来源：天空软件网 更新：2023-09-14
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7 things I’ve learnt from designing This War of Mine
前言：关于这篇译文为多年前作者自学所用，后受游资网编辑邀稿首发在该网上。如今自己开设公众号，结庐论道探讨游戏，所以想着把这篇译文重新放上来，希望大家能够喜欢。
译者与原作者的twitter授权聊天截图
I spent the last two years of my life as apart of the great project which has
been This War of Mine. I’ve beeninvolved since the very beginning, mostly as a game designer and partially as a writer. Now,that my adventure with both This War of Mine and 11 bit studios is over, I letmyself look on a game from a distance. I’ll do my best to analyze those keydesign features that I think did the most for its benefit. These are the thingsthat I will remember for my future projects.
过去的两年间，我的人生是与《我的战争》这个伟大的项目融为一体的。从最初开始，我便以一个主做游戏设计者和兼做编剧的身份，参与到开发中去。而现在，我在《我的战争》和11 bit工作室的经历都已画上句号，我让自己从中抽离出来以一个旁观者的角度去审视这个游戏。我将竭尽所能的去分析，那些在我看来对这款游戏极其有益的设计要点。我将牢记这些要点把他们运用到我之后的项目研发去。
I had a pleasure tohave my face and body used for one of the characters.
非常荣幸在游戏中用到了我脸和身体来作为参考设计了其中的一位角色
(Mind that thearticle is not an official statement of the company, it’s my own opinion, aview on the game seen from one of the designers’ seat.)
（请注意这篇文章并非公司的官方性声明，而是我以一个设计者的角度去观察这个游戏，所得出的个人观点。）
It was clear sincethe beginning that we’re going to make a game that is unlike any other. It wasmeant to be, as far as we knew, the first game about the civilians in thewarzone, which demanded a different than usual approach to its design. Therejust wasn’t a tested game design formula for this kind of project, because thiskind of game never existed. So the key was to find the ways tosymbolize the real problems of such events as a game mechanics in respectfuland credible way, avoiding “gamisms” as much as we could.
一开始我们就明确的想要做出一款与众不同的游戏。所以它意味着，这是一个超出我们认知范围的游戏，是第一款关于战争区域内平民的游戏，这要求我们要走一条完全不同的路去设计和开发他。对于这类游戏，它没有一个被验证过的公式和规律可循，因为之前根本就没有此类游戏存在过。所以重点是将真实发生的问题和情节以一种令人敬畏和信服的方式，改变成游戏机制，尽可能不让他沦为“戏说”。
If I was to guess,before the release, how the game’s innovation will affect its popularity, it would be a huge miss. Because of how different TWoM is, both in terms of thetheme and the gameplay, personally I was seeing it as a niche game, that willbe appreciated only among a small crowd with discerning taste. Thankfully I waswrong.
如果在游戏发售之前，要我去猜想，这款游戏的创新将如何影响游戏的受欢迎程度，我想它反而是一个很大的阻力。因为《我的战争》它太特立独行了，无论是它的关注点、主题或是他的游戏玩法，在我个人看来，它将是那种只会在一小部分懂得欣赏它的玩家中流行的好游戏。可是令人欣慰的是我错了。
… Or perhaps I wasright about the discerning taste, but I underappreciated the size of theaudience. This mistake taught me that the players still like to be surprised.That they don’t solely crave another Spectacular Action Game 6 HD, but willalso appreciate new ideas. Why won’t we give them a fix?
或许我对懂得欣赏这部分是对的，可是我低估了这个群体的规模。这个错误让我认识到玩家依然希望看到惊喜。他们不仅仅渴望玩到另一款场面宏大的动作游戏，也同样欣赏那些奇思妙想的新创意。为什么我们不这样做呢？
Let’s face it, youcan’t make better Call of Duty than Call of Duty. But perhaps you can afford totry making better This War of Mine than This War of Mine. Or a one-of-its-kindgame that will automatically become… well, the best of its kind. What I mean isthat the more derivative your design is, the bigger the competition and thusthe harder it is to stand out.
让我们面对事实，你不可能做出比《使命召唤》更好的《使命召唤》。但是也许你可以试着做出一个比《我的战争》更好的《我的战争》。或是制作出一款独立类型游戏……那将是最好的一部。在我看来你越多的拷贝他人的设计，你的竞争就越大，因此你也就越难在这个行业中崭露头角。
Papers, Please is aone-of-its-kind game done by one man and a great success.
《请出示护照》是个只有一个人开发的并且非常成功的独立类型游戏
Of course This Warof Mine is an usual example and no matter how innovative is the design,it won’t GUARANTEE you such a success.Still, my take is that the smaller the game, the more it should look for aninnovation (or a niche) and TWoM reassuredme about this. The last years were rich in successes of relatively small gamesthat seem to support this idea. Like Papers, Please,which was a great inspiration for TWoM. Or like Vanishing of Ethan Carter, FTL, Gone Home and Thomas Was Alone, to name a few.
I think that the onlyway for a small developer to fight a blockbuster is to compete in a differentcategory.
当然《我的战争》是个很典型的列子，他的创新性设计并不重要，他并不能保障你一定能获得成功。但是，在我看来越小形的游戏开放者，越需要寻找创新，《我的战争》让我消除了之前的顾虑。去年有许多这样的小游戏的成功足矣支撑这个观点。像《Papers, Please》作为《我的战争》的启发者。或者像《Vanishing of Ethan Carter》、《FTL》、《Gone Home 》和《Thomas Was Alone》……
我觉得对于小规模的开发者来说，只有一条路可以让你的游戏风靡一时，那就是走一条与众不同的路。
There’s one particular ingredient of This War of Mine that I started to reallyunderstand and appreciate when the game was already released and the playersstarted to tell the stories of how they playthrough looked like. Then Irealized that the strongest storytelling device the game utilized was… well,it’s awareness of being a videogame. But a videogame, where game mechanics notonly don’t conflict with the narrative, but they’re used as its fundaments.
在《我的战争》中有一个非常重要的因素，但是我真正的理解并欣赏它的时候，是在他发售之后大量的玩家开始讲述关于他们整个游戏过程的故事时。让我真正的意识这款游戏运用了最好的剧情表现方式，它很清楚自身是一款游戏。作为一款游戏，游戏玩法不仅要做到不与剧情叙事冲突，而且要将其作为叙事的基础和手段。
Steam reviewers often tell parts of their playthorughs as stories.
Steam上的玩家关于游戏过程的留言经常会变成一个个故事。
(http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993844742/recommended/282070 )
I don’t think that games, in order tobecome stronger as narrative medium, need to reject what they are and try toincorporate more from other media, such as cinema. In my opinion it’s theopposite – I think they need to embrace what they’re good at and use it wiselyto create stories that couldn’t exist elsewhere. In short, it’s about makingsure that decisions the player makes as a part of the game (and theirconsequences) are meaningful for the narrative. The games were about makingdecisions long before branching storylines of The Witcher or The Walking Dead. Whether you jump or fall, slash orblock, shoot or miss, drive straight or turn – all those little moments thatmake up the gameplay may become a part of an interesting narrative. More – theycan SHAPE the narrative, and that’s an unbelievably powerful feat, that filmnor literature cannot do.
我不认为游戏，为了成为一个更强大的叙事媒介，需要否定自己价值，并越来越多吸收其他媒体的方式，比如说电影。在我看来那是本末倒置的——作为游戏应该去拥抱自身的优势，明智的去创造那些在其他媒介上不可能存在的故事体验。简单的来说，需要确定游戏中玩家的所有决定都将成为游戏剧情的一部分（且能影响到结局）并对整个剧情是有意义的。游戏的决定应该在分歧的故事线很久之前就开始类似《The Witcher巫师》和《The Walking Dead 行尸走肉》。无论你是跳起或落下，挥击或被阻，开枪或者射偏，驾车直行或翻转—所有这些，来自于游戏玩法的小片段都有可能构成有趣剧情的一部分。或者—他们将塑造整个剧情叙事，它将是令人难以置信和强大感染力的叙事方式，无论电影还是文学作品都无法企及。
It’s not necessarily obvious. When Iplay Uncharted, I don’t feel that killing an enemy number#4859 with my machine gun is a part of the story where I’m animating this witty adventurer. My goodness, he’d just kissed a girl in this brilliantly craftedcut-scene, and now he’s some kind of psycho?! For me the revelation that thethings can be done differently came when I encountered Papers, Please. It’s really a “gamey game”, with veryvisible core loop. But the decisions you make are part of the monotonousprotagonist’s life and they visibly affect it. They tell his story. Your story.
它不是必然出现的。当我在玩《Ucharted 神秘海域》时，当我操控着诙谐的冒险家用武器去杀死编号为#4859的敌人时，我完全感觉不到这是整个故事的一部分。我的神，他刚刚还一个华美的场景中亲吻了一个女孩，但是现在他变成了一个杀人如麻的疯子？！当我玩到《papers,please》时受到了启发，这一切都可以做的非常与众不同。《papers,please》是一个“趣味独特的游戏”，带有显著的因果循环。你所作的任何决定都将成为这个平庸的主角生活的一部分并影响到他的生活。游戏在讲述他的故事。也是你的故事。
Of course not your failure as a gamedesigner, but the player’s, as a character in the story. There’s a particularcharacteristic of This War of Mine that, I must admit, wasn’t intentionally planned, but emerged from other game design decisions. I noticed it when I was watching Indie (Dan Long,http://www.twitch.tv/Indie) streaming a previewversion of the game on Twitch. The playthrough was fairly typical, giving Indieenough space to joke around with his audience. Until the things got bad. Acharacter died, than another, ultimately leaving the remaining member – Bruno -of the group lonely and broken. The game ended when Bruno committed suicide.Seeing Indie’s reaction I realized that his failure was the most interestingthing in this playthrough.
当然这里的失败不是指你作为一个游戏设计者的失败，他指的是游戏玩家扮演的角色在故事中的失败。它是《我的战争》所独有的，但我必须承认，他并非我们刻意的计划，而是受其他游戏设计所影响。当我在Twitch上观看Indie的游戏视频直播时。所有的游戏过程都很稀松平常，让Indie有足够的时间和他的观众们说笑。直到情况变坏，其中一个角色死亡，其他角色也跟着死去，直到最后整个团队四分五裂只剩下Bruno独自一人。最后Bruno上吊自杀游戏结束。看着Indie的反应，我意识到最终的失败对他来说是整个游戏过程中最有趣的事情。
If you consider yourfavorite stories, for example in film or literature, they don’t always revolvearound success. The character may become hurt or defeated, also you usuallydon’t ask a refund for a book just because the main hero dies at the end.Meanwhile the games accustomed us not to treat the failure as a “real” part ofthe story (unless it’s a scripted, plot-driven failure). Back to the old NathanDrake (nothing personal, I still love those games) – if he’s suddenly takendown by the enemy #4860, you probably curse and reload the checkpoint like itnever happened. Because if it did, it’d be a really shameful way for a hero ofa good story to end his life.
请你回想一向你最喜欢的故事，无论是电影还是文学作品，他们不会总是围绕着成功而做文章。那些主角或许会受伤和被击倒，但你通常会因为一本书中的主要英雄以死亡告终而要求退款。同样的游戏通常不会将失败作为整个故事的真正部分（除非是剧情设计的失败）。让我们回到Nathan Drake（并非针对该游戏，我依然非常爱这款游戏）—如果他被代号为#4860敌人杀死，你应该会读取上一个记录点，并当此事从未发生过。因为如果他就这样死了，对于一个完美故事中的英雄来说，如此结局将是非常耻辱的方式。
If we assume, like Ipreviously argued, that the player’s gameplay decisions and their consequencesmay be treated as a fabric for the narrative, so should be with his failures.They should be given enough weight and acknowledgement to become a real part ofthe story. And preferably an interesting one.
假设，如我之前所主张，玩家的所有的游戏方式将决定结果将构成整个剧情叙事，所以当然应该包括玩家的失败。失败应该被承认并且在整个故事中占据一个非常重要的位置。并且成为一个可取和有趣的点。
One of the mostimportant things I’ve learnt during my whole time at 11 bit studios (3 years)is how to prototype. And that you won’t get away without doing prototypes, atleast at the beginning of the project.
我在整个11bit工作室就职期间（3年）学到最重要的事情之一，就是如何去做原型设计。至少你在开始整个项目时候，你不会想要丢开原型设计。
There’s much that hasbeen said about prototyping games, and I certainly recommend to look it up ifyou haven’t done any prototype yet, but basically it comes to one thing: makingyour design work and test it BEFORE it lands in the game. My biggest mistakescame from being overconfident and assuming that things will work just becausethey looked good “on paper”. In reality, sometimes the simplest prototype isenough to discover the problems. And by “the simplest” I mean that it doesn’teven have to resemble the real game – it can be a mockup in Paint, simple boardgame, a level built in Lego, a spreadsheet, a simple mingame written inBasic... Just use the fastest method to test your current problem.
关于游戏原型设计被反复提及，我个人建议如果你从未做过任何原型设计，但是有一件最基本的事情你应该做：让你的设计运行起来并在它被加入游戏之前测试它。我最大的错误是过于自信与自负，认为自己的设计将万无一失，仅仅是因为他在“纸上”看上去非常的棒。实际上，有时最简单的原型设计就足够你发现其中的问题。而我指的“最简单”是指他不必真的做成游戏—它可以是绘出来的模型；简单的桌游；用乐高设计的关卡；表格游戏；或者是一个用Basic写的迷你游戏……用最简单的方法去测试你潜在的问题。
When we started to work on TWoM, we made a several prototypes for the crucialsystems, each with a few iterations. For example the characters’ needs systemwas first done as a series of spreadsheets, while combat and crafting weretested as small applications done in C# by the designers. Only after we got thefundaments right, we build a bigger prototype combining all of it in somethingthat looked like a very rough version of the game.
当我们开始开发《我的战争》后，我们做了几个关键性的系统原型设计，每个都进行过几次迭代。举例来说玩家需求系统是第一个完成，是用电子表格做成，之后是战斗和制造系统它们被设计者们用C#写成小型的APP以供测试。只有在我们找到正确的基础原理后，我建立了一个更大原型将所有其他的原型结合起来使其看来像一个非常粗糙版的游戏。
One more thing. I’mspeaking from a design standpoint, but similar principles can be applied toother aspects of the game as well, like technical or artistic decisions. Makethe simplest version first to check whether it works. Iterate till it does.
还有。我仅仅以一个游戏设计者的角度去阐述，但同样的观点或原理可以运用在其他方面使得游戏变得更好，例如技术和美术决策。制作一个最简单的版本去验证它是否能允许，如此反复直到满意为止。
Trying out theprototype by yourself is a good idea, but it’s better to give it to someoneelse. The same applies to bigger and more advanced chunks of your game,ultimately even the whole game. And at some point it might be the best toorganize formal, structured playtests to assess the players’ experience fromthe game. Fortunately this was always a part of 11 bit studios’ ethos and hadbeen done consciously throughout the development of This War of Mine. Knowinghow much was improved using the feedback from the tests, I’m quite sure thatotherwise the game wouldn’t be nearly as good.
尝试自我审视你的游戏原型是个不错的想法，但是最好还是让其他人来检查。这样你的游戏玩法才会越来越强大和稳固，最终整个游戏得以提升和进步。并且在某些时候它会促使你变得更加规范和系统，安排游戏试玩区评定玩家从游戏中所获得的体验。幸运的是11bit工作室在开发《我的战争》的时候一直有意识的在坚持这一理念。知道如何通过测试反馈来完善和提升游戏，我非常确定如果不是这样这款游戏很难成功。
How to do it is atopic for at least a separate article. My take is to do it as early as possible(starting from showing the first prototypes at least to your family andfriends) and as often as possible, making sure you’re still on track afterevery major change in the game. However it doesn’t mean it cannot be overdone –the biggest trap is being uncritical about the players’ feedback. Don’t letthem decide, it’s still your game. I personally prefer a doctor’s approach: askhow they feel, but not what remedy they’d like to take.
要如何做那可能需要另开一片文章专门来说这一主题。但我的意见是尽可能的越早越好（最开始可以将原型设计给身边的家人或朋友玩）越频繁越好，要保障你在每次游戏有大的变动之后已然在跟踪他们的反馈。但也不是说不能中断—最重要的一个误区是对这些玩家的反馈完全不加以评论和区别一股脑的接受。不能让玩家做决定，这已然是你的游戏。我个人非常同意医生的方法：只问他们如何感受，不问他们该如何医治。
There’s no one recipe for the game’smarketing, but nowadays contacting people that can show it on YouTube andTwitch is without doubt worth considering. It’s been done with TWoM and went really well, resulting with many greatvideos that attracted many viewers interested in the game.
游戏市场没有秘诀，但是现在我们完全不用怀疑那些将人们连接起来的流媒体比如YouTube和Twitch会告诉我们市场现状。《我的战争》已经很好验证了这一点，其结果是非常多很棒的，视频他们吸引着无数的观众并让他们对这款游戏产生兴趣。
But I’m afraid it won’t work for any game.Some can be spoiled by “let’s play” video or a stream, especially those thatrely on a linear plot. This War of Mine seemsto be different – people, after watching, still want to play. This propertywasn’t planned in the game’s design, but from hindsight I can speculate whataspects of it worked here. I think it’s because of the importance of thepersonal attachment to the events on screen and the ability to build the storyon individual decisions – no matter how many playthroughs you see, you won’tsee everything. Because you won’t see YOUR playthrough.
但是我不能保障这点适用于所有的游戏。有些人可能会说“让我们玩“视频或者直播吧！看完视频就不需要再去玩游戏了，特别是那些一条线走到底的游戏。《我的战争》这款游戏却有所不同，人们看完视频，依然会想要玩它。这点可能是游戏设计中没有计划的，但是从更深层的看我可以推测他是如何做到这一点的。我想造成这以原因最重要的是每个人的游戏偏好不同造成游戏中的事件变化不同，游戏让每个玩家根绝偏好做出选择创造出一个充满自我特色的故事。所有无论你看了多少次这个游戏的通关视频，但是你不会看到全部。因为你无法预见，你会如何去玩这款游戏。
A Polish YouTuber Remigiusz “Rock” Maciaszek was scanned and had a cameo in thegame (https://www.youtube.com/user/RockAlone2k)
以为波兰的YouTuber主播在直播我的世界
So I’d like to proposea bold experiment, which I may also try one day. Let’s design a game havingYouTube and Twitch in mind from the very beginning. If this way of promotion isindeed so powerful, trying to adapt may be a good idea. So let’s create a gamethat gives the YouTubers and streamers something worthy of SHOWING, but alsohas something for the rest, worthy of PLAYING.
所有我想提出一个大胆的实验，某天我也会去尝试这一实验。让我们设计一款从设计之初，就在考虑以后YouTube和Twitch直播的游戏。如果这样让的方式是如此行之有效，那么从一开始就规划那么不失为一个好的想法。所有让我们创造一款对于Youtube和那些流媒体主播值得去分享和展示，但是在看完直播之余还有所保留，依然值得玩家去玩的游戏。
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When working on TWoM I knew it’s a special game, but ultimatelythe reception is beyond my expectations, and probably a surprise to everyone inthe company. I’m glad I could contribute, but it also worked the other way –the influence of the project and the great team I’ve been part of will stay with me for a long time.
当我做《我的战争》时就知道这是一款特别的游戏，但是最终的表现完全出乎我的预期，甚至是整个公司的意料之外。我非常荣幸在其中贡献过自己的力量，但是终究我要走上自己的人生道路，作为这个伟大团队曾经的一份子做出了这样一款伟大的项目，在很长一段时间内他们依然会影响着我。
以上翻译文章内容若有错误之处望海涵，有更好译法，还请不吝赐教。感谢理解与支持！
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