作者：Sirlin

《无尽之剑》是近来App Store中头号付费应用，而且它也确实是名至实归。作为一名玩家我可以很直接地给予它“A”级评价，因为比起最近我玩过的其它游戏，它真的最有趣。而如果我从一名游戏设计师的身份去评判这款游戏，它的分数还会更高。值得注意的是，这款游戏设计师的“作为”其实很少，仅靠简单的战斗机制以及小型地图居然就能让游戏获得如此成就。

《无尽之剑》是“以一款以剑为主题，并结合状态优化与寻物机制的战斗游戏。”如果你已经知道如何玩这款游戏，你就可以忽略以下内容。

infinity_blade(from sirlin.net)

战斗描述

在iPad的触屏上我们能够很深刻地感受到拿剑挥舞这一基本机制所带来的真实感。战斗本来就是一种双向的打斗行为，你可以躲避敌人的袭击，而当你躲避了一次致命袭击后你便有机会做出反击了。在你躲避一次致命袭击之前你可以采取其他小动作，但是这些打击的破坏力却较为虚弱。你可以使用阻挡功能以免采取躲避行动，但是阻挡的次数取决于你的盾牌威力，所以最好少用这种功能。防御技能比躲避或者阻挡功能更有趣，它属于风险大回报高的技能。要使出防御招术，你必须掐准天时地利，有效攻击敌人。

同样地，在游戏中玩家也有两个仪表，与战斗游戏中的超级仪表类似（当仪表满格时你只要轻轻触碰它们便能够释放最大威力）。左上方的仪表可以震慑敌人，让你在短时间内攻击无法还手的敌人。而右上方的仪表则让你能够发动带有魔法的攻击（基于你所携带的装备）。

游戏状态描述

像其它游戏一样，你在游戏中打败了敌人便能够获得一定的金钱和道具奖励，而这些奖励将能够让你逐渐壮大，并打败更多敌人。这款游戏的不同寻常之处便是道具本身也需要进行升级，而你的角色的经验值只有在道具获得经验值时才能获得升级。假如道具已经达到其最大经验值，它就无法再为玩家角色的经验值加分。这种机制造成的结果就是，玩家在战斗过程中总会想交替使用不同道具，以便保持理想的战斗状态，并获得可观的经验值。这听起来有点麻烦，但是让玩家边战斗边管理道具似乎也是游戏的特色之一，这种机制让玩家在战斗与状态优化之间来回穿梭，给予他们在其中一方喘息的时间。

移动

这点是我想要着重说明的一点。在《无尽之剑》中你不能够四处走动，当你想要去其它地方时只要点击相应标记即可，就会有一个有声动画形象为你带路。虽然理论上听来这种游戏设置一点都不好玩，但是，在我看来这真的是一个很棒的主意。我猜想他们之所以会这么做的部分原因是考虑到技术问题，因为他们始终希望能够保持游戏环境的最佳状态。可以说这款游戏的图像远远优于其它iOS游戏图像，甚至当你走近细看时会发现，游戏中的每一个角落甚至缝隙都拥有很精致的图形纹理。或许还有很多其它原因推动他们采取如此设置。

很多年前，PlayStation2游戏《君临都市》以及《Spikeout》几乎同时出现，他们都是玩家与“一群人打斗”的游戏。很明显，《君临都市》拥有更优秀的战斗系统，它甚至拥有《Guilty Gear》的风格。在《君临都市》中玩家只能在一块特定的领域中战斗，但是在《Spikeout》中，玩家却能够从一个战场转移到另外一个战场。事实上，我们总是很难从一场战斗过度到下一次战斗。我经常浏览各种战斗游戏论坛，观看玩家对于游戏的各种讨论，而让我感到惊讶的是，那时候更多数玩家青睐于《Spikeout》而非《君临都市》。我想，作为战斗游戏玩家，他们绝大多数都认可《君临都市》的战斗系统很优秀，但是“相比较之下，《Spikeout》中存在着一些让人更有好感的元素。”

我想《无尽之剑》与《Spikeout》拥有类似的机制，即既能够让你感受到在不同战场间的穿梭，但是却不需要你亲自动手去移动角色。也许亲自操纵3D世界中的战场与战场之间的过渡并不合适（特别是在iPad或者iPhone上），所以这款游戏便直接忽略了这个点，而让玩家能够在点击下个节点后直接进入下一个战场。也许这只是一个细节问题，并不是大多数玩家关注的焦点，但它却在很大程度地提高了整体游戏体验。

《星际争霸2》中的单人战役也是个相类似的例子。你并不能真正看到游戏角色如何从一座桥走到一间实验室，也就是你并不需要真正去操纵角色在不同区域之间的穿梭。在《Spikeout》和《星际争霸2》这两款游戏中都不存在着实际的自由漫游场景，玩家只需要“点击去那里”便能够让角色走向他处。

快进设置

能够让美术师和设计师同时感到不安的便是事物的发展速度。美术师总是喜欢一些精心制作的动画形象，而设计师却不希望让这些过场动画阻碍玩家的前进速度。我们这里说的只是从一个战场转移到另外一个战场的速度，而这种速度有可能真的很慢，亦或者很快。特别是当美工决定按照自己的想法做出尝试时，我们便有可能从一个更近的镜头看到角色的缓慢移动。同样地，美术师也总是希望能够在打斗结束后再安插一些可怕的过场动画形象销毁敌人的尸体。

《无尽之剑》在美术方面可以说是百分之百的完美（完美的动画效果，多镜头动画场景）。在屏幕右下方角落里设有“快进”按钮，并且这个按钮的反应速度非常快。虽然我也期待“跳过”按钮，但是这个“快进”按钮更让我满意。因为这个按钮的反应速度非常快，所以只要你一摁按钮就能快进，如果想停下来就可以放手，继续欣赏其中内容。所有的这些行动都取决于你自己想要看到多少惊人的动画场景。

寻物机制

当你进入一座城堡的时候，你会发现在那里遍布着无数钱袋以及各种治疗药剂。而在这里玩家的任务是在特定时间内找到所有钱袋和药剂（我从来都没完成过这个任务）。但是我很快就意识到游戏在这里跟我们耍了个花招，因为某些钱袋在过场动画里就已经出现了。但是因为玩家总是想快进跳过动画场景，所以很容易遗漏掉一些钱袋。我惊讶地发现，这款游戏除了战斗和状态优化机制之外，居然还融入了寻物游戏机制。听起来真不错！

困难进程

城堡其实非常小，而除非你到达了最后关卡，要不你所面临的敌人其实并不多。那么这款游戏究竟是如何让玩家持续在其中逗留了数个小时？答案就在城堡最里面，你将与一个很强大的God King进行战斗。当你第一次遇到他时，他的力量总是大你很多，所以你当然不可能战胜他（尽管理论上来讲你有可能赢得战斗）。如果你输给了God King，你便会从“bloodline 2”（发生在20年之后的一个背景下）中再次开始游戏。而这时候你的儿子（身披你的盔甲并且与你拥有相同的状态）便会替你再次尝试战斗。这里还有一个动态难度设置，在反复尝试后你的力量将变得越来越强大，所以你能够更加容易地击败God King了。

infinity_blade_enemy(from sirlin)

当你打败了God King后，就无法跳过最后一幕的过场动画，而你也必须重新开始游戏。（既然是你的儿子打败了God King，那么现在的角色应该就是他吧？）而现在真正的问题就在于，城堡中的所有怪物已经变得越来越强大了。而如果你再次打败了God King，那么那些怪物也会继续变强大，以此类推。这种方法非常适用于地理范围有限，战斗类型较少的游戏。

改进建议

我希望游戏能够向玩家展现更多信息。道具也带有各种图标，如“闪电球图标+8”，但是却没有解释为什么要如此标示。一个特定的指环让你能够投射出一个叫做“Shock 3”的咒语。如果加上闪电球的力量这个咒语的威力是否就能够变强？如果答案是肯定的，那么这个咒语旁边就应该带有一个闪电球的标示。如果答案是否定的，那我们便可能会因此感到疑惑。另外一个让人疑惑的问题便是，你的角色属性屏幕会显示出你的盔甲额外功能（游戏邦注：例如，道具++意味着这个道具很容易掉落），但是却不会显示其它道具的额外功能。这就意味着你不能从非盔甲类道具中获得额外功能，这就是个让人困惑的存在了，因为既然它们毫无用处，我们为什么还需要它们？这款游戏的属性屏幕没有列出所有道具的额外功能，但它确实应该这么做。

根据toucharcade.com网站的评论，当你获得了一件道具，并让角色配备该道具，你便能够获得一些额外的奖励。事实并非如此（在升级过程中你因使用该道具而获得的奖励都是相同的），但这却是个有趣的想法，因为游戏的实际情况是，当你配备某项道具时并没有获得一定的经验值。不管怎样，它都值得我们对此进行深入思考。

《无尽之剑》让你能够进行3，4，5次连击，但我不知道开发者是故意的还是忘记了，他们并未告知玩家到底该如何做才能进行连击。的确，我理解游戏中总是会留下一些内容让玩家自己去摸索。但是我现在却难以衡量这款游戏这么做到底是对还是错。我想要知道什么时候能够进行连击，而我也希望自己能够多尝试这种连击。请参考《魔兵擎天录》（游戏邦注：Platinum Games所开发的一款游戏）中关于连击机制的做法，并将其用于《无尽之剑》的下次更新中。

另一方面，这种“以剑为主题的打斗游戏”通常应该更侧重于“打斗”元素，但这款游戏中的“勇士”却需要去解决一些让他们摸不着头脑的难题，既然是打斗题材的游戏，不妨再增加更多种打斗风格和类型。

多人模式

《无尽之剑》的下一次更新会植入多人模式。而这种改变将会使整个游戏瞬间脱胎换骨。虽然多人游戏很多机制都很优秀，但是也有一些让我讨厌但却不可避免的决策：多人游戏中的战斗是基于玩家在寻找装备时所花费的时间而非公平的决斗。这是状态类游戏所共有的问题，但是也是一个已经解决的问题。解决方法便是提供两种模式：1）公平模式，即你可以随意选择装备，而这就像是《万智牌游戏》中的自定义纸牌，每个玩家都拥有自由的选择权。2）非公平战斗，即玩家可以使用他们在单人模式中获得的任意道具。如果使用这些方法，只能让那些拥有较大优势的人独享胜利果实，而那些状态较差的玩家就不再有任何玩游戏的意义了，虽然真正的竞争和决斗应该避免这种情况。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2010年12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）

Infinity Blade: Game Design Review

By Sirlin

Infinity Blade was the #1 paid app in the App Store a few days, and deservedly so. As a player, I have to give it a grade of A because it’s entertained me more than most games do these days, including games costing literally ten times as much. I’d rather give you opinion as a game designer than a player though, and from that standpoint, I rate it even higher. What’s most notable is how much the designers did with so little. A simple combat mechanic and a small map go a long way.

Infinity Blade is “Punch-Out with swords, combined with stat optimization and a hidden object game.” Skip the next couple sections if you already know how it works.

Description of Combat

The basic mechanic of slashing with your sword has a good visceral feel on the iPad’s touch screen. The combat itself is kind of like Punch-Out. You can dodge the enemy’s attacks and after you dodge a big one, you have a chance to hit back. You can also sneak in other hits before dodging the big one, but they do less damage. You can block so that no timing of dodge is needed, but the number of blocks is limited by how strong your shield is. You get an XP bonus if you don’t break your shield, so it seems best not to use it. Parrying is more fun than dodging or blocking, and it caries higher risk and a bit higher reward. To parry, you must slash at the right time and angle to match the enemy’s attack. Very cool.

You also have two meters, kind of like super meters in a fighting game (simply touch them to activate when they are full). The one in the upper left always stuns the enemy, letting you hit them a few times for free. The one in the upper right lets you do a magic attack (based on which ring you have equipped) that requires you to do a gesture to cast.

Description of Stat-Game

As usual, you defeat enemies to get money and items, which make you stronger, which let you beat more enemies. The not-usual part is that the items themselves are what level up, and your character’s XP only goes up as the items gain XP. Once an item has its max XP, it no longer contributes to your character’s XP when you defeat enemies. The dynamic that results from that mechanic is that you want to constantly swap your items around, making sure you have decent stats, and also a decent XP gain rate. This might sound annoying on paper, but giving you something to manage between fights is, I think, a big reason why the game doesn’t get monotonous nearly as quickly as you’d expect. You get to go back and forth between combat and stat-optimization often, and each gives you a break from the other.

Movement

This is really one of the main points I want to make. You cannot walk around freely in Infinity Blade, you can only click on the note you want to go next, and a canned animation takes you there. On paper, this sounds bad. Really though, I think it was a very smart decision. Part of the reason they did this, I assume, is for the technical reason of ensuring that the environment always looks good. The game is pushing iOS graphics further than any other game so far, and if had to have every nook and cranny have a high res texture when you walked right up to it…well that’s probably just not going to work. But there’s more to it than that.

Many years ago, the PlayStation2 games Urban Reign and Spikeout came out at about the same time. They are both “fight a bunch of guys” games (Spikeout is not a volleyball game, fyi). I think it’s pretty clear that Urban Reign had a much better combat system. It even had a Guilty Gear-style burst! But Spikeout allowed you to walk from one battle to the next, while Urban Reign’s combat took place in what was basically a box, then a loading screen, some story text, then another box. You didn’t actually smoothly transition from one fight to the next. I looked on fighting game forums to see players discussing the games, and to my surprise at the time, more of them preferred Spikeout. Being fighting game players, I think most of them agreed that Urban Reign’s combat was better, but “there’s just something that feels nice about Spikeout in comparison,” I saw again and again.

I think Infinity Blade captures that same feeling of travelling from fight to fight, but it doesn’t bother with making you actually manually walk there. It probably wouldn’t feel great to navigate a 3D world between fights (especially on an iPad or iPhone), so they cut straight to the point and have you automatically walk there when you tap the next node. This whole thing is subtle, and not something you probably think much about, but I think it contributes to the overall experience quite a bit.

StarCraft 2′s single player campaign is a somewhat similar example. You don’t actually see an animated walk sequence of your character going from the bridge to the lab and so on there, but the point is that you don’t have a fully manual, free-roaming world there either. In both cases, the free roaming would add nothing so it’s not even there and the “click to go there” method is used instead.

Fast Forwarding

A common tension between artists and designers is how fast things are. Artists tend to like elaborate and awesome animations, and designers don’t want to slow players down with that stuff. We were just talking about walking from fight to fight, and that could get real old, real fast. Especially if the artists want a long shot, then a slow and dramatic walk with a closer shot. Also, artists are going to want awesome cutscene animations of finishing off your opponents when each fight is over. More annoying waiting for players?

Infinity Blade has all the goodness that art side would want (great finishing animations, dramatic walk animations with multiple camera animations) and with none of the downside. There’s a fast forward button in the lower right corner of the screen, and it’s really responsive. I expected it to be a “skip” button, but I’m much happier with the fast-forward button. It’s very responsive in that you can fast forward for a moment, then let go, then keep fast forwarding, etc. It’s totally up to you how much of the various awesome animations you want to watch.

Hidden Objects

As you progress through the castle, there are various bags of money and health potions laying around. There’s an achievement for finding all of them on a given run through (I never got it). I soon realized that they are playing a bit of a trick on us in that some of the bags of money are actually accessible during those cut scenes. Yeah, those things you were fast forwarding through, if you actually let them play and scrutinize them, there’s money bags you can pick up. I was kind of surprised to see that in addition to the combat game and stat-optimization game, there’s also a hidden object game. Pretty cool.

Difficulty Progression

The castle is pretty small and you don’t face that many enemies until you get to the end. So how in the world are they going to make hours and hours of gameplay out of that? The clever answer is that at the end of the castle, you fight the powerful God King. The first time through, he is crazily more powerful than you, so you are highly likely to lose to him (thought it is theoretically possible to win). If you lose, you restart the entire game on “bloodline 2″ which takes place about 20 years later. You son (wearing all your same armor and mysteriously with your same stats) tries again. There is a kind of dynamic difficulty setting there, in that after more and more runs, you’re getting more and more powerful, so it’s easier and easier to take on the God King.

When you beat the God King, you get the obligatory cut-scene ending (“now they’ll come after YOU”), and you still start the game over (now as the son of the you who beat the God King, apparently?). Anyway the real point is that now all the monsters in the castle are much harder. And if you beat the God King again, all the monsters are much much harder, and so on. This is a great way to get a lot of mileage out of such a small landscape and small number of fights per run.

Suggestions

I wish more information was presented to the player. Items have various icons such as “lightning bolt icon +8″ but no explanation of what that means. A certain ring allows you to cast a spell called “Shock 3.” Does that spell get more powerful with the +lighting bolt stat? If yes, the spell should have the lightning bolt icon next to it. If no, that’s kind of confusing too. Another confusing thing about stats is that your character profile screen lists the bonus effect of your helmet (for example: item++, which means items are more likely to drop) but does not list the bonus effect of other items. This implies that you don’t get bonus effects from non-helmet items, which is obviously stupid because why do non-helmet items even have them? Surely the profile screen is just failing to list all the bonuses, but it should.

The toucharcade.com review mentions that when you master an item (max out that item’s XP), if you equip it, you get an extra bonus. This appears to be false (you only get the same bonus as you got the entire time you were using it while leveling it up), but it’s an interesting idea anyway because you aren’t getting XP from that item while wearing it anyway. I could go either way on that, but it’s worth thinking about.

Infinity Blade also lets you do 3, 4, and 5 hit combos. I’m not sure if it’s intentional or that the developers just didn’t get to it, but for some reason there is no explanation of how to do them. Yes I understand there is some exploratory aspect in figuring it out yourself. When I weigh the good of that versus the bad, it comes up way bad in my book. I’d like to know the possible combos, and I’d like more of them. For reference, play Bayonetta and take 0.1% of their combos and put them in the next update for Infinity Blade, please.

The flipside of that, is that maybe this “Punch-Out with swords game” should actually be MORE like Punch-Out. I’m referring to the gimmicky nature of each fighter having some pseudo-puzzle to figure out. Maybe not quite as Punch-Outy as Punch-Out, but if you turned the knob a bit that way, I think it would add more variety to the fights.

Multiplayer

The next update for Infinity Blade will apparently have multiplayer. This will be a great opportunity for the game go completely off the rails. It does so many things right, I would hate to see the possibly inevitable decision here: multiplayer fights are based on how much time you spent grinding equipment instead of fair fights. This is an inherent issue in stat-based games, and it’s a solved problem, too. The solution is to offer two modes: 1) a fair mode where you pick your equipment, and your loadout is kind of like your customized Magic: the Gathering deck. Everyone has full access to all options. And then 2) unfair fights using whatever you happened to acquire in single player. This way, the people who have fun by lording advantage over those with worse stats will be able to, while true competitors avoid any possibility of such nonsense.

That said, I’m very much looking forward to the update, more for the single player content than the multiplayer, actually.（source:sirlin）