作者：Ian Schreiber

在上一节课程中我们发现“趣味”实际上是“学习”的一个替代词，它可以让玩家进入心流状态。现在我们要进一步探索这个概念，深入研究LeBlanc等人提出的“8种趣味”类型及其相关理论。（请点击此处阅读本系列第1、第2、第3、第4、第5、第6、第7、第9、第10、第11、第12、第13、第14、第15、第16、第17、第18课程内容）

在开课之前，我想让大家先了解以下文献内容：

*Noah Falstein作著的《Natural Funativity》。我们已经就何为乐趣而进行了大量讨论，通过MDA Framework我们了解了多种趣味形式。Noah的理论可以解答为何有些东西一开始就具有趣味性，有些东西则不然。

*Richard Bartle作著的《Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs》。如果你还不知道MUD为何物，我简单解释一下MUD就是今天MMO游戏的前身。这里的MUD也可以替换为《魔兽世界》这类游戏。

*重温MDA Framework内容，尤其是其中涉及的9种趣味元素。

趣味形式

你可能还记得MDA Framework的作者所列举的8种趣味类型：

*感觉。游戏可以直接与感觉挂钩。例如电子游戏中起“点缀作用”的音频和视频，《卡塔岛》中的木制路面和房屋的触觉，或者体育项目中的物理运动，《热舞革命》或者其他任天堂Wii游戏。

*幻想。游戏可以提供一个模拟现实（也有些人将这种现象称为“逃避现实”），但远比现实生活更有趣的世界。

*叙事。我们之前就曾提到，游戏可能涉及故事元素，而这些故事的创造者可能是设计师，也可能是参与游戏的玩家。

*挑战。有些游戏的趣味性（游戏邦注：尤其是复古街机游戏、专业体育运动，以及象棋和围棋等极具挑战性的桌游）主要来自竞争的刺激性。即使是《扫雷》或登山等单人游戏的趣味性也主要源于激烈的竞争。

*友谊。许多游戏都有明显的社交元素。我想这一点正是《大富翁》等美国桌游戏尽管缺乏有趣决策，游戏机制也无甚趣味，却每年都能实现高销量的原因所在。让玩家与家人共享社交乐趣，才是这些游戏魅力的所在。

探索。这个特点在桌游中甚为罕见，但在《Tikal》和《Entdecker》等探索类游戏中却可发现这个元素。它在冒险和角色扮演游戏中较为普遍，其中典型代表当属《塞尔达》和《银河战士》系列。

表现。我认为MDA作者认为这个元素是指玩家通过玩游戏表现自我。例如，字谜或扑克这类游戏偏重于表现你在游戏中的举动；《龙与地下城》则通过游戏角色反映玩家的个人特点；《模拟人生》、《侠盗猎车手》、《上古卷轴4：湮灭》、《神鬼寓言》等电子游戏也很重视为玩家提供自定义工具，让他们创造个性化的游戏体验。

服从。游戏是一项持续进行的爱好，而非孤立的活动。这方面的例子包括亚对策概念、《万智牌游戏》中的竞赛场景，还有《魔兽世界》中的公会成员定期会面，以及桌游或角色扮演群体的每周定期的模仿秀等。

但这并非仅一择其一而行的命题，游戏可以包括多种不同的趣味。

为何不制作一种含有8种趣味元素的游戏？这样不正好迎合所有人的喜好了吗？但事实并非如此。游戏存在8种趣味元素并不意味着所有人都能从这些元素中找到乐子。所以我们常看到不同游戏结合了不同种类的趣味性，而不同玩家对不同趣味结合体的喜好也不尽相同。我认识的半数人认为象棋很好玩，但另外半数人却不以为然，所以说“趣味”的美感并非来自游戏本身，而是游戏与玩家的结合。

那么游戏就只有以上这8种趣味元素了吗？不，即使是MDA作者也承认这份趣味列表并不完善。还有其他业内人士也列出了自己的趣味定义，其中包括Nicole Lazzaro的4种关键趣味元素，Pierre-Alexandre Garneau的14种趣味形式。即使是MDA论文提出的这8种趣味元素也仍然存在争议。例如，把“幻想”和“叙事”拆开真的合理吗，或者说这两者代表不同的趣味理念？“服从”真的算是一种趣味吗，或者说只有在一种游戏真有强大吸引力从而上升成为玩家的“爱好”时才会发生这种情况？——它究竟算是一种起因还是影响？什么才能算或者不算“表现”？

“乐趣即学习，学习是乐趣”这种理念究竟从何而来？

进化论

《Natural Funativity》作者Noah Falstein的观点是，趣味性的由来可以追溯到史前时代，当时的原始人只能靠狩猎和采集为生，为了生存和繁殖他们不得不学习许多技能。人们发现学习某些技能很有趣，就会多实践这种技能，从而更好地生存、繁殖，将自己的基因遗传给下一代。随着时间发展，那些可以让我们生存下来的技能就成了今天“有趣”的东西。虽然并非所有原始时代的狩猎采集技能现在仍能派上用场，但是要知道，我们的本性并不是那么容易因科技的发展而消失殆尽。

一句话，只要是对原始人有用的东西，你都会发现它很有趣。

Falstein提出了三种趣味性概念：“体能趣味性”（游戏邦注：例如让人们战胜或躲过危险的身体技能），“精神趣味性”（人类用大脑解决问题的能力，例如发明轮子和利用火源），以及“社交趣味性”（为繁殖下一代以及彼此共存的群居生活所带来的好处）。

当我看到这种观点时，脑中立即闪过《魔兽世界》的影子，这款游戏是不是也存在体能趣味性（战斗），精神趣味性（提升装备和技能），以及社交趣味性（随着《Night Elves》的背景音乐起舞）？

但我们可以将这种进化论理念运用于任何“趣味形式”，首先来看看MDA在这种情景下的8种趣味性：

*感觉包括身体活动（有利于塑造形体），看到和听到有趣的东西（有利于发现机遇或危险）。

*幻想会让我们脑中的“假设性”场景更为丰满和充实，让我们因此想出更多新主意。

*叙事有助于我们将重要的信息和经验传递给所在群体中的其他成员，增加所有人生存下来的机会。

*挑战是一种相对安全，可让不同人显示自己威力强于他人的便捷途径——如果要建立威信，“我可以把这枚石子扔得比你更远”可能比“让我们一决死战”更管用。

*友谊增加了人们找到新食物来源的可能性（如果我们孤身一人对付巨兽，很快就会毙命，但团结起来就可以把野兽放倒）。另外，离群索居也不利于人类将自己的基因遗传给下一代。

*探索就是我们探查自己周围环境的本能。我们了解的区域越广，就越可能找到食物来源和栖身之处。

*表现则深深根植于我们通过语言交流的本能。语言和沟通从总体上来说都非常有用。

*服从并非我很了解的概念。但我想它应该更像是趣味性的影响而不是起因。

探索新的趣味形式

我们也可以进行逆向思考，不要再试图从我们的脑子开始找起因，对某些有趣的东西追根溯源，而是独立分析人类祖先的一些求生技能，然后从中找到趣味元素。例如以下几种游戏中常见的活动：

*收集。这一点起源于人类祖先的“采集”技能，所以你也会发现它很有趣。在我孩提时代，电子游戏还不像现在这么普遍，那时大家最流行集邮。在许多桌游戏中，玩家的任务包括收集资源或代币。集换式卡牌游戏玩家则搜集卡片。在电子游戏时代，我们的收集癖好始于马里奥搜集钱币。

*空间推理。原始人得弄清楚空间关系才能创建有用的工具（假如你想用一根大木棒制作一个粗糙的梯子或者桥梁，你首先就得计算好木头的长度；如果你想合并两块木板，就得知道如何让它们彼此相嵌）。从《俄罗斯方块》到《五子棋》，许多游戏都体现了这种空间关系。

*发展。我将此视为一种亚技能，即有利于学习到新技能的技术，这一点对需要掌握大量技能的原始人来说尤其重要。我们总能看到多数游戏都采用了这种机制，例如可让玩家找到新道具，购买新装备，获得更好的战斗状态或新能力的经验值、等级。

*寻找捷径。找到能够多快好省地解决问题的门道，有利于原始人保存体力，从这一点上看，懒惰倒成为一种美德。讽刺的是，在现代游戏中，这种捷径通常以破坏游戏规则和作弊等形式出现。

*捣乱。与其他竞争形式一样，征服他人可以建立玩家在群体中的威望（但我们有些人会认为这是令人讨厌且不成熟的表现，但原始人却并不像现代人这么敏感和脆弱）。

也许你还能想出其他各种趣味性，欢迎各位补充。

游戏演变史

玩乐，尤其是玩游戏，让我们锻炼了长大成人的一些技能。虽然我们觉得有趣的技能虽然数百万年的进化才会发生演变，但我们所玩的游戏却是代代不相同，所以你可以通过某个年代最流行的游戏观察其社会价值观（游戏邦注：例如在几个世纪以前，世界绝大多数人是农民，收割庄稼对人们来说是件大事。但今天的情况不同了，所以我们在现代社会中再也看不到“收割游戏”的盛行了）。

这为我们设计游戏提供了一个重要的出发点。设计师在动工之前可以先想想自己所在文化圈哪些技能最有用。找到这些技能与原始人求生技能的关联，然后设计一款可实践这些技能的游戏。许多成功的游戏都极为擅长贯穿学以致用的理念。这类游戏中的活动包括使用玩家需掌握的技能，或者将掌握某项技能作为成功的前提条件。无论是哪种情况，游戏玩法都会将内在趣味性与学习乐趣融为一体，这样你就有可能做出一款“具有教育意义”同时又不失趣味性的游戏。注意这种游戏与所谓的“寓教于乐”游戏截然不同，后者常要求人们机械地学习，或者将学习与玩乐孤立起来，已有不少先例证明这种游戏其实很“无趣”。

存在问题

现在我们好像是得到了所有答案。心流状态让人很愉快，我们因自己的本能而自觉训练狩猎采集技能，游戏挖掘这种人类本能，重现了我们称之为“有趣”的东西。

事实果真如此吗？不是。

首先，我们必须解开一个关于“趣味性”的集体困惑。有趣并非唯一让我们快乐的情感，例如设计师常提到的：

*骄傲，这是人们完成一项重大挑战和任务时的胜利感。

*幸灾乐祸，这是一种看到对手失败，自己得手的沾沾自喜，也就是“看自己受伤才觉得不幸，看他人坠崖则是笑话”。

*欣慰，当你的子女、学生或其他与你有半师之缘的人获得成功之时，你会心生一种自豪感（“我为你感到骄傲”），并从中发现自我价值。

*吹牛，你向他人吹嘘自己的子女、学生之时的心情（例如“我孩子从小学开始就是个三好学生”）。

以上这些情感实际上都不能算是“有趣”，它们与心流状态并无直接关系。但它们确实让人获得愉悦感，而且也确实丰富了游戏体验。

正如我们在艺术游戏这一课程中所言，“有趣”并不是游戏的唯一目的。我们阅读《战争与和平》时会觉得它是一本好书，但我们不会称之为有趣。我们也可以说《辛德勒的名单》和《拯救大兵瑞恩》是好电影，但如果我们说它们很有趣，肯定会让人不解。《麦克白》也不能算是“有趣”的戏剧，看《蒙娜丽莎》也并不有趣，日常新闻也甚少趣味性，但这些东西却都极具深意。

游戏评论家看《蒙娜丽莎》时可能会说：“视觉效果很棒，但只有一个关卡，互动性太差，没有什么重玩价值。有意思但不好玩，2分（满分为10）”。

但我们其他人可能另有看法。

回顾我之前课程提到的说法——“游戏设计师的职责是让游戏富有趣味性”——现在看来这可能会让大家觉得不自在。趣味性当然是许多游戏的强大元素，但游戏元素并不仅局限于此。我们游戏设计师的任务远不仅是让游戏更为有趣，而是创造有意义的游戏体验。

有趣是通往有意义游戏体验的一个捷径，但并非唯一途径。

另一个问题

Koster曾在《A Theory of Fun》中指出，玩家本质上都很懒。他们通常只会找那些自己原来就擅长的游戏，所以他们不会去学习新的技能，这就减少了他们所获得的学习乐趣。他们老是喜欢找漏洞，钻空子和作弊，这些现象都损害了愉快的学习过程。从这一点上看是玩家让游戏趣味性大打折扣，但他们就是要这么做。

公平来说，游戏设计师也难免如此。我们在某些方面的表现比玩家更甚，因为我们都吃透了特定的游戏模式，可以快速将其消化。这就催生出了大量衍生工作。从我个人经验来说，我接触的第一个游戏项目是款卡片收集游戏，所以直到现在我还是会习惯性地在自己制作的任何一款游戏中添加卡片、损失/利益决策、稀有性概念等元素。我认识的另一名设计师则喜欢从RPG角度看问题。另一名同事则喜欢制作模拟题材的游戏。我们多数人都习惯从特定游戏类型出发，制作其他不同的游戏。以我个人经验来看，我们设计游戏时通常会受到职业生涯中第一款游戏风格的影响。

是否有什么因素让我们偏好特定的游戏类型？如果说是“个人喜好”，那么为何游戏玩家存在如此多重叠特点？

玩家类型

这里就不得不提到Bartle提出的玩家类型理论。与趣味性定义一样，我们也发现许多人也提出了自己主张的玩家类型理论。我们在此介绍Bartle而不提及他人的原因包括：首先，Bartle的论文算是最早获得大众关注及认可的代表作；其次，他的理论有些层面颇有趣味性，值得深入剖析。

让我们先看看Bartle提出的MUD或MMO游戏中的四种玩家类型：

*成就型：这类玩家喜欢获得威力，晋级并“赢得”游戏。

*探索型：他们希望探索世界，会在自己的脑中建立不同区域的心理地图，然后找到自己周围隐藏的事物。

*社交型：他们将游戏作为社交媒介，同其他玩家进行社交互动，游戏只是方便他们与好友相聚的一个理由罢了。

*杀手型：（也可以称为捣乱者）他们将自己的快乐建立在他人的痛苦之上。

每种玩家类型的游戏动机是什么？他们为何要选择自己的所作所为？这就要回到不同趣味性的话题。

将Bartle的4种玩家类型与MDA的8种趣味元素进行比较，我们不难发现其中相似之处。成就型玩家喜欢挑战性的乐趣，探索型玩家喜欢探索乐趣，社交型玩家关心友谊之趣，杀手型玩家虽然并不切合MDA中的任何一种趣味元素，但却能与我所提出的捣乱之趣对号入座。

其他玩家类型理论也显示了同样的关联性：每种“玩家类型”实际上都是一种乐趣，或者数种不同乐趣的合体。玩家和乐趣类型这两者实际上是殊途同归的概念。

这表明你可以罗列出数种不同乐趣，然后根据其结合情况提出新的玩家类型。例如赛车游戏融合了感觉和挑战的乐趣，那我就可以提出“赛车手”这种玩家类型，他们的特点就是喜欢玩赛车游戏。我还可以推测“极限运动”等其他游戏可能也会吸引这种玩家，因为他们本质上“趣味相投”。

你还可以采用逆向思维，分解出一种新的玩家类型（例如你从游戏测试者中发现的一些“异类”），研究他们喜好的操作习惯，从而发现一种新的趣味形式。

鸡生蛋，蛋生鸡？

如果反复讨论玩家类型和趣味形式，我们可能就会纳闷这究竟是不是一个先有鸡还是先有蛋的问题。究竟是玩家在先，还是乐趣在先？

作为游戏设计师，我们创造了规则（游戏机制），这些规则又创造了游戏动态，从而唤起了玩家的乐趣。我们所创造的东西才是趣味的起源。因此趣味类型才是我们重视的第一要务。

我们并没有创造玩家类型。游戏设计师创造的规则并没有培养玩家类型，因此以上提到的所有玩家类型只有与趣味相结合时才能体现其意义。

举例来说，《21st Century Game Design》（由Chris Bateman和Richard Boon所著）这本书根据Myers-Briggs人格理论提出了相应的玩家类型。在游戏设计领域中，执行市场调查结果，并根据目标用户的喜好量体裁衣地设计游戏是一种非常普遍的做法。但这种应用方式存在一个问题。先以Myers-Briggs人格理论反映玩家类型，然后再以玩家类型区分不同趣味形式。这个过程已经发生了两次概念提纯，这实际上存在很大的出错率。这本书所提出的16种玩家类型并不适用于所有人。

另一个典型的例子就是将玩家简单区分为“休闲”和“硬核”类型。这种分类法可能很适用于游戏的营销推广，但对设计师来说作用有限。这些玩家到底喜欢哪种乐趣？何为“休闲乐趣”和“硬核乐趣”？这些问题尚无准确答案。不少人认为休闲玩家喜欢体验简洁、容易学习、挑战性不大的游戏。但有些所谓的“休闲游戏”却很困难（例如《美女餐厅》）、冗长（《Puzzle Quest》）或者复杂（《Virtual Villagers》。我发现与其浪费大量时间定义“休闲玩家”类型，不如去寻找让那些“休闲游戏”大获成功的趣味形式，然后依此设计游戏。

老师请注意

与上次课程一样，本次主题也与教学课堂颇有相似之处。我提到“玩家类型”和“趣味形式”时，教育工作者可能就会想到“学习方式”这个概念。我所谓的感觉、叙事和表现乐趣，在他们看来也许可以解读为声音、视觉和动觉学习过程。

老师们也许可以按这种方式授课：

*你在课堂上运用过多少种趣味形式？是否为了让学生全神贯注融入课堂中而动用了多种趣味教学手段？

*感觉上的乐趣很容易实现。不妨把一些有趣的东西带到课堂上让学生们看看，带些可以让他们相互传递的小道具。我认识的一位老师经常在发现学生打嗑睡时让整个班级的同学站起来做伸展运动。

*叙事乐趣也同样很简单。许多学科都会融入不少故事内容。比起临时杜撰的内容，多数人更易于记住故事。我们天生就有喜欢讲故事和听故事的基因。

*挑战常以问答游戏的形式出现在课堂中。虽然《Jeopardy!》要比一般大学课程更有趣，但学生们并不常制定有趣的决策。但老师们可以采用比这更好的方法，让学生分组进行正式或非正式的讨论、争辩，使他们获得这种乐趣。

*友谊在学生们分组或进行课堂讨论的时候就会自然形成。

*探索对多数课堂来说并不容易实现，因为人人都只能坐在座位上，无法探索地理情况。实地考察旅行或许是个好方法。如果教室有网络连接，至少可以让学生在线搜索，让他们探索一个虚拟空间。

*收集这种行为在小学课堂上比较常见，例如奖励学生贴纸或小星星。但高等教育课堂再采用这种方法可能就有风险了（会让学生认为你是把他们当成幼儿园的孩子），但也并非完全不可行。我认识一位经济学教授，他印刷了一撂印有自己头像的钞票，在课常练习、测试中发放给学生，学生们可以在期末的时候用这种模拟钞票交换真钞或者奖品。

*发展是任何一种课程都存在的固有属性，毕竟每节课都是建立在之前课程的基础之上。假如你利用某节课中大家所学的知识制作一张图表，就会发现这与RTS或MMO游戏中的“科技树”或“技能树”颇为相似。向学生们展示这种技能图表（然后在他们学到新知识，“解琐”更高级的技能之后向他们再次展示），你就可以为他们创造一种成就感……这种方法也可以让授课主题更为明晰易了。教育部门的主管也可以效仿此法，以图表形式展示课堂要求和前提条件。

经验总结

从总体上看，我们认为有趣的东西与祖先们为求生而掌握的技能极有渊源。我们在游戏设计过程中可以充分利用这一点，让游戏更加好玩有趣。

有些人认为特定的趣味更有吸引力，毕竟萝卜青菜各有所爱。可以看看你自己最喜欢的游戏（以及你不感兴趣的热门游戏），然后找到自己的“兴趣点”。

记住“乐趣”并非玩家对游戏的唯一情感反映，游戏设计师的目标是无论有趣与否，都要创造引人入胜的游戏体验。在第6个课程内容中，我们曾提到多数艺术游戏并不有趣，但却极富深意。趣味性是我们的重要追求，但不是唯一目标。

如果你自己去搜索，就会发现许多文献都提出了大量趣味或玩家分类法。但不要将这些内容奉为真理，应该深入分析，并判断其理论的意义所在。从趣味形式来看，你知不知道为什么我们（或者我们的祖先）会发现各种乐趣？从玩家类型来看，你又如何找到玩家类型与趣味形式的关联性？

游戏邦注：原文发表于2009年7月23日，所涉事件及数据以当时为准。（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）

Level 8: Kinds of Fun, Kinds of Players

On Monday, we discovered that “fun” is really just another word for “learning” and that putting players in a flow state is where this elusive “fun” comes from. Today we dig deeper into this concept to learn more about “fun,” digging into LeBlanc et al.’s “8 kinds of fun” and relating that back to flow theory and other things.

We currently have an idea of what is fun, but it would help to know why these things are fun. What if there are new kinds of fun waiting to be discovered?

Course Announcements

I will be at Protospiel this weekend, so I may be a bit slow in responding to email or validating forum accounts. Likewise, next Monday’s lesson may be slightly delayed in posting, depending on what shape I’m in when I return.

Mini-Challenge Results

Here are a small selection of the answers to the mini-challenge from last time (propose a rule change to add interesting decisions to Trivial Pursuit):

» Answering player hears all six questions on the card, then predicts the number they’ll get right. If they don’t overestimate how many they’ll get right, they get N points (where N is the number of correct answers); otherwise they get nothing. Presumably, players play to a total score rather than moving around the board. This decision is interesting when the player is not entirely sure whether an answer is correct, and they must choose their level of risk (based on how certain they are and their relative score).

» After earning a wedge, you can choose to keep answering additional questions on the card for additional wedges (or additional turns), but if you miss one then you lose all of the ones you’ve earned that turn. An interesting push-your-luck mechanic.

» Instead of rolling to move, a player can attempt to answer a question of the color of a nearby space (anywhere within 6 spaces) to move there. If they fail, they do not move. Another risk/reward mechanic, where you risk completely wasting your turn in exchange for more precise movement.
» Once per turn, you can force another player to answer a question for you after hearing it. If they get it wrong, your turn continues; if they get it right, your turn ends. Reminiscent of “You Don’t Know Jack.”

» You can get more than one wedge of the same color. You may trade with opponents at any time.

» You read your own question. After looking at the answer, if you are incorrect, you can bluff and claim you were correct anyway. If no one else challenges you, then proceed as if you had answered correctly. If you are challenged… well, the original tweet didn’t specify, but presumably the winner of the challenge gains something and the loser loses something. I’d recommend, loser of a challenge loses their next turn, and if the challenger was correct it immediately becomes their turn (possibly skipping other players in the process).

Readings

Read the following:

» Natural Funativity, by Noah Falstein. We’ve talked a lot about what is fun, and from the MDA Framework we know there are different kinds of fun. But why are these things fun in the first place, and not other things? Noah provides a useful theory.

» Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs, by Richard Bartle. If you’re too young to know what a MUD is, it is basically a precursor to today’s MMO. Replace the word “MUD” with “World of Warcraft” and it will still make perfect sense.

» You may also find it useful to review the MDA Framework, specifically the part that talks about the 8 kinds of fun.

Kinds of Fun

You may remember from the MDA Framework that the authors listed 8 kinds of fun. These are:

» Sensation. Games can engage the senses directly. Consider the audio and video “eye candy” of video games; the tactile feel of the wooden roads and houses in Settlers of Catan; or the physical movement involved in playing sports, Dance Dance Revolution, or any game on the Nintendo Wii.

» Fantasy. Games can provide a make-believe world (some might cynically call it “escapism”) that is more interesting than the real world.

» Narrative. As we mentioned earlier in passing, games can involve stories, either of the embedded kind that designers put there, or the emergent kind that are created through player action.

» Challenge. Some games, particularly retro-arcade games, professional sports, and some highly competitive board games like Chess and Go, derive their fun largely from the thrill of competition. Even single-player games like Minesweeper or activities like mountain climbing are fun mainly from overcoming a difficult challenge.

» Fellowship. Many games have a highly social component to them. I think it is this alone that allows many American board games like Monopoly to continue to sell many copies per year, in spite of the uninteresting decisions and dull mechanics. It is not the game, but the social interaction with family, that people remember fondly from their childhood.

» Discovery. This is rare in board games, but can be found in exploration-type games like Tikal and Entdecker. It is more commonly found in adventure and role-playing video games, particularly games in the Zelda and Metroid series.

» Expression. By this, I think the MDA authors mean the ability to express yourself through gameplay. Examples include games like Charades or Poker where the way that you act is at least as important as what other actions you take within a game; Dungeons & Dragons where the character you create is largely an expression of your own personal idea; or open-world and sim video games like The Sims or Grand Theft Auto or Oblivion or Fable, which are largely concerned with giving the player the tools needed to create their own custom experience.

» Submission. A name that often has my students chuckling with their dirty minds, but the intent is games as an ongoing hobby rather than an isolated event. Consider the metagame and the tournament scene in Magic: the Gathering, the demands of a guild to show up at regular meetings in World of Warcraft, or even the ritualized play of games at a weekly boardgame or tabletop-roleplaying group.
Recall that these are not all-or-nothing propositions. Games can contain several kinds of fun, in varying quantities.

Why not just create a game that has all eight kinds of fun? Wouldn’t that be the holy grail of games, the game that’s fun for everyone? Unfortunately, no. Just because these are different kinds of fun does not mean that everyone finds all eight of these things fun at all. Not only do different games provide different combinations and relative quantities of the various kinds of fun, but different players find different combinations more or less fun than others. About half of the people I run into think that Chess is fun, and the other half do not; the “fun” Aesthetic arises not from the game alone, but the combination of game and player.

Are these eight the only kinds of fun? No; even the authors admit the above list is incomplete. There are many classification schemes out there to identify different kinds of fun, including Nicole Lazzaro’s four fun keys, or Pierre-Alexandre Garneau’s fourteen forms of fun. Even the 8 kinds of fun from the MDA paper are debatable. Is it meaningful to separate Fantasy and Narrative, or are they just two ways of looking at the same kind of fun? Is submission really a kind of fun, or is it what happens when you have a game compelling enough to earn the status of “hobby” – is it a cause or an effect? What, exactly, counts as “expression” and what does not?

And where does the whole “fun is learning, learning is fun” thing from last time come into this discussion?

Evolution (sans Pokemon)

Falstein’s answer is to take a trip back to early pre-history, when humans were at their hunter-gatherer stage. Primitive humans had to learn many skills in order to survive and reproduce. If we found it fun to learn certain skills, we would be more likely to practice them, and thus more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass on our genes to the next generation. Over time, those things that made us most likely to survive ended up being the things that we find “fun” today. Not all primitive hunter-gatherer skills are necessarily useful today, mind you, but our genetics haven’t had time to catch up with our technology yet.

In short: if a caveman found it useful, you’ll find it fun.

Falstein proposes three kinds of fun: “physical fun” (useful for any physical feats that allow us to fight or escape danger), “mental fun” (the problem-solving part of our brain that gave us such useful things as the wheel and fire), and “social fun” (the benefits of banding together in groups for mutual survival… and, of course, reproduction).

When I first saw this, I thought “wow!” Except I spelled it “WoW”… because, what is World of Warcraft, but physical fun (combat), mental fun (optimizing your equipment and skills), and social fun (dancing Night Elves)?

But we can apply this evolutionary thought process to any “kinds of fun.” Let us look some of the MDA’s 8 kinds of fun in this context:

» Sensation includes physical movement (good for building muscle) and looking at and hearing things that are interesting (good for detecting opportunities or dangers).

» Fantasy allows the kind of “what-if” scenario part of our brain to get stronger, allowing us to come up with novel ideas.

» Narrative is useful for passing on vital information and experience to others in your group, increasing the chance that all of you will survive.

» Challenge is a convenient way for different humans to show dominance over one another in a relatively safe way – “I can throw this rock further than you” is more useful than “let’s fight to the death” if you’re trying to build a colony.

» Fellowship opens up the possibility of new food sources (a single one of us might get killed hunting a large beast, but a group of us together can take it down). It’s also rather hard to pass on your genetic material to the next generation if you’re alone.

» Discovery is what makes us want to explore our nearby territory. The more territory we know, the more potential places for us to find food and shelter.

» Expression probably comes from the same part of us that is hardwired to communicate through language. Language, and communication in general, are pretty useful.

» Submission is… well, I’m not sure about that one. Maybe it is an effect of fun rather than the cause.
Discovering New Kinds of Fun

We can do this in reverse. Instead of taking something that’s fun and tracing it back to the reptilian parts of our brain, we can isolate skills that our hunter-gatherer ancestors might have needed to survive, and then use that to figure out what we would find fun. For example, here are some activities that are often found in games:

» Collection. This is the “gathering” part of hunting-and-gathering, so you would expect it to be fun. And it is. When I was a kid, before video games became ubiquitous, the world’s most popular hobby was stamp collecting. In many board games you collect resources or tokens. Trading Card Game players collect cards. In the video game world, we’ve been collecting things since Mario first started collecting coins.

» Spatial Reasoning. Primitive humans needed to figure out spatial relationships in order to build useful tools (for example, if you want to find a big stick to make a crude ladder or bridge, you need to be able to estimate length; if you want to stick two pieces of wood together, you need to be able to figure out how to make them fit). Many games make use of spatial relationships, from Tetris to Pente.

» Advancement. I see this as kind of a meta-skill, the skill of learning new skills, which is obviously useful to a primitive human that needs to learn a lot of skills. We see this formalized in games all the time, from the overt Experience Points and Levels to finding new items or buying new weapons that give us better stats or new capabilities.

» Finding Shortcuts. Finding novel, undiscovered ways to work around problems in ways that take less effort than normal helped primitive humans to conserve their energy; in that sense, laziness can be a virtue. Ironically, in games, this often takes the form of deliberate rule-breaking and cheating.

» Griefing. Like other forms of competition, putting other people down is a way to show dominance and superiority over your peers. (Yes, some of us find it annoying and immature, but cavemen are not exactly known for their emotional sensitivity.)

Perhaps you can think of other kinds of fun. Feel free to add to the list in the Comments on this blog post.

Games Change Over Time

Play in general, and games in particular, help us to exercise the skills we need for adulthood. While the things we find fun require millions of years of evolution to change, the games we play can change with each generation. As such, you can tell a lot about a society’s values by looking at its most popular games. (A few centuries back when most people were farmers, grain harvesting was a big deal to a lot of people. Today it is not, so we do not see a predominance of “grain games” in our contemporary world.)

This gives yet one more potential starting point when designing a game. Think about what kinds of skills are useful in adulthood in your culture. Find a link between those and the skills needed for a primitive hunter-gatherer to survive. Then, design a game that exercises those skills. Most successful learning games do this, by integrating the learning into the game. The actions in the game either consist of using the skills that need to be learned, or the learning of a skill is the victory condition of the game. In both cases, the gameplay is aligned with the inherent fun and joy of learning, and you can end up with an “educational” game that is also fun. Note that this is in stark contrast to the typical “Edutainment” title that requires rote learning as a prerequisite for play, or that separates the learning and the gameplay, which has been proven time and again to be not fun.

One Problem

So, now it would appear we have all the answers. Flow states are pleasurable. We are driven by our hardwired tendencies to build useful hunter-gatherer skills. Games can exploit these to produce that thing we call “fun.”

Is that it?

Well, no.

First, we must question our collective obsession with this “fun” business. Fun is not the only pleasurable emotion. For example, designers often talk of:

» Fiero, the triumphant feeling of completing a significant, challenging task. “You rock!”

» Schadenfreude, the gloating feeling you get when a rival fails at something. “Tragedy is when I stub my toe; comedy is when you fall off a cliff and die.”

» Naches, the warm feeling of self-worth that you get when your child, student, or other person you are mentoring succeeds. “I’m so proud of you!”

» Kvell, the emotion you feel when bragging about your child, student, etc. “My kid is an honor student at Wherever Elementary.”

None of these emotions would be described as “fun” exactly. None of them are directly related to flow states, either. But they are pleasurable. And they could certainly add something to a gameplay experience.

Also, as we discussed when talking about art games, “fun” is not necessarily the only purpose for which games could be made. We may read War and Peace and say that it is a good book, but we would not call it fun. We may say that Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan are great movies, but people would look at us very strange if we said either one was fun. Macbeth is not particularly fun. Viewing the Mona Lisa is not fun. The daily news is rarely fun. And yet, these things can all be deeply meaningful.

A game reviewer might say of the Mona Lisa: “Great visuals, but only one level, low interactivity, not much replay value. Interesting, but not very fun. 2/10.”

The rest of us would not.

So, that premise that I started with last Monday – “a game designer’s job is to make a game fun” – is something that you should all be a bit uncomfortable with by now. Fun is certainly a strong component of many games, but games do not have to be limited to that. Our role as game designers goes beyond making a game fun. A game designer’s job is to craft a meaningful gameplay experience.

Fun just happens to be a convenient and easy way to do this. But never forget that it is not the only way.

Another Problem

Koster points out in A Theory of Fun that players are, at their core, lazy. They tend to seek games similar to those that they’re already good at, so they are not learning something that is new, which reduces the amount of learning-pleasure they can receive. They tend to look for loopholes, exploits, and cheats, which likewise circumvent the pleasurable learning process. Players make the game less fun – but they do it anyway.

In fairness, game designers do this too. We probably do this even moreso than most players, since we are so experienced at finding patterns in games and we see the forms so quickly. This leads to lots of derivative work. Personally, the first game I ever worked on was a collectible card game, and even now I instinctively want to add cards, custom decks, cost/benefit decisions, and the concept of rarity to every game I make. Another designer I know sees everything in terms of RPGs. Another one of my colleagues tries to turn everything into a Sim game. Most of us, I think, tend to think in terms of one genre even if we’re working in another. In my experience, it’s usually the genre of the first game we work on professionally.

Is there something about us that makes us like one kind of game over another? If it is as simple as “personal taste” then why do we see so much overlap among gamers?

Player Types

This brings us to Bartle and his player types. As with kinds of fun (and definitions of games), we find no shortage of people willing to advance their own theory of player types. Why read Bartle, then, and not someone else? First, Bartle’s was the first essay of its kind to gain widespread interest and acceptance, so it is important historically; second, because there are certain aspects of it that make for interesting dissection.

Let us look at the four proposed types of players in a MUD (or MMO):

» Achievers find it enjoyable to gain power, level up, and generally to “win” the game (to the extent that an ongoing, never-ending game can be “won”).

» Explorers want to explore the world, build mental maps of the different areas in their heads, and generally figure out what is in their surroundings.

» Socializers use the game as a social medium. They play for the interaction with other players. The gameplay systems are just a convenient excuse to get together and play with friends.

» Killers (today we call them “griefers”) derive their fun from ruining other people’s fun.

What is the motivation of each player type? Why do they do what they do? This relates back to the different kinds of fun.

Comparing the lists of Bartle’s player types and MDA’s 8 kinds of fun, we see parallels. Achievers favor Challenge fun. Explorers seem to like Discovery fun. Socializers are all about Fellowship fun. And Killers… well, they don’t map to a specific kind of fun in MDA, but the Griefing fun that I proposed as an addition seems to work well.

Other player type schemes show similar correlations: each “player type” is really a kind of fun, or a combination of several kinds of fun, personified. The two concepts (player types and kinds of fun) are really the same concept expressed in different ways.

This suggests that you can start with a list of kinds of fun, and invent new player types based on some combination of fun types. Car racing games combine Sensation and Challenge fun; I could propose a “Racer” player type as the kind of player who likes these kinds of games. And then I could make a guess that other games, such as “Xtreme Sports,” might appeal to the same player type since they have a similar “fun signature.”

You could also go the other way. If you manage to isolate a new player type (i.e. a pattern of play that appears in a nontrivial percentage of your playtesters), by studying that type and what the players are doing, you may be able to discover new kinds of fun.

Which Comes First?

If we can go back and forth between player types and kinds of fun, we may wonder if this is a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Is it better to start with players, or fun?

Consider this: as game designers, we create rules (mechanics). The rules create the play dynamics when set in motion, and those cause the aesthetic of fun in the players. The things that we create, are a root cause of fun. Therefore, it is the kinds of fun that are of greatest concern to us.

We do not create players. (Well, those of us who are parents could say that they do, but you know what I mean.) As game designers, our rules do not create new players or player types. Therefore, any list of player types is only useful to the extent that it is correlated with kinds of fun.

Let me give an example. There is a book, 21st Century Game Design, by Chris Bateman and Richard Boon, that proposes player types based on Myers-Briggs personality types. The main idea of doing market research, understanding the players that you are designing for, and designing a game to fit the target market is an idea that has definite applications in game design. But the implementation has a problem. Myers-Briggs types are mapped to player types, which in turn correspond to different kinds of fun. There are two levels of abstraction here, which means a higher-than-normal error rate. People do not always fall neatly and precisely into 16 categories, after all.

A more well-trod example is that of classifying players as “casual” or “hardcore.” Now we see why this distinction may be useful to marketing suits, but not so much to game designers. What kinds of fun correspond to these players? What is “casual fun” or “hardcore fun”? This is not clear. We are told that casual gamers want experiences that are short, easy to learn, not very challenging. Yet, some so-called “casual games” are difficult (Diner Dash), long (Puzzle Quest), or complicated (Virtual Villagers). Instead of spending time trying to define a single “casual gamer” archetype, I suspect it would be more fruitful to identify the kinds of fun that help a so-called “casual game” to succeed, and then work from there.

A Note for Teachers

As with last time, there are some direct parallels with teaching. Where I say “player types” and “kinds of fun” an educator might be thinking of “learning styles.” What I call Sensation, Narrative and Expression fun, you might refer to as Audio, Visual, or Kinesthetic learning.

Think of ways to apply this to your classroom:

» How many kinds of fun do you use in your classroom? Do you use a variety, in order to give all students a chance to be engaged and fascinated at least some of the time?» Sensation fun is pretty easy. Bring things to class that are interesting to look at. Bring props that can be felt or passed around. I know one teacher who will get the entire class to stand up and stretch if she sees the students nodding off.

» Narrative is another easy one. Most subjects have stories embedded in them. It is much easier for most people to remember a story than to remember a random factoid. We’re hardwired to tell and to listen to stories.

» Challenge often comes in the form of quiz-show-type games in class. While Jeopardy! is still marginally more interesting than the average college lecture, keep in mind that students are not making any interesting decisions. You can do better than this. Formal or informal debates and discussions with students taking sides can also play to this kind of fun.

» Fellowship can happen in class when students are put in groups, or during class discussions.» Discovery is difficult in most classrooms, as everyone is stuck in their seats and can’t explore the area much. Field trips are an obvious way to work on this. If your classroom is internet-enabled, you can ask students to do Web searches, at least letting them explore a virtual space if not a real one.

» Collection is a kind of fun that is most often seen in elementary school classrooms, giving students stickers or gold stars. It is riskier in higher education (you run the risk of treating your grad students like they were in kindergarten), but it can be done. I know an Economics professor, for example, who printed out a bunch of dollar bills with his face on them, and handed them out to students during in-class exercises, pop quizzes, and the like. Students could exchange the play money for real cash and prizes at the end of the term.

» Advancement is a kind of fun that is inherent in any course where the later material builds on what was learned earlier. If you created a diagram of skills being taught in the class (with arrows drawn from the prerequisite skills to the new skills being layered on top), you might find that it looks a lot like a “tech tree” or “skill tree” in an RTS or MMO video game. By exposing this kind of skill diagram to the students (and then showing them when they gain new skills and “unlock” access to other more advanced skills) you can create a sense of accomplishment… and also make the connections between the topics easier to see. Incidentally, for department heads out there, you can also do this for an entire curriculum, diagrammatically showing the course requirements and prerequisites.

Lessons Learned

In general, the things we find fun are related to the skills our distant ancestors needed in order to survive. We can exploit this in our game designs to make games that are more fun.

Some people find certain kinds of fun more interesting and engaging than others. Tastes vary. Try looking at your own favorite games (and popular games that you don’t like) and see if you can discover your own personal “fun signature.”

Remember that “fun” is but one of many emotional responses that a game can invoke in a player. Our goal as game designers is to deliver a compelling experience, which may or may not be fun. Most of the art games in Level 6 were not particularly fun… but they were deeply meaningful. Fun is an important part of what we do, but do not seek fun at the exclusion of all else.

As you do your own research, you will undoubtedly run into many articles that purport to classify Fun or Players into types. Do not take any such article as gospel. Instead, analyze it to see if it makes sense. For fun types, can you see why we (or our hunter-gatherer ancestors) would find each type fun? For player types, can you see a link between player types and kinds of fun, since it is easier for a game designer to create a custom brand of fun than to create a new type of player?（source:gamedesignconcepts）