作者：Hardy LeBel

对于设计师来说，他们必须清楚自己的设计目的是什么。不过只是自己清楚设计目的还是不够，他们还需要传达这些目的。

以下便是帮助那些想要明确并表达自己设计目的的设计师的技巧。

明确你的比较基准内容

AAA级开发团队经常会被问到，在他们的目标市场中最具竞争性的产品是什么。他们总是会去研究并分析那些具有竞争性的产品，所以这些产品便会变成他们所致力的项目的比较基准。

比较基准可以是各种不同的内容，例如帧率，图像保真度，渲染效果，甚至是市场营销材料的质量或整体销售情况，即任何内容都可能成为你需要去想办法战胜的基准。

就像当《杀戮地带》还处于开发阶段时，游戏开发团队便明确了《光晕》系列和《战争机器》系列是他们在立基市场（游戏邦注：即主机平台上的射击游戏）中的主要竞争对象。

竞争对下不一定要和你所创造的游戏一模一样。例如在上述例子中，《光晕》是基于第一人称角度，而《战争机器》则是基于第三人称角度，所以它们具有很大的区别。不过在游戏发行期间，这两款游戏都为Xbox上的射击游戏的游戏玩法设定了标准。通过明确了《光晕》和《战争机器》这两个竞争对象，《杀戮地带》开发团队便清楚自己希望游戏能够创造出同样的市场影响力，即为PlayStation主机平台的行动/射击游戏创造标准。但他们并未将其局限于游戏玩法层面。《杀戮地带》团队同样也可以将《光晕》或《战争机器》作为视觉上的竞争基准。因为这两款游戏在发行时都呈现出了非常出色的图像，所以也为目标硬件上的游戏设定了较高的视觉标准。

如果你希望为你的项目设定合适的比较基准，你便可以选择一至三款游戏，并考虑你希望自己的游戏能够超越这些游戏的特征。同时也你也需要清楚去解释为什么你想要选择这些游戏作为比较基准。

创造电梯游说词

游说（宣传）是设计师或团队正式传达自己的创意目标的过程，这也是帮助创造者改进和完善自己的理念与交流技巧的一种有效方式。游说理念是游戏业务的重要组成部分，而“电梯游说”则是实现这一目的的有效工具。

电梯游说是描述你的项目的一种简洁且可以事先练习好的“演讲”。这个词源自好莱坞，之所以叫做电梯游说是因为如果你发现自己只有搭乘电梯过程的2至3分钟时间去与一些非常重要的人讲述自己所创造的电影时，你就必须有效把握这一时间，

当致力于你的电梯游说时，你必须牢记以下要点。

不要遗漏任何重要内容

如果你计划创造一款主角只会使用爆炸物（如手榴弹，IED炸弹等等）的第一人称射击游戏，你便需要清楚地将其呈现于游说过程中。而如果你只是不断描述这是一个第一人称射击游戏项目，你的游说对象可能会误解你想要构建的游戏玩法。

确保语言足够严谨

为了确保我们的炸弹人游戏足够清晰明了，或许我们不该将其称为“第一人称射击游戏”。而是将其称为“第一人称炸弹人游戏”。

遵循关键信息

继续以“炸弹人”为例，让我们想象我们游戏的背景故事为主角拥有一些能让他武装并卸载炸弹的特殊手套。这些手套是与他们的中枢神经系统维系在一起的，如此他们便可以用意念去触发炸弹，但是他们所创造的任何电场也会导致他们所持有的枪支发不了火。这便是背景故事！

不过这里也存在一个可怕的事实：没有人会去在意这一背景故事。或许对你来说这些信息很有趣，但除非这能够帮助人们理解游戏本身，否则它便一点意义都没有。

帮助听者进行理解并激发他们的想象

如果我们是这么传达主角能够使用的炸弹类型的话：

“他们可以使用手榴弹，地雷和塑胶炸弹！”

我们便是错的。

因为听者可能会问：“那地雷和塑胶炸弹的区别是什么？它们不会有相同效果吗？”

从技术上来说它们的作用是不同的。但如果在你的游说过程中出现这样的问题，你就不得不去解释做出这一选择的原因，如此你便不可能做到语言精简这一要点。并且如果你必须对游说内容做出解释（或者更糟糕的是你需要进一步去讨论），你便会错失这一宝贵的时间！

以下是一组经典的例子：

“主角可以使用手榴弹，塑胶炸弹，甚至是书信炸弹！”

这一列表是为了让听者这么想的：“我知道手榴弹是什么，我也能想象塑胶炸弹的用处。但书信炸弹是什么？！这款游戏的确在探索爆炸领域方面走了很远的距离呢！”他们可能会问你：“你会如何在游戏中使用书信炸弹？”如果他们这么做，这便意味着你的游说激发了他们的好奇心，而比起浪费时间去解释我们所选择的例子，我们更应该专注于游说内容。

使用Concept Modifier

在电梯游说中经常出现的一种技巧便是Concept Modifier，即全新理念将被说成是对于之前已经得到理解（获得了成功）的理念的重新想象并带有一些全新调整。

以下便是相关例子：

《狂犬惊魂》的导演可能会这么宣传电影：

“它有点像《大白鲨》，不过却是发生在地面上。而比起鲨鱼，这里的主角是一只大型狂犬！”

《生死时速》的制作人可能会通过如下解释去宣传电影：

“它就像是发生在公车上的《虎胆龙威》！”

如此你能够更好地进行理解。

或者使用Concept Mashup

电梯游说中另一个常出现的技巧便是Cocept Mashup，即全新理念将是之前两个得到理解（获得了成功）的理念的结合。

《林中小屋》的编剧可能会这么宣传电影：

“这是《鬼玩人》和《楚门的世界》的结合。”

《科洛弗档案》的导演可能会这么说：

“这是《哥斯拉》与《女巫布莱尔》的碰撞！”

汤姆克鲁斯可能会这么介绍他的电影《明日边缘》：

“这是《星河战队》与《偷天情缘》的相遇。”

而我们也可以这么宣传《Mad Bomber》：

“它就像是《阿甘正传》与《V字仇杀队》的结合。”

所以当你在思考电梯游说时，可以尝试着去使用Concept Modifier或Concept Mash-up去描述自己的项目。如果你能够使用恰当的参考对象，这便是帮助你快速且轻松传达理念的强大工具。

而在创造你的Cocept Modifier或Concept Mashup的同时，你必须牢记以下要点：

不要使用模糊的参考对象

你可能会喜欢你在周末碰巧看到的一些实景日本科幻电影。但如果你的用户并未看过它们，你便不能创造出有效的游说效果。如果你想要使用的参考对象太过立基或模糊，你就需要花些时间去进行调查，即你可以对某些较难懂的电影进行调整并以你的听者能够快速理解的方式进行呈现。

让用户参与其中

Modifiers和Mashups可能会导致人们对你的项目作出你未曾料到的结论或者与你预期相反的情况。因为每个人对于他们清楚的故事的特征都拥有不同的侧重点，所以会出现这种情况是很自然的。

举个例子来说吧，假设你使用了《阿甘正传》为基准，那么有些人可能会喜欢电影中的喜剧元素，有些人则喜欢其中的社会讽刺性。如果你的宣传说法是：“它就像《阿甘正传》与《V字仇杀队》的结合”，那么那些与赛跑运动有关的人便会马上将其与快速移动联系在一起。而那些喜欢《阿甘正传》中的社会分析的人则会相信你将把炸弹人置于历史中一个关键位置，并让玩家的行动能够基于有趣的方式去书写历史。

如果你的用户开始因为你的理念感到兴奋并开始与你分享自己的想法，那就太棒了！因为这意味着你已经调动了他们的胃口。

尝试着去纠正人们最初的设想的做法是一个很常见的错误。你应该让用户能够参与到你的游说过程中，如果他们能这么做，他们便会更认真地聆听你所说的一切。这也是去了解他们真正想法的重要方式。

让我们回到“《阿甘正传》与《V字仇杀队》的结合”的例子中。如果用户对《阿甘正传》中的奔跑理念做出回应但是你却不喜欢这部电影中的这一内容，你也不应该去打断他们。你可以尝试着询问一些有关电影中的奔跑的例子，或者询问他们是如何看待奔跑的，这对你的游说很重要。你必须清楚当参与者愿意花时间去表达自己的想法对一个创造性项目来说有多重要。

结论

当提到传达你的目的时，你必须尽量做到精确。因为这能够帮助听者更快地理解你的想法，或能够帮助你有效区分自己的目标与其他人的目标。

（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）

Communicating Creative Intentions

by Hardy LeBel

It’s critical for a designer to be exceedingly clear about their intentions as they’re formulating their design. But it’s not enough to just be clear – you have to communicate those intentions.

Here are a few handy techniques for anyone engaged in the process of clarifying and expressing their design intentions. Any (or all) of these exercises can really help a team zero in on their creative goals.

Name Your Comparison Benchmark Products

Triple-A development teams are often asked to identify the top competitive products in the market niche that they intend for their project to occupy. Those competitive products are rigorously studied and deconstructed, and then become the comparison benchmarks for the project.

Comparison benchmarks can be a lot of different things – for example framerate, graphical fidelity, rendering effects, even the quality of marketing materials, or overall sales – really anything can be held up as a benchmark that you’re trying to beat.

When the Killzone franchise was first under development, that team identified both the Halo series and also the Gears of Wars series as their primary competition in the target niche that they were releasing to – shooters on console.

Competing products don’t have to be precisely the same as the game you’re making. In the example above, Halo is played from the first-person perspective, and Gears of War is third-person, so of course they’re very different from each other. But during their release, both games definitely set the standard for shooter gameplay on the Xbox. By picking Halo and Gears, the Killzone team were essentially saying that they wanted their game to have the same market impact – to set the standard for action/shooters on the Playstation console. But they didn’t have to restrict themselves to gameplay. The Killzone team could also have chosen either Halso or Gears to be their visual competitive benchmark. Both titles had bleeding edge graphics at the time of their release, and set the visual high mark for games on their target hardware.

If you want to set comparison benchmarks for your project, choose one to three games, and pick characteristics of those games that you’d like to hit or exceed with your own project. And be explicit – explain how the games you’re choosing represent a benchmark that you want.

Craft Your Elevator Pitch

Pitching – the process where a designer or team formally presents their creative goals – is a great way to force creators to refine and hone their ideas and their communication skills. Pitching concepts is a critical part of the games business and an “elevator pitch” is a great tool for that purpose.

An elevator pitch is a short, pre-rehearsed speech that describes your project as succinctly as possible. The term comes from Hollywood, and it’s called an elevator pitch because you’ve got to be ready to use it if you find yourself in a two to three-minute elevator ride with somebody important enough to get your movie (or your game) made.

When working on your elevator pitch, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Don’t leave out anything that’s critical to the concept.

For example, if you were planning to make a first-person shooter where the protagonist only used explosives (hand grenades, IED bombs and stuff), then you need to make that clear in your pitch. If you continually describe the project as a first-person shooter, your audience might jump to the wrong conclusions about the gameplay that you’re planning to build.

Be precise in your language

For the sake of clarity in our bomber game, perhaps we shouldn’t even call it a “first person shooter”. Perhaps we should call it a “first person bomber” instead.

Stick to critical information

To continue fleshing out our “bomber” example, imagine that the backstory for our game is that the main character has some kind of special gloves that allows them to handle, arm and disarm explosives. The gloves are tied to their central nervous system, and allow them to trigger explosives with a thought, but the electrical field that they generate causes any guns that they hold to misfire! Cool right? Backstory!

Now here’s the awful truth: nobody cares. All that info might be interesting to you, but unless it’s truly relevant to the understanding of the game itself, leave it out.

Add to the listener’s understanding and inspire their imagination

For example if we decided to list the kinds of bombs that the protagonist can use by saying:

“They can use grenades, mines and plastic explosives!”

We’re making a mistake.

It’s subtle, but a listener might reasonably ask the question “What’s the difference between a mine and plastic explosives? Don’t they do the same thing?”

Technically, no – they don’t. But if that question comes up in your pitch, and you have to explain your choice of examples then you’ve missed the mark in terms of precise language. If you have to explain (or worse, argue about) your pitch content then you’re losing precious time in the elevator!

A better set of examples might be,

“The protagonist can use grenades, plastic explosives and even letter bombs!”

That list is designed to make a listener think – “Ok, I know what grenades are, and I can imagine what plastic explosive might be used for. But letter bombs!? Whoa – this game is really going to explore explosions in some far-out ways!” They might be tempted to ask, “How would you use letter bombs in the game?” If they do, that’s great – it means the pitch has piqued their curiosity and we’re talking about the concepts rather than spending time defending the examples we chose.

Use a Concept Modifier

A common technique in elevator pitches is the Concept Modifier – where the new idea is described as a re-imagining of a previously well understood (and successful) idea with a new twist.

Here are a few examples;

The director pitching the movie Cujo might say;

“It’s like Jaws… but on land! Instead of a shark, there’s a huge rabid dog!”

The producer of Speed might pitch that movie by explaining;

“It’s like Die Hard… on a bus!”

You get the idea.

Or Use a Concept Mashup

Another common technique used in elevator pitches is the Concept Mashup – where the new idea is described as a combination of two previously well understood (and successful) ideas.

The writer of the movie Cabin in the Woods might pitch is as;

“Evil Dead meets The Truman Show.”

The director of Cloverfield might say;

“It’s Godzilla meets Blair Witch!”

Tom Cruise might explain his movie Edge of Tomorrow as;

“Starship Troopers meets Groundhog Day.”

We could pitch our Mad Bomber game as a mashup as well;

“It’s like Forest Gump meets V for Vendetta.”

So as you craft the elevator pitch, try using a Concept Modifier or a Concept Mash-up to describe your project. If you can nail the right references, it can be a powerful tool to communicate your idea quickly and easily.

While crafting your Concept Modifier or Concept Mashup, keep the following tips in mind;

Don’t Use Obscure References

You might love some obscure, live-action Japanese science fiction movie that you happened to see one weekend when your cable was malfunctioning and picking up signals from the wrong satellite overhead. But if your audience hasn’t seen it, you’ll lose a lot of impact in your pitch. If you’re tempted to reference something that is niche and obscure, spend some time and do some research – often esoteric movies have been adapted or remade into other forms that your audience might recognize more easily.

Let the Audience Play Along

Modifiers and Mashups can cause people to immediately jump to conclusions about your project that you might not have thought of, or that might be very different than what you had intended. That’s natural because each person puts a different emphasis on the characteristics of a story that they already know.

For example if you use Forest Gump as a touchstone, some people might love the comedic running in the movie. Others might love the social satire. If you pitch “It’s like Forest Gump meets V for Vendetta.” Then people who relate to the running might immediately associate it with fast paced movement. People who find the social commentary of Forest Gump interesting might imagine that you’re going to place your bomber character at key points in history, and have the player’s actions shape history in interesting ways.

If your audience starts to get excited about your idea and they start to contribute, or brainstorm along with you – that’s great! That means that you’ve piqued their interest.

It’s a common rookie mistake to want to correct people who are a little off the mark from what they had originally envisioned. Suppress that urge! Let your audience play along in the pitch process, and as they do, listen carefully to what they are saying. It’s an incredible opportunity to get insights into the things that they feel are important.

Returning to our “Forest Gump meets V for Vendetta” example – if the audience responds to the idea of the running in Forest Gump, but you HATE that aspect of the movie, there’s no need to shut it down in the elevator pitch. Try asking a few questions about the running in the movie, or about how they see the running as being important to the pitch you’re making. And remember that any creative project is stronger when the participants spend their energies trying to express what they do want to achieve, rather than fighting about what they don’t want to include.

Conclusions

When it comes to expressing your intentions, be precise. It will help people understand your vision more quickly, or help to show you where your goals differ from those of the people you’re working with so that you can help shore up those gaps.（source：gamasutra）