作者：Josh Bycer

电子游戏玩家都有自己最喜欢的作品，每年评论家、粉丝和媒体工作者都会挑选出年度最受欢迎的游戏作品。要谈论游戏为什么杰出很简单，那么所谓的糟糕游戏呢？

为什么尽管采用类似机制，有些JRPG（日式角色扮演游戏）就是比其他作品更胜一筹？为什么早期《袋狼大进击》游戏比近来的作品获得更高评分？难度是否是一个因素？若是如此，为什么我们推崇《恶魔之魂》系列，即便它是同代游戏中最富挑战性的作品之一？

简单来说就是，没有什么虚构元素能够界定游戏是好是坏。而文章将详细探讨其中具体原因。糟糕游戏作品表现在若干方面，这些内容也和游戏开发要素存在关联性：技术、感觉和游戏设计。

技术。技术是指游戏中的漏洞和小故障。包括崩溃现象、无法启动的事件、没有响应的控制装置及有违预期目标的技能等。许多游戏作品包含杰出设计，但最终因忽略某些漏洞而惨淡收场。由于获得后发行支持，如今许多技术问题都能够顺利被发现，得到修复，但玩家在此耗费的时间越久，在他们眼中，游戏就越糟糕。

《魔法对抗》2011年问世时，虽然其设计备受赞誉，但存在许多漏洞（游戏邦注：从帧速率过慢到同其他人员相关的问题，当然还包括游戏崩溃现象）。游戏所存在的问题导致其早期得到负面评价及出现众多心存不满的用户。虽然这最终得到修复，但对许多人而言，伤害已经造成了。

在我们今天即将讨论的问题中，技术问题最容易解决。玩家一直都支持开发者修复他们的游戏，经常协助他们完成崩溃报告或dxdiag诊断，旨在发现问题。例证：由于团队积极和粉丝沟通，快速、频繁地添加补丁，《魔法对抗》最终取得巨大成功。

在某些情况下，改装者会在开发者给予后发行支持后推出非正式补丁，旨在继续完善游戏。这体现在《Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines》这款游戏中。

另一近来刚浮出水面的技术问题是DRM。带有DRM，需要玩家保持在线的游戏作品可能会丧失那些固定连网的玩家。《银河战将》之类的侵入性DRM以引发电脑系统问题著称，促使玩家抵制涉及这一元素的游戏作品。

感觉。感觉问题和玩家所见、所闻或游戏控制装置有关。所涉及内容从急速穿过墙面的角色、蹩脚的对话和配音到笨拙或复杂的控制装置。从根本来说，任何破坏游戏沉浸性的问题都属于这一类型。

虽然图像属于这一类型，但我们很难界定什么是所谓的糟糕图像，因为这是个非常主观的论断。有人觉得《战争机器》、《战地风云3》之类的现实主义游戏非常不错，而有人则认为《超级玛利奥银河》或《军团要塞2》的图像风格很杰出。

配音已成为促使玩家沉浸于游戏当中的重要工具。虽然相对文本内容来说，采用配音是更明智的选择，但糟糕的配音比没有配音还更糟糕。配音会影响故事基调或游戏质量。

糟糕镜头机制会破坏一款游戏，这依然是较难把握的复杂元素，因为游戏已转投3D模式。毋庸置疑的一点是——糟糕镜头机制包含如下问题：镜头卡在物体上，给予活动糟糕视角，跳跃时干扰视野等。

由于自定义选择及各题材控制装置的日益标准化，笨拙控制方案逐步淡出视野。控制台手柄设计的日益标准化也给开发者带来更多帮助。

游戏设计。现在我们就进入到问题的核心。游戏设计是个包罗万象的术语。谈论各个机制及正误落实方式需要耗费很长篇幅。虽然这非常有教育意义，但并没有回答文章的主要问题：这和影响游戏质量的设计是否存在关联性？

首先，我们需要把握一个基本问题：什么将游戏同其他形式的娱乐区别开来？游戏由系列参与者在游戏时间内认同且遵循的规则构成。各游戏都遵循若干基本规则：如何体验，如何胜出，怎么样会失败等。我们想要瞄准的是定义设计师所创建的游戏的规则。

当你体验《超级马里奥银河》时，你不会询问为什么马里奥可以打扮得像个大黄蜂，在空中飞翔或是越过墙面，因为规则允许马里奥进行这些操作。而另一方面，只有《军团要塞2》中的侦查员可以进行二连跳。因为规则就是这么规定的。这里的问题在于打破游戏规则。

在我们谈论打破规则前，我们需要做出一个区分；黑客和内容修改不是我们所谈论的内容，因为它们主要依靠外部软件。打破规则的定义如下：

绕开预先创建规则或设计的内容。

打破规则的实例体现在孩子玩耍的过程中。如果你曾目睹或亲身参与过这样的游戏：孩子们持续修改规则以避免自己最终失败，那你就知道这多么令人沮丧——-你会发现这和电子游戏设计存在关联性。

打破规则情况出现在许多情境中，我们需要逐一进行查看。首先是——这带来糟糕设计，设计师打破自己的规则，尝试挑战玩家。这类难度的另一定义是“低级”。

低级难度对玩家而言将是令人沮丧的体验，因此它代表的是设计谬论。一个典型例子是游戏《Gun》（游戏邦注：这款游戏发行于2005年）。《Gun》是款第三人称射击游戏，以西部时代为背景。游戏从一开始就设立第三人称射击游戏的标准规则组合，其中爆头会带来额外伤害。

多数游戏内容在此都没有问题，直到玩家进入终极boss战斗。终极战斗发生在洞穴中，对手是个庞大的坏蛋，其胸前穿有盔甲。你自然而然地会觉得，进行胸部射击无法伤害它，但射击头部将会奏效。其实并非如此，玩家会发现，无论他们击中boss的头部多少次，它都不会倒下。相反，玩家需要射击boss投掷的炸药，造成塌方，才能将他杀死。

Boss战斗就其本质而言，打破了游戏规则，旨在植入挑战元素，因为玩家对抗的是独特威胁。《Gun》战斗存在的问题是，战斗的挑战同游戏空间的既有规则相违背。

打破规则不仅只是出现在boss战斗中。《侠盗猎车手》系列任务设计的一个恼人之处在于，玩家被告知需要消灭某人，但此人无懈可击，直到任务脚本发放放行信号。同样，这也打破既有游戏空间的规则。

另一打破规则的例子来自于游戏《猎天使魔女》，我之前曾提到过这款游戏：

起初，游戏会向玩家引入“魔女时间”（Witch Time）概念。通过在恰当时刻躲闪攻击，游戏空间将放缓速度，提供强化的攻击窗口。放缓时间让玩家得以有机会袭击比自己灵活的敌人。

但在游戏中间，设计师引入了“镀金”敌人，如果玩家躲开它们，它们的攻击就不会带来Witch Time。由于在多数情况下，Witch Time是仅有两种避免受伤害方式中的一种，因此玩家在应对这些敌人时完全束手无策。

“无限繁殖”概念也和这有关系。多数游戏都没有明确说明为什么敌人能够在特定区域无限繁殖，对此除跳过繁殖触发器外，玩家完全束手无策。这一问题在基于现实世界的游戏中表现得更加明显，因为它不仅打破规则，还破坏环境的沉浸性。

虽然开发者打破规则通常属于糟糕设计的一种表现，但玩家将其落到实处则是截然不同的情况。《魔界战记》系列以融入大量后发行内容著称（游戏邦注：以超硬地图和极端boss战斗的形式）。为帮助玩家，设计师会植入若干旨在将玩家技能提高至可憎级别的多元机制。如果玩家决定初期就采用这些机制，那么他们将破坏核心游戏的难度。这种打破规则的形式不是采用低级形式，而是奖励玩家，鼓励他们学习（和利用）游戏的机制。

我们的下个糟糕设计话题是机制冲突，这促使游戏内容同其机制形成直接冲突。以牙刷清理浴室的行为是现实生活版的机制冲突。牙刷虽是用于清洁工作，但它完全不适合手头任务。

去年的《黑暗灵魂》存在一个平衡问题，这主要由游戏机制和道具之间的冲突引起的。为进行适当魔法攻击，玩家需要通过锁定功能瞄准敌人。游戏中的某些敌人配有所谓的“雾环”道具。这个圆环令佩戴者变成半透明，以防被锁定，即便攻击者直接瞄准佩戴者。

这一道具存在的问题是，它和魔法攻击机制形成直接冲突——当玩家遇到佩戴圆环的角色时，魔法攻击机制就失去效用。由于玩家进行投诉，设计师决定重新审视这一道具，通过补丁改变其功能。

你也许会发现，打破规则和机制冲突之间存在些许共性，二者都涉及涉及冲突。差别在于，打破规则发生在两个参与者之间，例如玩家和设计师，而机制冲突则发生在游戏机制之间。

另一例子来自于《但丁的地狱》及其如何尝试利用《战神》模式的设计。《战神》和其他动作游戏的区别在于角色攻击范围。《战神》之前的多数动作游戏都赋予角色狭窄窗口，旨在快速攻击单个敌人。

《战神》通过让Kratos进行缓慢但广泛的攻击，同时与多个敌人对抗改变这一情况。这一设计的后果是令对抗单个敌人变得更加困难，原因在于Kratos的进攻非常缓慢，他需要进行组合作战。《战神》设计师清楚这点，因此进行这样的设计：大量攻击能够促使敌人陷入昏迷状态，防止他们在Kratos卷入组合战斗时展开进攻，这是个冲突解决方案。

但在《但丁的地狱》中，设计师忽略这点，随后机制冲突就浮出水面。玩家初期遇到的一个敌人是女性恶魔，她的主要攻击活动遵循相同模式：简短装载过程，然后是朝玩家方向猛冲。若恶魔同猛冲状态挂钩，那她就会自动进入一个玩家无法打破的小型组合作战。通常，当玩家攻击怪兽若干次后，它们就会被打昏，让玩家得以继续进行突袭。但这些女性恶魔一旦进入攻击动画，它们就无法被终止，除非玩家将它们杀死。

这里出现敌人攻击模式机制和玩家终止攻击能力之间的冲突。机制冲突也会影响大规模的游戏（游戏邦注：如策略游戏），会演变成系统间的冲突。许多回合策略游戏都是由各种玩法系统构成：经济活动、防御和进攻。在此确立平衡关系就像是平衡摩天大楼一样：若某元素不成一直线，那么整个架构就会分崩离析。

多数城建游戏遭遇到的一个常见批评是，战斗机制没有像其他游戏机制那样具体化。很多时候，战斗是个简单骨架，有点像独立机制，相比其他机制的综合性而言。

最典型的机制冲突范例体现在鲜受欢迎的游戏元素：护送/保护任务。这些内容的问题在于，由于任务鲜少在游戏中出现，它们无法同余下的设计达成合理的平衡关系。在动作游戏中，设计师会因同战斗机制发生冲突而陷入“左右为难”的局面。

如果角色进行快速、狭隘的攻击，那么他们就无法击中成批敌人，有些敌人就会飞掠而过，重击陪同角色。但若是让角色能够进行缓慢但广泛的攻击，如果角色错失目标，他们就只能等待动画结束，而敌人则享有自由支配权限。敌人AI作用不大，因为它们通常都会忽略玩家，着眼于目标，这使得我们无法分散敌人的注意力。在护送任务中，护送者通常具备简单AI，从不会逃离险境，这给手头任务带来更多麻烦。

护送NPC的一个少数可接受情况体现在游戏《Ico》中。促使其具有可行性的原因在于，游戏从一开始就围绕护送机制而进行设计，它被合理地植入游戏当中。

机制冲突源自于设计师想要保持玩法新鲜感，坚持重新制作内容。虽然谨慎行事具有可行性，但这将带来另一糟糕游戏元素。

文章谈及的最后一个元素是无发展概念。有关授权游戏的一个常见批评是，这类游戏颇为重复或乏味。每个关卡都遵循相同目标，对抗相同基本类型的敌人军队，但玩家的整个行动举措由若干攻击组合构成。

避免重复玩法的挑战从简单街机游戏时代起就一直困扰游戏设计师（游戏邦注：就连《吃豆人》都设置各式各样的谜题及融入呈现不同行为的幽灵）。PopCap之所以在众多游戏作品中取得不俗表现是因为，他们在各新关卡中植入新元素，改变玩法，鼓励玩家持续体验，例如《植物大战僵尸》中的解锁新植物。

你也许会认为发展问题只存在于采用简单设计的游戏作品中，但事实并非如此。JRPG题材以较长游戏时间著称，玩家需要探索许多地点，对抗许多敌人。下面我们将来看看两款典型的JRPG游戏，探究一个如何成功引入发展元素，一个如何忽略这一元素。

《Shin Megami Tensei：Nocturne》和《永恒的尽头》是两款偏离常规的JRPG游戏。《Nocturne》可以比作是成年版《宠物小精灵》，玩家以恶魔作为自己的团队成员，游戏还添加能够在各战斗回合调整活动数量的动态机制（游戏邦注：前提是你准确将攻击位置瞄准敌人的弱点）。我们可以将恶魔进行相互交错创造出新的恶魔，实现技能的转移，让专注的玩家创建自己的个人理想团队。

虽然战斗机制在整个游戏中不会发生改变，但设计师通过引入新恶魔，供玩家进行收集，然后尝试新团队组合，保持游戏的新鲜感。Boss战斗主要围绕具备独特技能的敌人，这更多像是个谜题，而非标准的JRPG战斗；这些需要考验玩家的游戏机制知识及团队组合技能。必要时候玩家可以进行标准的“刷任务”操作，但多数时候，团队组合情况及其在抵制boss方面的表现是决定胜败的关键。

《永恒的尽头》采用独特的战斗机制，引入各式各样的破坏性及武器定制概念。

关于《永恒的尽头》的一个看法是，和《Nocturne》一样，游戏很早就展示出自己的所有筹码，玩家头几个小时就玩完所有游戏机制。但和《Nocturne》不同，游戏并没有就此进行扩展——玩家最终会发现，自己从头至尾都在进行相同的操作。游戏引入不同敌人类型，但对应的战斗策略多数都能够进行替换。

许多RPG游戏都设置至少30小时的体验时间，因此如果没有引入新内容或发展元素，那么鼓励玩家持续体验将非常艰巨。相比之下，休闲游戏通常主要基于简短、重复的体验回合。一个区别在于，玩家能够长时间体验一款休闲；但其设计让玩家能够快速取得进步。

回到PopCap例子，他们通过对核心游戏设计做出细微调整，让玩家能够持续获得发展。但80小时的RPG游戏包含更多机制和内容，因此要在不引入机制冲突的情况下渗透发展元素将更加艰巨。典型例子是如今声名狼藉的《最终幻想XIII》“20小时指南”，玩家需要在游戏开启前完成这一内容。

虽然我们没有界定优劣游戏作品的严密科学，但本文将能够有效帮助设计师避开若干会拖垮游戏的常见误区。虽然体验杰出游戏作品是段快乐时光，但偶然尝试糟糕作品，从中知晓自己开发游戏时要注意回避哪些问题也非常有教育意义。（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）

The Anatomy of a Bad Game

by Josh Bycer

[What separates a good game from a bad one? Gamasutra contributor Josh Bycer takes a look and identifies several factors, ultimately diving into design, examining several different games and determining what made them winners or losers when it came to gameplay.]

Anyone who has ever played a video game has their favorite, and every year reviewers, fans, and journalists alike pick their favorite games of the year. However, while talking about why games are great is easy, what about bad games?

Why do some JRPGs score better than others even though they use similar game systems? Why do early Crash Bandicoot games get higher scores then recent ones? Could difficulty be a factor? If so, why do we praise the Demon’s Souls series, even though it’s one of the most challenging of the generation?

The short answer is that there is no one mythical factor that dictates whether a game is good or bad. The long answer is going to be examined in this article. There are several aspects that go into a bad game, which also relate to the elements of game development: Technical, Sensory, and Game Design.

Technical. Technical is the catchall for bugs and glitches in the game. Crashes, events refusing to trigger, controls not responding, abilities not working as intended, and so on. There are many examples of games that had great design, but suffer due to bugs that weren’t caught. Thanks to post-release support, most technical issues are caught and fixed, these days, but the longer players have to deal with them, the worse the game looks in their eyes.

When Magicka was released in 2011, while the design of the game was praised, the game was full of bugs — from frame rate slowdown, to problems connecting to other people, and, of course, game crashes. The problems with the game led to early negative reviews, and many angry users. While it was eventually patched up, for a lot of people, the damage was done.

Of the issues we’re going to discuss today, issues of the technical category are the easiest to recover from (which says a lot for what’s coming up in this article). Gamers are always supportive of developers fixing their games, and often help with crash reports or dxdiags to help zero in on where the problems are. Case in point: Magicka went on to huge success thanks to the team’s willingness to communicate with fans and patch quickly and frequently.

In some cases, modders may release unofficial patches after the post-game support by the developer is done to continue improving the game, which is what happened with Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Another side of technical issues that have been coming into its own lately is issues from DRM. Games that feature DRM that requires players to always be online run the risk of alienating gamers who don’t have a stable connection to the internet. Invasive DRM such as StarForce has also earned a negative reputation for causing problems with computer systems, and has led to gamers boycotting games that use it.

Sensory. Sensory issues relate to what the player sees, hears, or controls in the game. From characters clipping through walls, awkward dialogue and voice acting, to clumsy or complicated controls. Essentially, anything that breaks the immersion of the game falls here.

Even though graphics are a part of this category, it’s hard to determine what are considered bad graphics, as this is a subjective topic. Some people find the gritty realism of games like Gears of War and Battlefield 3 to be excellent, while others think that the stylized graphics of Mario Galaxy or Team Fortress 2 are amazing.

Voice acting has become an important tool of immersing the player into the game. While the use of voice, as oppose to text, is preferable, bad voice acting can be worse than having no voice acting at all. Voice acting can affect the tone of the story, or affect the quality of the game.

A poor camera system can break a game, and continues to be one of the more difficult elements to get right since games moved to 3D. One thing is for certain — the hallmarks of a bad camera system involve the following problems: the camera getting stuck on objects, giving a poor view of the action, interfering with perspective when making jumps, and more.

Awkward control schemes are getting rarer, thanks to customization options and the increasing standardization of controls across genres. The fact that the gamepad design for the consoles has become standardized (with obvious exception to the Wii) has also helped developers.

Game Design. Now we arrive at the heart of the matter. Game design is one of those all-encompassing terms. We could easily spend a hundred pages or more looking at every mechanic and the right and wrong ways to implement them. While that would certainly be educational, it doesn’t answer the main question of this article: are there correlations in design that affect game quality?

To start, we need to understand one of the basic fundamentals of what separates a game from other forms of entertainment. A game is made up of a series of rules that the participants must agree to, and adhere to, for the duration of the time played. Now, there are basic rules that every game follows: how it’s played, how to win, how to lose, etc. The ones we want to focus on are the rules that define the game set by the designer.

When you are playing a Super Mario Galaxy game, you don’t question why Mario can dress up as a bumblebee and fly around or wall jump, as the rules allow Mario to do those things. On the other hand, you can’t double jump as any class other then the scout in Team Fortress 2, because the rules won’t allow that. The problem is breaking the rules of the game.

Before we discuss rule-breaking, one distinction has to be made; hacks and mods are not a part of this discussion, as they rely on outside software to be utilized. Rule-breaking can be simply defined as the following:

Content that circumvents previously established rules or design.

A real world example of rule-breaking can be seen when children are playing. If you have ever watched, or been a part of, a game where the child changes the rules constantly to keep themselves from losing, you can remember how frustrating that can be — and you can see the correlation in video game design.

Rule-breaking can occur in several situations, each of which needs to be examined. The first case — and it’s where bad game design comes into play — is when the designer breaks their own rules as an attempt to challenge the player. Another definition for this kind of difficulty is “cheap”.

Cheap difficulty can be a frustrating experience for gamers, as it shows the fallacies of the design. One famous example is from the game Gun, which came out in 2005. Gun was a third person shooter set in the Old West. From the beginning, the game establishes the standard rule set of a third person shooter, with one being that headshots do extra damage.

All this is fine for the majority of the game until the player reaches the final boss. The final fight takes place in a cavern with the big bad guy, who is wearing armor that covers his chest. Naturally, you would assume that means that he cannot be hurt by chest shots, but shots to the head would work. That is not the case, and players will find that no matter how many times they hit the boss in the head he won’t go down. Instead, the player has to shoot the dynamite the boss throws to cause a cave-in that kills him.

Boss fights, by their nature, break the rules of the game to give the game a challenge, as the player is fighting a unique threat. The problem with Gun’s fight is that the challenge of this fight goes against the rules that were established in the world.

Rule-breaking doesn’t just happen in boss fights. One of the common annoyances of the Grand Theft Auto series’ mission design are missions where the player is told to kill someone, but that person is invulnerable until the script of the mission gives the go-ahead. Once again, this breaks the rules of the established world.

Another example of rule breaking was from the game Bayonetta, which was mentioned in my earlier article on Darwinian Difficulty:

At the start, the player is introduced to the concept of “Witch Time”. By dodging attacks at the precise moment of impact, the world slows down for the player, allowing for an increased window for attack. Slowing down time also allows players a chance to hit enemies that are more agile then the player.

However, halfway through the game, the designers introduce “gold-plated” enemies, whose attacks will not trigger Witch Time if the player dodges them. Because Witch Time is one of the only two ways of avoiding damage for much of the game, players are left severely handicapped while fighting these enemies.

The concept of “infinite spawns” also relates to this section. In most games, it’s never established why enemies can just spawn infinitely in some areas without a way to stop them other then getting past the spawn trigger. This issue becomes more troublesome with games that take place in the real world, as it is not only breaking the rules, but also breaks the immersion of the setting.

While rule-breaking by the developers is usually a form of bad design, it is a different matter when the player performs it. The Disgaea series is known for having a massive amount of post-game content, in the form of extra-hard maps and extreme boss fights. To aid the player, the designers implement multiple systems designed to boost the capabilities of the player’s units to obscene levels. If the player decides to use these mechanics early on, they will break the main game’s difficulty. Instead of being cheap, this form of rule-breaking rewards the player and encourages them to learn (and exploit) the game’s mechanics.

The collectible card game genre also benefits from rule-breaking as its advanced rules and cards always involve some layer of rule-breaking that players can use to their advantage. Because the breaking can occur between the players themselves, it is far more acceptable within the confines of the genre. Expert-level play can become a tug of war between players affecting the rules and one upping their opponent to try and get the advantage.

Our next point of bad design is mechanic conflict, which is designing the game’s content in direct conflict with the mechanics of the game. The act of cleaning a bathroom with nothing but a toothbrush is a real world example of mechanic conflict. The toothbrush, while a tool used for cleaning, is nowhere suitable to the task at hand.

Last year’s Dark Souls had a balance issue brought on by a conflict with the mechanics of the game and an item. In order to properly aim magic attacks, players must use the lock-on feature to target enemies. A few enemies in the game wear an item called the “fog ring”. The ring makes the wearer translucent and prevents lock-ons, even if the attacker is aiming right at the wearer.

The problem with this item is that it is in direct conflict with the mechanics of magic attacks — rendering them useless whenever the player runs into someone wearing the ring. Because of complaints from gamers, the designers decided to take a second look at this item and alter its functionality with a patch.

You may be noticing a similarity between rule-breaking and mechanic conflicts, as both involve a conflict in design. The difference is that rule-breaking occurs between two participants, such as the player and the designer, while mechanic conflicts occur between the mechanics of the game.

Another example comes from Dante’s Inferno and how it tried to capitalize on God of War’s design. One of the major differences between God of War and other action games was in the range of the character’s attacks. Most action games before God of War gave characters a narrow window, meant for attacking single enemies quickly.

God of War changed that by making Kratos attack with slow but wide attacks, allowing him to fight multiple enemies at once. The consequence of this design made it harder to fight single enemies due to how slow Kratos attacks and the time he is locked into the combo. The designers of God of War saw this and made it so that many attacks can stun the enemy, preventing them from attacking Kratos while in his combo chain, which was a workaround for the conflict.

In Dante’s Inferno, however, the designers slipped up on this point and the conflict between mechanics slipped in. One of the early enemies the player meets is a female demon whose main attack follows the same pattern: a brief charge up period followed by a dash in the player’s direction. If the demon connects with the dash, she automatically goes into a small combo that the player cannot break. Normally, when the player hits a monster a few times with an attack, it will stun them, allowing the player to continue the assault. However, with these female demons, once they go into their charge animation, they cannot be stopped unless they are killed.

Here, we had a conflict between the mechanic of an enemy’s attack pattern, and the player’s ability to stop attacks. Mechanic conflict can also affect larger-scale games like strategy titles, and can become a conflict between systems. Many turn based strategy titles are made up of multiple systems of gameplay: economic, defense, and offense among others. Making getting the balance right like trying to balance a skyscraper: if one element is out of alignment, then the whole thing falls apart.

A common criticism of most city-builder games is how the combat system never feels as fleshed out as the other systems in the game. Most often, combat is very bare bones and feels like a separate system, compared to the integration of the other systems.

Perhaps the most prominent examples of mechanic conflict come from one of the least favored sections in games: the escort/protect mission. The problems with these sections are that since the missions occur rarely in a game, they are not properly balanced with the rest of the design. In action games, designers run into a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation with the conflicts with the combat system.

If the character uses fast, narrow attacks, then they won’t be able to hit waves of enemies and a few will slip by to bash the escorted character. However, give the player slower but wider attacks, and then if the player misses they’ll be stuck waiting for the animation to end while enemies have free reign. The enemy AI doesn’t help, as often they are designed to ignore the player and focus on the objective, which makes distracting the enemy impossible. With escort missions, the escorted usually have simple AI and have no regard for staying out of harm’s way, which adds more trouble to the task at hand.

One of the few times where having to escort a NPC was acceptable was in the game Ico. What made it work was that the game was designed from the start with the escort mechanic in mind, and it was properly integrated into the game.

Conflicts in mechanics stem from the designer trying to keep the gameplay fresh and continue to build up from the beginning. However, while playing it safe can work, it can lead to another element of a bad game.

Our final element for this article is the concept of no growth. One of the common criticisms of games based on licensed properties is how repetitive or bland the game is. Every level follows the same objectives, fighting armies of the same basic type of enemies, while the player’s entire move set consists of a few attack combos.

The challenge of avoiding repetitive gameplay has plagued designers even from the early days of simple arcade titles — even Pac-Man has multiple mazes and ghosts with different behaviors. PopCap’s success with many of its titles is how with every new level, something new is added to change up the gameplay and motivate people to continue playing, such as the unlocking of new plants in Plants vs. Zombies.

Now, you may think that issues with growth only occur in games with simple design, but that’s not entirely true. The JRPG genre is known for long hours of playtime with lots of places to explore with the player fighting lots and lots of enemies. There are two examples of unique JRPGs that we’re going to look at, and how one succeeded in providing growth where the other failed.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Resonance of Fate are two JRPGs that strayed from the norm. Nocturne can be described as a more adult version of the Pokémon design, using demons as your party members, with the added dynamic of being able to alter the number of actions during each round of combat, if you correctly match attacks with your enemies’ weaknesses. Demons can be fused together to create new ones and transfer skills, allowing a dedicated player to create their own personalized dream team.

While the combat system does not change at all throughout the game, the designers keep the game fresh by introducing new demons for the player to collect and experiment with new team combinations. Boss fights are with enemies with unique skills designed to be more of a puzzle than a normal JRPG battle; these test the player’s knowledge of the game’s mechanics and their party composition. Players can do the standard “grinding” if need be, but most often how well your party is put together and counters the boss determines victory.

Resonance of Fate features a very unique combat system, with different kinds of damage and weapon customization among other concepts — going into full detail about it would extend this already large article.

The relevant point about Resonance of Fate is that, like Nocturne, the game plays all its cards very early and the player will experience all the mechanics in the game within the first few hours. However, unlike Nocturne, the game does not expand on these — and players will find themselves doing the same thing from beginning to end. Different enemy types are introduced, but the combat strategy for fighting them is largely interchangeable.

Many RPGs are designed around having at minimum 30 hours of playtime and without any new content or growth, motivating players to continue is a challenge. Contrast casual titles, which are usually designed around short, repetitive play sessions. One distinction is that someone can play a casual game for a long period of time; however the design allows someone to make progress quickly.

Going back to the PopCap example, it gives them the freedom to be able to constantly grow with small deviations to the core game design. Whereas there are a lot more systems and content in an 80 hour RPG, and that makes it harder to figure out where there should be growth without introducing mechanic conflict. Case in point, the now infamous “20 hour tutorial” of Final Fantasy XIII, which must be completed before the game opens up.

While there is no exact science that dictates a good game from a bad game, hopefully this article will help designers avoid the common pitfalls that can drag a game down. While playing great games can be a good time, it can be educational for designers to once in awhile, play a game that they know is bad to see what to avoid when it comes time to create their game.（Source：gamasutra）