作者：Jon X. Porter

我们也许会抱怨，许多设计功能总是千篇一律地贯穿于游戏中。我们总是会说，要是我们掌握开发大权，肯定会做出比这更好的游戏。但实际上，多数设计想法都有其存在（或不存在）的正当理由。

举个例子来说，在《生化危机4》中，你不可能同时奔跑并射击。当然了，如果你无法逃脱那些不断涌向你的感染者，这真的让人极端厌烦；但是尽管如此，游戏最后却会出现一些更有策略性的的结果。也就是玩家不可能只是简单地进入一个领域并期待自己能够毫发无伤地过关。相反地，你们必须进行更多思考，并在你不得不面临任何可怕时刻之际制定逃亡路线。

尽管如此，也有一些设计选择缺乏任何解释。它们将自己的存在当成是一种惯例，仅仅标明“因为……”等字眼，但是结果却往往不能够解释它们存在的理由。例如：

强迫保存第二名玩家的资料

我理解这个功能的用意，它只是希望能够让第二名玩家也加入游戏获取成就。但是，你们需要搞清楚的，有多少人会在便携式记忆卡中存放Xbox Live文件？又有多少人会将这些文件或者这张记忆卡随身携带，从而能够在任何地方与其他玩家一起进行多人游戏？

sign player 2 into profile(from bitmob)

如果你能够肯定地回答这两个问题，那么“恭喜你”，正是因为你这种“孜孜不倦”的习惯，才为这种功能提供了生存土壤，让众多玩家连续多年备受这种游戏功能的“摧残”。

比起强制性，我们更希望获得的是选择权（游戏邦注：即让玩家能够自行选择是否愿意与好友一起在游戏中收集成就）。但是如果我不愿意这么做，也请不要再浪费我的时间了。

当玩家失败后强迫他们返回主菜单

我喜欢日本角色扮演游戏中的一些功能。在许多这类型游戏中，你只要在游戏中死亡了，便会被踢回主菜单页面，但是在现在看来，这些功能真的让很多玩家感到厌烦，并且与现代游戏模式格格不入。

也许开发者只是“善意”地希望你放弃挑战。游戏会说：“看起来你好像有点厌烦了。不妨到外面走走，呼吸下新鲜空气，调整下心态再回来挑战？”

quit to main menu(from bitmob)

当然了，作为玩家，我们不可能会这么做。我们只想要回到游戏中，并再次进行挑战，完成之前没能完成的任务。而且，我们也不希望将这种保存当成检验点，因为这就意味着我需要花费更多时间去纠结于下一次的保存点，而不能好好享受游戏。并且，比起自动保存检验点，这么做将会多耗费玩家半个多小时的时间。

重新回到主菜单后开始游戏等于是浪费玩家的时间。从五分钟之前的页面开始加载，并且再次重复播放游戏公司的logo，游戏简介，主菜单，保存目录以及游戏关卡，这么冗长且无趣的内容只会让玩家感到厌倦，并想要离开游戏，而这并不是一个好结果。

询问是否愿意捡起关键道具

Capcom的游戏总会会礼貌性地询问玩家是否愿意捡起对他们通关有帮助的道具。虽然这种功能不会浪费玩家的时间，但却无意识地将一种偏激的疑问嵌进玩家的心中。

当我独自进行游戏时，每当游戏询问我是否愿意拣起扳手时，我总是会犹豫不决，并想到自己拣或不拣的结果。我会猜想，是否这项道具是游戏所设的一个陷阱，我会因此掉进一个充满傀儡的秘密走廊，或者，我会惨遭死亡而被踢回主菜单。

所以我会在做出决策之前进行一番查究…

pick up items(from bitmob)

让玩家同意在保存期间不会关掉设备

玩家总是很没耐心。在游戏加载期间，我们可能会离开房间而去做一些其它事情，比如做个三明治或者泡杯茶等等。我们也会做一些打开洗碗机等家务，只要这些工作不会花费太多时间，我们都会愿意去做。因为讨厌长时间地等待游戏加载，我们也许也会写篇博文，或者找些其它事情当消遣。

turn off the console(from bitmob)

经过漫长的游戏加载过后我们再次回到了房间，我们希望菜单页面上至少会显示“继续？”选项，如果你是游戏开发商，不妨直接让玩家进入一场视听盛宴。

所以，众开发者们，请求你们好好确认下一款游戏的界面会再停留漫长的时间等待玩家按下确认按钮，明确自己不会在游戏中途关掉掌机的这个事实。

分散编辑游戏设置的权力

“好的，伙伴们，非常感谢你们能够加入游戏。让我们进入《光晕》的分屏中。好的，游戏模式是什么？一开始我们便会面对一些凶手…不…请停下来，不论是谁在按压按钮都请停下来。好的，这些就是凶手。噢，不要担心角色的定制化问题，这是后来我们才需要考虑到的。是谁在编辑复位时间？这有什么意义？让我们先进入游戏，后来再慢慢进行调整。是谁又在按压向上按钮了？请停止好吗？每个人都准备好了吗？开始游戏。

哦不！是谁脱离我们退到主菜单了？”

千万不要这么做！请把所有的控制权交到一个玩家手中，多数情况下由一个人控制游戏，如果谁要进行游戏选择，我们还可以使用“传递控制器”这一功能。

let everyone edit(from bitmob)

这篇文章的目的并不是强调于这些游戏设计的疏忽是否会葬送游戏前程，或者会浪费玩家的时间。关键是它们的存在会让玩家感到厌烦，是不是？

游戏邦注：原文发表于2010年8月12日，所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。（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）

Five Game-Design Features You’ve Always Hated

by Jon X. Porter

We probably curse a lot of design features in a typical run through a game. We’d love to claim that, with development duties in our hands, many titles would end up being far better. But the truth is the vast majority of these design ideas are there (or absent) for very good reasons.

Take as an example your inability to simultaneously run and shoot in Resident Evil 4. Sure, it’s infinitely annoying not to be able to back away from the hordes of infected villagers scampering toward you, but the upshot is that the game ends up being far more tactical as a result. You can’t just jog into an area and expect to get out unscathed. Instead, you have to think a little more and plan your escape route for when you inevitably have to reload at the worst possible moment.

Some design choices, though, defy any explanation. They exist as part of a tradition, included “just because”…and end up completely failing to justify their presence. Take as an example:

Having to sign player 2 into a profile:

I understand that this lovely feature was intended to allow a second player to collect Achievements. Out of interest, though, how many of you actually keep your Xbox Live profile on a portable memory card? In addition to that, how many of you keep this profile/memory card on your person, in case you come into a position to play some multiplayer on another person’s system?

If you answered yes to both questions, then congratulations; it’s your obscure habit that keeps this feature around that’s been eating into the rest of our playtime for years now.

Of course, give me the option to sign in to a profile if I want to collect those Achievements with friends. But please assume I don’t care, and don’t make me waste my time creating profiles on friends’ systems just so I can jump in a game.

Quitting to the main menu when you die

I love some features in Japanese role-playing games. The way many of them kick you out to the main menu when you die, however, is annoying and an immersion-killing function that has no place in modern games.

Perhaps this is the developers’ noble attempt to force you to give up. “Look,” the game’s saying, “you kinda suck at this. Why not go outside, get some fresh air, and then come back later?”

I don’t want to, of course. I want to jump right back into the game and beat that challenge that had me stumped the first time around. In addition, I don’t want to have to rely on my saves as checkpoints — it means I have to spend more time worrying about the next save point rather than actually enjoying the game. It can also result in entire half-hours of game time lost when it could’ve been saved with a little automatic checkpointing.

Starting over at the main menu wastes the player’s time. Just load up where I was five minutes ago, because I could really do without loading your company logos, the game’s introduction, the main menu, my list of saves, and finally the level itself. It’s lengthy, it’s boring, and above all, it makes me seriously think about walking away from the console, and that’s never a good thing.

Choosing whether to pick up mission-critical items

A feature which seems (in my experience) to be exclusive to Capcom games is politely asking the player whether he wants to pick up that item necessary to finish a level with. The issue here is not so much one of wasted time but of the paranoid doubts it causes to enter my mind.

I may be alone in this, but whenever a game asks me if I want to pull a lever I’ve just come across rather than just doing it for me, I immediately think I have some sort of a choice. Obviously this lever has to be here for a reason, but if the game’s asking me whether I want to pull it or not, then maybe there’s a reason I shouldn’t be pulling it. Maybe the lever’s booby-trapped; maybe it’s going to open a secret passageway filled with puppets intent on turning Dante’s body into mincemeat…and maybe I’ll be kicked out to the main menu as a result.

I think I’ll go search around a little bit more before I commit to a decision….

Agreeing not to turn off the console during saving

We gamers are an impatient lot. We get that games have to load and everything, but while that’s going on, we’re probably going to leave the room and do one of the other hundreds of important things in our lives.

We might leave the room and make a sandwich for example, or possibly just a cup of tea. We might unload the dishwasher or do some other menial task we’ve been putting off because, let’s face it, if it takes so little time then why bother? We might take a moment to punch a goat in the face or maybe write a blog post about how much we hate waiting for games to load.

When we re-enter the room after a lengthy initial load we expect at the very least for the menu screen to be sitting there with a “Continue?” option happily flashing away. If you’re Rockstar then you can take this even further and actually chuck us directly into the game, ready to unleash chaos upon the world.

So please, developers, the next time you’re examining your product’s interface, don’t make the entire booting-up process come to a halt as the game waits for a button press confirming the fact that we understand not to turn off the console when it’s trying to save.

Letting everyone edit game settings in multiplayer

“OK fellas, thanks very much for coming. Let’s get into some Halo splitscreen. OK, game mode? Alright we’ll start with some Slayer…no…stop it…will whoever’s pressing up please stop? OK, Slayer it is. No, stop messing around with character customization player three — let’s worry about that later. Who’s editing respawn times? What’s the point? Let’s just get into a game and change anything we need to later. Someone’s pressing the up button again — kindly stop. Everyone ready? It’s game time.

“No! Alright, who quit us out to the main menu!?”

Please, just give all the control to player one, because nine times out of 10, that’ll be the person in charge, and you know what? If we need someone else to pick out options, we can use this amazing feature called “passing the controller.”

The point of this article is not to say that these minor niggles are the bane of gaming’s existence or even that they waste much time at all. The fact remains that they’re still annoying though, aren’t they?

So what game features really piss you off? Can you work out the reason for their inclusion, and even then do you think this reasoning justifies them?（source:bitmob.com）