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开发者阐述《Proteus》的“游戏”理念

发布时间:2013-02-01 14:12:37 Tags:,,,

作者:Mike Rose

经过几年的开发,《Antichamber》最终将于这周发行。但它却不是本周唯一问世的一款独立游戏,我们还可以看到回合制策略游戏《幕府将军的头骨》,以及来自英国开发商,且备受期待的《Proteus》。

《Proteus》并不是一款标准的电子游戏。玩家将在一个高度像素化的世界中徘徊着,不断探索每个角落以寻找野生动物和其它美好的事物。

游戏本身并不存在目标,从而让很多人质疑《Proteus》是否能被归为游戏。

“不是游戏”

proteus(from gamasutra)

proteus(from gamasutra)

实际上,开发者Ed Key与作曲者David Kanaga认为将其称为“反游戏”会更合适,他们并不喜欢过去几年里所兴起的“非游戏”这一词。

他笑着说道:“我比较喜欢‘反游戏’,因为这听起来较俏皮。”

但是言归正传,Key并不抗拒这种独特的游戏体验。尽管他相信去年发行的《亲爱的艾斯特》为游戏产业带来了突破性的发展,但是仍有许多人并不认为游戏媒体的扩展是件好事。

他说道:“还是存在许多反抗之声,不管是在评论线上还是游戏设计循环中。虽然我不是很在意这些,但是有时候还是会留意下,就像在Rock Paper Shotgun网站上看到一篇有关游戏的文章,而第一条评论便是‘不是游戏’。”

他继续说道:“‘不是游戏’这样的评论其实多多少少是对文化的一种防御式反应。如果你说一款游戏‘不是游戏’,是否表示它不应该出现在电子游戏网站上?我不知道具体答案是什么,我只是对人们会如此在意这些定义感到惊讶。”

key认为游戏设计的定义并不是很重要——真正重要的是创造出能够让别人喜欢的游戏体验。

他补充道:“如果你被定义所束缚着,你便不可能创造出任何独特的事物。”

就像桌面游戏。他说道:“从现实用途来看游戏定义总是非常含糊。就拿‘蛇梯棋’来说吧,游戏中并不存在任何决策,只有目标,并且是基于运气。所以从严格意义上来看,这并不算是一款游戏。”

但不管怎么说,“蛇梯棋”仍是作为经典的桌面游戏而被人们所熟知。Key说道:“当着眼于细节时,你可能会说‘哦,这并不是我们所认识的桌面游戏,’或者它并不符合游戏理论标准。”

但这并不是说Key从未想过赋予《Proteus》更多“游戏性”。

他说道:“两年前在我们将最初版本呈现在世人面前,我和David想把它变成一款探索游戏,即关于找寻世界与音乐的互动,随后我们便开始围绕着这一理念进行创造。但是在早期阶段,我突然有‘这么做还不够,我们需要更多互动与机制。’”

在过去几个月里,这种怀疑感再次出现在《Proteus》的开发中。“在最近几个月,也就是项目接近成功之时,我们再次开始思考‘这是否足够?’但我也很庆幸并未添加更多传统游戏元素,因为如果我们只是设计一些勾选框,我们便很难再完善质量或乐趣。”

Key是受到那些体验了各种版本的《Proteus》的玩家所推动而专注于相同的方向。他说道:“这些玩家给予了我巨大的鼓励,他们对于游戏的投入远比我想象的来得多——让我觉得仍存在一些可行的元素能够帮助我们创造出一款完整的游戏。”

但并不是所有内容都始终保持不变。在2011年的IndieCade之前,Key与Honeyslug的Ricky Haggett讨论了如何在游戏中呈现出完结感,而不只是让玩家不断徘徊着,直到自己感觉到疲倦才退出。

Key承认,在游戏中添加结尾“并不是最初理念的组成部分,”但最终游戏呈现出了更多内容(不只是终结)——如前进感,以及某种叙述弧线。“这便是我们所关注的叙述结构。”

《Proteus》:副标题

proteus(from gamasutra)

proteus(from gamasutra)

显然,Key和Kanaga在去年遭遇了小小的恐慌,即当他们不得不改变游戏的名字时。

Key解释道:“去年2月,当我们发行了公共测试版时,我认为最好可以给游戏注册一个商标,作为一种自我保护。”

而在提交了商标请求后,我们需要耐心等待3个月时间,但是在这一过程中其它拥有相同标志的公司可以提出反对意见。而我们也很不幸地撞上了枪口。

Key笑着说道:“我接到了来自Sheridans(游戏邦注:处理商标提交请求的公司)的Alex Tutty的电话,他说道‘很遗憾地告诉你……’”

这家反对的公司认为《Proteus》的名字与他们的产品相类似。Key解释道:“他们的‘Proteus’是生成战斗行动报告的系统,并且未面向公众进行销售——只是卖给采取防御措施的客户们。但是它也带有像过程报告等内容,如关于坦克是如何被攻击的等,所以它也拥有景观组件。”

所以Key和Kanaga便投入了一些时间去讨论是否需要为游戏设定一个副标题以摆脱这一问题——但最后却发现这并不算一个巨大的威胁。

Key说道:“我们只需要付出少量的律师费与对方进行协商便可。最后,我们只需缩小商标的范围,即强调是关于包含音乐的互动电子游戏便可。”

“最终他们点头同意了,表示这两个产品是完全不同的。不过我们又花了一个月时间在纠结是否一切都妥当了。”

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

Is Proteus a game — and if not, who cares?

By Mike Rose

It’s typical, isn’t it: You wait ages for a bus, and then three come along at once.

Antichamber has been in development for a few years now, and is finally getting a release later this week. But it’s not the only notable indie game finally set free into the wild this week – there’s also turn-based strategy game Skulls of the Shogun and, more excitingly for UK game development, the long-awaited Proteus.

Proteus, for those who have missed it, isn’t your typical video game. Players wander around a gorgeously pixelated world, taking in the scenery and exploring every corner to find wildlife and other niceties.

There isn’t a goal as such, leading a number of people to question whether Proteus can actually be classed as a game.

“Not a game”

In fact, developer Ed Key, alongside musician David Kanaga, thinks of it more as an “anti-game” — although he isn’t a huge fan of the “not-game” term that has been splashed around the last few years.

“I quite like ‘anti-game’ as it feels a bit cheekier,” he laughs.

It’s obvious, however, that all joking aside Key is not hugely enamored with the notable resistance against these sorts of unique game experiences. While he believes that last year’s Dear Esther marked a breakthrough with gamers, there’s still a vocal number of people who don’t see this expanding of the medium’s borders as a good thing.

“I think there’s still a bit of antagonism around, both in comments thread and in game design circles,” he notes. “I don’t really care too much about it, but sometimes… there was a Rock Paper Shotgun article about the game, and the first comment was just ‘not a game.’”

“It’s comments like that – ‘not a game’ – and how much of that is a kind of defensive reaction against a certain strand of the culture,” he continues. “If you say ‘not a game’, are you saying it shouldn’t be covered by a video games website? I don’t really know what the answer is – it’s just something that strikes me about the implications of the debate about definitions.”

Key believes that strict definitions really don’t matter at all when it comes to game design — what actually matters is making an experience that people will enjoy.

“If you’re constrained in what you make by definitions, then you’re less likely to make something unique,” he adds.

Look to board games, for example. “Game definitions have always been quite vague in terms of current usage,” he says. “If you think of things like, for example, Snakes and Ladders – there’s no decision making in that at all. There’s a goal, but it’s clearly luck-based. In the strictest sense, you can’t call that a game.”

And yet Snakes and Ladders is very much known as a classic board game. Says Key, “As soon as you get down to specifics, you can start saying ‘Oh it’s not this kind of game,’ or that it doesn’t fulfil certain game theory criteria.”

That’s not to say that the pressure to make Proteus a bit more “gamey” hasn’t gotten to Key at times.

“Before I really started showing the early versions to people two years ago, David and I had this idea of making it an exploration game all about finding how the world interacts with the soundtrack, and then we just kept building on that idea,” he tells us. “But in those early stages, I was thinking ‘maybe this isn’t enough, does it need more interaction and mechanical stuff?’”

And then, over the last few months, that sense of doubt has once again creeped into Proteus development. “In more recent months as we’re grinding towards the end of the project, I thought again ‘is this enough?’ But I’m glad I didn’t [add more traditional game elements], because if you’re just designing something to tick boxes, then you’re not necessarily improving the quality or the enjoyment of it.”

It was the people who played Proteus in its various development forms that really kept Key focused on the same path. “There was sort of an encouraging factor in that people who played it got much more involved in it than I thought they would – it seemed like there was something there viable to make a full game out of,” he says.

Not that everything has stayed the very same throughout. Before IndieCade in 2011, Key found himself discussing with Ricky Haggett of Honeyslug how best to give a sense of closure to the title, rather than just leaving players wandering around until they grew tired of it.

Having an ending to the game “wasn’t part of the original concept,” admits Key, but it ended up giving more than just closure to the title — it also provided a sense of progression, and a sort of narrative arc. “It’s a narrative-like structure of pacing that we paid attention to,” he says.

Proteus: The subtitle

Notably, Key and Kanaga had a scare last year, when it came to light that they may have to alter or even completely change the name of the game.

“Back in February last year when I released the public beta, I thought it’d be a good idea to register the name as a trademark, more as a defensive thing that anything else,” explains Key.

Once a trademark request has been submitted, it’s then a case of waiting three months, during which time other companies who own the same mark can choose to object. Unfortunately, bad news came in before that three months was up.

“I got a phone call from Alex Tutty at Sheridans [the company handling the trademark submission] last year saying, “Don’t want to alarm you…” laughs Key.

A defense company had objected to the filing, stating that it had a similar product with the name Proteus. “Their Proteus thing is a system for generating after-action reports for battles, and it’s not even sold to the public obviously — it’s sold to defense clients,” notes Key. “But it had things like processing reports about how some tanks were attacked or whatever, so it actually had a landscaping component to it as well.”

Key and Kanaga subsequently spent some time discussing whether it was worth tacking a subtitle onto the name as a means of getting around the issue — but in the end, it wasn’t such a huge deal.

“It just cost a small amount of legal fees to pay to discuss it with them,” Key says. “We had to narrow the specifications of the trademark a bit, so it said it was ‘an interactive video game that involves a musical soundtrack.’”

“But in the end they said yeah, it’s different enough. But it was just another month of stress wondering whether it was all going to be OK.”(source:gamasutra)


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