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游戏项目开发不可迷失设计目标

发布时间:2015-04-20 16:01:27 Tags:,,

作者:Dan Felder

与行业中许多人一样,我经常收到关于游戏设计的提问。这些问题有时候来自朋友,有时候来自他们的孩子,有时候甚至是来自我的学弟学妹。我认为最好撰写一篇关于这个话题的文章统一回答,这样更节省时间。

今天我们要讨论的是游戏设计最重要的概念。这也是甚少被人们讨论的话题之一。事实上,我认为这是人们对于游戏设计的误读,缺点和争论的根源。

people_listen_to_dame_jane_goodall_s_lecture(from gamasutra)

people_listen_to_dame_jane_goodall_s_lecture(from gamasutra)

这始于一个问题。

问题

你是一款回合制战斗游戏的主设计师。此时你要设计的是各个单位之间的战斗。你团队中的设计师John想制作有节奏并且基于骰子这种随机元素的战斗系统,所以更弱的单位破坏强大单位并获得生存的机率更小,但却更为关键。而另一名设计师Kate则认为要制作具有完全决定性的战斗,这样强大的单位总能打败更弱的单位。

John声称自己的提议可以让每场战斗更令人兴奋,Kate则认为玩家发现强大的单位居然输给弱小的单位一定会很抓狂,这也会让游戏大失水准。

究竟哪个提议更好?

核心回答(这也是一个问题)

要回答这个问题,我们必须先自问:“这款游戏想为玩家创造什么体验?我们想让玩家此刻获得什么感受?”这正是我们的设计目标。

如果没有设计目标,我们就没法判断John和Kate的提议究竟哪个更胜一筹。就好像我们难以判断水是否比酒更好一样。我们是否打算给约会对象留下深刻印象?我们是否打算吃得更健康一点?我们是否要为一个体面的party选择饮料?我们是否要给瓶子灌满提神的饮料?我们的目标是什么?

事实上对于某些游戏来说,这些机制都是正确的。所有机制都能为玩家创造不同的体验。问题就在于,哪个机制创造的体验可以支持你的设计目标。游戏设计有点像化学。你要知道自己想让玩家产生的反应,然后挑选出能够创造这种反应的机制。当然,如果你选错了机制,就可能碰一鼻子灰。

运用设计目标

想知道John还是Kate的提议是正确的,让我们先运用一个假定性的设计目标。你对这款游戏的设计目标是“创造一款快节奏而又刺激的战斗游戏,让玩家获得热情高涨的体验。”要支持这种设计目标,你就不能选择纪律严明的军团作为游戏中的派别,而要选择野蛮游牧部落和好战的维京海盗。你不希望人们在这类游戏中陷入精心布置战斗玩法的套路,你想让他们随心所欲地交战而无需过多思考战略。

显然John的机制更支持这种设计目标。让战斗富有随机性和部分不可预测性,可以创造兴奋感,紧张感和刺激感。而结局中的随机元素也有利于避免多数玩家过早制定决策,因为他们想看看第一回合后究竟会有什么变数。比起象棋这类具有决定性的游戏,这种设计更有利于推动游戏进展。

Kate的机制显然就很不适合这款游戏。Kate完全决定性的设计只会创造一种深度思考而富有战略性的体验,这更像是在下棋。它鼓励玩家仔细思考自己的玩法并进行大量准确计算。许多研究结果已经证明,这种计算会减少游戏对玩家的情感影响。下次你生气的时候,试试在脑中计算一下3位数相乘的结果,相信你会惊讶地发现自己的情绪消失了大半。

这还不够明显吗?

但人们总是会掩饰这一点。我就是其中之一。某人我写了一篇关于如何优化石头剪子布这种游戏的短文,但却没有明确提出自己的设计目标,看过一些读者评论后才发现自己没有解释清楚我到底要为玩家创造哪种类型的体验。

此外,我们也很容易陷在多个影响游戏体验的因素中。我现在手上有个项目,我们正在重新设计游戏核心机制的部分,但总是无法调和多个因素的作用。A有利于通过游戏玩法更好地传达知识并且可突显额外战略深度,B有利于战斗派系之间进行更漫长而庞大的战役,C可以让玩家从琐事中获得解放,但却不像其他因素一样管用……

……之后我想起来, 我们的设计目标是创造一款快节奏,爆炸性和电影效果一般的战略体验,每回合游戏时间不超过15分钟。B实际上损害了这种设计目标,A与之不甚相关,C减少玩家的琐事管理会加快游戏进程,我们应该选择C。

最近的案例

数月前我试玩一款战略游戏的PvP地图,我玩过大量战役模式,当时我设计的是战役任务,但却是我首次试玩PvP地图。但是,游戏机制与战役模式几乎如出一辙。

我试玩了地图……结果发现很讨厌这个地图。

我向任务设计师提出“这个速度真是太慢了。我们在首个回合中仅仅是将所有单位向对方靠近了一点。这完全是浪费了我们10分钟。”

他说“好吧。但是人们体验这个模式的时候就是喜欢这种精心定位的感觉。它有点像下棋,要在战略层面预测即将到来的战斗,这样他们才能以最理想的状态交战。在此它关注的是富有竞争性的竞赛。”

“那么PvP就是Spike模式,而战役就是Timmy模式了?”

“没错。”

“如果是这样,那就很棒。”

你可能还没听说过Timmy,Johnny和Spike,这是推动《万智牌》设计的三大玩家心理类型。每个名称代表了一种不同的玩家,或者说是一种不同的游戏动机。因为每种玩家心理类型喜爱的体验不同,所以每一种都会构成自己的设计目标。

总结

我们所有人都会以某种形式来思考设计目标。讨论一些看起来显而易见的东西的确有点奇怪,但是我们在开发游戏的过程中却真的很容易忽略设计目标。人们从未就此清楚阐述或达成共识,创造难以处理的争论,或者只是忘记提及这一点。

以下是我的一些建议:

1.尽早写下你的设计目标,最好能够具体一点。必要的话,可以花一整天清楚写下你的设计目标,让人人都参与其中。这样可以节省掉之后大家争论的时间,推动团队走向正确的方向。

2.在记事卡上写下设计目标并将其贴在电脑旁。这个想法来自我写剧本的经验,我们撰写核心台词(描述戏剧核心信息的一句话)时要将其剪贴在电脑旁。这个建议同样适用于游戏。

3.要创造最终的化学反应需要不同化学物质,有时候实现设计特定元素的设计目标也会与你的整体设计有所不同。《Flower》每个备受赞誉的关卡都有自己的情感基调,但它们整合起来却构成了一个完整的体验。

4.当你无法确定游戏的某些元素,无论是机制,关卡布局,还是使用纹理等等——不妨花点时间回顾下游戏设计目标。提醒自己你在与谁共事,你想实现什么结果。我经常惊讶地发现这很有助于解决问题。

总之,我们的职责就是找到自己想创造的体验,然后据此制定设计决策。(本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao)

Design 101: Design Goals

by Dan Felder

Hi, welcome to Design 101. Like many people in the industry, I get asked a lot of questions about game design. Sometimes it’s from friends, sometimes it’s from their kids, sometimes it’s even from new students of my former teachers. Lately I’ve been answering a lot of the same questions over and over again, so it’ll actually save time if I just write an article series.

Today we’re going to be talking about what I believe to be the most important concept in game design. Amazingly, it’s also a topic that rarely discussed. In fact, I feel it’s the root of a lot of miscommunications, objections and arguments about game design we see.

It starts with a question.

The Question

You’re the lead designer of a turn-based war game. It’s time to design how combats between units work.  John, a designer on your team, is arguing to make the combat system really swingy and based in random elements like dice rolls; so that a weaker unit has a small but significant chance of destroying much stronger units and surviving. Kate, another designer on your team, is arguing to make the combat entirely deterministic; so that stronger units will always defeat weaker ones.

John claims that his suggestion will make each combat a lot more exciting. Kate claims that players will find losing stronger units to weaker ones frustrating and that it will suck the skill out of the game.

Which suggestion is better?

The Core Answer (That is also a Question)

To answer this question we need to ask ourselves, “What experience is this game trying to create for the player? What do we want the player to feel at this moment?” This is our Design Goal.

Without a Design Goal, deciding between John’s and Kate’s suggestions is impossible. It’s like trying to decide whether water is better than wine. Are we trying to impress a date? Are we trying to move to a healthier diet? Are we trying to pick beverages for an elegant party? Are we filling a sports bottle with a refreshing drink? What’s our goal?

The fact is that all mechanics are correct for SOME game. All mechanics create different experiences for the players. The question is which mechanics create experiences that support your design goal. Game design is a bit like chemistry. You figure out what reaction you want to create in the players, then pick mechanics that work to create that reaction. And yes, if you pick the wrong ones the result will  probably blow up in your face.

Applying Design Goals

To figure out whether John or Kate are right, let’s apply a hypothetical design goal. For this game, your design goal is, “Create a fast-paced, beer-and-pretzel wargame that makes players feel like gung-ho, brawling berserkers”. To support this design goal, you’ve chosen your game’s factions not to represent disciplined regiments but rather barbarian hordes and battle-crazed Vikings. You don’t want people getting too bogged down with calculating perfect plays in this sort of game, you want pulse-pounding excitement that players don’t feel obligated to think too much about.

Clearly John’s mechanic supports this design goal. Making combat swingy and semi-unpredictable creates excitement, tension and thrilling comebacks against all odds. Having randomness be a significant factor in the outcome also prevents most players from planning too far ahead, because they decide to wait and see what happens after the first attack. This keeps the action moving far more than in deterministic games like chess.

Kate’s mechanic, on the other hand, is awful for the game. Kate’s fully deterministic design creates a cerebral, tactical experience that feels much more like playing chess. It encourages players to think carefully about their plays and do a lot of precise math. These calculations tend to reduce the impact of emotional moments, as has been demonstrated in studies. Next time you’re angry, try multiplying three-digit numbers in your head. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your emotional state shifts.

But isn’t this obvious?

You’d think so, but people gloss over it all the time. I’m one of them. Just the other day I wrote a short piece about improving the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors without being highly specific about my intended design goal; and it was clear after reading some of the comments that I had been far too vague in explaining the specific type of experience I was trying to create in my players (and why Rock, Paper, Scissors falls short of that experience in my view).

Also, it’s easy to get tied up in a lot of different factors that affect the experience. I’m working on a project right now where we’re redesigning significant portions of the game’s core mechanics, and are often torn between multiple factors. Choice A might do a better job of communicating the game’s lore through gameplay and feature additional strategic depth, Choice B might allow for longer and more epic struggles between warring factions, Choice C might take less micromanagement but won’t do nearly as good a job in the other factors…

… And then I remember our design goal is to create a fast-paced, explosive, visceral and cinematic strategic experience that takes less than 15 minutes per game. Choice B actually hurts the design goal, Choice A isn’t that relevant and Choice C’s reduction of micromanagement will help turns flow faster. Choice C it is.

A Recent Example

A few months ago I was playtesting a PvP map for a strategic war game. I had played a lot of the campaign mode thus far, as I was designing a campaign mission at the time, but it was my first time trying a PvP map. However, the mechanics were almost identical to the campaign mode.

I played the map… And I hated it.

“This is absurdly slow-paced,” I protested to the mission’s designer, “The whole first round we just moved all our units closer to each other. It was a complete waste of ten minutes.”

“Okay,” he said, “But the people playing this mode enjoy that careful positioning and set up in round one. It’s chess-like, it foreshadows the coming battle on a tactical level, and it lets them slowly set up optimal engagements. Very focused on the competitive tournament scene here.”

“Oh. So PvP is Spike Mode, and the Campaign is Timmy Mode?”

“Exactly.”

“In that case, it’s awesome.”

If you haven’t heard of them yet Timmy, Johnny and Spike are the three player psychographics that drive Magic: the Gathering’s design. Each name represents a different kind of player, or rather a different motivation for playing a game. Because each psychographic enjoys a specific kind of experience, each one forms its own design goal.

I won’t go into the details here, because most of you are probably already familiar with the terms. If not, Mark Rosewater has already explained them better than I ever will. I highly recommend checking out this article if you’re not familiar, it’s full of fantastic and useful information for designing in a wide variety of games.

Wrapping Up

All of us think in terms of design goals in some form or other. It honestly feels a bit weird to be talking about something that might seem so obvious. However, it’s easy to let a design goal slip by when you’re working on game. People either never articulate and agree on it clearly enough, creating intractable  arguments, or just forget to refer to it.

So here are my tips:

Write out your design goal as early as possible, and as specifically as possible, for everything you’re working on. Spend a full day clarifying your design goal if you have to, and get everyone’s buy-in. It’s well worth it in how much time you’ll save later by avoiding arguments and heading down the right path more often than not.

Write the design goal on a note card and tape it to the side of your computer. This comes from my playwriting days, when we were told to write out our mantra (the one sentence describing the play’s core message) and tape it to the side of our computers. Games are at least as difficult to keep straight as plays, and the advice is just as useful here.

Just as different chemicals are required to create a finalized chemical reaction, sometimes the design goals for specific elements of your design are going to be a bit different than the whole of your design. The design goal for an individual level might be different than the design goal for the whole game. Each of Flower’s critically acclaimed levels has its own emotional tone, but together they form an overall experience.

Whenever you can’t decide on some element of the game’s design, whether a mechanic, level layout, which texture to use or anything else – take a moment and refer back to the design goal. Remind yourself, and whoever you’re working with, what result your decision is trying to achieve. I’m amazed at how often this clears up the problem.

At the core, our job is the simple matter of figuring out what experience we want to provide and then making design choices that will provide that experience. I’ve been told it sounds profound to end articles with a quote, so here it is.

“When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”
-Seneca(source:gamasutra


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