作者：David Cage

David Cage的职业生涯始于电影、电视和游戏专业音乐师，并于1997年成立了法国游戏工作室Quantic Dream。

在过去15年中， 他已经编写和监管了一系列富有创意和影响力的游戏，其中包括获得Bafta奖项的《暴雨》，以及大获成功的《Beyond:Two Souls》。

他曾与Ellen Page和Willem Dafoe等知名演员以及作曲家Hans Zimmer合作，创造了专注于讲述故事的交互和创意游戏。

他目前正面向Playstaion 4开发一个新项目——他为该项目而兴奋，但暂无公开项目的打算。

以下是他所分享的关于成为游戏作家和设计师的10点建议。

1.如果你想设计游戏，那就要玩游戏。

我在这一行的职业生涯始于17年前。首先，我是一名玩家。我10岁起就开始玩电子游戏，并且认为如果你想亲自设计游戏，就很有必要会玩游戏。

我在孩童和青少年时代就是一名狂热的游戏玩家，但我从来没想过这会成为自己的工作。我成了作曲人，之后开始为电子游戏作曲。

我开始编写自己想玩的游戏，雇佣了一批好友来制作原型，这正是17年前Quantic Dream成立的经过。

2.相信你的直觉

我们为一个原型投入了6个月时间（游戏邦注：它是《Omikron:The Nomad Soul》的原型）。其故事发生于即时3D城市，这在当时的技术视角来看相当先进。

我在该项目中投入了我作为音乐家而赚到的许多钱，因为我认为这个项目很可行。但那时我所做的任何决定都没有什么商业考虑。

我认为你得相信自己的直觉，并跟随自己内心所愿，正是这一点至今引导我所做的一切决定。

（David Cage演员Ellen Page和Willem Dafoe在《Beyond:Two Souls》项目中合作）

3.要有耐心

像《Beyond:Two Souls》这种项目无疑是一款大型游戏。它令200人投入3年开发时间，这是一项艰难的工作，你必须要有耐心。

这是写作的一年，这是开足马力的一年，这是后期制作的一年。我们创造了通常被定义为独立游戏的作品，因为它们并没有采用经典的题材。

我们并不制作射击或体育类游戏，我们的游戏是让玩家体验一年故事。如果你想做一些类似的项目，你就需要大量运气，找到信任你的发行商。

4.获得体面的教育

如果这就是你想从事的行业，你就得去学校学习，这是首要规则。有时候孩子们常会说：“我想制作游戏，我爱游戏，我玩过许多游戏。”

这很好，你确实需要大量激情，但如果你没有合适的文凭，那就是浪费时间，这是一个极具竞争性的行业。

所以要去上学，要有激情，要创意，要疯狂！你就是未来，不要试图复制过去。你应该拥有新想法，并推动行业前进。

（这就是Ellen Page出现在《Beyond:Two Souls》中的形象）

5.重新审视你认为自己知道的东西

当你看一部电影时，你只是被动地看到一些东西。当你玩游戏时你想成为演员，你想以主人公的身份制定决策，所以这两者是截然不同的体验。

你必须一直重新审视自己知道的情况，或者你认为自己知道的事物，因为技术和理念一直在发生变化。

你还需要想象明天将会流行的趋势，而不仅仅是过去可行的做法。你得保持热情，你必须拥有激情。

6.选择合适的演员

在《Beyond:Two Souls》中启用好莱坞演员是我的主意，这不是一个营销噱头。

所以我们就去见了Ellen Page和Willem Dafoe，因为我们觉得他们最符合我所编写的故事中的主角。

我对他们的演出表现十分满意，我果然得到了自己想要的效果。这对我来说十分重要，我也确实认为这款游戏因他们而增辉。

7.理解音乐的重要性

音乐对于游戏来说实在是太重要了。这项工作极具挑战性，因为我们可不是为90分钟的电影制作音乐，而是得为游戏制作10或12个小时的音乐。这可是庞大的工程。

当我们见到作曲家Hans Zimmer及其团队时，他们的第一反应就是，他们对电子游戏并没有什么兴趣，因为它们看起来都差不多。

我们解决称这款游戏与众不同，并为他们发送了脚本，也讨论了角色。

音乐对于这款游戏的情感维度及我们的用意来说相当重要。他们终于点头答应了，也确实帮助我们把游戏做得更棒了。

（Hans Zimmer是好莱坞最有资历的作曲人之一）

8.只有先掌握规则才能打破规则

你在打破规则之前，必须先掌握规则。这在游戏中具有特殊意义，因为我们还是一个非常年轻的行为，我并不认为这一行已经形成了明确的规则。

我玩了这么多年的游戏，我的直觉就是我们已经到达了规则所允许的极限。如果你想更上一层楼，就得做一些与众不同的事情。

创造新规则和新方式总是极具挑战，因为你得说服别人现在是时候摆脱旧教条，并找到新方法。

9.真正考虑故事和情感

对我来说，故事和情感十分重要。我总是觉得当你在观看一部电影时，你所爱的并不是自己所看到的内容，而是当时当地心里的感觉。

对我来说，游戏也同此理。当你玩一款游戏时，你摁下哪个按钮并不重要，重要的是游戏让你产生的感觉如何。

我努力为玩家创造他们通常无法与电子游戏产生的感觉，例如悲作或不自在感。

我试图探索这些灰色的情感，这里没有黑白之分，它也不是放声大笑或大哭，而是介于两者之间的不同程度的灰色。

对我来说，游戏应该是一种情感旅程。其中要有起伏，而其有趣之处就在于你在这两者之间的感情，这正是我所追求的效果。

10.确实你对生活的追求并实现它

如果你的生活目标就只是拥有一份工作，每月有一些余钱可花，没有太多麻烦，那就不难找到合适的工作。

如果你想成为富有创新，拥有想法，成就一番作为之人，并且冒险为之奋斗，那么你可能就要走一条截然不同的道路。

你必须想想人们在今后三五年会喜欢什么，并尽量为之努力，即便今天没有人理解你的做法。

不走寻常路可能非常令人抓狂并且极具风险。但我对自己所做的事情以及当前所处的位置十分满意，但如果我再更现实主义一点，可能我的生活会更轻松一点。

我并不后悔，我总是根据自己当前所知的情况做到最好，我喜欢探索新想法，而这本身就是一种回报。（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）

David Cage’s Top 10 Tips for being a game designer

David Cage

David Cage began his career as a professional musician for film, television and games, before founding the French games studio Quantic Dream in 1997.

Over the past 15 years, he has written and directed a range of innovative and influential games, including the Bafta award-winning Heavy Rain, and the hugely successful Beyond: Two Souls.

He has collaborated with actors like Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe and the composer Hans Zimmer to create interactive and innovative games with a focus on storytelling.

He is currently working on a new project for Playstation 4 – about which he is clearly very excited, but nonetheless sworn to secrecy.

Here are his top 10 tips for becoming a game writer and designer.
1. If you want to design games, play them

I got started in the business 17 years ago. First of all, I was a gamer. I’ve been playing video games since I was 10 years old and I think it’s important to play games if you want to design them yourself.

I was an avid gamer when I was a kid and a teenager, but I never thought it would become my job. I became a composer and then I started composing music for video games.

I started writing a game that I was dreaming of playing, hired a bunch of friends to make a prototype and that was how Quantic Dream was born 17 years ago.

2. Trust your instincts

We worked on that prototype (later released as Omikron: The Nomad Soul) for six months. The story took place in a city in real time 3D, which was really a premiere from the technical point of view.

I invested pretty much all of the money I had made as a musician into the project because I thought it could work. But there has never really been any business thinking behind any decision that I’ve made.

I think you have to just trust your instincts and follow what you want to do with your life, this is really what has led to all of my decisions up to today.
Willem Dafoe, David Cage, Ellen Page David Cage with actors Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe on the set of Beyond: Two Souls

3. Be patient

A game like Beyond: Two Souls is definitely a big game. It’s about 200 people working for three years. It is hard work and you need to be patient.

It’s a year in the writing, it’s a year in the shooting and it’s a year in post-production. We create games that would usually be qualified as indie games, because they are not in one of the classic genres.

We don’t make shooting or sports games, our games are about allowing a player to play a story. If you want to do something like this you need a lot of luck and you need to find a publisher that will trust you.

4. Get a proper education

If this is what you want to do, you need to go to school for as long as possible, that’s the first rule. Sometimes kids come to us and say: “I want to work in games, I love games and I play so many.”

That’s great and you do need to be passionate, but if you don’t have the right diplomas, it’s a waste of your time, this is a competitive industry.

So go to school, be passionate, be creative, be crazy! You are the future, so don’t try to recreate the past. You are supposed to have new ideas and lead this industry forward.

Willem Dafoe computer image Quantic’s games have been praised for their near-photorealistic graphics
Ellen Page computer image This is how Ellen Page appeared after her performance was captured on Beyond: Two Souls

5. Reassess what you think you know

When you watch a film, you just want to watch something and be passive. When you play a game you want to be the actor, you want to be in the shoes of the guy making the decisions so it’s a very different type of experience.

You always need to reassess what you know, or what you think you know, because the technology and the concepts are always changing.

You also need to imagine what is going to work tomorrow, not just what worked yesterday. You have to be enthusiastic and you have to have passion.

6. Choose the right actors

It was my idea to have Hollywood actors in Beyond: Two Souls, it was not a marketing decision.

So we met with Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe because we felt they were the best possible actors for the parts that I had written.

I’m so happy with the performance that they delivered. I really got what I was looking for, which was talent. It was important to me and I really think that the game is better with them.
David Cage, Ellen Page, Willem Dafoe Beyond: Two Souls took a year to film

7. Understand the importance of music

The music is also very, very important for a game. It can be very challenging because we are not talking about 90 minutes of film, we are talking about ten or twelve hours of music. It’s a lot of work.

When we met with the composer Hans Zimmer and his team, their first reaction was that they weren’t very interested in video games because they’re all pretty much the same.

We explained that this one would be different, we sent them the script and talked about the characters.

The music was incredibly important because of the emotional dimension of the game and the intentions that we had. They said “yes” and they really helped to make the game better.
Hans Zimmer Hans Zimmer, one of Hollywood’s most prolific composers, created the score for Beyond: Two Souls.

8. Learn the rules before you break them

You have to know the rules before you can break them. It’s something that has a special meaning in games because we are a very young industry and I don’t think the rules are clearly established yet.

I played games myself for years and my gut feeling was that we had reached the limit of what the rules allowed us to do. If you want to go further you have to do something different.

It is always challenging to invent new rules and new ways of doing things because you need to convince other people that it is time to leave the old paradigms and find new ones.

9. Really think about story and emotion

To me, story and emotion are very important. I always felt that when you watch a film, what you love isn’t so much what you see, it’s what you feel.

For me it’s the same thing in a game. When you play a game it shouldn’t matter so much which button you are supposed to press, it should be about what the game makes you feel.

I try to make the player feel things they don’t normally associate with video games, like feeling sad or uncomfortable.

I try to explore these grey emotions, there is no black and white, it’s not about laughing or crying, it’s about all the different shades of grey in between.

For me, a game should be an emotional journey. You want ups and you want downs and what is interesting is what you feel between the two, that’s what I’m really looking for.

10. Decide what you want out of life and go for it

If your goal with your life is to just have a job, have some money at the end of the month and not have too many problems, then there are jobs out there for you.

If you want to be someone who will try to be creative, try to have ideas, try to shape things and take all the risks attached with that, then you will take a different approach.

You need to think what people are going to like two years or five years from now, then try to work on that, even if it means that nobody will understand you today.

Trying to do things differently can be really exhausting and extremely risky. I’m really happy with what I do and the position I’m in, but if I had maybe been a little more pragmatic, it might have made my life easier.

I don’t have any regrets, I always did my best based on what I knew at the time. I love what I do, I like to explore new ideas and that is a reward in itself. （source：bbc）