Substance and Style in Game Design

游戏设计中的道与器——

核心规则和表现形式

　　Nobody can completely understand the entire field of game design. There are too many interacting elements, too much information, for the human mind to perceive and consider simultaneously. Thus nobody can hope to think about all of game design at once. The only solution available to the designer is to conceptually split the field up into manageable chunks, each of which can then be considered separately.

　　没有人能够完全了解游戏设计的整个领域。其中有太多相互干涉的要素以及大量信息，我们无法同时识知和理解。因此，不要希望能立刻就能掌握游戏设计的每个环节。设计者唯一可行的做法就是从概念上将整个领域分成若干能够掌握的部分，使得每个部分都可以被单独研究。

　　There are many ways to divide game design so that it can be contemplated intelligently. This article attempts to clarify one of these ways, namely, splitting a game and all of its parts into categories as either style or substance. First, I'll define what style and substance are.

　　因为有很多方法去划分游戏设计，我们有必要预先巧妙的进行划分。这篇文章尝试阐述其中一种方式，也就是：把一个游戏的所有组成划分为核心规则和表现形式两类。首先，让我们先弄明白什么是核心规则和表现形式。

　　Substance is fundamental, and exists in all games by definition, whether these games run on a computer or not. Every computer game, every board game, every tabletop strategy game or pen-and-paper RPG, are all fundamentally composed of substance elements. These elements are defined by how they act and interact with other game elements. One could think of substance, in the example of a computer game, as the part of the game that comes directly from the code. The purpose of substance elements is to, by interacting according to their fundamental natures, to generate decision points for the player.

　　核心规则是游戏的根本要素，它非常清晰的存在于所有的游戏之中，包括电脑游戏和非电脑游戏。任何电脑游戏、棋类游戏、桌面游戏或者是纸上角色扮演游戏，都以核心规则为基础。规则系统通过与其他系统的作用表现出来。以电脑游戏为例，可以认为规则作为游戏的一部分，是直接体现在代码中的。规则系统的目的，就是依靠规则本身所产生的影响使玩家的决定多样化。

　　Style elements are auxiliary, and exist to help elucidate stories, immerse players, facilitate learning, or to serve many other experience-enhancing purposes. They provide an appearance for the substance elements and make the substance elements resemble recognizable things, real or fictitious. One may think of style elements as all those parts of the game that are defined by the art and sound. Style elements, when present, are not separate from the substance elements, but exist as wrappers for the substance elements. Their ultimate purpose is to allow human beings to associate the substance of the game with something in real life or fiction.

　　表现形式是辅助性的，它们的存在是为了引发情节，让玩家投入游戏，使游戏更容易被人接受，或者从其它方面增加对游戏的感觉。表现形式为核心规则提供一个外壳，令规则更类似于我们熟识的东西，无论是真实的还是虚构的。可以认为表现形式就是游戏中所有由美术和声音来表现的部分。表现形式并不是独立于核心规则存在的，而是作为核心规则的载体出现。最终目的是为了让人们把游戏的核心规则与生活中真实或虚构的事物联系起来。

　　An easy way to understand for the difference between style and substance is by example. Many shooter games have traditionally calculated world collision and bullet impacts by modeling bullets as instantaneous line traces and characters as moving collision cylinders. In this case, the line-projecting cylinder is the fundamental nature of the character - the character's substance. The image of a fighter, the sounds he makes and the way he animates is the character's style.

　　举例说明核心规则和表现形式之间的区别其实更简单。很多传统射击游戏都运用一种物理碰撞和子弹射击算法，这种算法模型将子弹射击设为瞬时的直线轨迹和将人物设为可运动碰撞的圆柱体。在这个设计中，那些可以射出直线的圆柱体就是最基本的角色——也就是角色在核心规则中的体现。而战士的图像、他发出的声音和他的动作则是该角色的表现形式。

　　A character can thus be, as a thought exercise, stripped of his style and considered simply as an abstract cylindrical game piece that slides around a level, attempting to project lines into other cylinders. The substance is the cylinder; its rules of interaction, its practical properties. The style is what the cylinder is made to appear as, and what the cylinder's actions appear as.

　　我们试着这样去设想，将一个角色去掉所有的表现形式，而只是简单的将其设想成一个个抽象的圆柱体在水平面上移动，然后向别的圆柱体射出直线。游戏的规则就是这些圆柱体、它们相互作用的条件和它们的运动属性。游戏的表现形式就是圆柱体被做成什么样，还有这些圆柱体所能做的动作。

　　Any number of different styles could be overlaid on top of the sliding, line-projecting cylinder substance. This cylinder could be made to appear as a space marine, a World War II soldier, a puzzle piece in some abstract competitive game, or a robot on treads that fires lasers. The style of the element does not affect the substance - the cylinder still acts the same way whether it looks like Duke Nukem or Bart Simpson.

　　许多不同的形象都可以套在那些在不断滑行和射出直线的圆柱体上。这些圆柱体既可以做成太空战士，也可以做成二战中的士兵，或者抽象的形体，甚至使用激光武器的机器人。这些表现形式并不影响游戏规则——那些圆柱体仍然以相同的核心规则起作用，而不管它看起来像Nukem公爵还是Simpson男爵。

　　An understanding of the style-substance relationship is useful because it allows us to better analyze how game elements interact without being too concerned with how these elements appear. This is a good method of analysis since it allows us to focus clearly on gameplay. An important ability to develop is the capacity to mentally strip away the style of an element so that the underlying substance can be examined alone. It becomes obvious when an element is not contributing to gameplay because it no longer has a crutch, in the forms of a cool appearance, to prop it up.

　　明白核心规则和表现形式之间的关系，有利于我们分析游戏的元素间是如何相互作用的，而不会过于被这些元素的外表所羁绊。这是个很好的分析方法，可以让我们明确地将焦点放在游戏性上。因此形成把表现形式剥离，单独分析潜藏的规则的思维方式就显得非常重要了。如此一来，那些对游戏性不起作用的元素就会被无视，因为在剥离外表的情况下，它们就完全没有作用了。

　　No matter how fascinating the style is (with a few exceptions), if an interactive element or system does not improve the game from a purely abstract lines-and-cylinders gameplay point of view, it needs to be re-evaluated.

　　无论表现形式是如何吸引人（当然也有极少数的例外情况），如果一个交互性元素或是系统在抽象到类似"射线和圆柱体"这样的层面之后，发现游戏性并没有提高，那么它就需要推倒重来了。

　　Substance is always more important in game design. While well-done style is great to have, it is not absolutely necessary to produce a great gaming experience. Substance is necessary. Consider Chess. The game doesn't really resemble contesting armies on an ancient battlefield, but the quality of the decision points it generates is still excellent, which is why it is still popular. The same could be said for classic computer games like Counter-Strike, Civilization and Starcraft. These games have been long surpassed in terms of style quality for years, but the substance remains some of the best available, and these games are still popular.

　　在游戏设计中，核心规则一直是比较重要的。有一个优秀的表现形式固然很好，但这并不是游戏快感产生的必要条件。核心规则才是必要条件。观察一下象棋，其实并不怎么像古代战场上军队之间的战斗，但象棋所营造的战术多样化效果却十分绝妙，这使它至今仍然流行。电脑游戏中的《反恐精英》、《文明》和《星际争霸》同样如此。早在数年前这些游戏的画面表现已经被别的游戏超越了，但是因为它们的规则中最精采的部分一直存在，因此现在还是十分流行。

　　Substance is what really defines games as games. Forms of entertainment without substance elements cannot be games. Movies and books, for example, are forms of entertainment that consist solely of style elements because there is no non-predefined interaction between elements within these forms of entertainment. They present no decisions to the person entertained and are perfectly predictable the second time they are viewed. Since substance is defined by semi-unpredictable interaction and dynamic generation of decision points, this means that movies and books have no substance. To be a game designer is to be a designer of substance.

　　正是因为具备核心规则，游戏才真正成为游戏。任何没有规则元素的娱乐方式都不能称之为游戏。拿电影和书来举例，它们是只有表现形式的娱乐形式，它们的构成元素之中并不包含设定范围之外的互动。它们并不为人们提供多样化的机会，你第二次观看的时候内容的进展是完全可以预见到的。因此规则可以定义为"并非完全不可预见的互动"和"多样化情形产生的可能性"，这就是说电影和书是没有规则要素的。一个游戏策划就是一个规则设计者。

　　There are a few games that exist without any style element. The board game Go, for example, is not generally thought to associate the pieces with warriors since their rules of interaction and appearances don't resemble warriors. Computer puzzle games like Bejeweled often have no style. Bejeweled, for example, does use images of gemstones for its pieces, but the arrangement and action of these gemstones doesn't resemble anything that people do in real life - they are no more than abstract icons.

　　有些游戏甚至没有任何表现形式的要素存在。例如围棋，并不是通常认为那样把棋子和战士联系起来，因为它们的互动的规定和外观并不类似于战士。电脑益智游戏如宝石迷阵（Bejeweled）通常是没有表现形式的。宝石迷阵虽然是使用宝石的图像作为棋子，但这些宝石的排列和作用跟人们日常生活中的事物没有任何类似之处，它们只是一些抽象的图标。

　　While style is not strictly necessary to create a great game, it does convey major advantages. These are:

　　虽然表现形式不是一个优秀游戏必不可少的要素，但它的确能体现一些明显优势。包括：

　　1. Ease of learning, understanding, and retention

　　2. Story Generation

　　3. Role-playing

　　4. Amplification of the wow factor

　　5. Control and amplification of emotional impact

　　1.容易让人熟悉、理解并记住这个游戏

　　2.引导情节产生

　　3.提供角色扮演体验

　　4.增加感观上的刺激

　　5.控制和增加玩家的情绪变化

 

　　I'll now discuss these in detail.

　　下面让我们具体探讨这些优点。

1．Ease of learning and understanding, and retention

1．容易让人熟悉、理解并记住这个游戏

　　Every human on this planet has years of accumulated knowledge from everyday life. This is a vast amount of information. Game designers can harness this pool of knowledge to make their games much easier to understand. If the substance of the game resembles some system that exists in real life, the style wrapper can be designed so that the game appears to be a simulation of this real life system. Joe User will have a much easier time learning a game with a good style wrapper than the same game reduced to abstract elements since Joe will be able to intuitively predict the rules of the system by relating it to the real-life system it resembles.

　　我们每个人都从日常生活积累了多年的常识，这一信息量极其庞大。游戏设计者可以利用所有这些知识来使他们的游戏更容易被理解。如果游戏的核心规则与现实生活的某个体系相似，那包装的表现形式就可以设计成现实生活的仿真系统。由于可以根据现实生活中相似的系统来猜测游戏的规则设定，比起只有单纯抽象规则的游戏，适当的表现形式包装过的游戏的玩法更加直观。

　　For example, a game about cylinders projecting lines at each other and sliding around in a 3D environment would be difficult to learn. There's no reason to assume that there is anything bad about lines being projected at one's own cylinder. Every rule of the game would have to be explicitly memorized before the game could be understood properly.

　　例如，一个关于"各个圆柱体射出直线指向对方，然后在一个三维的环境中游走"这样的游戏会让人难以明白。这里毫无根据的让人假设如果自己的圆柱体被直线射中会有什么坏处，使得玩家在完全理解整个游戏之前必须记清游戏的所有规则。

　　The same game, wrapped up as futuristic fighters in a blood tournament, is much easier to understand. It's very obvious that something bad is happening when the player's character gets shot. The futuristic action game wrapper creates an association between things in the game and things in fiction. A smaller health variable is associated with real injury and death, which are obviously bad. This is why no FPS game tutorial has ever needed to explain that you should avoid dying. The style wrapper makes it intuitive.

　　同一个游戏，如果把它包装成未来战士们在进行一个死亡竞赛，这就很好理解了。如果玩家的人物被击中，很明显这是很糟糕的。这个未来世界动作游戏的包装创造了游戏和科幻小说的联系。一个微小的生命值变动跟真实的受伤和死亡联系起来，这很明显的意味着不利。因此没有一款第一人称射击游戏在说明中会不断提醒你需要避免被杀，经过表现形式的包装让这显而易见。

2．Story Generation

2．引导情节产生

　　Humans enjoy good stories. We like hearing them, watching them, and participating in them. The second function of the style aspect of a game design is to feed the human desire for stories. Style wrappers do this in several ways.

　　人们都喜欢精彩的故事。我们都喜欢听这些故事，观看这些故事，和参与到其中。游戏表现形式的第二个作用就是满足人们对故事情节的需求。表现形式包装通过几种方法达到以上目的。

　　The most obvious way is that style allows designers to incorporate a story directly into a design. Many games consist of a linear or mostly-linear series of challenges that derive from the player's role in some preconceived storyline. This is a well-used basis for game designs that cross almost all genres.

　　最常见的情形是表现形式让设计师可以把一个故事直接结合在设计中。很多游戏都有一系列顺序的（或者大致按顺序的）挑战引导玩家扮演的角色走向预设的故事情节。在所有类型游戏的设计中这都是一个非常实用的基本应用。

　　The other way that style helps feed the human appetite for stories is that it causes the gamer to subconsciously create his own stories as he plays. Some players intentionally do this, as in Machinima. All players subconsciously do this. Subconsciously generated stories are often more powerful than predefined stories because they are, in a sense, true, because they are not the product of some game company's brainstorming session. Even better, they are the player's own stories that he experienced and created firsthand. When the player barely survives an intense gunfight because of some incredible turn of chance or feat of skill, that event becomes a story, to be appreciated and retold. It is made more powerful because it did, in a way, actually happen.

　　满足人们对故事情节需要的另一个方法是引导玩家下意识地在游戏里演绎他自己的故事。有些玩家希望可以自己编故事，现今的"游戏电影"就可以满足玩家这种需求。更重要的是所有玩家都会下意识地演绎自己的故事情节。下意识地演绎的情节通常更比预设的情节更有魅力，因为在某种意义上说，前者更真实，而不是游戏公司的设计部门的产品。这些故事情节是玩家自己亲身参与甚至一手创造的。当玩家由于难以置信的好运气或者精湛的技巧从一场激烈的枪战中幸存下来，这会成为一个津津乐道、值得与其他人分享的故事。这样的故事从某种意义上可以说真的发生过，因而更有魅力。

3．Role-playing

3．提供角色扮演体验

　　Well-done style allows the gamer to role-play. This is not in any way limited to role-playing games. All games with style involve an element of role-playing, in the general sense of the word, even if they don't involve levels or experience points. Well-done style allows gamers to mentally place themselves in their game roles.

　　好的表现形式能让玩家投入游戏角色的扮演。这里所说的角色扮演不仅仅限于角色扮演游戏（RPG）。如果从广义的角度来理解"角色扮演"，可以说所有包含表现形式的游戏都具有角色扮演的元素，即使游戏里没有等级和经验的设定。优秀的表现形式可以让玩家的沉浸到游戏的世界里面去，以自己取代里面的角色。

　　The Tamagotchi was a virtual pet handheld device that was once very popular. There was almost no substance; it provided no goal and few decision points. What the Tamagotchi did well was allow the owner to role play as whatever kind of person he wished - kind and benevolent to maniacally evil. This power to role-play sold many Tamagotchis.

　　像电子鸡这样的电子宠物掌机曾经非常流行。它几乎不包含规则：没有游戏结局，可操作的部分也很简单。但电子宠物的出色之处在于让拥有者可以随意扮演自己喜欢的角色，无论是友爱慈善还是疯狂邪恶。这种角色扮演的魅力令电子宠物一度非常畅销。

　　This accounts for much of the attraction of some types of ultra-realistic games. Games like Lock On: Modern Air Combat, SWAT 3 and Rainbow Six, are largely based on the appearance of realism. These games are effective at allowing role-playing because they allow the player to believe that, on some level, he could have done what he did in the game. Since these games are so close to reality, or at least appear so, it is easier for the player to mentally enter the game world. Virtual achievements are more gratifying when they appear as if they could have been real.

　　扮演的魅力也是那些超真实模拟的游戏能够吸引玩家的原因。比如《锁定：皇牌空战》（Lock On: Modern Air Combat）、《霹雳小组3》（SWAT 3）和《彩虹六号》（Rainbow Six）这些游戏，它们就是建立在模拟现实的基础上。这些游戏在某种层面上让玩家相信他真的做过如游戏里发生的事情，因此能有效提供角色扮演的体验。由于这些游戏如此接近真实（至少看起来是这样），所以玩家很容易投入到游戏的世界里。而其仿真度越高，就越能令人满意。

4．Amplification of the "wow" factor

4．增加感观上的刺激

　　The "wow" factor is what people feel when they find gratification in seeing something incredible. Well-done style can provide this. Obvious examples are the awesome graphics usually present in major new game engines. People enjoy marveling at the new effects, even if only for a while, before new becomes old. This aspect of style development is most effective as a marketing tool, not a game design tool, since new becomes old so fast.

　　所谓的"激赞"效果，指的是人们在看到一些让人震撼的事物时的满足感。出色的表现形式可以给人们提供这种满足感。最明显的例子就是新游戏引擎带来的卓越的画面表现。人们受乐于新效果带来的震撼，哪怕很快这些新效果就过时了。这些表现力的开发是有效的市场推广手段，而不是游戏设计的手段，它们过时的太快了。

　　However, the "wow" factor also ties in with the generation of stories. If something awesome and unusual happens in a game, it incites the wow factor better when it can be described as something awesome and unusual happening with things that exist in real life. Things that happen in real life are more provocative because the sensations are more intense and consequences more serious. We can amplify the emotional power of incredible events in the game world by associating them with corresponding real events. "My hit cylinder somehow made it past 4 opposing cylinders and hit the goal area in record time." is not as good as "My favorite player got physically touched by four defenders and still made it to the end zone in record time." The real-life association amplifies the emotional power of the event.

　　然而，这种"激赞"效果也跟故事情节的产生紧密相连。当在游戏中有卓越、超常的表现时，如果这些表现能跟现实生活中的卓越和超常的情况联系起来，那会更能激发人的满足感。现实生活的事物更煽情，因为感受更强烈和结果更真实。因此我们可以把那些游戏中有震撼性的事件与现实的相应时间联系起来，让情感冲击更强烈。 "我的旗标手莫名其妙地越过了4个敌方的旗标手，最后在限定时间内抵达目标区域"，明显没有"我喜欢的球员被4个对手紧逼防守，仍然在限定时间内达阵得分"效果好。与现实的联系增强了事件的情感冲击。

5．Control and amplification of emotional impact

5．控制和增加玩家情绪变化

　　The use of style allows games to incite more types of emotions than are possible with only abstract representations, and in a more controllable and powerful way. This is where it is important to realize that substance is only the fundamental game in the decision-making sense - substance presents a series of choices, no more. Substance alone can provoke emotions, but they are not very strong and are not very diverse. Designers who want the gamer to feel fear, get nostalgic or laugh need to design their style to accomplish this goal.

　　有效运用表现形式，可以使游戏更容易煽动玩家的各种情绪，而且也更易于控制和增强效果，如果只靠抽象的手法这是无法做到的。在此我们必须要承认，规则只是游戏的基础部分，从操作层面上来说它的全部只是表现为一系列的选择，而没有其他内容。单独的规则也可以激起某些情感，但却不会很强烈而且表现单一。设计者如果想让玩家体会恐惧、怀旧或者开怀大笑，那就需要设计各种表现形式实现这些目的。

　　For example, System Shock 2 is by far the most frightening game I have ever played. The substance of the game was well-done to this effect, since it was well-balanced to keep the player vulnerable and needy. The general sense of worry provided by the substance was amplified and focused into terror by the use of the empty spaceship setting, and freakish half-human enemies.

　　例如，《网络奇兵2》（System Shock 2）是至今为止我玩过最令我恐惧的游戏。游戏的规则已经很好地制造了惊悚的效果，因为游戏设计令玩家一直都处于易受攻击和窘迫的状态下。而因为同时使用了空旷的太空飞船场景和奇形怪状的类人怪物作为敌人而使得焦虑感大大增强使人恐惧。

Individual Preferences and Market Targeting

个人喜好和市场定位

　　Some gamers value substance, others value style.

　　有些玩家注重游戏的规则，而有些更在意其表现形式。

　　Many competitive FPS gamers buy the most tricked-out and overclocked computers on the market, and then turn all of their graphics settings down to the minimum. This means that their games run at hundreds of frames per second, but are horrifically ugly. The game often ends up looking like little more than moving polygonal lumps. This is fine because competitive FPS gamers are not interested in playing a role, making a story or feeling any emotion besides triumph over a defeated opponent. They want to play the game as it is and learn the substance of it down to the most minute detail. These people play the game for the game, not for the story. This is the audience of Go, Chess, Quake 3 and Counter-Strike.

　　很多第一人称射击游戏（FPS）的玩家，他们最大限度的改装和超频自己的电脑，然后关闭所有显示效果。这意味着他们的游戏能够以数百帧每秒的速度运行，但画面效果却简陋得可怜。游戏看上去就像一些多边形块在移动。不过这无关要紧，因为玩家并不是在关注扮演其中的角色，情节的发展或者是体会什么情感，他们所追求的只是击败对手得到胜利。他们只想玩游戏的本质内容，和领会游戏那些被繁复细节所掩盖的规则。他们只为了游戏本身的乐趣而玩游戏，不是为了体验故事。这些就是围棋、国际象棋、《雷神之锤III》（Quake 3）和《反恐精英》（Counter-Strike）的铁杆玩家。

　　The Sims has a feature which allows players to take captioned photos of their virtual characters and upload these photos to the web. This is a great example of style elements being placed such that game will generate stories that the gamers can relate to. Those who play The Sims are not particularly interested in perfectly optimizing their performance. These players play the game, to make and experience stories that they can relate to. Syberia, Baldur's Gate or even ultra-realistic games like Lock On: Modern Air Combat appeal to similar audiences.

　　《模拟人生》（The Sims）有一个功能可以让玩家把带有说明的虚拟人物照片上传到互联网上。这个极佳的例子，展现了如何有效利用表现形式要素，让玩家跟游戏的故事情节进行互动。《模拟人生》的玩家并不会刻意去提高他们游戏的运行速率。他们通过玩这个游戏去参与和体验其中的故事情节。《赛伯利亚之谜》（Syberia）、《博得之门》（Baldur's Gate）甚至如《皇牌空战》这类超写实的游戏就是主要为了吸引这些玩家。

　　Designers should understand who they are targeting with their game and focus their design efforts accordingly. Substance gamers tend to be young men, the large part of the current games market. Style-preference gamers tend to be more female, and appear along a wider age bracket. An action game marketed towards young men needs to have a phenomenal substance design in order to be popular. A game targeted towards less hardcore gamers has a greater need for style, story, recognizable subject matter, and story-generating opportunities.

　　设计者需要明确他们的目标玩家群体是哪些，然后朝正确的方向努力。那些注重规则的玩家多数是年轻人，也是现今游戏市场的主要消费群体。偏爱游戏表现形式的主要是女性，而且有一个更广泛的年龄层。一个面向年轻人市场的动作游戏需要出众的游戏规则设计，这样就会比较容易流行。一个面向大众玩家的游戏就更需要出色的表现形式、情节、明确的主题，和让情节不断发展的机制。

Style as a Marketing Tool

用表现形式作为营销的手段

　　Game design for a commercial product has one goal: to sell games. This is a two-part task: we must first make gamers purchase the game, and then we must make them continue playing the game so that they will encourage their friends to play as well, and are more likely to buy the sequel. In general, style accomplishes the first goal, substance the second.

　　设计游戏的商业唯一目的就是要把游戏卖出去。这可以分为两个环节，首先我们必须让玩家把游戏买回去，然后必须靠这个游戏吸引住他们。这样他们就可能把游戏推荐给朋友，甚至吸引他们购买后续作品。通常第一个目标通过吸引人的表现形式可以达成，而优秀的游戏规则负责后者。

　　While substance is the most important thing from a pure game-design perspective, well-done substance is ineffective as a basis for a marketing campaign because it is impossible to perceive without playing the game for a good amount of time. Well-done style is immediately obvious to anyone who sees a screenshot. This is a major part of the reason that many games continue to have so much effort allocated into style development and graphics, even though these areas are ultimately less important than the underlying substance. Style sells the game to publisher and public, substance keeps people playing and puts you in the hall of fame.

　　单从游戏设计的角度看核心规则是最重要的，但好的游戏规则在市场宣传中难以发挥作用，因为不经过足够游戏时间是无法体验规则的优秀。而任何人只需要看到游戏的截图就可以立刻感受到优秀的表现形式。因此很多游戏都把大量的开发资源分配在有关表现形式的设计部门，去加强画面效果，尽管这些效果最终跟内在的规则比起来并不太重要。表现形式可以让发行商和玩家掏钱，而规则延长玩家的游戏时间从而让你赢得赞誉。

Intensity of Experience Versus Ease of Relation

震撼与亲切的抉择

　　The more intense a simulated experience becomes, the more difficult it is to relate to. These two effects work against each other.

　　模拟现实越是要给人带来震撼，就越难体现亲和力。鱼与熊掌不能兼得。

　　The Sims is also a good example for demonstrating this. The subject matter of The Sims is so familiar and pedestrian that, before it went into production, it was thought by many to be a failure in the making. From one point of view, this seems logical. The game is about mundane tasks which we all deal with daily. Why would anyone want to play a game about something so boring?

　　《模拟人生》也可以作为这种情况的很好例证。由于这个游戏的主题是如此的常见和通俗，在发行之初，很多人都认为它是个失败之作。从理论上讲是没错。这个游戏进行的是一些日常生活中的事，这正是我们每天都在做的事。凭什么玩家会玩一个如此枯燥的游戏。

　　The game ultimately became a huge hit for many reasons, but one of them is that the familiar nature of the subject matter makes it incredibly easy for us to subconsciously and effortlessly develop our own stories while playing the game, without even trying. This is such a powerful effect that, even though the subject matter of The Sims is generally quite pedestrian compared to most other games, gamers find it attractive because it's just so damn easy to relate to.

　　但种种原因《模拟人生》最终取得巨大的成功，而其中之一就是游戏主题让人觉得亲切，使我们下意识地，毫不费力地在游戏中展开自己的故事，丝毫不觉得厌烦。尽管《模拟人生》的主题与其他很多游戏相比显得十分平凡，但玩家却被其亲和力所吸引。

　　The game is close to real life, which means it is about something more boring, but is more familiar, which makes it more powerful. The two effects, one towards intensity of experience, the other towards ease of relation, counterbalance each other.

　　这个游戏十分贴近生活，这意味着枯燥的同时，也让人感到亲切，令游戏变得更具魅力。是要让游戏更具有震撼的体验，还是让游戏更有亲和力，我们需要均衡考虑。

Design Methods Using Style and Substance

运用表现形式和规则的设计技巧

　　An understanding of style and substance allows us to use some new methods of design analysis and creation.

　　通过对表现形式和规则的理解，我们可以使用一些新的技巧来进行游戏设计的分析和创作。

　　The first is style-stripped gameplay analysis. A great method to search for holes in a gameplay system is to mentally strip it of style. If you're making a shooter, imagine your characters as cylinders and gunfire as line traces. When you can do that, examine the gameplay system, determine where it is not generating good decisions, and fix the problem. This is a good method of analysis because it leaves the gameplay naked and deprives it of any crutch that our feelings towards the style might bring.

　　第一个技巧是去除表现形式来分析游戏性。要在一个游戏系统中寻找缺陷，最好的方法是在脑袋里先将它的表现形式去掉。假如你在制作一个射手，想象你的人物是个圆柱体同时把射击看作直线的轨迹。下一步你就可以方便的检查游戏系统，确定哪里出了问题，然后修正这些错误。这个方法可以让游戏可玩性完全暴露，使我们丝毫不受表现形式的干扰。

　　The second method is substance-first design. Even though substance is more important, most games are designed style-first. The style act not just as a wrapper for the final product, but as a wrapper for the designer's thought process. Inspiration comes not in terms of abstract game elements, but of new story elements, new real-life things to place into the simulation, for which a substance system is then built.

　　第二个技巧是从规则出发的设计方法。虽然说规则更重要，但多数游戏都是以表现形式为出发点进行设计的。表现形式不但是最终产品的包装，也是策划的思路。灵感不是从抽象的游戏元素中产生，而是从新的故事中产生，从真实生活的体验中提炼，然后以此为依据建立规则体系。

　　This is not necessarily a good or bad thing. Designing a game as a simulation can provide an excellent source of inspiration for new mechanisms and ideas, as arbitrary restrictions often do. Designers at Valve, during the development of the first Half-Life, found that artificial constraints placed on a level designer (such as a requirement to use a certain type of environmental effect) often spurred creativity and inspired new ideas. So it is with style and game design in general.

　　从表现形式出发的设计方式并不能简单判断是好的或者是坏的。参考现实是设计新游戏机制和新概念很好的灵感来源，很多规则体系都是由此产生。Valve的设计师们在最初开发《Half-Life》时就发现，为了力求真实（例如要求模拟某种环境效果）经常能激发设计师们新的灵感。因此通常游戏设计都会使用从表现形式出发的设计方法。

　　The major problem with style-first design is that after some time, the designs all become too similar each other because they're all simulations of the same things. The style is decided upon and a simulation built before the substance gets tweaked. This means that the fundamentals of the games are all the same; they are just variations on one another.

　　但随之而来的问题是，游戏同质化现象越来越严重，因为很多游戏都是对同一事物的仿真。游戏的表现形式先于规则确立，这意味着游戏设计的基础都一模一样；不同游戏之间只是略有变化。

　　It is an interesting exercise to attempt to design a game, at least on paper, in a purely abstract way while avoiding all references to what the substance of the game represents in real life. Should one desire, one could find a style for the substance elements at the end of the design process, ultimately producing a complete game.

　　我们可以做个有趣的练习（至少在纸上进行），尝试设计一个游戏，而不通过参考现实世界的元素来建立游戏规则。练习时我们要注意的是，在设计的最后步骤才为游戏规则找一个表现形式，然后产生一个完整的游戏。

　　My own paper experiments with substance-first design have revealed that it's a method of game design which is difficult to get used to, but can produce very unique results. Designing substance-first removes all constraints and leaves us free to explore totally original gameplay mechanics. This is an extremely powerful method. Good, original gameplay systems are pure gold in today's game market.

　　我在这些练习中发现，这种从游戏规则出发的设计方法是比较难适应的，但却能产生特别的效果。从规则出发的设计可以解除所有束缚，让我们完全自由探索新颖的可玩性机制。这是一种强有力的方式，精彩的原创游戏系统在现今的游戏市场价值连城。

　　One could even go so far as to program an entire game free of style, using simple placeholder icons for art, in order to test substance game design ideas before deciding what the game will ultimately be about.

　　我们甚至可以把整个没有表现形式限制的游戏编译出来，只使用一些简单的图标符号。这样在游戏最终完成前可以很方便地检验规则设计的创意。

Closing Thoughts

结语

　　An understanding of style and substance allows us to more systematically analyze our games from many perspectives, including decision-making, marketing, intended target demographics, immersion, emergent story creation, predefined story, familiarity versus intensity of experience, and methods of inciting emotions.

　　理解了游戏的规则和表现形式要素，我们就可以更加系统的从各个不同方面分析我们的游戏，包括决策、营销、目标群体统计、让玩家投入、创造各种突发故事、预先设定故事情节、亲和力与强烈体验地选择和必要的煽情的技巧。

　　This article clarifies the relationship between style and substance, it does not attempt to present methods of developing these elements. Actually creating good style and substance elements is an infinitely larger field of study, and is the subject of innumerable other articles. Understanding the relationship between style and substance, however, will help any game designer analyze and create games that much more effectively.

　　这篇文章旨在阐明表现形式和潜在规则的关系，没有打算介绍具体的开发的方法。事实上，关于如何创作优秀的表现形式和规则元素，其中有太多的内容而等待我们学习，有无数的主题可以写成不同文章。而把握了表现形式和规则的关系，将帮助游戏设计者更有效地分析和创作游戏。