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千万不要害怕改变游戏设计!

发布时间:2015-10-29 16:14:41 Tags:,,,,

作者:Richard Atlas

我想要处理一些我在游戏产业中频繁看到的问题,这些问题中有些会导致游戏遭遇失败,而有些则相对容易避开。千万不要害怕改变你的游戏设计。我的意思是,前往不要害怕改变,而今天我要以游戏为背景去讨论这种改变。

例子

我想要直接跳到自己最了解的例子中,即我们在《超级鸡马》中重新设计的分数系统,为了能够更好地处理我们从开发早期便发现的一个非常严重的问题。

这是一款群组平台游戏,你可以在这里创建关卡并尝试着穿越这些关卡。如果你坚持到了最后但是你的朋友却中途放弃了,你便能得到一个分数点。然后这款游戏将重新回到创建,奔跑,创建,奔跑的无限循环中。只要有个人失败,那么其他到达最后的玩家便能够获得分数。对此我们所面对的问题是,一旦有人走在前方,那么只要他坚持着走到最后他便一定会获得胜利:

Scoring(from gamasutra)

Scoring(from gamasutra)

这意味着游戏中不存在追赶的方式,而排在最后边的玩家总是希望能够快速结束游戏,因为他们知道自己永远都不可能弥补与前面玩家间的差距。从现实上看,人们总是喜欢游戏并且不希望破坏游戏,但是这样的问题在你想要玩好几个小时的游戏以及你想要玩好几百个小时的游戏间是不同的。

而我们的解决方法便是彻底改变游戏的分数系统,即我们又花了4个月时间才最终发行游戏。听起来很疯狂吧?其实一点都不会。我们的全新分数系统是基于不同方式去奖励玩家,像走到最前方或安置能够消灭对手的陷阱等能够获得更多分数奖励。我们同样也添加了“回归”机制,即玩家如果失败了很多次但仍坚持到最后便能够获得额外分数奖励。这其实也是一种不利因素,就像提供给《马里奥赛车》中最后一个玩家一颗闪电球一样。

根据我们到目前的观察,这一改变创造了非常有效的结果。单从作为开发者的角度去玩游戏,我们注意到在每一轮游戏后我们能从结果中感受到更多乐趣,特别是当你获得额外分数并且能够因此超越其他玩家时你会更加激动。甚至即使你处在最后一位,你也会相信自己能够追赶上前面的玩家。

教训

我们从中获得的教训是,尽管是在游戏开发后期阶段,我们也应该注意到问题所在并谨慎做出决定,即使这一决定可能会完全改变游戏玩法。除此之外还有其它彻底改变游戏设计并最终取得很好结果的例子。

antichamber(from gamasutra)

antichamber(from gamasutra)

其中一个例子便是《环绕走廊》,原名是《Hazard》。一开始这款游戏就像是《3D贪吃蛇》与《行星游戏》的结合,但最后却变成了一款《Escher》般的益智游戏,除此之外她们还在开发后期改变了游戏名字。《环绕走廊》的创造者Alex Bruce收到了许多关于游戏的正面反馈,但也有许多人,包括Jonathan Blow和Jamie Cheng都表示不喜欢这个名字。这款游戏获得了许多奖励,我们也可以肯定地说这是他的“宝贝”,但是Bruce最终还是选择改变了游戏名字。重新创建品牌并不是一件轻松的工作,但是他还是对最后的改变感到高兴,我们也可以从销量中看出这是一个非常正确的决定。

原先作为一款警察与小偷游戏(游戏邦注:玩家在游戏中扮演一名警官)的《汽车总动员》最终也变成了《侠盗猎车手》般的游戏,而玩家也将变成了罪犯。面向N64开发的《Goldeneye》一开始是作为一款基于铁路的射击游戏,但随着游戏开发它最终变成了一款标志性的FPS游戏。

所以关于本文的结论是,尽管你可能将游戏视为宝贝,但是改变这个宝贝也是可行的。即使这样的改变是在制作后期,或者即使这样的改变是非常大的改变。我必须强调,认真对待你所收到的反馈真的很重要,就像我们的一些理念便收到来自具有游戏产业经验且消息灵通的业内人士的批评。当然了,我们也拥有一些非常优秀的理念,并且这些理念帮助我们创造出了一款比生产初期更棒的游戏内容。所以你应该做的是保持谨慎,但却不要害怕改变!

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

Don’t Fear (Game Design) Change!

by Richard Atlas

I wanted to address something I’ve seen quite a bit in the short time I’ve been in the games industry, something that seems to cause games to fail, and something that can be relatively easily prevented. Don’t fear change in your game design. I mean, ideally, don’t fear change at all, but today I want to talk about games.

The Example

I’m going to jump right into the example I know best, the scoring system which we redesigned in Ultimate Chicken Horse to address a pretty serious problem we had been seeing since the early days of development.

(For context,) the game is a party platforming game where you build the level then try to run through. If you make it to the end but your friend doesn’t, you get a point. The game then switches back to building, running, building, running, etc. As long as one person fails, all the others who reached the end get a point. The issue we were having was that as long as someone was ahead, they would necessarily win as long as they were reaching the end:

What this meant was that there was no way to catch up, and the last place person wanted to end the game quickly so that it could finish, as they knew they couldn’t overcome their deficit. Realistically, people enjoyed playing and didn’t sabotage the game, but this kind of issue could be the difference between a game you want to play for a few hours or a game you want to play for a hundred.

Our solution was to change our scoring system completely, with 4 months to go before release. Crazy, right?? Not so much. The new scoring system works such that points are awarded differently, and more points are awarded for things like coming in first place, placing a trap that killed someone, etc. We also added a “comeback” where a player can get bonus points if they’ve been losing a lot and finally make it to the end. This acts as a sort of handicap, similar to giving the last player in Mariokart a lightning bolt.

The result, from what we’ve seen so far, has been overwhelmingly positive. Just from us (the devs) playing the game, we’ve noticed that it’s a lot more interesting to see the results after each round, and especially exciting when you get bonus points which put you just above the next player. Even in last place, you feel like you can catch up in almost every situation.

The Lesson

The lesson to be learned is that although it may be late in the game, it’s worth it to make informed and careful decisions even if they may greatly affect the gameplay. There are other examples of drastic changes to design which worked out well in the end.

One of these examples is Antichamber, formerly known as Hazard. The game started out as a type of 3D snake meets Asteroids (as described by some), and ended up being an Escher-esque puzzle game, which is freaking awesome. On top of that there was a name change, late in development. Alex Bruce, the creator of Antichamber, had received great feedback on the game but many people, including Jonathan Blow and Jamie Cheng, all disliked the name. The game had already won awards and you can be sure it was his “baby” by this point… yet he pulled through and changed the name of the game. Rebuilding the brand was no easy task, but he was happier for the change in the end and I think the sales numbers reflect that it was a good decision.

Race N Chase, which was a cops and robbers game where you played as a police officer, eventually evolved to become GTA, where you play as the criminal. Goldeneye for N64 actually started its development as an on-rails shooter game until about halfway through development, before becoming the iconic FPS that helped to define a (my) generation.

The conclusion to all this is that sometimes, even though your game is your baby, it makes sense to change things up. Even if it’s late in production. Even if they’re major changes. I must say though, it’s very important to think critically about feedback you’re getting… we’ve had some ideas that are absolutely unfeasible or outright ridiculous come from people who are well informed and have experience in the game industry. We’ve also had really great ideas, which have helped us and made the game infinitely better than it was early on in production. So, be careful, but don’t fear change!

Let me know in the comments if you have had experiences with this!(source:Gamasutra

 


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