作者：Paul Kilduff-Taylor

关于什么？

我已经厌倦创造并讨论我们的游戏《Frozen Cortex》了（游戏邦注：它是在2月19日发行于Steam）。我敢保证你们中的许多人肯定能够察觉到我们在项目最后所表现出的强烈疲倦感：就好像不断重复一件工作好几年。

完成一款游戏是一件非常辛苦的任务，但在这时候这一切变得都不重要了，因为每年有无数人能够做到这点。如果你打算全身心投入于某件事，最好的方法是什么呢？

只有概念

关于你的游戏最重要的便是其核心概念。之前我便以各种形式说过这点，但是它仍以许多不同的方式让我更深入地看清其重要性。我同时也认为存在一些关于概念的误解。

概念并不是“益智平台游戏”：这是一种类型。概念并不是“你使用一把神奇的伞穿越树木的一款游戏”：这是介于视觉审美与叙述之间一个不是很好的词。

概念是别人感知你的游戏的方式。这是他们的第一印象，也正是这些印象才会转变成一种体验。

它是一种视觉效果：当你开始设计游戏玩法和系统时你总是很难去识别它。如果你的游戏类似《Galaga》但却是一款回合制策略游戏，人们也只会认为它就像《Galaga》，除非你能够想办法去说服他们。

这是关于玩家是谁，他们在做什么以及他们会有何感受。

让我们着眼于大受欢迎的《暗黑地牢》。从概念上看，《暗黑地牢》真的非常出色，因为它拥有如下内容：

可识别/可靠的美学，并且拥有一些新奇元素。这同时也会出现在带有剑和怪物的科幻内容中，对于硬核玩家来说这应该是最正常不过的美学。对此我并没有足够的数据能够进行说明（可以说这只是我的观点）。

容易理解但也伴随着新奇的转变的传统战斗形式。

许多深度，以及许多可供YouTuber进行讨论的决策。

较短的游戏结构/当下非常流行的roguelike元素。

小团队也能够优化的有限内容要求。

如果你看到《暗黑地牢》的图片并听到这个名字，你便会期待在一个危险的地方开始探索并攻击怪物。这样的理念从来都不会脱离游戏：如果你相信进化心理学，你便能够轻松地找到答案。基于此，所有巧妙的现代内容（技术和游戏设计）都能够承诺给玩家一种全新的冒险。

显然我们很容易在现有的成功游戏中找到这些内容，但是如果要自己设计并执行的话便非常困难。你必须以你自己的创造欲为动机。而如果你能够做出正确的选择，所有的一切将能够有效运行。

媒体和大多数游戏玩家总是会通过体验去看待游戏。如果你的游戏拥有很酷的动画系统或出色的关卡设计的话这便一点都不重要；如果捆绑包不能添加一些更深入的体验，即基于一些效能或控制，那么它们便一点意义都没有。

在开发《Frozen Cortex》的过程中，我们发现自己对于概念的某些元素具有消极的反应。以下便是人们所作出的一些错误的假设：

这是一款基于行动的体育游戏，就像《Madden》

你必须了解美式足球的规则才能够玩游戏

我只是想正面射击对手，但是游戏却不允许我这么做，所以它很无聊

就像《暗黑地牢》通过添加一些吸引人的美术元素和解说员等新功能一样，我们尝试着在坚持我们所做的事的同时去扭转人们的这些偏见。

我们早前的预告片公告专注于将玩家的计划转变成有趣的行动这样的理念：我们认为这是最吸引人的内容。这里存在的问题是我们过度强调这点，从而导致行动的“体育”性远远赶超构成真正游戏玩法的决策制定与计划。

与早前预告片不同的是，我们最新发布的预告片更受欢迎且吸引了更多人去关注游戏。

用户留存数据显示这是真正的游戏玩法，当它处于明确的线性序列时能够让玩家从中获得更多“叙述”内容，这便是最受欢迎的表现形式。

从之前的游戏《Frozen Synapse》（基于同步回合制游戏玩法）中我们知道制定计划能够让玩家对对手充满期待，这点非常吸引人：我们只需要将其置于适当的背景下便可。再一次地让我们回到游戏体验中：

控制一种有趣的情境

他们的计划是有意义且具有影响力的

系统及其结果具有明显的吸引力

快速改变场景，呈现一种游戏深度感也能够留住玩家的注意力，所以你应该在吸引玩家进入游戏的同时确保他们不会在此感到无聊，这是非常具有挑战性的任务。你应该尝试着呈现出基本的游戏概念。

你需要游戏玩法和深度去支撑概念，但再一次地，已经有许多带有优秀游戏玩法和深度的游戏出现：这些已经远远不够了，你将很难推销游戏本身。

我认为我们为了将游戏推向策略型用户已经付出了许多，但在看到“为何这是一款体育游戏”的评价后还是觉得非常受伤。你不能教授人们基于特定方式去看待你的游戏，你只能努力争取一定的变化：我想在这方面我们已经竭尽所能了。

推动用户

当我在思考《Cortex》的发展方向时，我们开始尝试着更好地定义其用户。我们想要将游戏瞄准策略型玩家，即那些喜欢游戏中拥有许多背景的玩家：他们想玩像《十字军之王》或《XCOM》这样的游戏。

这非常适合我们的首席设计师Ian所谓的“玩家如战利品”系统。他希望当玩家赢得一场比赛时能够感受到奖励；并在比赛期间提供给玩家较低级别但却具有乐趣的策略决定。

这也推动着我们将“玩家纸牌”设计成像《暗黑破坏神》的道具或《炉石传说》的纸牌那样—-每个玩家都有独特的简历和属性集，并且伴随着一些不同的环境。只要你看到这一页面，你便会觉得游戏比简单的位置战术事件更有深度。

我们同样也想要将玩家带进一个具有吸引力的世界。7 AI便将所有的对话和反应带到了游戏内部事件中。贯穿于两种主要单人玩家模式的叙述同样也能够具体化其背景和互动。

在硬核游戏玩法中添加这些元游戏需要花费一定的时间，而平衡它们更是具有挑战性，特别是在考虑到游戏领域的随机生成属性。尽管如此我们还是设置了一个能在较短的淘汰赛模式中游戏的灵活系统，或者是基于一种更加曲折的联盟方式：我们认为我们的用户需要它们。

找到用户并不意味着就要去迎合对方，而是告诉你应该尝试着突出你的游戏的这些元素去吸引用户—-不管是在设计方面还是市场营销方面。

明确一种概念并清楚地将其表现出来需要你对自己所做的事充满信心，同时你也需要致力于添加一些较大的系统。切记千万不能违背你关于游戏所许下的诺言。

不要停止宣传

许多开发者在宣传自己的游戏方面都太过低调了：对此我非常内疚。那些真正成功推广独立游戏的人总是会利用各种机会和PR（不管多立基或多主流）向世人传达自己在创造什么内容。

而我们只是发布了一个关于游戏AI的视频。

虽然这是一种非常立基的内容，但它同时也能够吸引到其他人的注意。现在Ian正忙于与其他程序员争辩自己所使用的方法的好处。这并不需要太多技巧。

在这种情况下可怕的市场营销术语“注意力份额”可能会发挥作用：我们总是很难让任何人去注意一款新游戏，特别是在PC上。我们正在接近一个真正的饱和点，即记者和YouTuber们都不可能掌握所有刚出现的内容，并且有可能因此漏掉一些高质量的游戏。

除非你能够创造出《暗黑地牢》，《玩具熊的午夜后宫》或《瘟疫公司》这类型具有巨大的用户内容与互动的游戏，如此你便能够成为任何有关游戏的信息的主要来源。这时候你就需要忽视任何疲劳并尝试着让其他人对你所创造的内容感兴趣。

我很喜欢看到来自独立开发者的更多个性化的内容。有很多我从未听过名字的人正在做着一些非常有趣的事：对话主要是由一些小型团队和个体所控制着。一些更新的开发者可能会认为没人会对他们感兴趣，因为他们还未作出任何成绩，而我们反倒认为一些更有趣的新开发者抢了我们的风头。不管所有的这些无意义的不安全感对于任何人来说都是无益的。

PR是有帮助的，而从针对性来看，在Twitter和Reddit等平台上发布广告也带有一定的帮助。

以下是我从中学到的一些内容：

拥护你想要突显的核心概念的各个方面。

识别早前概念中任何消极关联或问题：确保人们能够理解概念。

尝试着在游戏中呈现至少一个不寻常且具有创造性的元素。

更频繁地宣传游戏；不要为此找任何借口。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Frozen Cortex: The Art of the Concept

by Paul Kilduff-Taylor

What’s It All About?

I’m tired of working on and talking about our game Frozen Cortex, which comes out this Thursday 19th February on Steam! I’m sure many of you recognise the intense fatigue that comes with the end of a project: you feel like you’ve been repeating yourself for years.

Here’s the game:

Finishing a game is an unbelievably difficult task but that doesn’t matter any more at this point, because many thousands of people accomplish it every year. If you’re going to put your heart and soul into something and exhaust yourself, what are the best ways to give yourself a good shot?

There is Only Concept

The most important thing about your game is its core concept. I’ve said this before in various forms but it keeps being brought home to me in different ways. I also think there’s some misunderstanding about what a concept is…

A concept is not “puzzle platformer”: that’s a genre. A concept is not “a game where you float through trees on a magical umbrella”: that’s…something that there isn’t a good word for yet which exists between the visual aesthetic and the narrative.

A concept is the way your game is perceived by someone else. It’s their first impressions, and how those impressions translate into an experience.

It’s primarily visual: something which it’s very hard to remember when you get into designing gameplay and systems. If your game looks like Galaga but is actually a turn-based strategy game, people will just think it’s Galaga…unless you do something urgent and in-your-face to convince them otherwise, like the superbly pitched Mighty Tactical Shooter.

It’s also about who the player is, what they’re doing, and what that’s going to feel like for them.

Let’s look at ridiculously popular hit-du-jour Darkest Dungeon. Darkest Dungeon is conceptually amazing because it has these things in it:

An aesthetic which is both instantly recognisable / relatable but has some novel elements. This also happens to be swords-and-monsters fantasy, which is the most universally accepted aesthetic for core gamers. I don’t have data for that assertion – it’s my opinion – if anyone does I’d like to see it.

A foregrounded traditional form of combat that is simple to understand but, again, with a novel inflection

Lots of depth, lots of decisions to talk about for streamers / YouTubers

Short playthrough structure / roguelike elements which are currently trendy

Constrained content requirements that a small team can polish to a high level

If you see a picture of Darkest Dungeon and hear its name, you expect to be exploring a treacherous place and bashing monsters. That idea is literally never going to disappear from gaming: if you believe even slightly in evolutionary psychology, it’s not hard to understand why. On top of that is all the clever, modern stuff – the tech and the game design – which promises players a new adventure.

Obviously identifying these things in an existing successful title is easy but devising and executing them yourself is extremely difficult. Naturally, you have to be motivated by your own creative desires. However, if you put the right spin on things it can work.

The press and most gamers tend to relate to games experientially. It doesn’t matter if your game has a cool animation system or great level design: if the package doesn’t add up to some kind of deeper experience, usually based around a feeling of efficacy or control, there’s no point.

With Frozen Cortex, during development, we found that we had a negative reaction to some elements of the concept. Here are some false assumptions people made:

It’s an action sports game, like Madden

You have to know the rules of American Football to play it

I just want to shoot men in the face and I can’t do it here, therefore this is boring

Just as Darkest Dungeon has confounded “yawn, more dungeons” by adding intriguing art elements and nice novel touches like the narrator, we tried to adapt around these preconceptions while still staying true to what we were doing.

Here’s our very early announcement trailer:

The announcement focussed on the idea that your plans would be translated into exciting action: we thought that would be the most appealing thing to people. The problem here is that we over-emphasised that, so the “sports” nature of the action overtook the cool decision-making and planning that make up the actual gameplay.

Contrast this with the most recent trailer we put out, which has been more popular so far and sparked more interest in the game:

Audience retention stats showed it was the actual gameplay, when it was in a clear linear sequence that enabled the player to get more of a “narrative” from it, was the most popular thing.

We know from our previous game Frozen Synapse that the idea of simultaneous turn-based gameplay, of making a plan which forces you to anticipate your opponent directly, is compelling: we just needed to put this in the right context for people. Again, going back to the experience, players wanted to feel:

Control over an interesting situation

That their plans were meanginful and would be impactful

That the system and its end result weren’t too obscure to appeal to them

Changing scenes quickly, giving a sense of the depth of the game, also kept people’s attention, so trying to strike a balance between really keying someone into the actual game while also not boring them is the main challenge here. You’re essentially trying to drive the concept home as much as possible.

You need the gameplay and depth to back it up…but again, so many games have great gameplay and depth: it’s not enough any more and it’s also hard to sell in its own right.

I feel like we’ve done a lot to push the game to a strategy audience but it’s still painful to see the frankly idiotic “why is this a sprots game lol” comments on everything. You can’t teach people to view your concept a certain way, you can only push for a specific inflection: in that respect I think we’ve done everything we can.

Pushing Towards the Audience

When we thought about how to get Cortex into the right places, we started trying to define its audience better. We wanted to aim the game at strategy gamers who enjoyed having a lot of context to their games: the kind of people who play games like Crusader Kings or XCOM.

This played in well to a system our Lead Designer Ian called “players-as-loot”. He wanted it to feel really rewarding when you won a match; giving you a low-level but interesting set of strategic decisions to make between matches.

That led us to style our “player cards” like Diablo items or Hearthstone cards – each player has a unique bio and set of stats, with rarity being denoted by the different surrounds. As soon as you see this screen, you feel like the game has more depth than just a simple positional tactical affair.

We also really wanted to bring the player into a world that felt compelling. The 7 AI coaches all have their own dialogue and react dynamically to in-game events. The narrative, which takes place across the two main single player modes, also fleshes out their backstories and interactions.

Adding this meta-game around the core gameplay took time, and balancing it was pretty challenging, especially given the randomly-generated nature of the playfield. Eventually though, we were left with a flexible system that can be played either in a short-form Knockout mode, or in a more meandering League style: we felt our audience would want both.

This kind of decision making is also really nice for a literal audience. It was massively encouraging to see YouTuber NorthernLion’s reactions to those parts of the game when he covered it recently:

Finding the audience doesn’t mean pandering to it, but it does mean trying to accentuate those elements of your game which are likely to hook people, both in the design and in the marketing.

Taking a concept and fleshing it out fully requires a lot of confidence in what you’re doing and also a commitment to add some quite large systems. It’s important to not let that distract from what you are actually saying with the game, however.

Don’t Stop Talking About It

Many developers are far too quiet about their games: I’m certainly guilty of this. Those who are really successful at promoting indie games use every opportunity, every PR point (no matter how niche or how mainstream) to hammer home what they’re working on.

We just put out a video focussing on the AI for the game:

This is definitely, partially, a niche interest but it’s also really fascinating to some people. Right now Ian is busy debating the merits of his approach with other coders. This kind of thing sparks interest: nothing is too dry or technical.

The awful marketing jargon “mindshare” might actually be useful in this context: it is so amazingly hard to get anyone to think about a new game, especially on PC. We are approaching a genuine saturation point, where journalists and YouTubers can’t cover everything that’s coming out and where some high-quality titles are being passed over.

Unless you’ve made a Darkest Dungeon, Five Nights at Freddy’s or Plague Inc, something which takes on a life of its own and creates a huge amount of fan content and interaction…you are going to be the primary source of any information or interest about your game. This is where you have to attempt to put aside the fatigue and push to get other people excited in what you’ve done.

I would really like to see some more personality from indie developers out there. There are many people doing interesting things who I have never heard from: the conversation is really dominated by a small number of teams and individuals. Newer developers seem to say that nobody will be interested in them because they have no track record, whereas those of us who have been around for a bit longer feel like we’re being usurped by more interesting newer devs! All of that is just pointless insecurity which benefits nobody.

PR is useful but advertising in a very targeted way, on Twitter and Reddit, has been somewhat useful. This merits a fuller post later on, but I recomment reading Cliff Harris’ blogs on the subject.

THOUGHTS, ET CETERA?

(Sorry I’ve been watching too much Nathan Barley)

Here are the things I think, perhaps misguidedly, that I’ve learned from this:

Go for the aspects of your core concept which you really want to accentuate

Identify any negative associations or problems with that concept early; make sure people can parse the concept

Try to have at least one unusual and genuinely innovative aspect to the game

Talk about things more; don’t make up excuses not to（source：Gamasutra）