作者：Micah Hrechovscik

我认为游戏的作用除了娱乐玩家，还包括启发他们用新的视角看待周围的世界，从而产生更加深刻的见解。游戏设计应该是有意创造这种游戏体验的实践，但为此，设计师必须非常精通他们的设计技术。本宣言的目的是探索能够塑造设计师的职业行为和态度的一系列标准。

在《Respecting Design》一文中，Claire Blackshaw提出一个问题：为什么游戏设计师很难得到尊敬？事实上，从我一进入这个行业开始，我就不断地在新人设计师们当中听到与这个问题相关的轶事。这个问题似乎困扰了许多游戏设计师。在我开始写这分宣言的不久以后，我发现那篇文章发表在lostgarden.com网站上，标题为《游戏设计师的独立宣言》。虽然这份宣言击中了许多要点，但我的认为它的根本诉求其实是尊重。然而，“在许多受人尊敬的职业中，职业进阶要求大量研究、知识储备或者思维方法。”为了获得尊敬，设计师必须能够明确地展显自己的才能，让他人信服。换句话说，如果他们想获得独立，他们必须变革自己的职业实践。

我对这个问题的应对方式是，使用和积累游戏设计方法，但这种方式之下的是使那些方法对我管用的信条。作为游戏设计师，我自己的一套“武士道”由下列7条组成：

I Have No Words & I Must Design(from gamedesignconcepts)

1、开发的核心是设计

游戏设计是游戏开发的基础，不只是因为它影响最终的游戏玩法体验，还因为它影响游戏开发的最关键部分。在我看来，最关键部分包括时间、成本和协同（游戏邦注：这里的“协同”是指开发团队成员的道德、热情、精力和信任）。游戏设计师应该能够根据可用的时间、资源和协同做设计。因此，估计就成为一种必要的能力了。所以，设计师不能使用以资源不足作为设计失败的借口。说到底，设计就是用有限的资源做出最大的成绩。

2、精益求精

所有游戏设计和开发都应该是一个迭代的过程。设计师的职责就是在必要的迭代过程中达到游戏设计的目标（游戏机制、玩法机制和游戏体验）。迭代设计不是在不断实验中尝试和改错直到偶然发现最终目标。迭代应该是为了避免修改而提炼的过程，因为修改越多，错误（如忍不住增加新特征）也会越多。所以，设计师应该努力在最少的迭代中设计出最理想的游戏体验。

3、理解设计

游戏设计师的最基本任务是理解设计，这意味着知道核心和进程机制如何运作，玩家如何感知玩法机制和玩法体验。对设计缺乏了解可能导致团队协作不理想，并且通常成为解释游戏无聊的借口。如果作为设计师的人希望获得尊敬，那么你应该对设计的方方面面了如指掌，毕竟如果连你都不了解游戏，还有谁会了解呢？

4、超媒体的游戏设计师

游戏设计师应该能够设计各种各样的游戏，而不只是电子游戏。游戏是超媒体的，意思是它们超越任何一种媒体。超媒体以电子游戏、桌面游戏、卡牌游戏、体育运动、社交游戏和无处不在的系统的形式存在着。设计师应该避免沦为只会设计他自己最喜欢的类型或媒体的游戏的“专业户”。如果游戏设计师接受游戏是一种超媒体，那么他就会开阔自己的眼界，在更广泛的范围内运用自己的设计才能。

5、经验

理想地说，游戏设计应该成为一种要求终身学习的职业。任何保持这种态度的设计师很快就会发现，他们已经成为“多面手”了，因为他们积累了各种与设计和媒体有关的知识和经验。游戏设计师应该玩各种游戏，而不是局限于自己最喜欢的类型，并且，应该能够在更深刻的层面上评价游戏，而不是简单地说“有趣”、“好玩”。我认为优秀的游戏设计来源于能够描述游戏体验，因此即使游戏是续篇或模仿之作，游戏设计师也应该带着敬意对待设计，把设计当成独一无二的。在这种情况下，只是在老游戏中添加新特征和机制，而不理解游戏是怎么运作的，必然会导致糟糕的设计。另外，游戏怎么分类？那是销售和玩家的事，游戏设计师应该能够从机制和系统的角度理解游戏。通过理解机制，设计师就能从无到有设计和运用机制，而不受类型惯例的约束。

6、设计 VS. 游戏

游戏设计师应该总是记住，游戏设计不是游戏，而游戏就是设计。我知道这听起来有点怪，但游戏设计师往往混淆了什么是设计的和什么是制作的，然后二者是一样的。所有游戏设计活动的目标应该是制作出具有尽可能优秀的游戏体验的游戏。因此，游戏设计师必须意识到，他的工作很大程度上属于消耗品。这是因为我们的大部分工作只是基础工作，很有可能被删除、修改或否决。

7、倾听、解释、启发

交流沟通能力是很重要的。好的沟通始于倾听。作为设计师，你的倾听对象包括玩家、开发团队、发行商等。沟通的另一个方面是知道如何做出恰当的解释，以帮助他人执行设计，同时提供清楚的设计选择。沟通的最后一个方面是启发，即用设计启发开发团队、制作人、玩家等。（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）

A Game Designer’s Manifesto: The 7 Virtues of a Desamurai

by Micah Hrechovscik

I believe that games should entertain players, while inspiring new perspectives and insights about the world around them. Game design should be the way to deliberately create game-play experiences, but to do this a designer must be fluent in his or her design practice. The purpose of this manifesto is to explore a set of standards that would shape the conduct or attitude of a designer’s practice.

In her post, Respecting Design, Claire Blackshaw[1] describes something I recognized myself when I first entered the industry and continue to recognize in many anecdotes from students that are novice game designers.  In her blog post the essential question is, “Why is it so hard to earn respect as a game designer?” In fact this issue seems to bother many game designers. Not too long after I started to write this manifesto, I noticed this article had been posted on lostgarden.com ‘The Declaration of Game Designer Independence ‘. [2] While the declaration hits upon many vital points, my interpretation of the underlining message was a call for respect. Yet, “In most respected professions a vast amount of research, basis of knowledge, or method of thinking is required to advance in professional grade problems.”[1] [3] To gain respect, designers need to be able to demonstrate their abilities clearly and convincingly. In other words, if they want their independence they will need to revolutionize their practices in order to earn independence.

My general approach to this issue has been to use and collect game design methods, but beneath this approach is a doctrine that makes them work for me. In a tribute to the 7 virtues of Bushido (The Way of the Samurai) the following seven topics of this manifesto has become my Way of the Desamurai.

The heart of development is game design

Game design is fundamental to game development, not only because it affects the resulting game-play experience, but because of its influence on the most crucial aspects of game development. In my opinion these are time, cost and synergy (synergy meaning the development team’s moral, enthusiasm, energy and trust). A game designer should be able fit the design to the available time, resources and synergy. Therefore the ability to estimate this is essential. As such, a designer cannot use the lack of resources to explain a poor game-play experience. In the end it’s about achieving the most with what is available.

Refine over redefine

All game design and development should be iterative. A designer’s job is to iterate as many times as needed to nail the aims of game design (game mechanics, play mechanics and game-ply experience). Iterative design is not a continuous experimentation until the designer stumbles upon the ultimate game through trial-and-error. Iterations should be about refining while avoiding a lot of redefining, if too much redefining occurs then pitfalls like feature creep occur. Instead the designer should strive to reach the desired game-play experience in shortest number of iterations.

Knowing the design

Knowing the design is the most fundamental task of the game designer, which means knowing how the core- and progressive- mechanics work, how the play mechanics should feel and having a sense for the game-play experience. Lacking intimate knowledge of the design can lead to a loss of team synergy and generally making excuses as to why it’s not fun. If you want to have respect as a game designer you should know the design inside out, after all if you don’t know the game, who does?

The Trans-medial game designer

A game designer should be able to design all sorts of games not just video games. [4] Games are trans-medial, meaning they transcend any one medium. [5] They exist as video games, board games, card games, physical sports, social games, and ubiquitous systems. A designer should avoid be only a ‘fan boy’ designer who only designs games for his/her favorite genre or media. Once a game designer embraces the fact that games are trans-medial, it will open your eyes to a wider application of your game design skills.

Have you ever been experienced

Ideally, game design should be an occupation that inspires lifelong learning. Any designer that maintains this attitude soon finds that they become a jack-of-all-trades, as they collect experiences and knowledge about design and the media in which the design was developed. A game designer  should above all else play all sorts of games, not just his/her favorite, and be able to critique these games beyond terms such as ‘fun’ and ‘good game-play’. My belief is that good game design comes from being able to portray a game-play experience, therefore even if a game is a sequel or a clone, a designer should treat the design as unique and with respect. In these cases just adding new features and mechanics to an existing game without understanding why the game worked worked in the first place is a recipe for poor design. Furthermore, genre categorization is terminology best reserved for sales and players, as a game designer should be able to understand games in terms of game mechanics and systems. By understanding the mechanics the designer always starts from scratch and applies mechanics as needed and not because of genre conventions.

Design vs. Game

A game designer should always remember that the game design is not the game and the game is the design. I know this sounds weird but game designers tend to confuse what is designed and what is built, and then believe these should be the same. The goal of all design activities should be aimed at making a game with the best possible game-play experience. Therefore a designer needs to realize that much of his work is expendable. That is because most of our work is only foot work, and in the end there is a good chance of it being scraped, changed or not being implemented.

Listen, Explain, Inspire

The ability to communicate is critical. Good communication begins with listening to others, and as a designer this means listening to your players, development team, publisher, etc. The next aspect of communication is knowing how to provide the proper explanations that will help others implement the design, while providing clear argumentation for your design choices. The final aspect of communication is about inspiring others which means promoting the design to the development team, producers, players, etc.(source:gamedesigntools)