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设计具有社会影响的游戏的重要性

发布时间:2016-09-12 14:42:31 Tags:,,,,

作者:Jen Helms

我们该如何去创造既有娱乐性,又具有智力和情感挑战的游戏?我们该如何去创造具有学习和社会影响力的游戏,但却不让人觉得这是学习类游戏而只是出色的游戏?这些都是即将在旧金山所举办的Intentional Play Summit中将讨论的一些核心问题。而在参加峰会前我事先接触了一些演讲者并了解了他们最初的一些想法。该峰会将于10月7日召开。

 

Katherine-Isbister(from gamasutra)

Katherine-Isbister(from gamasutra)

以学习和社会影响为目的的游戏应该从娱乐游戏中吸取怎样的经验教训?

Warren:关于“学习”和“社会影响”最重要的便是必须自然地源自作品本身。《俄勒冈之路》不仅是一款有趣的游戏,同时它也具有更广的教育目标。如果创造具有社会影响性的游戏过程与商业游戏的创造过程不同,我相信问题便会因此出现而玩家也会注意到这些问题。就像Upton Sinclair的《屠场》便是一本在世纪之交时期推动了食物加工过程大变化的著名小说,而一些具有社会影响的游戏其实本意并非真的如此,如《请出示文件》和《这是我的战争》。

Jamin Warren(from gamasutra)

Jamin Warren(from gamasutra)

你是如何看待主流游戏的概念,并且你的想法是否会发生改变?

Warren:最关键的一点其实是,根本不存在所谓的主流。就像《Pokemon Go》,《部落战争》,《英雄联盟》和《我的世界》间的差异很大,但它们都属于“100%”主流的大型游戏。所以在其它媒体中,我认为主流应该代表的是一些特定的体验类型。就像在电影领域,现在的主流应该是超级英雄类电影,而之前则是灾难电影。在音乐领域,主流可能从摇滚转变到嘻哈再到现在的电子乐。但我认为现在游戏领域中的主流鸿沟变得越来越大,即比起其它媒体上的主流特质,这里拥有更广泛的性能差异。

你们的作品是专注于创造能够对玩家产生情感影响的内容。你能否列举你看过的设计师中做得最棒的内容是什么?如何才能让玩家拥有更深层次的游戏体验并让游戏创造出更有意义的影响?

Isbister:我认为最值得一提的应该是创造了《风之旅人》的团队。Jenova Chen,Kellee Santiago,Robin Hunicke和开发公司都对游戏如何从情感上影响玩家拥有非常明确的观点—-让玩家在有场景中拥有一种渺小与敬畏感,并让玩家在游戏过程中感受到合作的强大力量。正是因为这些目标他们获得了巨大的成功,创造了许多积极玩家账号并获得了许多奖励。他们更是创造了陌生玩家在一起游戏时所培养出的相互依赖相互联系感,从而进一步扩展了网络游戏玩法的可行性空间。

《That Dragon Cancer》的设计师也有效传达了照顾身患癌症的孩子们的感觉。这种自传式游戏能够唤醒玩家强大的回应,并且能够传达非常强大的情感体验。

你是否能够分享有关如何将更多情感整合到游戏中的方法?

Isbister:在我所编写的《How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design》中便详细提到了一些设计方法。其中一个例子便是同时创造角色和非玩家角色去强化玩家的社交情感。这能在一开始便呈现出情感目标,并不断去塑造设计师所创造的设计选择。我发现MDA(游戏邦注:机制,动态和审美)框架是帮助游戏设计师牢记整体游戏玩法的情感,基调和体验的有效工具。因为当我们忙于调整测试游戏的时候我们很容易忽视整体。

为什么在游戏中设计情感影响如此重要?什么时候情感会妨碍到我们去理解一些全新内容的能力?而什么时候它又会去推动这种能力?

Isbister:我认为所有游戏都带有情感影响。现在的我们都知道情感是决策制定的组成部分。所以如果设计师甘冒忽视情感的风险,玩家就一定能够察觉得出来。

的确我们很容易被一些感受所困扰,就像有些游戏会要求玩家必须去精通游戏机制,一些优秀的游戏也会在游戏过程中改变一些情感体验。但游戏游戏可以带给玩家各种挫折与害怕感,关闭他们的能力让他们去感受游戏中所发生的一切。或者设计师也可以创造一些让人愉快的时刻,让玩家切身感受艰难生活的时刻,全身心放松的时刻,与千里之外的玩家轻松联系的时刻等等。我认为我们可以开始去探索游戏中的各种情感模块了。而这都是让人非常兴奋的时刻。

你经常谈到推倒教育游戏与娱乐游戏之间的墙。你能否解释这是什么意思?为什么你会这么想?

Krajewski:我们可以看到教育类游戏的许多突出之处,甚至是凌驾于传统教育之上:基于系统的学习方式,合作,参与,不同学科间的联系。实际上,自愿与可能对学生产生逼迫感的教育游戏间的区别也非常重要。如果我们能够将游戏的自主性带到教育中,我们便能够提供一些在教育领域经常被忽视的重要方式。

John Krajewski(from gamasutra)

John Krajewski(from gamasutra)

关于教育中所存在的这一问题的一个典型例子便是数学教育方式,通常学生们都是在不理解数学的重要性或魅力的前提下去死记硬背公式,即盲目地遵循获取答案所需要的规则集。如此的结果便是学生们很容易厌倦这一学科并最终会选择放弃它或认为自己根本不擅长它;而游戏却能够提供给他们一种完全不同的方式,即将需求放在首位,并将学习作为他们去实现这一目标的“宝剑”。如此学生们需要去学习的内容便有了意义,他们也就有了想要去学习的想法。

这会让我们的世界变得不同,并且我也认为这是将游戏结构从工业革命时期的系统方式转变成创造能够成为未来世界尽责又具有创造性的创造者的教育方式的最佳选择。

我们都知道这是可能的,因为我们已经见证了无数游戏发挥了这一功效。不管是学科还是学习者都需要不同的方法,即能够有效引导他们去独立学习。

在《Eco》中,游戏玩法不仅是关于探索社会生态学,还包括玩家能够去探索如何治理社会层面的不同问题。为什么这对你来说是一种重要的设计呢?

Krajewski:因为仅仅依靠了解科学是不可能解决我们的世界所面对的生态问题。关于我们世界所面对的种种威胁的解决方法能够帮助我们进一步去了解社会/文明环境下的生态系统,在这里玩家将面对各种个人动机和观点,而为了以团体的方式去解决问题他们就必须去划分并分解这些观点;当然这还不足以帮助我们去了解真正的答案,但是你也必须找到能够在现实世界中执行的方法。通过提供给玩家在游戏中努力的方式,他们便能够看到其中的利害关系并能够开始掌握问题所存在的范围以及思考如何在现实世界中解决问题。

虽然我们可能都认同气候变化的严重性以及在今天我们可以采取怎样的行动去解决这一问题,但是在现实世界中社会问题还是我们所面对的主要挑战。而将这一挑战变成游戏体验的核心便是现在的游戏所设定的目标,这也是我喜欢基于教育的游戏潜能的原因。

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

Designing for Intentional Play

by Jen Helms

How can we create games that are as intellectually and emotionally challenging as they are entertaining? How can we make games for learning and social impact that don’t “feel” like learning games but instead are just really great games? These are a couple of the central questions being asked at a new San Francisco Bay Area event, the Intentional Play Summit. In advance of the summit, I reached out to three of our speakers to get some of their initial thoughts. The event will be held October 7th.

What are some of the lessons games for learning and social impact should take from entertainment games?

Warren: The biggest thing is that “learning” and “social impact” have to stem naturally from the work itself. Oregon Trail works became the game is ultimately very funny and that ladders up to the broader educational goal that it tries to make. If the process of making social impact games is different from the way games are actually made commercially, I believe problems will ensue and ultimately players will notice. In the same way Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was a work of fiction that drove major changes in food processing at the turn of the century, some of the games that have done the most for social impact have been ones that have not sought to do it explicitly like Papers, Please and This War of Mine.

How do you think the concept of what a mainstream game is, may be changing?

Warren: Totally! The most significant being — there is no mainstream! The difference between Pokemon Go, Clash of Clans, League of Legends, and Minecraft is so so wide and yet they’re all huge properties that are 100% “mainstream.” So in other mediums, I think mainstream implies a certain type of experience. In film, right now it’s superhero movies and before that disaster films. In music, it was rock and then hip-hop and now electronic. But I’d argue that gulf between mainstream games is wider now than ever before and is comparatively wider on a property to property basis than what qualifies as mainstream in other mediums.

Your work focuses on how games have an emotional impact on us. What are some of your favorite examples of designers doing that well? How does doing this well allow players to have a deeper experience and for the game to have more meaningful impact?

Isbister: One well-regarded example is the team who built the game Journey. Jenova Chen, Kellee Santiago, Robin Hunicke and company had a very strong aesthetic vision for how the game should impact players emotionally–creating a sense of awe and smallness for the player in the game’s landscape, and forging a powerful sense of collaboration and connection with the other player(s) encountered during the game. They were able to succeed in these aims, resulting in many positive player accounts, and a lot of awards. In particular, creating feelings of mutual dependence and connection between strangers playing together was a tremendous accomplishment, helping to expand the possibility space of networked gameplay.

The designers of That Dragon Cancer (the Green family and their development team) did a tremendous job of conveying the feelings of caring for and letting go of a young child with cancer. This autobiographical game has provoked very powerful player responses, and demonstrates the potential of such games to convey powerful emotional lived experience.

Are there strategies you can share about how we can design more emotion into our games?

Isbister: There are several design tactics that I go into in detail in my book–How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. One example is thoughtfully crafting both avatars and non-player characters to heighten social emotions for players. It helps to have emotion goals in mind from the beginning, that shape the design choices you make. I find the MDA (mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics) framework a useful tool for helping game designers hold in mind the end emotional tone and experience of the overall gameplay as they work. It’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees when you are busy tuning and testing a game!

Why does designing emotional impact into games matter? When does emotion get in the way of our ability to understand something new and when do you think it promotes that ability?

Isbister: I would argue that all games have emotional impact. We now know that emotion is integral to decision making, to thinking itself. So a designer ignores emotion at their peril–the player will feel something. You want to shape what they feel and when, artfully, to give them a great and well-crafted experience.

It’s certainly true that we can get overwhelmed by feelings–just as games scaffold players into mastering mechanics, great games also modulate emotional experience during play. You can flood a player with frustration or fear, and shut down their ability to enjoy what’s going on. Or, you can create moments of exhilaration, moments of deep empathy with a difficult life situation, moments of effortless, cosy connection with other players thousands of miles away… I believe we’ve only begun to explore the emotional palette of games. These are exciting times for that reason!

You often talk about breaking down the wall between educational games and entertainment games. Can you explain what you mean by that? Why and how do you even think that is possible?

Krajewski: There are a number of aspects of education that games have shown to be very good at, above traditional education: systems-based learning, collaboration, engagement, connections across subjects. The fact that games are something done voluntarily vs education which is typically compelled upon students is another important aspect. If we can bring the self-driven nature of games to education, we can offer something incredibly important in education that is too often overlooked, a context and ‘reason to care’ about what you’re learning.

A great example of this problem in education is the way math is taught, where students memorize equations without ever understanding its significance or beauty, simply following a set of rules to acquire the answer. As a result, they develop a deep dislike of the subject and often abandon it entirely or decide they’re not good at it; games can offer another approach, putting the need first and then making the learning the ‘sword’ they need to achieve their goal. The thing they need to learn about then has context and meaning, and the learning happens at their own desire, for goals they care about.

This makes a world of difference, and is in my opinion the best option available for transforming the structure of school from an industrial-revolution era system designed to create workers who follow rules into one that builds curious and conscientious creators of our future world.

We know this is possible because we see thousands of games that have the effect, and there’s no reason the subject matter for education can’t be fit into the same mold. It requires a different approach and respect for both the subject matter and the learner, affording them enough agency and trust for them to guide their own learning.

In Eco, the gameplay goes beyond an exploration of global ecology and puts players into the position of grappling with the social aspects of governance. Why was this an important design decision for you?

Krajewski: Because the ecological problems that face our world won’t be solved by understanding the science alone. The solutions to the threats our world face are largely social problems, and framing the understanding of ecosystems in a social/civic context, where players are faced with a variety of individual incentives and viewpoints that must be sorted through and decided upon as a group gets to the heart of the matter; that it’s not enough to simply ‘know’ the right answer, you must also find a way to implement it in a world of your peers. By giving players that struggle inside a game, where the virtual world can be destroyed, we gift them the ability to see what’s at stake and let them begin to grasp the scope of the problem and how it could be solved in the real world.

If we all agreed on the severity of climate change and what course of action to take we could begin reversing it today, but in reality the social issues are the primary challenge. Making that challenge the center of the experience is something games can do incredibly well, and one of the things I love about the potential of games in education.(source:gamasutra)

 


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