作者：Gabriel Recchia

2011年，《Wired UK》和《New Scientist》均描述了“《太空化学》，这款以科学为主题，并成为了年度最优秀独立游戏的益智游戏是如何从玩家的起居室跨越到教室中。”如今，美国，东欧和英国等国家的学校都在使用《太空化学》去支持他们的计算机科学教程。在GDC上，我们有幸与这款游戏的开发者，同时也是Zachtronics Iindustries的创始人Zach Barth针对创造这类型游戏的挑战展开交谈。

我们的交谈主要分为两部分，第一部分侧重于Zachtronics在设计教育类游戏所遵循的设计原则，创造整合编程理念游戏所遭遇的挑战，以及Zach对于游戏和学习的看法。而第二部分将转向其工作室即将完成的游戏（《Ironclad Tactics》）的相关描述，他们从《太空化学》中吸取的经验教训，以及该工作室是如何相应地调整开发过程，特别是关于教程设计。

MP：让我好奇的是，你们的游戏机制与教育内容真的非常搭。

Zach：因为我们使用了MDA，即机制，动态和美学的结合。这是一种设计原理。即当你创造一款游戏时，你所需要做的便是执行机制，对吧？但是这些机制的互动以及玩家的执行则创造了动态，让我举个例子来说吧。《军团要塞2》拥有名为随机暴击的机制。当你开枪时会突现一道闪光，紧接着魔术弹将蹦出你的枪支，并造成一定的破坏，特别当你射击的是远程目标时。而这种情况将只会随机发生。

这便是机制。从本身看来它什么都不是；它只是一种机制。我不知道它是好是坏，因为它只是一种机制。但事实上它拥有一定的效果，即在《军团要塞2》中，更厉害的玩家总是会获取胜利。有时候这也取决于类别平衡。当沉默的纵火狂遇上优秀的间谍时—-间谍将会死亡。这是最标准的动态。如果你拥有两辆彼此相抗衡的重型车辆，那么更厉害的那辆便会获胜—-除非其中一辆是基于随机暴击机制。所以基于这种随机元素，较糟糕的玩家便能够占上风。

这便是动态：不是很厉害的玩家也能够在某些情境中获取胜利。而美学便是游戏所带给玩家的感受——我并不是说《军团要塞2》是很容易上手的游戏，因为它也拥有许多复杂的内容，但是游戏机制却能帮助玩家更好地理解它。它让新玩家也能够获胜，玩家将不会只是遭遇失败而一无所获。因为游戏中的随机暴击机制，玩家便能够获得一定的胜利。

我之所以提及这点是因为我们将其应用到所有设计中了，因为我们是从零开始创造每一款游戏。所以基于这种模式，我们便能够更好地理解自己正在做些什么。

我想许多游戏都在机制中插入了教育元素；而我们非常重视动态元素。所以《Number Munchers》的一大机制便是让玩家做数学题。玩家必须找到正确的答案，然后逐步走向它。在我们有关新陈代谢的游戏中，其游戏机制并不存在真正的教育内容；玩家只需要轻弹粒子便可。但是基于我们所拥有的数学元素和规则，它创造了真正与现实生活系统一样的动态。

如此，它最终创造出了美学而非教材之类的内容，并且仍是作为游戏一样的存在。我们设定了时间压力，所以你需要尝试着快速执行某事，并同时完成不同任务，就像你可以同时呼吸并吃东西一样。随后你必须创造大量的能量，而为了帮助你做到这一点我们将提供升级机会，即作用于你的身体上，如你可以通过购买升级能量而让肺部自动运作。所以这便像是一款真正的游戏了。

MP：所以你的意思是游戏中所整合的内容（游戏邦注：即能量与肺部之间的关系）将推动着动态地图与现实世界的结合？

Zach：没错。这就像是一款带有机制的游戏，同时也像是一款带有美学的游戏。即它是基于机制与美学之间，让人感觉就像是在面对现实生活一样。这便是我们在创造教育类游戏所采用的方法。我认为《太空化学》具有不同的体验，因为新陈代谢游戏只会教授有关新陈代谢的内容。它不会教你任何问题的解决方法，发现，或科学之类的内容。

我们总是很难去创造一款有关科学的游戏，因为科学并不是关于搞清楚你在做什么，而是去发现事物的真相，明确什么是用户友好型游戏设计的对立面。当谈到这时，我们会觉得科学是可怕的。你只能勉强搞清楚发生了什么。有时候你不得不创造一些让玩家能够凭直觉进行判断的工具。这并不属于用户友好型。

MP：从本质来看，《太空化学》便是一款有关科学的游戏，或者当你完成游戏制作后，你会想“这就像是一个科学过程；难道这不就是编程？”

Zach：确实有点像。其实编程部分是我们故意这么设定的。我认为这是《太空化学》中很棒的一部分，并最终能够帮助玩家解决问题—-我们并未打算将其变成一款教育类游戏，但它最终却真的走到了那里。我们的所有Flash游戏都具有解决问题，工程，编程等机制，而这只是因为编程是一种解决问题的方法。当你创造了一款有关编程的游戏后，游戏中便会出现一些等待解决的问题，除非你未设置妥当。

我们向学校推荐了《太空化学》，并想要明确你们会如何计划去使用它。美国的学校可能会说：“我们想要将这款游戏作为对学生们化学知识的检验。”但这却不是我们想听到的答案。我们不得不说：“不，你不能这么做。这款游戏并不是用于测验。”而英国的许多学校则想要利用它去教授计算机操作等内容，因为在当地有许多关于计算机专业的学校；他们认为孩子们有必要掌握计算机技能。

可以说这是STEM（游戏邦注：即 science, technology,engineering和mathematics的缩写）领域的实践版本。STEM非常高端，并且本身没有太多意义。但是学校中的计算机课程则更具有针对性：即在孩子们们面前呈现编程，网页制作，技术探索等内容。他们的想法是：“我们想要使用这款游戏去教授孩子们如何编写程序。”我认为他们已经拥有许多老师了，而他们之所以会使用《太空化学》是因为它是一款真正的编程游戏。

东欧的一些学校联系了我们并表示：“我们想要使用《太空化学》去教授孩子们如何解决问题，以及如何进行抽象思考。”我认为之所以会出现这些差异是取决于不同地区的文化差异。

MP：《太空化学》中的许多内容映射出了编程理念。我很好奇这是否是你们有意设计的？

Zach：也有许多人在制作编程游戏，但是很多时候我们都很难去摆脱传统的编程范式。甚至在我之前的游戏中也是如此。我曾经创造过一款名为《Manufactoid》的游戏，它就像是《太空化学》的祖父。我非常喜欢《制造原理》这个电视节目。当我在上大学时我便看过了这个节目：“它真的非常棒。我也想要创造属于自己的工厂，想要创造自己的装配线，想要创造一款游戏去落实它。”我创造了非常蹩脚的Python（游戏邦注：一种面向对象，直译式电脑程式语言）版本，并最终将其命名为《Manufactoid》而发行。

问题就在于，你通过在Lua中编程而让工厂自动化的方法是完全不可行的。我真的很喜欢《Manufactoid》，人们也很喜欢它。但是在Lua中进行编程却很荒谬。我想说：“即使我并不了解Lua，但不可否人的是这真的很愚蠢。这么做的话便没人会玩这款游戏了。”

如今很多人都在创造编程游戏。很多玩过我的游戏的人开始创造自己的编程游戏。我认为大多数人常犯的一个问题便是未足够了解原始编程范例。如此便导致最终成品只能是一种编程。

而你想要达到的效果是，它看上去像是编程，并且也具有编程功能，但却因为开启了一些新元素而显得与众不同，就像是当你玩《传送门》一样。你将看到“思考《传送门》”的陈述，这不仅是他们的标语，从字面上来看这是玩家在首次玩《传送门》时的体验，他们可能会说：“好奇怪，我的大脑中出现了好几条新路径。”

你可以感受到它，因为在你的大脑中出现各种新路径时，你的荷尔蒙激素也会直线上升。我并不是神经系统科学家，所以我不知道这具有何种科学原理，我只知道的是你能够真正感受到它。这种感觉真的很棒。如果你创造了一款优秀的编程游戏，它便能够带给玩家这种感受，因为你将教授他们思考或构建某些事物的新方法。

我曾经在中国的学校上过课，真的太难了。开始时，老师写下了一些符号，我们能够感受到它对于自己想法的改变。就像是“我从未写过如此的符号语言，这是一种非语言的事物，一种表意文字。”这真的很棒。就像是“这是一种与众不同的内容，但却具有巨大的功能和意义，让我能够基于全新的方式进行思考。”

我想很多人都未曾意识到这便是《太空化学》想要传达的内容。他们只是想着“你可以在Lua进行编程”而创造游戏。这根本没有任何意义。

MP：我所担心的一个问题是，有个CS老师在我的课堂上表示，《太空化学》指代了许多重要的编程理念，但是我不知道这是否能够转化为现实中的编程能力。

Zach：我认为他完全偏离了重点。如果你真的想要教别人如何编程，那就直接教授他们便可。这真的很有趣。这也是我为何开始进行编程的主要原因。你根本无需拐弯抹角。

但是如果你想告诉孩子们思考是件很有趣的事，并且解决问题非常有帮助的话，你就可以让他们玩像《太空化学》这样的游戏。虽然《太空化学》能够教授编程理念，但这却不是游戏所强调的重点。游戏的编程并不包含创造打败怪物的机制。这也是《太空化学》的乐趣所在。但问题就在于没人会说：“我需要像《太空化学》这样的内容。”他们只会说：“我们需要某些内容去教授人们真正的生活技巧。”

关于游戏，你必须做出一些改变，并舍弃一些内容。你必须停止无用的担心。我们很难做到让别人真正重视自己的作品。我并不会基于这一点去销售游戏。

第二部分：《Ironclad Tactics》，从《太空化学》吸取的经验教训以及教程设计

Zach：我们想要将《太空化学》从Steam带向学校。人们便会问：“你们的下一款游戏会是怎样的？《Ironclad Tactics》是怎样的？是以南北战争为背景对吧？”我会说：“是的，这与你们想要的内容很接近。”

MP：当我听到有关你们新游戏的故事时我想到一个问题，即你是否玩过《Jamestown》？

Zach：我真的很喜欢那款游戏。它几乎削减了所有游戏故事。在最后时刻，主人公的朋友突然出现，并为他们画画。这也是我最喜欢的游戏环节，并且因此使它成为了我最喜欢的一款独立游戏。你被吸引到了游戏宇宙中，并好奇“发生了什么？Jamestown隐藏着什么秘密？”

MP：这也是我第一次看到你们的《Ironclads》的想法。它的第一个关卡看起来很立体，让我纠结着是否能想出一种类型去标记它。

Zach：这是一款以美国南北战争为背景且基于机器人的战术游戏。其实与《植物大战僵尸》有点像。并且在某些模式中还设有一些纸牌。

许多战术游戏和纸牌游戏的速度真的很慢。而我真的是一个很没有耐性的人。我总是想要玩《战锤》，但却从未能够真正去尝试它。一方面是因为我很廉价而它很昂贵，而另一方面则是因为我很没有耐性。游戏大约需要8个小时，而我从未花过这么长时间去玩一款游戏。除此之外玩家还需要注意许多内容，并掌握各种规则。所以我们便创造了一款基于回合制，并且每个回合只持续5秒钟的游戏。这让那些真正喜欢回合制游戏的玩家兴奋不已。他们会说：“我愿意将时间投入于这款游戏中并在此思考。”但是游戏的初衷并非如此。即使你会喜欢这款游戏，但它却不是你们所想象中的那样。

在游戏的左下角还设有一个小小的计时器，除非你暂停了游戏，否则你便不可能停止时间的运行。游戏是基于回合制，但是每一个回合却只会持续5秒。从根本上说你拥有5秒钟的时间去选择任何一张纸牌。虽然这也是一款多人游戏，但是你却可以同时使用自己手上的纸牌。也就是游戏会在5秒钟时间内同步运行你的指示。每个玩家都将抽出一张纸牌。并且每个人手上只能持有5张纸牌。而如果你已经拥有5张纸牌，但却又抽了第六张，它便会从你手中滑落出去。游戏将自动推动每个玩家移动。你设置去移动的玩家将会移动，而每个可以发动攻击的玩家也都会发动攻击，然后便来到了下一个回合。这在一款回合制实时游戏中来看，真的有点怪异。

MP：现在你已经拥有一个完整的工作室了，是吗？

Zach：是的，我们拥有6，7个成员。

MP：这也是我想问的。这些人是之前参与《太空化学》开发的成员吗？

Zach：部分是。《太空化学》的开发已经是蛮久远的事了。我与其他程序员住得很近，所以我们是一个核心团队。不过我们的所有图像设计工作却是由来自菲律宾的成员所完成。我们还拥有来自法国的音乐师，他负责所有的音乐创作。我们还利用了承包商。《Ironclad Tactics》拥有一则故事，即在游戏中安插了70页的图像小说，并且这些内容都是相互交织在一起。最终证明创造一则图像小说真的非常困难，那时的我们也都不清楚自己到底在做什么。不过现在倒是都已经掌握了。此后游戏的最后一部分便算完成了。

MP：所以你们最终还是选择外部承包？

Zach：我们可以采取许多方法去创造图像小说。并且也有许多方法能够帮助我们更轻松地进行外部承包。所有的纸牌设计是由我们自己独立完成的，但是主要的漫画则是经由外部承包商完成，“这只是一种商业合作。我们拥有两名成员在执行这份工作，而如果我们在画完某些内容后再让他们为其填色的话，完全就是在浪费时间了。我们的工作传递范围非常广，我想这也是我们面对的一大问题。”

MP：能否跟我们详细描述下相关过程？

Zach：教育类游戏就像是传动装置一般。一开始我们只有三名成员，直到有人跟我们说：“嘿，你们想要创造教育类游戏吗？”他们还特别强调：“你们速度太慢了。我们想要你们能够创造出更多内容，但却也不想给你们太多压力。而如果你们能够创造出更多内容便再好不过了。”所以我们便开始纵向扩展。

MP：从你的话语中可以看出你们很重视这点，而你们是否从中吸取了其它更多经验教训。

Zach：《太空化学》中真的存在很多缺陷。

MP：但很显然你们也做出了许多正确的选择。

Zach：这倒没错。不过我们遇到的最大问题便是：我们的教程真的很糟糕；游戏真的很复杂；并且还很长。这些都是不可忽视的大问题。它不仅对于许多玩家来说过于困难，同时也让我们很难进行销售。它看起来就像是一道复杂的化学题。当你断定这是有关化学的游戏，你便也会意识到它的编程机制，而这便不可能成为游戏吸引人的地方。

MP：另一方面，还有其它像《FoldIt》等游戏也拥有这样的忠实“信徒”，他们很高兴能够从游戏中获得学习，并且他们也为科学做出了相应的贡献。

Zach：你知道什么样的游戏更赚钱吗？像《使命的召唤》这样的游戏。我也很喜欢这样的游戏。如果未创造出任何谜题般的内容，我们便只能止步于此。我非常喜欢益智游戏。我应该给你看看我们的文本《太空化学》。虽然那仍是《太空化学》，但它更像是“数独”一样的纸上益智游戏。我们印刷了好几份，并将其派发出去。我真的很喜欢益智游戏，特别是有关工程的开放式游戏。

MP：所以当你在设计一款益智游戏时，你是否会从解决方法开始，然后再往回走？

Zach：当然不会。我的方法恰恰相反。关于《太空化学》我们不能从解决方法着手。这一点意义也没有。因为《太空化学》的许多谜题都是关于“什么是有趣的粒子？你该如何创造这样的粒子？”在这款游戏中存在两种可行的解决方法：你是否拥有一些适当比例的元素？你能否轻松地将解决方法整合到我们所提供的空间中？我们设计谜题的方法是呈现出一些能够通过技术而解决的谜题，但却未拥有真正的解决方法，然后对此进行测试。就连我自己也从未完成《太空化学》的最后关卡。我真的非常谨慎地前行着，并想出了化学计量法，但却不能完全解答出来。我们提供了各种工具，并邀请别人帮助测试这些工具的可行性。这是我想做的最后一件事。这也是我们需要吸取的经验教训。如果你不想尝试自己所创造的最后关卡，它便不是你的最后关卡。对于游戏测试我们并不存在任何相关原理。我们只进行了少量测试，并且有一半的玩家表示难以与游戏形成共鸣，并受困于其中。那时候的我们本应重视这些反馈并进行修改，但是我们却对此置之不理而发行了游戏。

MP：所以这次你们的内部团队反复尝试了新游戏吗？

Zach：并非完全如此。不过说真的，这次我们的确进行了适当的游戏测试。自从开始创造时，我们便邀请不同的人来玩游戏。我们花了一年半的时间去创造《Ironclads》。从创造第一个可游戏版本时，我们便已经有4名测试者。在整个创造过程中频繁地进行测试真的非常重要。不管何时都有人在帮我们测试游戏，而我也会记下相关反馈，因为总是会出现一些错误的内容。我们需要不断地进行调整。我不知道其他开发者是怎样的情况，但是我在一开始真的会频繁遇到各种问题，直到第二次，第三次，第四次甚至是第五次也是如此。

我们一直在尝试着创造一些能够有效教授别人相关知识的内容。但却经常遭遇失败，如果我们足够幸运便能够明确哪些做法的正确的，而哪些又是徒劳的。

在创造《太空化学》之前，我们从未尝试过益智游戏。我们将所吸取的所有经验教训都用于《Ironclad Tactics》中，尽管这是一款不同的游戏。玩家是否能够不阅读任何文本内容而轻松地开始游戏？这点非常重要。我们在《太空化学》所犯的错误便是想着：“如果我们告诉了玩家，他们便一定会去阅读文本内容，并一定能够理解它。”但事实却并非如此。华盛顿大学设有游戏研究部门，他们出版了关于教程的书面内容。而在创造这些教程的时候，他们尝试了试错法。

如果试错法要求阅读某些内容，并进行理解的话，那就没关系。但并不是要求他们去寻找文本，阅读它，进行思考然后再落实行动。他们只需要点击相应内容并尝试着运行它便可。

所以你并不是真的在设计教育性材料。教育性小册子会要求人们阅读一些内容，然后围绕着它进行思考。而教程中却不能这么要求。你需要进行适当的实验，设置一些环境让人们在此进行测试，并且无需明确他们在做什么，只需要点击相应内容便可，从而确保你拥有较高的成功几率。

如果你基于这种框架去看待《太空化学》的教程，你便会发现它完全失败了。因为其教程应用了大量的样板文件。我们很容易去曲解它。教程应该像是一个狭窄的门厅，但却能够引导我们通向最后的目的地。你可以在沿途到处乱串，但只要你继续前进，终会到达终点。但是《太空化学》的教程却像是非常宽广的门廊。如果你在此乱串，你最终便有可能因为做错了某事而撞到墙上。所以人们设置了一些箭头，GRAB指示器以及INPUT指示器，但是当需要停止运作时却找不到DROP指示器，它们只拥有一个OUT指示器。而他们便会问：“为什么运作不了？”要知道，你有可能因为很多原因而犯错，所以这种疑问真的很可笑。这并不适合试错法学习。而我们也意识到自己犯的一大错误便是认为试错法是唯一帮助我们学习的方法。

有些人会通过阅读某些内容并遵循着相关知识去落实行动，但是我却不会这么做。我一直在玩《Star Control》这款游戏，这是从俄语翻译过来的游戏。其教程包含了几个文本屏幕。我也不知道为什么自己一点都不想去看这些内容。一般情况下我都会很认真地阅读相关指示。但在此我却不想这么做。相反地，我会求助于好友并听取他们的解释。我怀疑教程的解释还不如好友的解释来得有帮助。

Kurt Vonnegut在自己的著作《Cat’s Cradle》中说道，在群体中总会存在一个指标作家，因为你不会编写自己的指标，所以需要让别人帮忙编写。而我的教程差不多就是这样。你不能编写自己的教程，你甚至不知道该如何解释。你只需要尽所能地进行设置并让玩家可以轻松地进入游戏便可。

这便是我们关于《Ironclads》的计划。在《Ironclads》中我们设置了许多旗帜让玩家去抓取，从而获得更多点数去使用更多纸牌。而“Ironclads”（机器人）虽然很强大，但却不能抓取旗帜。你必须发动步兵团去获取旗帜。

但是我们却未做到让玩家去掌握步兵团赚取旗帜的机制。许多人都不知道为什么要抓取旗帜。并且我们在很多环节也都未能有效地引导玩家。但是我们不会在此妥协而创造出一款缓慢的回合制游戏。这是实时游戏。只不过我们需要找到更聪明的方法去实现它。

与我一起执行设计任务的Keith说过：“你知道我们该做什么？我们应该先进行设置，如此当你进入关卡时，你便会发现该领域的相关人员。所以即使你未在桥牌上设置这类角色，他也将正常运行并在你的第一个回合中执行抓取旗帜的行动。”这样的设置比任何文本描述强多了！如果你不能有效地进行即使，那就通过演示去告诉玩家如何做。

教授玩家战术的最佳方法（至少在《Ironclad Tactics》）便是不要告诉他们该怎么做，而是通过创造AI进行演示。因为在看到AI的行动后玩家便能够清楚自己该怎么做。在游戏中，“Ironclad”可以踩在粘乎乎的对象身上而将其杀死。但是人们很难意识到这一点。所以我们首先需要做的便是创造一个AI，让他去执行这一行动。AI将通过行动去教授那些未意识到这一点的玩家。

另一种教授方法便是，在一个关卡中引进这些敌人，及其他们的桥牌，并呈现出让你踩在他们上方的姿态。在第一人称射击等游戏中，你可以真正去引导玩家。但是在这类型游戏中却很难做到这点，因为在关卡设计中我们并不能控制玩家该往哪里走。

在关于教程理解上我们已经取得了很大的进展。有趣的是，一开始我还认为“这就是我们所学到的内容。”但是现在我却对自己抱有这种想法感到忏愧。关于《太空化学》，就好像我在谈论其他创造了这么一款糟糕游戏的人似得。我是在谈论他的游戏而非我自己的创作。

MP：也许当你在创造《太空化学》的时候也会这么看待之前的游戏？

Zach：说得没错，回首之前的游戏都会感叹，我的天哪，它们怎么那么糟糕。可以说教程是我的软肋。我从未真正听到其他设计师在谈论教程，这可能意味着他们不擅长教程并且未意识到教程的重要性，或者他们非常擅长教程。我认为这是迄今为止我在游戏创造中遇到的最大难题。我们需要做的便只是确保玩家能够轻松地开始游戏。

如果你正在创造一款大家之前都玩过的游戏类型，你便能够更自由地进行设置。但是我们所面对的刚好相反。我们一直在尝试着创造一些全新的内容。所以我们一直都需要面对各种难题。

MP：你们是否确定了新游戏的发行时间？

Zach：夏天。

MP：真好。

Zach：我们已经面向世人公开了这款游戏，并创造了一些截图，但却还未制作游戏预告片，因为最近我们都忙于游戏的创造中。但是真心希望能在夏天将其正式推向市场。幸运的是我们并未拥有发行商，所以可以在真正完成后再发行。可能是7月份，总之会在PAX游戏展之前推出游戏。如果不能赶在PAX之前，我们便会遭遇巨大的损失。如果设置了一个展台去展示来年才会发行的游戏，这该多尴尬！

（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）

SpaceChem’s Zach Barth on educational games & tutorial design

by Gabriel Recchia

In 2011, Wired UK and New Scientist described how “SpaceChem, a science-themed puzzler hailed as one of the year’s best indie games, is aiming to make the leap from bedrooms to classrooms.” Today, SpaceChem is used by schools in the United States, eastern Europe, and the United Kingdom to supplement computer science curricula. We spoke over lunch at GDC with Zach Barth, developer of SpaceChem and founder of Zachtronics Industries, about the challenges involved in creating this kind of game. (All of us at Motivate. Play. are thankful to Zach for permitting us to transcribe such an informal conversation.)

The first half of this two-part conversation jumps into the design philosophy that Zachtronics uses to design educational games, the challenges of creating games that incorporate programming concepts, and Zach’s thoughts on games and learning. In the second half, we transition to some details about his studio’s upcoming game (Ironclad Tactics), lessons learned from SpaceChem, and how the studio is adjusting its process accordingly, especially with respect to tutorial design.

MP:  What’s interesting to me is that the mechanics [of the educational games you have created for clients] seem fairly well married to the educational content.

Zach:  We use MDA: Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics. It’s a design philosophy. The idea is that when you make a game, all you’re doing is implementing mechanics, right? But the interaction of those mechanics and how players work creates dynamics – let me give an example. In TF2, they have a mechanic called random crits. Sometimes you’ll be firing and all of a sudden shiny, magic bullets will start coming out of your gun that do tons of damage, especially at long range. This just happens randomly.

So that’s the mechanic. On its own, it means nothing; it’s just a mechanic. Is it good or bad? I don’t know, it’s just a mechanic. But in practice, it has this effect that… well typically, you go into an encounter in TF2 and the player who’s better will win. Sometimes it also depends on class balance. The dumbest pyro against the best spy—the spy is going to die. That’s the normal dynamic. Like if you have two heavies against each other, the better heavy will probably win— unless one of them gets random crits. So there’s this chance that the worst player will come out ahead just because of this random thing.

So that’s the dynamic: sometimes players who are not good can win in a situation where they should have lost. And the aesthetic that this creates is that, hey, sometimes you win more than you ought to when you’re learning the game. The aesthetic it creates is that this game feels — I don’t want to say TF2 is really easy to pick up because it’s got a lot of nuanced hard stuff, but the mechanic makes it easier to get into. It gives new players a win; you’re not going to have zero kills. You actually have a couple because you might have gotten random crits.

The reason I bring this up is that we use this for all of our designs because we make a lot of games from scratch. So this is sort of the model we use to try to at least have some understanding of what we’re doing.

I think a lot of games insert the educational stuff in the mechanics; we go for the dynamics. So in Number Munchers, one of the mechanics is that you have to do math. You have to find the answers that are true and then you have to walk over to them. In our metabolism game, in the mechanics, there’s no real educational stuff; you’re just flicking particles around and certain things combine. But based on the math that we have and the rules that we have, it creates these dynamics that actually resemble the real life system.

It also ends up creating the aesthetics not of a textbook or something, but just of a game. We have time pressure, so you’re trying to do stuff quickly and do a lot of different things at once, like you’re trying to do something with the lungs while you’re doing stuff with the stomach. And you have to make a ridiculous amount of energy, but to help with that we give you upgrades that are actually found on the body—like the fact that your lungs work automatically, you could buy that upgrade. So it just feels like a game.

MP:  So you’d say that the content—say, the relationship between energy and the lungs—is embedded in the fact that the dynamics map onto the real world?

Zach:  Exactly. It feels like a game with the mechanics, and it feels like a game with the aesthetics. It just happens that somewhere in between, it feels like real life. That’s how we do educational games. I think that SpaceChem’s a different kind of experience, because the metabolism game only teaches about metabolism. It doesn’t teach you anything about problem solving, or discovery, or science, or any of that.

It’s hard to make a game about science, because science is about not knowing what you’re doing, but discovering it, which is the opposite of user?friendly game design. Science is awful, when it comes to that. You can barely even see what’s going on. You have to sometimes build tools just to intuit what’s going on. It’s not user friendly. It’s not meant to be.

MP:  Was SpaceChem intentionally a game about science, or was it that after you completed it, you thought, “This is like the scientific process; this is like programming”?

Zach:  There’s a little bit of that. The programming part was deliberate. The part that I think is great in SpaceChem, that really came out—and we never intended for it to be an educational game but it’s definitely in there—is problem solving. That’s a big thing. All my Flash games had a lot of problem solving, engineering, programming, and that’s just because programming is problem solving. When you make a game about programming, it’s going to have some problem solving in it, unless you do it poorly.

We offered SpaceChem to schools, and one of the things that you had to tell us was how you were planning to use it. This is more anecdotal than anything else, but American schools would say, “We want to use this game as a chemistry review for our students.” Basically, half of them. This is the worst game for that. We had to say, “No, you should not use this. This is not for that problem.” But a lot of the schools in the UK wanted to use it to teach computer fluency stuff, because there’s a big computing?in?schools push in the UK; they’re into the idea that kids should be computer literate.

It’s a very practical version of STEM. STEM is very lofty, and doesn’t mean much on its own. But computing in schools is very specific: exposing kids to stuff like programming, and making websites, and tech literacy. They were like, “We want to use this game to teach kids about programming.” I think they have a lot of people who teach clubs; they use it because SpaceChem is really a programming game.

The Eastern European schools, a couple of them contacted us saying “We want to use SpaceChem to teach problem solving, abstract critical thinking.” I think that’s a cultural difference there in what they prioritize.

MP: A lot of things in SpaceChem map onto pretty solid programming concepts. I was curious whether that was by design.

Zach:  There are a lot of people who make programming games, and a lot of times, it’s really hard to escape conventional programming paradigms. Even in my old games. I made a game called Manufactoid, which is like the granddaddy of SpaceChem. There’s a show called, “How It’s Made,” which I love. I saw this show when I was in college, and I was like, “This is amazing. I want to make my own factories. I want to make my own assembly lines, and I want to make a game to do it.” I made this really crappy Python version, and eventually, I made a proper release of it, and called it Manufactoid.

The problem was that the way you automated your factory was by programming it in Lua, which is completely inaccessible. I really liked Manufactoid, and people liked it. But having to program in Lua is ridiculous. I was like, “Even I don’t know Lua, this is stupid. No one can play this game.”

A lot of people make programming games now. A lot of people who play my games make programming games. I think one of the mistakes that a lot of people make is not having an original enough programming paradigm. Because otherwise, it’s just programming.

You want to make sure that it feels like programming, and is functionally like programming, but, is so different that it opens up new—like when you’re playing “Portal.” You have the whole “Thinking with Portals” statement, which is not just their tagline, it is literally what happens the first time you play “Portal” and you’re like, “Holy fuck. This is strange. There are new pathways forming in my brain.”

You can feel it, because you can feel the dopamine rush that’s associated with forming new pathways in your brain, or whatever. I’m not a neuroscientist, so, I don’t know if that’s technically it, but you can feel it. It feels great. If you make a good programming game, it will feel like that, because you’re teaching people a totally new way of thinking and structuring things.

I took a class in Chinese. I’m terrible at it, and don’t remember much at all. But when I first started, you’re writing out these symbols, and you can feel it changing how you think. It’s like, “I’ve never written a symbolic language like this, a non?phonetic thing, an ideographic language.” It’s awesome. It’s like, “This is something that’s so different, but yet so functional and meaningful that it’s making me think in new ways.”

I think a lot of people don’t realize that’s the draw of SpaceChem. They just make a game like, “Here, you can program in Lua.” That doesn’t count.

MP: One concern I would have if I were, say, a CS teacher thinking about using SpaceChem in my classroom, is that it’s a great metaphor for a lot of important programming concepts, but I don’t know if they would actually transfer [to real-world programming ability].

Zach:  I almost think that’s totally missing the point. If you want to teach people to program, just teach them to program. It’s fun. That’s why I started programming. You don’t need to beat around the bush. Teach people programming, and make it fun.

But if you want to teach kids that thinking about stuff can be fun and that problem solving is good, then let them play a game like SpaceChem. SpaceChem teaches programming concepts, but whatever, that’s not the point. If that’s what you need to hear in order to sell you on it, this is not for you. The reason you have to want SpaceChem is because you want SpaceChem. Programming doesn’t involve building machines that fight monsters. It doesn’t have a story in it. That’s why SpaceChem is fun. But the problem is nobody in education says “we need more things like SpaceChem.” They say “oh, we need things that teach people real life skills.”

With games, you have to make a leap, and you have to let some stuff go. You have to stop worrying so much. It’s hard to say that and have people take you seriously. I’m not trying to sell anything on that basis. This is what I think. I think lots of things that are ridiculous.

Part II: Ironclad Tactics, lessons learned from SpaceChem, and tutorial design

Zach:  I was talking to people from Steam for Schools. We’re trying to get SpaceChem on there. And they’re like, “Well, what about your next game? What about Ironclad Tactics? Takes place in the Civil War, right?” I’m like “Yeah… no. This is not even remotely what you want.”

MP: One of the things I really liked when I heard about your new game’s story was that it reminded me of…Do you play Jamestown?

Zach:  I love that game. Their story almost got cut. At the last minute, one of their friends came through and did the paintings for them. That was my favorite part of the game. That’s what completely pulled it together and made it one of my favorite indie games. It draws you in and pulls you into that little stupid made up universe. It’s so compelling. It’s like “What happened? What is the mystery of Jamestown?”

MP:  That’s what I thought of when I saw Ironclads. On one level it looks like a solid–I hesitate to even label it with a genre…

Zach:  It’s a tactics game with robots in the Civil War. It’s a little bit like Plants vs. Zombies, actually. Real time, has cards in some of the modes, lane based.

A lot of tactics games and card games are really slow. I’m a really impatient person. I’ve always wanted to play Warhammer. But I never, ever could. A, because I’m cheap and it’s expensive. And B because I’m impatient. The game takes like eight hours to play. It’s just something I’ll never do. There are so many things you have to pay attention to, so many rules you have to know. So we made this game where it’s technically turn based, but a turn lasts five seconds. This freaks out a lot of people who like turn based games. They’re like “I like taking my time and thinking.” This is not for that, sorry. You’ll like it, but it’s not what you think it is.

There is a little timer on the bottom left hand corner that runs. There is nothing you can do to stop it except for pausing the game. It’s turn based, but a turn lasts five seconds. You have basically five seconds to play whatever cards you want. It’s multiplayer, but you play your cards at the same time. It’s simultaneous in real time in that aspect, for like, five seconds. Then everybody draws a card. You can only have five cards in your hand. If you have five cards, you draw another one, bam, it just shoves it out of your hand, and it’s gone. It automatically makes everybody move. The guys that you have set to move will move, everybody who can attack will attack, and then it’s the next turn. It’s this weird cross between a turn based and a real time game.

MP:   You’re with a whole studio now, right?

Zach:  We’re six, seven people.

MP:  OK, that’s what I was about to ask. Is that the same group that you did SpaceChem with?

Zach:  Partially. SpaceChem was very remote based. I live near the other programmers, so we were the core team. But we got a guy in the Philippines to do all of our artwork. We have a musician in France who we contract all of our music from. We have, outside of the core team, seven people. We use a lot of contractors. Ironclad Tactics has a story, totals a 70 page graphic novel in-game and it’s all interwoven. It turns out that making a graphic novel is really hard, and none of us had any idea what we were doing. We’re on top of that now. That’s going to be the last part of the game that’s finished.

MP:  Was that also contracted out?

Zach:  There’s a lot of stuff to making a graphic novel. There’s a lot of stuff that’s very easily contracted out. All of the illustrated cards are actually in house, but the main illustrator of the comic is technically contracted out, ‘cause it lets her work from home—it’s just a business thing. We have two people, actually, whose specific jobs are just to flat. After something’s been drawn and inked, they go in and fill it in with colors. It’s such a time consuming…We’ve got this huge pipeline, and that was part of the problem I think. It’s like a five stage pipeline, worse than anything else we do.

MP:  How was that process, scaling up?

Zach:  The educational game thing is what kicked it up into gear. We were only three people until someone came along and said “Hey, do you want to make some educational games?” They were specifically saying, “You guys are too slow. We want you to do more, but we don’t want to push you. It would be great if you could do more.” So, we scaled up to be able to do more.

MP:  I guess you’ll talk about this some in your talk, but were there any big lessons learned?

Zach:  SpaceChem, there were mistakes.

MP:  But you obviously did a lot right as well.

Zach:  If you say so. Anecdotally, yes, that is true. The big things were: our tutorial is awful, unusable; the game was really, really hard; and it’s really, really long. Those are the big problems. It’s too hard for a lot of people, and it’s a really hard sell. It looks like it’s about chemistry. Once you get past the part of thinking it’s about chemistry, you realize it’s actually about programming, which is also not that sexy.

MP: On the other hand, there are games like say FoldIt, which has this core, cult following who are really excited that they’re learning something about how actual proteins work, and that they’re actually contributing something real to science and so forth.

Zach:  You know what game makes more money? Call of Duty. The truth is, though, that I love these kinds of games. We can only go so long without making something puzzley. I just love puzzle games. I ought to get you a copy of our paper version of SpaceChem. It’s SpaceChem, but it’s a paper puzzle like sudoku. We printed out a bunch of them, and we’re giving them away. I love puzzle games, especially the engineering, open-ended games.

MP:  So when you’re designing a puzzle, do you start with the solution and work backward?

Zach:  Oh, God, no. The opposite. You can’t start with the solution for SpaceChem. That doesn’t really make a lot of sense. I can start with a solution, but the way with a lot of SpaceChem puzzles is just to ask “What’s an interesting molecule? And how could you possibly build that?” There are two kinds of solvability in SpaceChem: Do you actually have the elements in the right proportions that are required? And can you fit a solution easily in the amount of space we give you? The way we designed the puzzles was, I just chucked in a bunch of puzzles that were technically solvable but might not have been actually solvable, and then playtested. I’ve never beaten the last level of SpaceChem. I really deliberately went through and made sure the stoichiometry worked out but just had no desire to solve it. We give you enough tools that it’s almost certainly possible, and I had other people playtest it to make sure it was. It was the last thing I felt like doing, which is a sign. That was a lesson learned. If you don’t want to do your own last level then it shouldn’t be your last level. Our whole philosophy on playtesting was nonexistent. We did a little bit of playtesting, and half the players didn’t resonate with it and got stuck. That should have been a red flag, but, instead, we were just like “eh, this is good, let’s ship it.”

MP:  So this time you had your in-house team play it, play again, and…?

Zach:  Well, not exactly. This time we’ve done proper playtesting, actually. We bring in people all the time, ever since the beginning. We’ve been working on Ironclads for a year and a half. Ever since the first playable version, we have a four man playtest. That was where we started. It’s really important to playtest the entire time and constantly playtest. Whenever I have anybody play the game, I’m always taking notes, because there’s always stuff that’s wrong. It takes forever to fine tune stuff. I don’t know how other developers are, but I rarely ever get anything right the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth time.

Trying to make something that teaches someone something effectively…It’s just constant failure, and, if we’re lucky, we’ll figure out something that we think is really smart and then that won’t work either. And, then, we’ll actually figure something out.

We haven’t made a puzzle game since SpaceChem. All of our knowledge that we’ve learned is going into Ironclad Tactics, where it’s a different kind of thing. Can someone pick up our game and not read a single word of the text and play it? That’s really an important thing. The mistake we made with SpaceChem was expecting that “Oh, if we tell people, they’ll have to read it, and they’ll have to understand it.” And that’s not true. The University of Washington, they have a games research department. They put out a paper on tutorials. My takeaway from it, which might not have been their takeaway, was that any time you make a tutorial for somebody, they are basically doing trial and error. They are putting on their little scientist hat, whether they know it or not, and they’re trying to use their trial and error skills to figure it out.

If trial and error involves reading something, and then understanding it, that’s great. But it’s not like they’re going through, looking for text, reading it, thinking about it, and then doing it. They’re just clicking stuff trying to get it to work, and that’s all.

So you’re not really designing educational materials. Educational pamphlets are expecting people to read something and then think about it. That’s not how you should do tutorials. You should make little experiments, setting up little environments where people go in with trial and error, having no idea what they’re doing, just clicking on stuff, and you make sure they have a really high chance of succeeding.

If you look at SpaceChem’s tutorial through this kind of framework, you see that it fails miserably. Because right off the bat there’s so much boilerplate involved. It’s so easy to get it wrong. It should be like a hallway that gets slightly narrow and comes to a point at the end. That way you can bounce around all you want but as long as you keep going, you’re going to end up in that point. Whereas SpaceChem is a really wide hallway with one door. If you bounce around, there’s a good chance you’re just going to smack into the wall at the end, because you’ve done something wrong. So people place some arrows and a GRAB instruction, and an INPUT instruction, but when it comes time to drop it they don’t have a DROP instruction, they have an OUT instruction. They’re like “why isn’t this working?” There are just so many things you can do wrong, it’s ridiculous. It’s not suited to trial and error learning. The big thing for us is realizing that trial and error learning is the only way that anyone ever learns, in general.

Some people do read stuff and try to correctly do it, but I don’t. I was playing this game Star Control, and it’s translated from Russian. Their tutorial consists of a couple text screens. You bet your ass I just dismissed it. That’s the last thing I wanted to do. I don’t even know why. Usually I’m a thoughtful, conscientious person, and I try to read stuff. But I’m just like “eh, I’m not reading that.” So, I learned from my friend and had him explain it to me. I doubt the tutorials even explained what he explained to me.

There’s a Kurt Vonnegut book called “Cat’s Cradle” where one of the people is an index writer, because you can’t write your own index. You need to find someone else to write it. My tutorials are almost like that. You can’t write your own tutorial. You wouldn’t even know what to explain. The best you can do is set it up so people can bounce into the game reliably.

That’s actually our plan for Ironclads. We have a thing in Ironclads where—and this is a thing that we’re still struggling with—there are these flags that you can capture that give you more points to play more cards. Ironclads—the robots—are really powerful, but they can’t capture flags. You have to send out the little soft, squishy dudes, the infantry, to capture them.

We had a really bad time getting people to learn that infantry capture flags. A lot of people don’t even know what flag capturing is. They don’t see it. There’s so much stuff going on that we’ve had a really hard time getting people to look in the right direction. We’re not going to compromise on it and make it a slow turn based game or something. It’s real time. We just have to find the clever ways to do it.

Keith, who does a lot of design stuff with me, was like “Oh, you know what we should do? We should have it so when you start that level there’s already one of your guys on the field. So, even if you didn’t put one in your deck, there’s a scout of your faction on the field, and he’s going to run out and capture a flag for you the first turn.” Stuff like that does a way better job of illustrating it than any amount of text ever could. It’s a hard thing to explain, but if you show people they’ll get it. Stuff like that is really the secret.

The best way to teach tactics to a player, at least in Ironclad Tactics, is not by telling them to do it, but by making the AI do it. Because if the AI does it then it’s obvious. There’s a thing in Ironclads where the Ironclads can basically step on the squishy guys and instantly kill them. People have a hard time realizing this is a thing. The first thing we did is we made the AI start doing it. All of a sudden the AI is going out of its way to squash their guys and that teaches them a tactic, when they hadn’t even realized they could move onto these guys like that.

The other way we teach that is, on the first level that introduces these enemies, their army’s deck is half scouts for no reason other than to show that you can step on them. You’re not going to be able to not step on them. Learning by showing. In some games, like a first person shooter, you can really direct somebody. But a game like this is a lot harder, because we have a lot less control over where you’re going with our level design.

We’ve come a long way with our understanding of tutorials. It’s embarrassing. At first, I was like “oh, here’s stuff we’ve learned.” But now I’m just embarrassed. With SpaceChem, it feels like I’m talking about some other asshole who made a shitty game. I’m talking about his game. It’s just not me anymore.

MP:   Probably when you were working on SpaceChem, you felt that way about your older games?

Zach:  Absolutely, they were so bad, oh my God. Tutorials, they have always been my hardest thing. I have never really heard other designers talk about tutorials, which either means they are bad at it and don’t realize it, or they’re all really good at it, and I’m just terrible. I think that’s by far that’s the hardest part of making games, now. We address it as if it was the hardest part. Just making sure that people can play.

If you’re making a game where everybody already has played that genre before, you have a lot more freedom with how you do it. We’re against that, that is the opposite of what we do. We try to make something completely new every time. So, it’s hard.

MP:  Do you have an estimated release month yet?

Zach:  Summer.

MP:  OK, great.

Zach:  Yeah, definitely. The game’s announced, we’ve got some screenshots online, but no game trailer, because we’ve been too busy making the game. But it’s coming out this summer, hopefully. Fortunately, we don’t have a publisher, so it’s done when it’s done.  Probably July, before PAX. If we don’t have it out by PAX, we’ve screwed up majorly. That would be so embarrassing, to have a booth there for yet another year and be like, “Our game is almost out, but not yet.” [laughs] That would be terrible.(source:gamasutra)