作者：Soren Johnson

谁来决定游戏的意义？

乍一看，大受欢迎的桌面游戏《车票之旅》似乎属于“铁路大亨”类游戏（游戏邦注：如《蒸汽时代》、《欧洲铁路》和《1830》系列）。在游戏中，玩家的目标就是连接某两座城市，比如从纽约到旧金山，从迈阿密到芝加哥等。

为了达到这个目标，玩家必须占领连接着沿线城市的铁路，同时还要努力阻碍对手完成他们自己的挑战。游戏中还有次级目标，如占领的铁路里程最长、最早完成铁路网等；一旦其中一名玩家达到该目标，则游戏结束。

因此，大多数玩家会把《车票之旅》当成一款关于建立最佳铁路运输路线的游戏，即夺取最佳路线以赢得比赛。然而，这款游戏的规则介绍却是另一回事：“在一个狂风大作的秋夜，五个老朋友来到这座城市最古老的一家私人会所的密室里。他们长途拔涉，游历了世界的各个角落，终于在这一天相聚了。这是1900年10月2日，距离英国发明家Phileas Fogg打赌2万英镑在80天内环游世界并成功的那一天，已经28年了。

Ticket to Ride(from gameknight)

“自那以后，为了纪念Fogg，他们每年都要进行庆祝。在周年纪念日这一天，他们会提出新的远行计划（总是更加困难）。在新世纪来临之际，又一个不可能的旅行计划诞生了。赌注是：胜者获得1百万美元。目标是：看谁能在短短7天内坐火车游历数量最多的北美城市。”

官方故事让许多玩家大感意外，甚至是这款游戏的资深玩家也颇为惊讶，因为游戏的主题与玩法完全不符。例如，玩家怎么能因为经过某条铁路就“宣称占领”该铁路？难道火车关闭了就不让其他人使用那条线路了？不过，占领路线倒是与旨在控制最佳通路的“铁路大亨”的故事完全契合。

此外，玩家可以按任意顺序宣布占领线路—-考虑到现实的玩家作为旅行者，体力是有限的，这就说不通了。相反地，占领路线让人觉得更像收购铁路而不是在该铁路上旅行。

意义产生于机制

主题与机制的分离产生了一些有趣的问题。如，如果游戏与玩家脑中想到的东西不符，游戏的设计师有没有权力决定游戏的意义是什么？如果设计师没有这个权力，而玩家又能这么轻易地违背游戏的“官方故事”，那么它还重要吗？游戏的意义难道不是由玩家在游戏过程中的所做所想决定的吗？

基本上，设计师不得不承认，游戏的主题并不决定它的意义。相反地，意义产生于游戏的机制—-不同玩家得到的一系列决定和结果。游戏对玩家的要求是什么？游戏如何惩罚和奖励玩家？游戏鼓励什么策略和方式？如果我们能回答这些问题，那么游戏的真实意义也就明朗了。

此外，虽然人们购买游戏是因为游戏承诺的主题（“我想成为太空战士！”）和来自游戏机制本身（也就是用枪打外星人）的乐趣。当二者产生严重脱节时，玩家会觉得自己上当了，被设计师欺骗了。

以《孢子》为例，这款游戏以进化主题为卖点。在2008年10月号的《科学》杂志上，John Bohannon对该游戏的主题发表了如下看法：“我与一队科研人员一起玩《孢子》，把它的科学主题一一升级。在生物学主题上，也就是进化，《孢子》非常不幸地失败了。根据那些科研人员的说法，问题不只是《孢子》简化了科学或搞错了一些东西—-毕竟它只是一款游戏，而是，它在生物学上处理得很糟糕，很多余，经常是错得离谱。”

这种脱节的根源是，即使出售时以进化主题为卖点，《孢子》的意义其实不是进化。事实上，《孢子》是一款关于创造力的游戏—-玩这款游戏的原因是，在玩家使用（或误用）编辑器创造出设计师意想不到的东西—-从乐器到幻想的动物再到生动的场景，欣赏其他玩家的这种想像力创造的奇迹。

然而，虽然《孢子》没有提供进化的意义，但这些科学工作者可以在另一款大受欧美玩家欢迎的游戏《魔兽世界》中找到进化主题。这款游戏的主题本应该是剑与魔法，但在决定如何培养自己的角色时，游戏的机制鼓励玩家做出自己的自然选择。

经过多年的游戏，《魔兽》的资深玩家们已经给各个种族设想出许多培养方向，取决于玩家想让自己的角色发挥什么作用。例如，骑士有三种培养方向：神圣（治疗系）、保护（肉盾系）和惩罚（输出系）。另外，在这些主要的分类下，还有PVP、PVE和刷怪这三种次级培养方向。在玩家尝试不同的组合时，根据游戏的奖励或惩罚，这些培养方向也自然而然地演变着。

主题之下

无论是什么游戏，我们都可以通过机制影响玩家体验的方式而发现游戏的意义所在。以《超级马里奥兄弟》为例，这款游戏是关于计时的，当然与修水管无关。《战地》的主题是团队合作，而不是二战或现代战争。《幻幻球》的重点是混沌理论，不是独角兽或彩虹。

确实，主题相同的游戏可能意义并不同。例如，在电子游戏的历史上，人类大战外星人一直是个热门的主题。尽管如此，因为规则设置，各款外星人主题的游戏可能在意义上大不相同。《小蜜蜂》其实是一款图形匹配游戏。《幽浮》强调的是根据有限的信息做决策。《战争机器》是一款掩体射击游戏。《星际争霸》的挑战是不对称战斗。

相反地，主题不同但机制相同的游戏可能意义也一样。《文明》和《Alpha Centauri》发生在完全不同的星球上，但它们的机制基本相同。《Alpha Centauri》的意念蠕虫、探查队和秘密工事其实就对应了《文明》中的野蛮人、间谍和世界奇观。玩家可以轻易地看穿游戏的表象，发现他们仍然是在相同的权衡比较下做相同的决策。

类型选择也可能影响游戏的意义。玩家期望中的主题往往可以表达成某个动词和名词。（“我是法师—-我可以施放强大的魔法！”）不幸的是，类型常规通常在玩家和他所想象的游戏之间设下障碍。再者，玩家是先看了盒子上写的主题才购买游戏，如果实际的游戏与他的脑内想象不符，他可能会觉得自己受骗了（如果玩家对游戏的机制和类型的传统完全不了解的话）。

例如，最近的两款游戏机游戏—-《光环战争》和《野兽传奇》居然是策略游戏，让玩家大吃一惊。对于前者，许多玩家以为它是强调应变能力的战斗游戏；对于后者，它的重金属美术风格实在让人看不出来居然是策略游戏。因为策略游戏通常讲究深谋远虑，所以，玩家期待的、由游戏主题带来的刺激感就落空了。设计师可能设计了有趣的的游戏规则，但主题却把游戏推向错误的玩家。

主题与机制相结合

我们不妨在桌面游戏《Risk》和《Diplomacy》之间做一个有趣的比较。这两款游戏的主题相同，都是征服世界。确实，乍一看，二者似乎在机制上非常接近。游戏面板被分成不同区域，由玩家的常规军队或海军（在《Diplomacy》中）控制着。根据战斗，这些区域的控制权也随之变更，结果是，战斗获胜的玩家能够派遣更多军队到他们的新领土上。

然而，规则上的微小差异使这两款游戏的意义变得非常不同。在《Risk》中，回合是按顺序发生的，而在《Diplomacy》中，回合是自动执行的。这个区别使《Risk》的重点落在风险上，而《Diplomacy》则变成一款外交游戏。在《Risk》中，玩家必须决定在他们自己的回合中能得到多少领土，并寄希望于扔骰子的手气不要太差。而对于《Diplomacy》，游戏中并没有骰子，玩家只能靠别人的帮助获得成功，在谈判回合中，这只能基于承诺不能真正执行。只有在回合间揭露秘密写下的条款，玩家们才知道谁是真正的盟友，谁是卑鄙的小人。

特别是《Diplomacy》，把主题和机制融合得非常完美。确实，肯尼迪总统曾表示这是他最喜欢的游戏。这款游戏宣称的主题与实际的玩法机制是一致的—-外交谈判的迂回曲折。另一方面，当游戏的主题和机制严重分离时，玩家可能对这种脱节作出消极反应。

（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）

What is your game actually about?

By Soren Johnson

WHO DECIDES WHAT A GAME IS ABOUT?

At first glance, the popular board game Ticket to Ride seems to be another link in the great chain of rail baron games, such as Age of Steam, Eurorails, and the 1830 series. During the game, the player draws unique route challenges to connect certain pairs of cities—New York to San Francisco, Miami to Chicago, and so on.

To complete them, she must claim a series of tracks that connect adjacent cities while also trying to block her opponents from finishing their own challenges. There are sub goals too, such as having the longest contiguous rail line and completing one’s network first, which ends the game for everyone.

Thus, most players would describe Ticket to Ride as a game about building the best rail service by grabbing choice routes and cutting off the competition. However, the introduction in the rules tells a different story: “On a blustery autumn evening five old friends met in the back room of one of the city’s oldest and most private clubs. Each had traveled a long distance — from all corners of the world — to meet on this very specific day … October 2, 1900 — 28 years to the day that the London eccentric, Phileas Fogg, accepted and then won a ￡20,000 bet that he could travel Around the World in 80 Days.

“Each succeeding year, they met to celebrate the anniversary and pay tribute to Fogg. And each year a new expedition (always more difficult) was proposed. Now at the dawn of the century it was time for a new impossible journey. The stakes: $1 Million in a winner-takes-all competition. The objective: to see which of them could travel by rail to the most cities in North America — in just 7 days.”

The official story comes as a surprise to many players, even veterans of the game, because the theme simply does not match the gameplay. For example, how can a player “claim” a route just by riding on it? Do the trains shut down, preventing anyone else from using that line? On the other hand, claiming routes matches perfectly the fiction of ruthless rail barons trying to control the best connections.

Furthermore, routes can be claimed in any order — there is no sense that the player actually exists in the world as a traveler with real, physical limitation. Instead, claiming routes feels a lot more like buying them rather than traveling on them.

MECHANICS GIVE MEANING

This disconnect leads to some interesting questions. Does a game’s designer have the right to say what a game is about if it doesn’t match what’s going on inside the players’ heads? And if the designer doesn’t have this right, then does a game’s official “story” ever matter at all, since it can be invalidated so easily? Isn’t a game about what one actually does during play and how that feels to the player?

Ultimately, designers need to recognize that a game’s theme does not determine its meaning. Instead, meaning emerges from a game’s mechanics — the set of decisions and consequences unique to each one. What does a game ask of the player? What does it punish, and what does it reward? What strategies and styles does the game encourage? Answering these questions will reveal what a game is actually about.

Furthermore, while people buy games for the promise of the theme (“I want to be a space marine!”), the fun comes from the mechanics themselves (actually shooting the aliens). When there is a severe dissonance between the two, players can feel cheated, as if the designers executed a bait-and-switch.

The reception of Spore, a game sold with an evolutionary theme, provides a recent example. In the October 2008 issue of Science magazine, John Bohannon wrote the following about how the game delivered on the theme’s promise: “I’ve been playing Spore with a team of scientists, grading the game on each of its scientific themes. When it comes to biology, and particularly evolution, Spore failed miserably. According to the scientists, the problem isn’t just that Spore dumbs down the science or gets a few things wrong — it’s meant to be a game, after all — but rather, it gets most of [its] biology badly, needlessly, and often bizarrely wrong.”

The source of this dissonance is that, even though it was sold as such, Spore is not really a game about evolution. Spore is actually a game about creativity — the reason to play the game was to behold the wonder of other players’ imaginations as they used (and misused) the editors to create objects not imagined by the game’s designers — from musical instruments to fantastical creatures to dramatic scenes.

However, even though Spore is not about evolution, the scientists should keep looking because one of the most popular games in the Western world actually is about evolution — World of Warcraft. The game may have a swords-and-sorcery theme, but the mechanics encourage the players to conduct their own form of natural selection when deciding how to develop their characters.

Over years of experience, veterans of WoW have established a number of upgrade paths (or “builds”) for each class, depending on what role the player wants the character to fill. For example, the Paladin class has three main builds: Holy (for healing), Protection (for tanking), and Retribution (for damage-per-second). Further, underneath these main categories, sub-builds exist for player-vs- player, player-vs-enemy, and mob grinding. These paths have evolved organically over the years as players tried out different combinations, depending on what the game rewarded or punished.

SEEING PAST THE THEME

One can look at any number of games through the lens of how the mechanics affect the user experience to find out what the game actually means. Super Mario Bros., for example, is a game about timing, certainly not about plumbing. Battlefield games are about teamwork, not World War II or modern combat. Peggle is a game about chaos theory, not unicorns or rainbows.

Indeed, games with the same theme can actually be about different things. For example, human conflict with aliens has certainly been a popular theme across video game history. Nonetheless, each alien-themed game can mean something very different depending on the rule set. Galaga is actually about pattern matching. X-COM is about decision-making with limited information. Gears of War is about using cover as a defensive weapon. Starcraft is about the challenges of asymmetrical combat.

Conversely, games with different themes but the same mechanics are actually about the same thing. Civilization and Alpha Centauri are set on completely different planets, but the mechanics are largely the same. Alpha Centauri’s mind worms, probe teams, and Secret Projects are essentially identical to Civilization’s barbarians, spies, and World Wonders. Players can easily see past the game’s chrome to see that they are still making the same decisions with the same trade-offs.

Genre choice can also affect the meaning of a game. Players expect a theme to deliver on certain nouns and verbs. (“I am a Mage — I can cast powerful Magic!”) Unfortunately, genre conventions often put a barrier between a player and the game he imagined while holding a copy in the store. Once again, players buy games for the theme as presented on the box — if the mechanics and traditions of the genre are wildly unfamiliar to the player, at odds with the game in his head, he may feel cheated.

For example, two recent console games — Halo Wars and Brutal Legend — surprised players by being strategy games. With the former, many players expected a Halo game to be about reflex- based combat; with the latter, the heavy-metal aesthetic was not viewed as inherently strategic. Because strategy games are often played at a considered distance, players expecting the visceral thrill promised by the games’ themes were disappointed. The designers may have built fun and interesting rule sets, but the themes sold the games to the wrong fans.

UNITING THEME AND MECHANICS

One interesting comparison is the board games Risk and Diplomacy , which have identical themes of world conquest. Indeed, at first glance, the two games also seem quite similar mechanically. The game board is split up into territories, which the players control with generic army or (in the case of Diplomacy ) navy tokens. These territories switch hands as battles are fought, and — in turn — the victors are able to field larger militaries from their new lands.

However, a small difference in the rules makes the two games about something very different. In Risk, turns occur sequentially while, in Diplomacy, they execute simultaneously. This difference makes Risk a game about risk while Diplomacy becomes a game about diplomacy. In Risk, players must decide how much they can achieve during their own turn and then hope the dice are not unkind. With Diplomacy, however, there are no dice; players can only succeed with the help of others, which can only be promised but not actually delivered during the negotiation round. Only when the secretly-written orders are revealed between turns is it clear who is a true friend and who is a backstabbing traitor.

Diplomacy, in particular, is a perfect marriage between theme and mechanics. Indeed, President John F. Kennedy considered it his favorite game. The game is about exactly what it claims to be about — the twists and turns of diplomatic negotiations. On the other hand, when a game’s theme and mechanics are sharply divorced, players can react negatively to the dissonance. In part II of this article, we shall discuss examples of games which made a successful union of the two and ones which did not — and the rewards and costs of doing so. (source:gamasutra)