作者：John Romero

有一种理论认为，当人们在面临混乱时，第一反应便是清除它。我认为这种清除或者说是“解决”混乱的方法是游戏两大关键设计要素之一。

在《吃豆人》中，混乱指的是充斥着迷宫的小圆点们。为了达到游戏目标，你需要想尽办法去清理这些圆点。在《太空入侵者》中，混乱便变成外星人；而玩家需要消灭它们而达到最终目标。在《宝石迷阵》中，让你感到混乱的变成了满屏幕的宝石。你需要按照3个一组的模式去组合它们，并尽可能地在一定时间内消除更多宝石。象棋游戏如何？你必须尽可能多地打败敌方的棋子，并最终战胜“国王”。即使在古老的围棋中，游戏机制也是相同的。

宝石迷阵(from pcworld.about.net)

游戏设计中另外一个强大机制便是建造。很多优秀的游戏都包含了这两个机制，如成功的RTS游戏《帝国时代》，玩家可以先在游戏中建造属于自己的王国，随后去攻打敌人的建筑。在《Katamari Damacy》中你可以不断地清理并建造属于你自己的建筑物。角色扮演游戏也是关于建造并清理敌人势力的游戏。

有时候这些机制会贯穿于游戏中的多个关卡中。像游戏《生化危机4》就是关于清理游戏中的僵尸。在这款游戏中你需要始终保持你的军械库干净整洁，并不断优化它们。同时你也需要不断地建造这些军械库，让它们不仅整洁而且有趣。

《魔兽世界》便是这两种机制的结合体，并且游戏中的多个关卡都体现了这些机制。你需要不断塑造游戏角色，不断清理游戏世界，从而进行扩建。你在游戏中的工作就是建造，你可以制造一些道具帮助你更好地做清理，从而获得更多空间用来建造新的建筑。游戏设计者都希望能够在游戏中达到一种周期属性。

这种清除理论，即本能地避免混乱而进行清理行为，也许就是我们的一种进化行为和人类基因的一部分。我的问题是，如果一个人无视某种媒介呈现的混乱现象，那么他们是否就不能够有所发展了？而那些能够教育玩家建造并清理各种抽象混乱物体的游戏，是否就有助于我们的进化和发展？（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Tidiness Theory

By John Romero

There is a theory that posits when most people are confronted with a mess, the natural instinct is to clean it up. This propensity toward cleanliness, or “solving” the mess, is what I believe is one of the two most powerful fundamental elements of game design.

In Pac-Man, the mess is the maze full of dots. You need to clean them up to achieve your goal of cleanliness. In Space Invaders, the aliens are the mess. Clean them up and you reach your goal. In Bejeweled you are presented with a messy screen of jewels. Arrange them in groups of matching 3′s and you clean it up, one match at a time. Chess? Clean the board of your opponent’s pieces, specifically his King. The ancient game of Go? Same mechanic.

The other powerful mechanic in game design is that of Building. Most great games combine these two mechanics such as any successful RTS like Age of Empires. Build your empire one unit at a time until you need to clean up your enemy’s mess of units. In Katamari Damacy, you are cleaning and building yourself constantly. RPGs are all about building and cleaning up the messy landscape of enemies.

Sometimes this mechanic exists at multiple levels within a game. Looking at the meta-design, you know that Resident Evil 4 is all about cleaning up the game world of zombies. Within this game you need to keep your inventory briefcase clean and optimized as well. And all the while you are building your arsenal to make all the cleaning easier and more fun.

World of Warcraft is the epitome of these two mechanics and both are executed at multiple levels in the game. Your character, you are building. The world, you are cleaning, so you can build more. Professions are building so you can make items that help with the cleaning….which feed into more building. The cyclical nature of the design is what all designers hope to achieve.

This tidiness theory, this instinct toward Order rather than Chaos, may be evolutionary and part of our DNA. My question is: if a person, when presented with a mess in any kind of medium, chooses not to clean it up, are they in danger of failing evolution? And are games, as a form of teaching how to build and clean various abstracted messes, helping us evolve?（source:planetromero）