作者：Josh Bycer

本文将着眼于一种较少出现的难度设计形式，sculptable难度。我们曾看过一些带有能在游戏期间改变难度的游戏选择，而sculptable则更甚，即让玩家能够去创造他们想要的挑战。

设置难度：

sculptable难度指的是玩家能够自由改变难度并从中获得奖励。这与主观难度或者其它基于玩家技能的游戏难度都是不同的。相反地，这种难度让玩家能够通过不同方式去改变难度并影响难度。

通常突出sculptable难度的游戏都结合了玩家技能和抽象设计，即你需要使用不同方法去挑战玩家并影响游戏。

从游戏设计来看，游戏总是需要围绕着一种“基本”体验进行创造。如此玩家便可以通过提升或降低难度而在不同方面让游戏变得简单些或困难些。sculptable难度的重要元素便在于玩家可以超越属性的变化去控制难度，并影响游戏的发展。

如此玩家便可以在艰难的时候降低游戏难度或者在想要推动某些事物发展的时候提升游戏难度。

平衡规模：

今天我想要谈论的一个例子便是来自我近几年非常喜欢的一些游戏。首先便是我一直都很喜欢的《美妙世界》。

这款游戏让你能够基于设置，你所面对的敌人群组的数量以及你的最大生命值去影响难度。这些因素将决定你能够获得多少经验值和金钱，以及获得不同道具的机会。

玩家可以在战斗之外的任何时候去改变这些设置，虽然玩家需要遵守一个基准，但他们也可以随意提高难度去获取更棒的奖励。

而《堡垒》更是使用一些特殊难度图腾去改变每个人的游戏。这些图腾会在游戏期间影响敌人及其能力。

当更多图腾被激活时，玩家便能获得更多经验值。真的，玩没有图腾和有图腾的《堡垒》真的有很大区别。来自Super Giant Games的《Transistor》也让玩家能够改变游戏难度。

最后一个例子则是《Kid Icarus Uprising》，它拥有1到10的难度范围。如果玩家选择更复杂的游戏，他们能找到的武器质量也会更高。

如果玩家所面对的是高于一般难度级别的内容，游戏便会为他们开启带有更多奖励的不同难度路线。基于这些例子，我们便可以转向如此设计一款游戏所具有的挑战。

设计难度：

你可以看出那些认为游戏难度设置是游戏设计组成部分以及忽视这一部分的开发者之间的区别。拥有与游戏体验相平衡的难度设置的游戏总是更出色。而那些未能有效突出难度范围的游戏则会让人觉得乏味。

为了围绕sculptable难度去创造游戏，你必须在游戏中添加难度设置/条件。如果你能基于更多不同方式去调整难度就更好了。但是也并不是所有游戏都可以围绕着sculptable难度进行设计。

就像平台游戏这种只是基于玩家技能而进行设计的游戏类型便不适合sculptable难度。因为sculptable难度需要游戏拥有一些抽象元素。

Bastion （from bilibili）

让我们继续着眼于像《堡垒》和《Kid Icarus Uprising》等游戏，它们都带有一般或基础游戏元素。你必须在开始设计其它修饰元素前先明确这种基础内容。虽然这点再明显不过但我还是要再次强调：你的游戏应该能够适应任何以及所有修饰元素。并避免将修饰元素凌驾于难度设置价值之上。

最后让我们再回到奖励中。除了去完善游戏外，你还必须明确这么做的其它原因。主要存在两个原因。

首先，这能让专业玩家通过提高游戏难度而获得更多奖励。其次，这也能让新玩家有理由去更深入探索游戏并争取更多奖励。

结论：

Sculptable难度是你必须在游戏设计一开始便将其整合到其中的元素之一。尽管它并不适合所有游戏设计或类型，但却能够有效提高那些合适的游戏设计的质量。

（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 to Craft Challenges with Sculptable Difficulty

by Josh Bycer

Today’s post looks at a rarely used form of difficulty design in the form of sculptable difficulty. We have seen games with the option to alter the difficulty during play, but sculptable difficulty takes things further and allows the player to create the challenge they’re looking for.

Setting the Difficulty:

Sculptable difficulty means that the player is free to alter the difficulty and be rewarded for it. This is not the same as subjective difficulty, or where the game’s difficulty is dependent on the player’s skills. Instead, the player is able to alter the difficulty in different ways to impact the difficulty.

Games that feature sculptable difficulty typically have a combination of player skill and abstracted design, as you need to have multiple ways to challenge the player and impact the play.

In games designed this way, there is always a “baseline” experience that the game is built around. From there, the player can raise or lower the difficulty to make the game easier or harder in different ways. The important factor about sculptable difficulty is the fact that the player controls the difficulty beyond just stat changes, but impacts how the game is played.

In this way, players can make a game easier if they’re having a tough time, or harder if they want to push things, as our examples will demonstrate.

Balancing the Scales:

The examples that I want to talk about today are some of my favorite games in recent years. The first is my long-time favorite The World Ends With You. I’ve talked about it multiple times, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much.

The game allows you to impact the difficulty based on the setting, the number of enemy groups you’ll fight and your max health going in. These factors determine how much experience and money you get, the chance of getting different items and their quality.

The player can change these settings at any time outside of combat. There is a baseline that the player can keep to, but they are always tempted to make things harder for greater rewards.

Bastion takes things further with specific difficulty totems that change the game for each one used. These totems impact the enemies and alter their abilities during play.

The more totems active, the more experience the player gets. There is a big difference between playing Bastion without the totems vs. having all eight on. The follow up from Super Giant Games Transistor also allows you to alter the difficulty.

Our final example is Kid Icarus Uprising who literally has a difficulty scale between 1 and 10. The harder the player makes the game, the higher quality in terms of weapons they’ll find.

The game opens up extra hard paths with more rewards if the player is playing at or higher than the difficulty rating.

With those examples said, we can turn to the challenges of designing a game in such a matter.

Designing Difficulty:

You can tell the difference between developers who think about the game’s difficulty setting as part of the design, and those that rush through it. The games that work have difficulty settings balanced with the experience. The ones that don’t typically feature difficulty scaled so far up that it makes the game a slog to play through.

To create a game around sculptable difficulty, you must include your difficulty settings/conditions in the game’s design. The more varied ways you can adjust the difficulty, the better. Not every game can be designed around sculptable difficulty.

Games built on only player skill, such as platformers, aren’t good candidates for sculptable difficulty. The reason is that there must be abstracted elements to modify.

Looking at games like Bastion and Kid Icarus Uprising, they both have a baseline or normal play. You must get the baseline set before you begin designing modifiers. This point should be obvious, but needs to be said: Your game should be beatable with any and all modifiers on. Try not to have modifiers on top of set difficulty values, as that can add complexity on top of complexity.

Our final point goes back to the rewards. There must be a reason beyond just recognition for modifying the game. This serves two purposes.

First, it allows expert players to get something in return for making the game harder. And second, it gives newer players a reason to improve and see more of the game and get rewarded at the same time.

Getting it Just Right:

Sculptable difficulty is one of those elements that has to be a part of your design from the very start and integrated in. Even though it won’t fit in every game design or genre, it can certainly elevate a game’s design when it works.

Besides the games mentioned, can you think of other examples of games that featured sculptable difficulty? If so, be sure to leave a comment about them below.（source：gamasutra）