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小型开发者可以从《山谷》中学到什么

发布时间:2016-09-18 11:35:51 Tags:,,,,

作者:Bryant Francis

本周,2K games发布了《生化奇兵》系列的HD合集,即提供给开发者以及包括我在内的作家们重新体验2007年那款科幻射击游戏的机会,并让我们能够思考它对于游戏开发世界的影响。

凑巧的是,本周我也刚玩完《山谷》,这款来自Blue Isle Studios的第一人称探险游戏,从上周五开始我们便在全新Twitch频道对其进行直播,尽管它并没有枪支,没有选择系统,没有引人入胜的曲折情节,但它却是能让我真正想起《生化奇兵》的游戏—-虽然它们是来自不同开发团队的作品。

BioShock (from benyouhui)

BioShock (from benyouhui)

最重要的是它让我想起《生化奇兵》尝试做了一些并未获得成功的事—-《山谷》是一款将所有含义都整合到游戏核心循环中的游戏,尽管其中的含义并未像《生化奇兵》那样呈现出各种“结果”。因为这是一款来自小型工作室的游戏,所以它非常适合引导开发者去设计真正能够获取成功的机制互动。

而这两款游戏间也存在一些非常相似的地方。它们都呈现了在科幻片般的灾难后主角开始进入一个复古时代背景中,它们尝试着通过探索一个鼓励区域去获取“为什么会出现这一问题”的秘密,并从中获取全新能力。这两款游戏的都带有音频日志,疯狂科学家的咆哮,以及一些不会破坏游戏流程并将证实死亡和重生机制的模糊伪科学。

上周这些相似点便一直让我沉浸在思考中,同时我也认为《山谷》是一款值得深入研究的优秀游戏,因为它非常巧妙地处理了穿越机制(游戏邦注:平面移动和高速奔跑是游戏中非常让人兴奋的体验),它同时也是一款值得我们重视的游戏,因为它和《生化奇兵》的一大区别就在于它不再只是一款“游戏”,它甚至尝试着通过科幻隐喻去探索某种意识形态。

尽管拥有上述所提到的相似之处,这两款游戏还有一个很大的区别。就像许多作家和开发者所注意到的那样,《生化奇兵》不仅是一款拥有许多影响和机制并要求玩家去考虑选择,特性,和Ayn Rand的客观主义哲学等内容的游戏,它同时还将这些概念与其核心游戏玩法区分了开来。

但就像我们上周在展会上所讨论的那样,《山谷》的整体能量系统和所有隐喻及其所带有的含义是被完全整合到核心游戏循环中的。玩家可以从有名无实的山谷中获取生命,而如果玩家在游戏过程中死掉了,他便可以以从山谷中所获取的能量为代价而复活。所有的这一切都将让玩家去思考有关死亡,复活与平衡等内容。

从表面看来这似乎是一种结果系统,但事实并非如此。我们自己的新闻编辑Alex Wawro在听到我说在游戏期间杀死或保护山谷并不会改变游戏结局时真的大吃一惊。即比起结果,这更多的是关于旅程,而维持山谷的生命平衡就变成了角色生存的核心。

正因为如此,我认为《山谷》是小型开发者透过科幻视角并利用自己“小而精”的优势创造出真正优秀游戏的绝佳案例。因为有关游戏世界的每一个全新理念都是伴随着游戏机制引进的,所以这能够提供给玩家更多去探索Blue Isle Studios在创造有关生命,死亡和重生的游戏时真正感兴趣的内容的机遇。

《山谷》和《生化奇兵》都受益于科幻小说的隐喻本质,即将更大的哲学理念作为高速行动导向型体验的背景,但如果你是拥有少量预算的开发者,并希望在第一人称游戏中探索这样的理念,《Valley》便是值得你去参考的最佳典例。

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

How Valley wins big by going small

by Bryant Francis

This week, 2K games released the HD collection of the BioShock series, giving developers and writers (like myself) a chance to revisit the 2007 science fiction shooter and think about how it’s affected the world of game development.

Coincidentally, this week was also the week I finished Valley, a first-person exploration game from Blue Isle Studios that we streamed on our new Twitch channel last Friday, and despite the fact that it had no guns, no choice system, and no spectacular plot twists, it was a game that constantly reminded me of BioShock even though it comes from a different group of developers.

Most importantly, I think it reminded me of something I think BioShock was TRYING to do which didn’t quite succeed at—it’s a game that loads its entire meaning and metaphor into the central loop of play, even though that meaning offers fewer “consequences” then BioShock’s did. And since it comes from a smaller company, it’s a good study for developers looking to get the most bang for their buck out of designing their mechanical interactions.

There are some superficial similarities. Both games feature a protagonist visiting a somewhat retro-era setting in the wake of a science fiction disaster, gaining new powers and abilities as they explore an isolated area to uncover the secrets of Why Things Went Wrong?. Both games feature audio logs, the ranting of mad sciencists, and some vague pseudoscience about that justifies their death and rebirth mechanics without interrupting the flow of play.

Those similarities have been itching at me for the last week, and while I largely think Valley is a notable game worth studying because of how beautifully it manages its traversal mechanics (seriously the platforming and high-speed running is an amazingly thrilling experience, go check it out), it also may be worth looking at because of how sharply it differs from BioShock in going beyond just being a “game” and trying to explore ideologies through a science fiction metaphor.

You see, despite the similarities mentioned above, there’s one significant way that these two games differ. As plenty of writers and developers have noted, BioShock is a game that’s loaded with imagery and mechanics asking players to think about choice, identity, and Ayn Rand’s philosophy objectivism, but it’s also a game that divorces those concepts from its central play.

But by contrast, as we discussed on last week’s show, Valley’s entire energy system—and all the metaphor and meaning it comes with—is baked into the central gameplay loop. As the player, you can give and take life from the titular valley, and if you die while playing the game, you’re resurrected at the expense of some of that energy from the valley. The whole thing winds up being a kind of high-speed meditation about death, rebirth, and balance.

On the surface, that might seem to lend itself to some kind of consequence system, but it ultimately doesn’t. Our own news editor Alex Wawro expressed surprise when I told him that killing or preserving the valley during play doesn’t alter the ending of the game. It’s an experience that manages to be more about the journey than the conclusion, and maintaining the balance of life in the valley becomes an act central to your character’s survival as it is a Big Thematic Idea? that characters keep talking about.

And because of that, I think Valley is a good case study of how a smaller developer can tackle big metaphorical ideas through the lens of science fiction using the very nature of its smallness to put out an effective game. Because every new idea about the world is introduced hand-in-hand with a gameplay mechanic, it gives the player more opportunities to explore what Blue Isle Studios was interested in when they made a game about life, death, rebirth, and the people who tried to take advantage of it.

Valley and BioShock both benefit from aping the metaphorical nature of pulp science fiction novels; using bigger philosophical ideas as a backdrop for a high-speed, action oriented experience, but if you’re a dev on a smaller budget, looking to explore these kind of ideas in a first-person game, Valley is definitely a game you should study in connection with BioShock and other games of the genre.(source:gamasutra)

 


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