Using principles from other fields is a simple process of:

Stating the goal correctly.

Brainstorming fields of study that may offer insight into achieving the goal.

Choosing appropriate principles from those fields.

Checking principles against existing games and genres.

Implementing principles in game design.

This process creates principles that are useful both in game creation and game analysis.

Example 1: Making A “Realistic” Game

For example, assume that our goal is to “create a game that displays a realistic 3D environment.” To state the goal correctly, it is important to rephrase the goal so that the goal reflects the interactive nature of games; games cannot really do anything without the gamer. Thus, every goal in game design should include the word “gamer” or “player.” The goal could be rephrased as “to create a game that the gamer perceives as visually realistic and three dimensional on a flat computer monitor.” This goal is bulkier but more accurately states what we are trying to do; we are trying to fool a human into perceiving three dimensions.

Brainstorming yields two obvious fields of study that can help us achieve our goal. The first field is art, specifically drawing and painting. For millennia, artists have studied how to achieve 3D on a 2D canvas. The second option is to examine principles from psychology, specifically visual perception principles.

Using psychological principles to achieve our goal is the better option as psychology can be considered a “lower-level science” than art. That is, psychology can explain why many artists’ principles work. Psychology often yields principles that are useful to game design, as psychology deals with the perceptions and behaviors of humans. The goal of game design is, after all, to get the player to perceive and behave within a game environment.

The next step is to choose specific principles from psychology that are applicable. We open a high school introductory psychology textbook to the chapter on visual perception. The book states that there are seven depth cues:

Linear Perspective – As parallel lines recede, they appear to come together.

Aerial Perspective – Objects that are farther away appear hazier because as distance increases, so does the amount of interceding dust and other particles.

Texture Gradients – Objects that are farther away appear rougher and appear to have more detailed textures.

Interposition – Objects that obscure other objects appear closer.

Relative Size – Objects that are farther away look smaller.

Light and Shadow – Bright objects appear closer than dark objects. Light and from irregular surfaces also give depth cues.

Stereoscopic Vision – Human’s left and right eyes receive slightly different images that allow the brain to perceive depth.

Ok, so our 3D game should attempt to have all or some of these features.

The last step is to check these principles against existing games. As it turns out, all of these principles have been used in 3D games at some time or another. In game design these principles have been implemented by use of viewing frustrum, fog, textures, z-buffer, viewing frustrum, Gouraud shading, and stereoscopic glasses respectively. While we have not discovered any “new” principles in 3D graphics, the power of this technique is two-fold: First, we know this list is “correct” as it has been “proven” by psychologists. Second, we really did not have to work hard at all – we just looked in a high school textbook, and voila, we had a features list to achieve our goal!

Actually implementing these features from scratch would require a lot of math, creativity, and coding. However, in implementing these features we can rest assured that we are not wasting our time – we are working with “proven” 3D depth cues.

Example 2: Making an Addictive Game

Now let us assume that we have a more exciting goal of, “Create a game that gets the player to play for as long as possible.” Again, notice the goal includes the gamer. A quick brainstorm of fields of study that involve “getting someone to do something for as long as possible” yields: coercion or torture, marketing, and psychology of motivation or addiction. Psychology is the obvious choice, as psychology can explain why marketing and coercion work.

We open an introductory psychology textbook to the chapter on motivation and addiction. Two principles seem appropriate:

Operant Conditioning. In a nutshell, operant conditioning is the psychological principle that states that a person is motivated to do or not do an action based on whether they have been rewarded or punished for that action in the past. Operant conditioning principles also explain how to schedule rewards in order to maximize motivation to perform the action. These principles have been discussed in the context of games in other Gamasutra articles, and I refer you to them.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow’s theory dictates that people are first motivated to satisfy basic needs. When these are satisfied, people try to achieve higher and higher needs. The needs, according to Maslow and beginning with the most basic are: Physiological Needs such as hunger, Safety, Belonging and Love, Esteem and Approval, Self-Actualization.

We can use these two principles that have been “proven” by scientific methods, to both create addictive games and analyze the addictiveness of existing games. There are other psychological principles of motivation: chemical addiction, sexual motivation, and the Opponent Process theory may be applicable to games. However, I ignore them for brevity’s sake. The Opponent Process Theory seems particularly applicable, as it deals with both success and failure and should be thought about further.

In order to briefly validate that these two principles apply to games, we need only look as far as Everquest and the Sims. Both unconsciously (or possibly consciously) utilize these principles to great effect. Everquest is well known for its addictive properties and its ability to get players to play for very long periods of time. I encourage the reader to attempt to list all of the uses of operant conditioning in EQ. A few examples are the use of variable schedule reinforcement in striking a blow, killing a monster, getting good treasure, finding good monsters, and skill crafts just to name a few. Maslow’s Hierarchy also applies to EQ. Newbie players struggle for safety then as they become stronger, they begin to form friendships and look for belonging and people to party with. Finally, as the players begin to reach top levels, they begin to look for esteem and approval, often in the form of distinctive looking armor, weapons, and distinguished powers and levels. Thus players are allowed to advance up the hierarchy and are motivated to reach the top.

The Sims use of Maslow’s Motivations is blatantly obvious. New characters struggle for physiological needs such as food, sleep, and bodily functions. As the players become richer, they can focus more on safety, then belonging and love, then esteem and approval; even if the love, esteem, and approval are only from other Sims. The use of operant conditioning is less obvious, but still present. Rewards take the form of home improvement, neat object animations, and friends. These rewards also follow a conditioning schedule, making game play addictive.

Implementing operant conditioning in a game in order to make it addictive is pretty easy. Simply ensure that your game doles out rewards following a variable interval/variable ratio schedule (look at Everquest, Diablo, or a slot machine in Vegas to see some successful examples of operant conditioning.) Implementing Maslow’s Hierarchy in a game is a slightly more difficult, less tangible goal. Allowing players to express their “affection” to other players, allowing players to show team allegiance, and allowing players to track their own success (and ensuring that players eventually succeed) are all good ways of allowing players to feel that they are advancing up Maslow’s Hierarchy, thus encouraging them to play further.

These two examples demonstrate the relative simplicity of generating principles that are both useful in a game design and game analysis.

Counter-Arguments

Unfortunately, many do not agree with this approach. First, some may argue, successful games have been designed without understanding underlying principles, thus why use them at all? Certainly, many game designers, such as Will Wright, seem to have an innate ability to design games without the use of established principles (at least I assume that Will Wright did use psychology textbooks in designing The Sims.) However, arguing against using principles simply because some people have succeeded without them is similar to arguing a return to alchemy, simply because some alchemists had some success (albeit in this case, Will Wright is one damned talented alchemist.) Chemists have almost completely replaced alchemists, despite alchemists’ limited success, because the chemists’ approach is simply more efficient and allows a better understanding of underlying issues. This is not to say that this approach to game design will ever replace the Will Wrights of the world. This approach will simply help the rest of us.

The second argument is that game design is an art not a science, therefore, established principles should not apply. Game design is an art – however, even arts have established principles. Painters use the principles of perspective to portray three dimensions, while most scriptwriters use general principles of conflict and climax in order to keep their plots moving. Plus, the principles borrowed from other fields will never rob game design of its creativity. If, for example, we tried to create a game that only used operant conditioning sans creativity, all we would have was a dispenser with a lever that popped out food pellets using a variable reinforcement schedule. Nobody would be willing to “play” this “game.” No, great amounts of creativity must be applied to these principles in order to make them fun and enjoyable. However, these principles give a basis of understanding with which to work from.

The final argument is that game designers don’t have time to muck around with psychological principles. First, the two examples that I used above took about fifteen minutes each to research – certainly designers have fifteen minutes to spare. Second, by understanding fundamental principles, designers can avoid some guesswork and therefore save time in the future. Finally, if game designers are willing to share the principles that they have discovered, then other game designers will not have to “muck around” with psychological principles. Rather, they will simply be able to read about them in the context of game design.

Conclusion

The process of borrowing principles from other fields is as simple as stating an objective, brainstorming applicable fields, choosing appropriate principles from those fields, checking those principles against existing games, and implementing.

Would you rather be an alchemist or a chemist? (Source: gamedev.net)