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开发者谈故事情节在游戏中发挥的积极作用

发布时间:2017-05-15 10:42:47 Tags:,,,

本文原作者:Thomas Frip 译者ciel chen

游戏中的故事到底发挥了怎样的作用?——长时间以来这一直是一个具有争议的论题。随着时间的流逝,越来越多人接受了故事在游戏中的存在,但为此的争论并没有停止。就比如Ian Bogost最近写了篇文章里提出为什么把故事做成游戏而不是拍成电影或者写成书。

这种“故事还是拿来写书吧”的态度并不是最近才有的。有一篇我最喜欢的文章是Jesper Juul写的“游戏是用来讲故事的吗?”——这里有趣的是我同意他提出的所有观点,但大部分结论都是我不同意的。在我看来,用游戏来讲述故事是再合适不过了,没毛病。我完全同意Juul关于“如果把游戏简单地以电影或者以书本的表现方式投用于游戏中会产生非常多的摩擦”这个观点。所以要想让故事能在游戏里流畅的展开就需要从多方面去考虑它们。

“故事还是拿来写书吧”这种态度通常是由游戏在试图展开故事时牺牲了游戏的流畅性所引起的。最常见的例子就是:在你能继续进行游戏之前你要看一些冗长的过场动画。同样,当游戏与故事情节并置时所产生可笑的各种违和感也是造成这个问题的因素——比如说人物在游戏过程里能抗下各种胖揍但在过场动画里被轻轻一击就残了这种事。但是这些例子并不能证明故事从根本上不适合跟游戏结合,它们只是说明了这些故事是被草率地安插到游戏中的例子而已。

事实上故事对于电子游戏有着至关重要的作用,这个事实从游戏史的一开始就存在了。它们为游戏体验提供了至关重要的——情节。你可以从早期街机中清晰地看出这点,比如说《Asteroids》:

这里的图像是为了告诉玩家:“那些朝着你而来的画的很烂的圆圈是小行星!不搞定他们就完蛋了!”这个故事情节可能相当简单,不过也能算是一个故事。玩家因此对屏幕上所发生的事情有所了解的心智模式,这使得玩家可以凭借直觉来感知这个世界的运作并构建出自己对此的见解叙述。“我只要逃开不要被那些过来的行星撞到就好了!”这种幻想来的要比单纯抽象地去思考这个游戏更有趣。“我用箭头状的移动方式来躲开这些迎面而来的多边形物体,这样就可以在游戏中立于不败之地了”这样的想法在没有提示的情况下我们自己是想不到的。事实上,用那样的方式是很难想出什么事情的。来看看这段视频吧:https://youtu.be/VTNmLt7QX8E

你可以一下子就觉得这些小图形是有想法有个性的。我们的大脑就是很奇怪能做到这种事,而《Asteroids》的柜式机艺术正是利用了这点。有一个有趣的问题随之而来:如果我们人类能这么容易从抽象图形看出故事情节,那我们还需要实实在在的故事内容用来干嘛?这个结论好像很有道理的样子,不过这里有很多原因可以说明这个结论是被误导的,比如说:

它在玩家开始游戏之前提供了有关这个游戏的概念;解释了《Asteroids》采用的抽象画系统并非无关紧要的;让“你控制飞船来躲避或者击落扑面而来的行星”这件事立刻有了意义。

它让玩家在游戏的一开始就有了合适的心境,这样我们就不需要等玩家展开长久的游戏探索来形成一个合适这款游戏的幻想。

这种幻想更容易契合游戏的实际操作。如果你把所有什么都让玩家自由发挥想象,那游戏之后的方方面面就会出现矛盾的内容——造成玩家的心智模式与游戏系统的具体体现相违背。

warlords of drakendor(from gamesindustry)

warlords of drakendor(from gamesindustry)

尽管人类是很擅长这种幻想的构建,但这为这他们不需要任何帮助了。基于游戏的内容对玩家的固有能力发挥着强大的催化剂效果。因此如果无法被恰当地传达给玩家,这个内容会变得超出玩家想象力的更加深层次的幻想。

然而,这并不表明你需要去填充故事内容的所有空白。事实上,留给玩家一些想象的空间会有更好的效果。这里重要的一点是把握好哪些内容应该留白,哪些内容应该填补。

不仅仅是由简单图形组成的射击游戏因为故事情节而变得有趣,甚至在从一开始就以故事情节为主要侧重点的冒险游戏中都有和《Asteroids》这种相似的根源性。第一款冒险游戏《Colossal Cave Adeventure》从模拟洞穴的形式开始,然后为了让游戏体验变得有趣,开发者加入了“从地下城与龙那里得到的启发性事件与谜题”在其中。要再次强调的是,这里的故事是为了提供游戏基本体验的内容——在这个例子中该内容就是探索洞穴系统。玩家并不只是漫无目的地在洞穴里闲逛,他们现在是被下达了寻找宝藏以及规避黑暗中隐藏的危险的人物了。这不只让玩家更加投入到游戏中,而且是他们更好地了解了游戏。

这里我想说的是,游戏中的故事对整个游戏的可玩性方面有着不可思议的强化作用。所以故事的存在并不是什么窗户装饰品之类可有可无的东西——通过给玩家讲述故事可以让玩家对游戏更加投入。我们人类天生就比较能够掌握一些有叙述性的问题——这种叙述性让我们得以能够使用各种我们天生就具备的心智功能来处理并解决这些问题。我们很自然就能够了解战争中敌对双方的动态,但如果你想用数学方程式来解决同样的问题,这可能得用上好几年的时间来研究掌握其中所涉及的基本概念。人类之间的关系是自然而然产生的,但数学并不是。所以这使得故事内容成为了游戏设计中不可或缺的一部分了。

《Asteroids》可以采用如此简单的故事来描述是因为它是一个相当简单的游戏,但如果游戏难度增加变得复杂,那么故事内容也就需要作出相应的难度调整。如果你想让玩家扮演一个间谍潜入到邪恶的组织之中,那简单的图形和柜式机艺术肯定就不再适用了;这时你得自己为故事内容增添细节好让玩家在游戏中的行动有意义,让玩家对游戏更投入并更好地掌握游戏。

故事不会是什么硬生生放置到游戏里的内容,因为电子游戏设计者把想要当电影导演和小说家的野心藏起来了。之所以有这些故事是因为它们对于游戏体验是有极其重要作用的。当然了,也有游戏是什么内容都没有的——《Tetris》是最典型的例子,不过这些游戏一般不需要花很多时间都能够很快地掌握游戏玩法。而当你想要一些更复杂的玩法的时候,故事内容就可以很自然地帮你达到这个目的,并且可以完全地融入到游戏的每一个部分来传达游戏的意图并塑造流畅的游戏体验。

这就跟小孩子玩耍一样——给他们一些棍子石头他们马上就能编出个故事来。当然了,他们也可以纯粹把石头和木棍进行组建来体会其固有属性所带来的乐趣,但是如果把它们想象成城堡、士兵然后想象出一场大型战役岂不是更有趣吗。人类天性如此,所以这种现象不止出现在电子游戏和小孩的玩耍中,它存在于所有有人类的场所里。比如说,在体育赛事开始之前解说会分享一些参赛运动员背后的故事好让实际的赛事更加激动人心;新闻报道也会遵循类似的模式——无论是哪个领域,讲故事的理由都是同样的:它能够为实际活动提供一个背景情节来让这些活动给人以更多的情感上的激动与共鸣。

这种把故事当做玩游戏的背景情节的概念在像《行尸走肉》这类的游戏中尤其正确。这款游戏中,玩家真正在玩游戏的时间很少——大部分时间都用来坐着看情节了。然而,这些过场动画确实是为了给玩家以背景情节来做出最后必须做出选择。这听起来或许有点怪,不过如果你仔细从玩游戏的角度想这个问题的话就比较说得通了。如果没有了之前的过场对话,那么这个赋予了对话选择权的抽象化系统也就没什么意义了。

你甚至可以说《行尸走肉》就是靠这些过场动画来撑起它的游戏性的——从一系列突然出现在屏幕上的选项中做出选择就是这个游戏玩法重点。很显然,这是那些抽象图形和一些柜式机街机艺术无法发挥作用的地方。这里的故事情节必须设置得非常精细,让玩家才能“选择正确的选项”来直观地去把握并投入到游戏中去

同样能说明这件事实的还有最近发行的《What Remains of Edith Finch》(Bogost文章中的很多论点都是以这个游戏为例子的)。这款游戏内容中很大一部分是玩家在玩的过程中时不时出现的人物小插曲情节。如果没有这些复杂的游戏设定,这款游戏中好玩的部分会失去很多乐趣并且难以理解。事实上,很多情况下这样的游戏插曲算得上是游戏开发进程中的主要基石了。至少在《活体脑细胞/SOMA》中是存在这样的相似进程的。于是我们在开发过程中开始希望让一些不同的场景变得好玩有趣——后来这也成为了很多游戏的目标。

所以我说《行尸走肉》里面的过场动画就是为了选择提供一个故事背景,这并不是什么没有意义的争辩。在很多情况下这种做法都是行之有效的。当然了游戏开发绝不会这么死板,并且我也不认为会有游戏开发者在开发游戏时会有这样的意识。毕竟理论只是纸上谈兵,现实情况总是更加复杂的。然而这并不意味这种想法不正确,而且我觉的这是一个看待游戏性与故事之间关系的具有真正价值的方式。

同时,还有要注意的很重要的一点,这不表明故事情节成了游戏体验里多余的那部分了,要知道——故事情节本身就有让人投入进去的能力,并且大部分情况下这种能力的存在都发挥着积极的作用。但有一点事实不可否认:故事情节为游戏性提供了上下文背景——其实我觉得能意识到这个事实是一件意义重大的事,因为它消除了人们对叙事性电子游戏的困惑。

故事并非独立存在的情节或者一系列事件;无论怎样的故事内容,它们都是为游戏体验提供上下文背景的,故事背景、角色人物、故事主题等等这些都是为此而服务的。所以为了能给游戏创造合适的上下文背景,就需要一系列情节作为支持,但这绝对不是什么硬性要求。这就是游戏在叙述方式上不同于电影、小说或者其他媒介的地方,这点很重要,要铭记于心。

当觉得游戏里的故事叙述得很烂的时候,并不意味着故事成了没有必要的存在。先问个问题好了:“有什么其他方法能更好地给游戏提供故事背景的吗?”所以这里问题的关键不在于游戏过度关注了其特性,而在于它不擅长用有效有感染力的方式为游戏提供必要的上下文背景。
游戏并不是为了跟电影或小说比较看谁能“道出更有深度的故事”的。那些更深层次的游戏主题是为了让玩家有更好的游戏体验,而能达到这个目的的核心手段就是把注意力集中在故事叙述上。这和其他媒介在讲故事的目的上存在很大的区别,所以说“故事还是拿来写书吧”这种想法是对当下游戏所面临挑战的一种严重误解。

很显然背景故事和游戏性不能简单地被看做两个独立的个体。很多情况下,故事背景很大程度上决定了盖采用哪种类型的游戏来匹配,甚至存在有一些游戏玩法完全只是为了某部分的故事背景而创造出来的情况。

至于我所认为当下最有趣的问题应该是:当我们谈到设计故事叙述的电子游戏时,故事背景和游戏玩法之间的关系是怎样的?我们要如何构造上下文背景才能让游戏性成为在游戏叙述中的核心部分呢?我认为这个是很多侧重故事叙述的游戏需要考虑的问题,这些游戏中也许很多确实讲述了非常好的故事,但是它们大多数是以过场动画、对话、笔记之类的形式体现的,我鲜少能通过“玩”来体验这些故事的——这也是我觉的把故事看做上下文背景比较方便的原因。这也证明了游戏中的“经典故事”本身并非游戏的最终目标,它们只是作为来优化游戏体验的游戏框架。我所希望看见交互式故事叙述游戏的未来是:开发者能够更好地理解故事叙述在游戏中的运作方式并且了解如何利用故事来创造更好的游戏体验。

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

For ages there’s been an argument going on about what part stories should play in videogames. Over time stories in games have gained more acceptance, but the discussion still continues. For instance, Ian Bogost recently wrote this article where he asked why you should make a game out of a story when you might as well make a movie or write a book.

This “go write a book instead” attitude isn’t new. One of my favorite articles on the subject is Jesper Juul’s “Games Telling Stories?”. Interestingly, I pretty much agree with all of the points that Juul raises, but reject most of his conclusions. I think that video games are very well suited for telling stories and that there is no inherent conflict. Where I fully agree with Juul is on the argument that if you just take stories as we normally see them on film or in books and apply them to games, there will be a lot of friction. In order to make stories work in games you need to consider them in a different way.

The “go write a book instead” response is usually provoked by the fact that a game’s attempt at storytelling disrupts the flow of the game. The most common example of this is when you need to watch some lengthy cutscene before you can continue playing. Problems also arise when juxtaposing gameplay and story gives rise to ridiculous inconsistencies, such as characters that can take hundreds of hits in-game being easily hurt in a cutscene. But this isn’t evidence of stories being inherently unsuitable for games, these are just examples of sloppy implementation.

Stories are, in fact, crucial for videogames, and this has been the case almost since the earliest days of gaming history. They provide something vital to the experience: context. You can clearly see this in cabinets of early arcade machines, for instance this one for Asteroids:

The images are there to tell the player: “Those badly drawn circles coming at you are asteroids! Deal with them or perish!” This may be a really simplistic story, but it certainly is one. It gives the player a mental model of what is taking place on the screen, which allows them to intuit the workings of the world and to build a personal narrative. “I barely escaped getting crushed by an incoming asteroid!” is a much more interesting fantasy than simply thinking about the game in abstract. “I made the arrow-shape move out of the way for the incoming polygon thereby avoiding the game’s fail state” doesn’t come as naturally to us. In fact, it’s quite hard to think of events in that manner. Take a look at this video:

You instantly think of the shapes as having intentions and personalities. Our brains are wired to do so, and the cabinet art of Asteroids taps into that. It also raises an interesting question: if humans are so prone to see stories in abstract shapes, do we really need any actual story content at all? This might seem a tempting conclusion, but there are a number of reasons it’s misguided. For example:

It provides the player with an idea of what the game is about before they even start playing. Explaining Asteroids using abstract systems is non-trivial. Saying “you control a spaceship that has to avoid or blow up incoming asteroids” makes immediate sense.

It puts the player in the proper mindset from the get-go. This way we don’t have to wait for a bunch of gameplay to unfold in order for the player to shape a suitable fantasy for it.

The fantasy is more likely to be coherent with the actual gameplay. If you just leave everything to the player’s imagination, there may be later aspects of the game that contradict this, causing big problems as the player’s mental model would contradict the concrete implementation of the game’s systems.

While people are good at constructing fantasies it doesn’t mean they don’t need any help. Story-based context acts as a very potent catalyst for the player’s inherent capabilities. If delivered properly, the result is a much deeper fantasy than the player could have made up on their own.

However this doesn’t mean that you need to fill in all the blanks with story context. In fact, by leaving certain bits to the player’s imagination the result can be even better. The trick is to know which parts to leave blank and which ones to fill in.

It isn’t just shooters with basic polygonal graphics that benefit from story context. Even adventure games, known for their strong story focus from the get-go, have similar roots to that of Asteroids. The first adventure game, Colossal Cave Adventure, started out as a simulation of a cave. In order to make the experience more interesting, Dungeons-and-Dragons-inspired events and puzzles were added to the mix. Again, the story was there to provide context to the basic experience – in this case exploring a cave system. Instead of just randomly wandering through a cave the player was now on a mission to search for a treasure and to avoid dangers that lurked in the darkness. This not only makes the experience more engaging, it also makes it easier to understand.

The case I want to make is that stories are incredibly potent for setting up play. Story is not just optional window dressing. By telling the player a story it makes it much easier for the player to engage. We as humans also grasp problems a lot more easily when they are presented as a narrative [2]. It enables us to use various built-in mental faculties to approach the problems and to figure out solutions. Understanding the dynamics of two factions that are at war comes naturally to us. When you pose the same problem in the form of mathematical equations it might require years of study to grasp the basic concepts involved. Human relationships come naturally, maths doesn’t. This makes story context an indispensable part of game design.

Asteroids can get away with a really simple story because it is such a simple game. But games haven’t stayed that simple, and as they grew more complicated, the story context needed to become more complicated as well. If you want the player to play as a spy infiltrating an evil organisation, simple polygons and cabinet art will not be enough. You need to add more details to your story context in order for the game’s actions to make sense, be engaging, and easy to grasp.

Story isn’t just something that has been slapped onto games because videogame designers have hidden desires to be film directors or novel authors instead. They are there there because they are crucial to the end experience. Sure, there are games that have pretty much zero story content – Tetris is a prime example. But these games are also very straightforward and possible to grasp based on very little play time. The moment you want anything more complicated, story context comes naturally and becomes an ubiquitous part of conveying the game’s intentions and forming a coherent experience.

It’s similar to how kids play. Give them some sticks and stones and they will instantly use them in some sort of story context. Sure, they could just build stone and stick structures for the inherent enjoyment of it, but it’s much more fun to think of them as castles, soldiers and a grand battle taking place. This is inherently human and permeates many more areas than just videogames and child’s play. For instance, it’s common to show backstories of the athletes before a sporting event in order to make the actual competition more exciting. News reporting also follow a similar pattern. Whatever the area is, the reason for having stories is the same: it provides context that makes the actual activity or content more exciting and relatable.

The idea of stories as context for play is even true for a game like The Walking Dead. In this game the player has little actual gameplay, and most of the time you just sit and watch. However, the hours of cutscenes are really just there to give context to the choices that the player eventually has to make. This might sound a bit weird, but if you think about it from a gameplay perspective it makes a lot of sense. The abstract systems that power the dialog selection wouldn’t have much meaning if it weren’t for the cutscenes preceding them.

You can even say that The Walking Dead requires the cutscenes for its gameplay to work. The gameplay in this case is simply making selections from a set of options that pop up on the screen. It’s quite clear that abstract shapes and some cabinet art will not do the trick here. Your story context must be quite elaborate for the player to intuitively grasp and feel engaged by a simple “select the right option” process.

The same thing is true for games like the recently released What Remains of Edith Finch (which Bogost bases much of his argument around in his article). Much of the content in this game can be seen as the context for the character vignettes that you play from time to time. Without all of the intricate setup that the game has, these playable sections would have been a lot less engaging and harder to understand. In fact, it’s actually quite likely that making these vignettes of gameplay was one of the major cornerstones in the game’s development process. A similar process was at least true for SOMA. We started the development of it with the intention of making a few distinct scenarios playable. Much of the game was then built around that goal.

So when I say that the cutscenes in The Walking Dead are just context for the choice scenes, I am not just making a silly argument. In many cases, this is really how it works. Obviously, development is by no means this rigid, nor do I think many developers think consciously about it. Reality is always way more messy than theory. But that doesn’t mean that this division is untrue. I think it’s a really valuable way of looking at gameplay versus story.

It’s also really important to note that this doesn’t mean that context is just a superfluous aspect of the game experience. The story context can be engaging in its own right, and it is almost always beneficial if it is. But that doesn’t take away the fact that the story content is there to provide context for the play. In fact I think it is crucial that we realize this as it clears up a lot of confusion around video game storytelling.

Story is not just plot, a sequence of events; it is whatever story content that provide context to the play experience. The setting, characters, themes and so forth all have part in this. In order to create a proper context there may be a need to tell a certain sequence of events, but it is by no means a requirement. This is where storytelling in video games and film/novels/etc. diverge and it is crucial to keep this in mind.

When it feels like a game has poor storytelling, it’s not the same as it being unnecessary. The question to ask is: “Could there have been a better way to provide story context?”. The problem is not that the game tries to focus on its characters, the problem is that the game is bad at providing the necessary context in an efficient and engaging manner.

Games are not trying to “tell deeper stories” compared to film or novels. They are trying to provide deeper thematic play. A core part in achieving this is by putting more focus on the story context. This is a very different goal from that of other media and to say “you might as well write a book” is to gravely misunderstand the challenge at hand.

Obviously context and play aren’t simply two separate things. Context very often has a big part in influencing what sort of gameplay is best suited to it, and there may even be gameplay created with the sole purpose of influencing a certain bit of context.

For me the most interesting question at this moment is: when it comes to evolving storytelling in videogames, what is the relationship between context and play? How can we set up context in such a way that it’s the play that does the bulk of the actual storytelling?

I think this is a problem in many story-heavy games. There may be a lot of well-told story in them, but it’s delivered in the form of cut-scenes, dialog, written notes, and so forth. I don’t get to actually play it. This is also where I think seeing story as context comes as handy. It makes it evident that “classical story” in games is not an end goal in itself, but a framework, there in order to enhance the experience of play. To be better at understanding how this works and how to build experiences around it is where I see the future of interactive storytelling.(source:gamasutra.com  )


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