作者：Kuba Stokalski

作为游戏设计师，我们总是希望在游戏中添加更多有趣的选择。而做到这点最有效的一种方法便是确保这些选择具有意义：带有价值，情感以及人们所关心的理念。就像有些人是通过故事叙述去创造具有吸引力的小说内容。但在设计系统中，真正能够呈现有意义选择的还是游戏玩法。

我们的游戏《这是我的战争》在这方面便做得很好。为什么这款游戏中的选择会具有如此强大的情感共鸣呢？你可以说是因为游戏背景（战争时期的平民）的影响，这在某种程度上来看并没错。但如果要真正完善游戏设计，如此表面的说法是没用的。我将在本文中进一步探索《这是我的战争》众多选择中的矛盾，并看看它是否适用于其它环境中。

This War of Mine(from bilibili)

玩家动机

首先我们需要考虑的是玩家动机。我们使用不同工具在游戏中创造玩家进程。除了让他们能够通过体验游戏机制获得乐趣waiting，我们还会传达一种玩家动机结构：不断上升的关卡，可探索的地图，可收集的道具，可解决的谜题，可战胜的高分，可经历的故事。这里存在各种形式，但它们都在向玩家展示着“战胜游戏”的外部目标。这是一种外在动机。

虽然所有游戏都会提供这种动机结构，但也有一些游戏不只有这些动机。有时候我们会将系统和机制与丰富的故事结合在一起，创建玩家愿意花时间待在那的世界，并让他们真正融入游戏角色中。研究表明，能让玩家角色扮演“理想自我”的游戏具有最强大的激励性。除了那些典型的角色扮演游戏外，这也同样适用于其它游戏类型。就像在《质量效应》和《军团要塞》中，通过游戏机制所呈现的游戏风格和特征，我们都能找到理想的自我。而这即为内在动机，是源自我们自己的意识而不是像奖励系统那样的外在结构。

外部结构的目标主要是通过做出最佳选择而获得。假设你创造的是一款生存游戏：那么生存的最佳选择便是尽快收集更多道具并创造属于你自己工具，如此才能为游戏挑战做好准备。

一致的游戏故事并不是关于最优选择。人们会牺牲效能而忠于故事。例如在MMO游戏中他们会在游戏中心漫步，而从游戏进程角度来看这很明显是在浪费时间。但如果你的动机是关于故事一致性，这便是你需要做的事。

目标本身的失衡

当这两种动机被结合在一起去创造紧张感时，矛盾便会出现。但需要强调的是这种矛盾是关于玩家动机之间，和游戏层面无关。游戏层面（游戏邦注：游戏玩法和故事）间的矛盾被称为ludonarrative（指代游戏中的游戏机制与故事叙述的相交与结合）矛盾，并且通常都不是什么好事。

《这是我的战争》便最大程度地利用了动机矛盾。在游戏中“最佳”选择便是尽可能收集更多资源：这是一款生存游戏，带有核心的资源管理机制。但游戏故事包含了道德两难：我是否要从没办法和我对抗的老夫妻那偷走医疗用品？如果是基于目标的动机会告诉你去偷。但是故事动机却会阻止你这么做。大多数人都希望在糟糕的时候自己能够到达道德最高点，而游戏便是在测试这种自我意识，所以呈现了一种非常有意义且复杂的决定。

同样的原理也适用于许多其它游戏和类型：例如你是否会杀死一个无辜生物去获取游戏中最厉害的宝剑？你是否会破坏无辜旁观者的财产去守护目标？这些选择对于玩家来说都是非常困难的选择，因为他们理想的自我将被放在两难境地。

如果游戏目标能被整合到自我意识一致性的矛盾中，奇迹便会发生。这是一种最终的权衡，而你会对自己产生幻灭感。

角色

当然了，玩家动机并不是一切。即使玩家在《这是我的战争》中会苦恼是否偷取医疗用品，但是他们在《使命召唤》中还是会疯狂地进行杀戮。所以这是什么情况呢？

我们可以在角色中找到答案。我们会自动进入一个魔法阵，并悬浮在控制着我们在“现实世界”中行为的某些约束条件中。因此玩家角色将因为有意义的决定而变得同样重要。我们的自我意识只是关于我们在特定情况下想要做什么，但如果我们是在扮演某个角色的话我们又会怎么做？

如果游戏让我们去扮演超级士兵的角色，我们便会很开心去杀死无数“坏人”，因为这便是超级士兵的职责。但如果是在《使命召唤：现代战争2》的“No russian”关卡中，玩家将突然面对一些人出现在关卡中并且不能朝他们开枪。因为玩家的自我意识与士兵的角色结合在了一起，而这并未涉及朝无辜市民开枪的必要。

冒险

玩家将进入游戏中追求一些正面体验，即使是伴随着泪水。如果你要呈现给玩家有效的选择vs自我意识，你最好确保选择不会导致糟糕的游戏体验。例如《耻辱》这款游戏便会让玩家使用它所提供的工具去惩罚玩家。如果你的自我意识要求你做个“好人”，那么滥用深入且让人满足的战斗系统将会导致游戏不再受欢迎。但这却是一种很尴尬的情况，因为如果玩家需要鲁莽地去毁灭别人，他便不可能做个“好人”。这里的问题便在于，选择可以说是一种不令人满意的游戏方式。因此目标/故事的矛盾将会导致不令人满意的体验，而不是有意义的选择。

结论

尽管自我意识与游戏目标之间的矛盾不适用于所有游戏，但我还是希望你能将其放在脑子里，特别是当你想要为游戏创造有意义的选择与有意义的主题时。毕竟生活总是让我们在什么是有趣/有效/简单与什么是有价值之间做出选择。而基于这种选择的游戏可能会呈现出一些不同的体验。

（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）

Meaning and choice, or how to design decisions that feel intimately difficult

by Kuba Stokalski

As game designers we’re striving to fill our games with interesting choices. One of the most powerful ways of achieving that is to make them meaningful: touching values, emotions, concepts that people care about. Some create elaborate fiction achieving gravity through the art of storytelling. But for many the holy grail lies in designing systems that lead to meaningful choices organically through gameplay.

Our own This War of Mine is praised for doing just that. Why are choices in this game so emotionally meaningful? You could say it’s the setting – civilians in wartime – and you’d be right to an extent. But such a blanket statement is not very useful when trying to improve the craft of game design. In this post I’d like to explore the conflict at the heart of many choices in This War of Mine – and see how it can be used in other contexts.

Player motivation

The first thing we need to consider is player motivation. We use different tools to make players progress through the game. Outside of presenting them with inherently fun to play with mechanisms (aka “the toy”) we usually have to deliver a structure for player motivation: levels to ascend, maps to explore, collectibles to collect, puzzles to solve, high score to beat, story to see through. There are many patterns, but they all amount to presenting the player with an outside goal to “beat the game”. An external motivation.

While all games provide that kind motivational structure, a lot go beyond that. We sometimes wrap systems and mechanics in rich fiction, building worlds players want to spend time in, immerse themselves in roles they find fascinating. Studies show that games which allow players to roleplay their “ideal self” are more motivating than others. It’s true beyond the obvious genre of role-playing games. An ideal self can be expressed in Mass Effect as well as in Team Fortress – through playstyles and characterisation afforded by game mechanics. This is an internal motivation, stemming from our own self-concept, not an external structure such as a reward system.

The goals from the external structure are achieved by making optimal choices as far as game mechanics go. Say you play a survival game: the optimal way to survive is to hoard as many items and develop your tools as quickly as possible to prepare for whatever challenge the game throws at you.

Coherence of the game narrative however is not about optimal choice. People stay true to fiction by sacrificing efficiency. For example, they walk around hub cities in MMO’s even though it’s clearly a waste of time from a game progression perspective. But it’s exactly the thing you have to do if your motivation calls for narrative coherence.

Goal-self dissonance

When these two motivations are combined to create tension, a conflict develops. It’s critical to underline that the conflict is between player motivations, not game layers. Conflict between layers – gameplay and narration – is called ludonarrative dissonance and is usually a bad thing. Nathan Drake The Raging Murderer can testify.

This War of Mine exploited the conflict of motivations to great extent. The “optimal” way to play the game was to gather as much resources as possible: it was a survival game, with resource management at its core. But fiction was loaded with moral dilemmas: do I steal med supplies from an elderly couple who can’t resist me? The gamist, goal-oriented motivation told you to steal. The narrative motivation told you not to. Most people hope they could take the moral high ground in terrible times and the game puts that self-concept to the test, generating a meaningful, difficult decision.

The same principle can be carried over to many other games and genres: Do you kill an innocent creature to get the best sword in the game? Do you destroy property of innocent bystanders to secure an optional objective? These choices lead to difficult choices for players because it’s their ideal self on the line, not abstract strategies that have value only within the magic circle of the game.

When gamist agenda can be coaxed into conflict with coherence of self-concept, the magic happens. Going with one leads to a suboptimal choice in the other. It’s a tradeoff with efficiency on one end and disillusionment about yourself on the other.

The character

Of course, player motivation is not the whole story. After all even people agonising over stolen meds in This War of Mine are perfectly happy going on a killing spree in the latest Call of Duty. What gives?

The answer lies with the avatar. We enter the magic circle voluntarily, suspending some of constraints that govern our behaviour “in the real world”. Hence player character motivation becomes equally important for meaningful decisions. Our self-concept ceases to be solely about what we would like to do in a specific situation, but what we would like to do if we were the role we are impersonating.

If the game asks us to step into the shoes of a supersoldier, we’ll be perfectly happy to kill the “bad guys” by the dozen, that’s what supersoldiers do. But throw in a wrench, say, the (in)famous “No russian” level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and you suddenly have people tiptoeing through a level without firing a single bullet, or missing on purpose. All because their self-concept extended to the role of a soldier does not include gunning down heaps of unarmed civilians. As a bonus, you get lots of controversy.

The risks

There are ways this can backfire though. Players engage with games to experience something positive – even if it’s cathartic positivity through tears. If you present the choice of efficiency vs. self-concept you better make sure no choice leads to an inferior gameplay experience. Dishonored, an otherwise excellent title, punished you narratively for playing with the tools it gave you. Abusing the beautiful, deep and satisfying combat system led to a game world state that was undesirable if your self-concept demanded you be “good”. This is a perfectly valid dilemma to have – you can’t be “good” by rampaging around slitting throats and making rats devour people. The problem was that the alternative – playing stealthily – could be argued as a comparatively less satisfying way to play. Hence the goal/narration dissonance led to an unsatisfactory experience instead of a meaningful choice.

Summary

While the conflict between self-concept and the gamist agenda is not fit for use in all games, I’d encourage you to keep it in the back of your head, especially if your’re aiming for meaninfgul choices and non-trivial subject matter of your game. After all, life is often about choosing between what is fun/efficient/easy and what is worthwhile. Games built on this tension can be truly something different.(source:gamasutra)