Mr.Chris Crawford的游戏策划设计文档

乐天灵魂

Wind_Force: Re:Chris Crawford on game design(translate by Letian)

既然你经常去blizzard.com上看招聘,那我想你也应该知道职位是在不断更新的,2,3月份的职位,会留到现在来等你...

No calls or e-mail, please. This is a full-time position in Irvine, California. We do not have internships available.
    全职工作都是不接受Email，不接受电话的。必须面试。地址：        http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/level-designer.shtml
最后两行。

    你说的不经过面试拿到offer，我是不能相信的。外企公司我也不是没有去应聘过。国内的游戏公司更需要面试了。如果通过跨国视频轻易地拿到offer，还能出国，那对那些飘洋过海到Blizzard的人公平吗？那我们坐在家里天天开着Msn视频好了。

   这个问题我不想再和你讨论了，毕竟你可能是随口说说，因为Blizzard是我的梦想，所以我才会这么关注这些细节。我这么较真有点傻，有那么多人都在想着如何走捷径，他们可能更爱听你讲这些。

其实这些细节不重要，有那个能力，不论在哪里Blizzard都会允许你加入的，不是吗？他们现在正在招世界范围内的美工设计师，美工图片大赛的前两名能够直接去加州和美工团队共进午餐；这也就相当于是面试的一个机会了。
链接（http://www.blizzard.com/inblizz/contests/artcontest2006/）


Contest submissions will be accepted on this website until 11:59 PM PST September 17, 2006! Whether you are low- or high-poly, 2D or 3D, amateur or professional, this will be your chance to pour your creativity into the Blizzard universes: Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft.
Blizzard judges will award grand prizes to the top 3D computer graphic modelers or 2D concept artists in the following four categories:
美工大赛会在这个网页上直到2006年9月17日晚上十二点截止。不论你的图片是否复杂，2D或者3D，业余还是专业，你都可以有这个机会展示你的创造力并且加入Blizzard的世界：暗黑破坏神，星际，魔兽。暴雪将会回报顶尖的3D图片电脑设计师或者2D图片概念设计师，用以下几种方式：
链接上面第一个图片奖励说明：
*Trip for 2 to Los Angeles/Newport Beach & lunch or dinner with the Blizzard art team
前两名能够直接去加州和美工团队共进午餐
（后面的几个是一些奖品。）

希望我们每个人都能圆自己的梦

乐天灵魂

Chapter 11 Storytelling

Tackling the Problem
Someday, interactive storytelling will surely flower

into the mass market of interactive entertainment that

games have failed to achieve. The trick to accomplishing

this great goal is to make a break with the past. In

both marketing terms and design terms, there is no

evolutionary path from games to interactive

storytelling. The people who pull this off will start

with a completely new technology and approach a

completely new market.

The design break is easy to conceptualize and immensely

difficult to build. What is the fundamental component

common to both story and interactivity? Answer: choice.

Aristotle placed choice at the core of story; choice

reveals character. And choice lies at the heart of

interactivity; a user makes a choice with a keyboard or

mouse, and the computer responds to that choice.

LESSON 26
It's the verbs, stupid!



Verbs are the vehicle of choice in the same way that

money is the vehicle of wealth. Whenever we make a

choice, we are choosing between verbs. We don't choose

between Door #1, Door #2, and Door #3; we choose between

going through Door #1, going through Door #2, and going

through Door #3. We choose between kissing the girl

goodnight or shaking her hand goodnight. We choose

between clicking this button or scrolling that window.

Here's the killer problem in interactive storytelling:

We need thousands of verbs. Open up your favorite novel

and count the pages. Now count how many sentences there

are on the average page. Multiply the two counts

together and you get the total number of sentences in

your novel—and each and every one of those sentences has

a verb. That's how many verbs you need for good

storytelling.

The problem is ameliorated by the frequent re-use of

verbs. The single verb "tell" will appear hundreds of

times, often in the form of synonyms such as "explain,"

"say," "relate," "object," and so on. A novel with tens

of thousands of sentences may need only thousands of

verbs.

Unfortunately, thousands of verbs are still a great

many. Can you imagine designing and balancing a system

involving such a huge number of verbs? Those verbs don't

fall into some simple pattern or system that makes it

possible to put them in a simple database. It won't do

to prepare a table of each verb's effects on affection,

charisma, strength, agility, and so forth; in drama, the

effects of different verbs are unique to each verb. Each

verb must be custom-programmed.

LESSON 27
Interactive storytelling requires revolutionaries, not

evolutionaries.



Any programmer can tell you that any programming problem

can be solved with either a code-based approach or a

table-driven approach. To use my own terminology, one

can use either a process-intensive approach or a

data-intensive approach, or any combination of the two.

In general, when you have many variations on a single

theme, it's more efficient to use a table-driven

approach.

We see this process in games programs. The big parts,

like level maps and weapons characteristics, are all

table-driven, while the verbs, being few in number, are

always handled with code. Games programmers often build

custom tools for manipulating the huge databases

required in some games: level editors, map editors,

character editors, and so forth. But the verbs

themselves are always handled with custom code.

This won't work with interactive storytelling, because

interactive storytelling demands too many verbs for a

customized approach. We must therefore create

development environments that combine a database system

with a programming system. Think of it as a database

manager for verbs with an embedded programming language

for interactive storytelling, all highly optimized for

the problems specific to interactive storytelling.

We'll also need a new class of storyteller: somebody who

understands interactivity as well as story, and who does

not shirk from the minor programming demanded by the

development environment.

As you can see, all this will require major breaks with

the past. We need new technology, new creative talent,

and a new marketplace. It's going to be a tough slog—but

what revolution wasn't a tough slog?


第十一章 故事讲述
抓住问题

   有朝一日，交互式故事讲述的鲜花将会在交互式娱乐市场中盛开，其

它的游戏和它相比，黯然失色。迎来新时代的关键就在于和旧时代决裂。

在市场阶段和设计阶段，交互式故事讲述和传统游戏并没有什么区别。致

力于交互式故事讲述的人们将会以一个全新的技术开始，并且最终得到一

个全新的市场。

    设计突破的概念容易理解，可是很难把它细化。在故事和交互性之

间，有什么本质上相同的东西？回答：挑战。亚里士多德把挑战放在他戏

剧的核心；使用挑战来表现角色。挑战同样是交互式技术的核心；一个用

户使用键盘或者鼠标来进行挑战，电脑对挑战进行回应。

第二十六课

    别傻了，就是动词！

    动词对于挑战，就好像钱在财富流通中起的作用一样。每当我们开

始一个挑战，我们在动词之间选择。我们不是选择门#1，门#2，门#3；

我们选择的是进入门#1，进入门#2，进入门#3。我们选择亲吻女孩说再

见，或者握着她的手说再见。我们选择点击按钮或者关闭窗口。


     这就是交互式故事讲述的关键性问题：我们需要数千个动词。打开

你熟悉的小说，翻一翻它。现在查查看平均每一页有多少个动词，查查看

，现在你得到了在这本小说里面所有的句子数目------每一个句子都有

一个动词。这就是故事讲述系统需要的动词数量。

    不幸的是，在现有的技术，数千个动词是很大的一个数目。你能想

象设计一个包含这么多动词的系统，并且让它平衡吗？那些动词并不具备

一些简单的特性和系统属性，因此你不能把它们简单地塞到一个数据库里

面。你也不能制作一张包括所有动词对感情，魅力，强壮，敏捷这样的数

据表；在戏剧中，这些不同的动词的影响相互之间是完全独立的。每个动

词必须要被编进程序。

第二十七课
交互式故事讲述需要的是革命，而非创新。

    每个程序员都会告诉你，所有的问题都可以依靠编制代码或者数据

表的方式来解决。使用我的术语说，是可以使用过程处理或者是数据处理

方法，或者是两者的结合。大致地说，当你在开发一个有很多变量的理论

时，用数据表处理的手法比较高效。

    我们可以在制作游戏中看到这样的过程。大的部分，比如关卡地图

和武器特性，是使用表驱动的，这时那些非常少的动词常常是被代码来处

理。游戏程序员在一些游戏中通常使用的方法是，用传统工具来操作大量

的数据库：关卡编辑器，地图编辑器，等等。但是动词的本身却被代码所

处理。

     这对于交互式故事讲述来说，是不行的。因为交互式故事讲述有着

如此之多的动词。我们应该，并且必须使用数据库和编程的结合处理方法

。想想看，如果对动词使用数据编程，并且内在使用程序编程的方法来驱

动交互式故事讲述，这使得她对特定问题的处理达到最优。

     我们还需要一种新的故事讲述者：一些人像理解故事一样理解交互

性，这些人并不需要拘泥于程序环境的限制，对他们而言，程序的具体发

展环境是次要的。
   
      你看到了，所有这些都需要对传统进行突破。我们需要新的技术

，新的创新人才，还有一个新市场。这是艰难的------但是什么革命步

是艰难的呢？
               atian.dpnet.com.cn------welcome!

Wind_Force

No calls or e-mail, please. This is a full-time position in Irvine, California. We do not have internships available.

既然你帖出了这句话,那你自己翻译一下吧,哪里说不接受电子邮件发送的简历,哪里说必须面试?email就特指resume?
己所不能,勿言人不能.
我告诉你,这个渠道是可以的,但不是一定成功的,你可以发一份求职信和简历,看看自动回复就知道了,连试都不试,就凭借对招聘简章的一知半解,不给自己一次机会,怎么可能成功?!
朋友,去试试吧,不试永远没成功.我最终还是没那个命,也许你可以.
记得申请时看清楚这句话,We do not have internships available. 没有这话的职位再申请.

乐天灵魂

Chapter 8

Common Mistakes

Obsession with Cosmetics
This is by far the most common beginner's mistake, and even experienced designers often stumble over it. I use the term cosmetics to describe those elements of the game that are meant primarily to look or sound good rather than to further the gameplay itself. Another term for the same concept is eye candy.

There are five common motivations to equip a game with good graphics and sound:

To further the gameplay

To permit the player to show off the superior cosmetic capabilities of his new computer

To show off the superior technical prowess of the programmer

To keep up with the competition

To provide the player with images and sounds that are intrinsically pleasing

Reason #1: To further the gameplay by making the player's situation and options as clear as possible. This is the only good reason for pursuing cosmetics.

Remember, this is a game, not a movie, not a musical, not a book. Everything that you put into the game should support the gameplay. If it doesn't support the gameplay, it doesn't belong in the game.

Many game designers have difficulty understanding what is meant by "supporting the gameplay." They confuse relevance with support, and so figure that any image, animation, or sound that is relevant to the topic of the game belongs. If the game is a dungeon crawl, they figure a picture of a castle or a dragon just naturally belongs in there somewhere. This is fuzzy, sloppy thinking. In order to support the gameplay, the cosmetic feature must in some way provide the player with information that is relevant to the choices that the player must make.

An example of a useful graphic is the addition of shadows to a 3D combat game. If the player notices the shadow of an enemy just around the corner, that information is useful and will affect the player's decisions. Hence, the addition of shadows to a 3D engine is beneficial to the game design.

Many game designers erroneously believe that graphic realism necessarily enhances the entertainment experience. Figure 8.1 clears up the misconception.

The common misconception holds that more graphic quality is always better. People don't work this way! The value of almost any commodity to the consumer follows diminishing returns: the more you have of it, the less value each increase offers you. There are, of course, plenty of exceptions and special considerations, but in general, more is only decreasingly better.

第八章   

常见的错误
被声光效果困惑

    这是最为常见的新手的错误，有些有经验的设计师甚至也会犯这样

的错误。我使用术语“化妆品”来描述这些游戏元素，华丽的音效或者画

面是为了让游戏本身的游戏性更好。另一个术语就是，视觉注意力。

     在游戏中使用华丽的图片或者声音，通常有如下五个目的：

    1 进一步提高游戏性。

    2 让玩家可以使用他新电脑的高级属性

    3 展示编程人员的高超技巧

    4 跟上竞争
  
    5 给玩家提供让人愉悦的图画和声音。

    原因#1:
          把游戏角色的效果作的更好，进一步提高游戏性，这是     

          可行的。这是制作声光效果的唯一合适时机。
   
    记住，这是游戏，不是电影，不是音乐，不是书。每一件你放到游

戏里面的东西都应该支持游戏性。如果它不支持游戏性，那么就不要把它

放到里面。
   
    很多设计师在理解“支持游戏性”的意思方面都有问题。他们把“相关”和“支持”这两个概念混淆了。所以他们在意每一张图片，每一个动画，或者声音，他们认为这些都和游戏的主题相关。如果游戏是地牢围攻，他们就画出来一张包括那些地方应有的龙或者包括城堡的图片。这是虚假的，毫无意义的。为了支持游戏性，为了支持游戏性，声光效果应该给玩家一些信息，这些信息是和玩家将要面临的选择相关的。
   
     一个有用的图片例子就是，3D格斗游戏的影子。如果玩家在拐角注意到敌人的影子，从而发现敌人，那么这个信息就是有效的，并且将会影响玩家所做的决定。因此，在3D引擎中加上影子对游戏设计来说就是有益的。
  
     很多游戏设计师错误的认为真实的图片在娱乐体验中是必须的。通常的误解是认为越好的图片质量就越支持游戏性。人们不是这样看的！任何日用品的价格在顾客那里都遵循收益递减原则：质量越高，再增加质量的时候，你所得到的单位收益就越少。因此，虽然有很多例外和特例，大体上来讲，过高的图片质量只会起到反效果。

      atian.dpnet.com.cn------welcome!

godsun2008

衷心希望你梦想成真。当初我给blizzard发信的时候，直接告诉我他们不接受非美国国籍的人士。看来现在标准松动了，大家要把握机会啊。

我已经打消想法了，家庭、生活等多方面原因，暂时不会出国，而且如果要出国当初在学校的时候就该出，现在签证没当时容易。

希望在暴雪某个产品的设计者上看到中国人的名字。。。现在出现的都是美术、程序，要么就是华裔。好歹EA那都有一些中国人。

而且，希望所有成功的人也给后来的人更多的帮助。

乐天灵魂

godsun2008: Re:Chris Crawford on game design(translate by Letian)

衷心希望你梦想成真。当初我给blizzard发信的时候，直接告诉我他们不接受非美国国籍的人士。看来现在标准松...

good luck!
至于成功之后我如何如何,我想我还没有说这个的资格.
但是我为梦想的付出,是无怨无悔的.
我宁愿为了自己的理想奋斗一生,失败一生,也不愿意放弃自己的理想.
到目前为止,得了一些成绩,我还是很幸运的.
在大是大非上面,我想我是很傻的,不懂得改变.
wave!

乐天灵魂

Chapter4 Challenge
The Point Is the Challenge, Not the Goal

I once designed a little exercise game for myself. I hung a motorcycle tire from a rope tied to the ceiling of a high garage. Halfway up the rope I also attached a heavy weight. This created a compound pendulum, whose mechanical properties are quite complicated. When the tire is placed in motion, the intermediate weight is dragged along with it, and starts oscillating in its own fashion, dragging the tire in its turn. From ground level, the tire appears to gyrate in wild and unpredictable ways. Then I drew a circle one meter in diameter on the floor directly underneath the pivot point of the rope. This was the field of play.

The goal of the game was to hit the tire with my sword as many times as possible, without stepping outside the circle or being touched by the tire. This required me to weave, duck, twist, and turn to evade the tire when I couldn't hit it. Of course, hitting the tire sent it off in new and more complicated gyrations. It was an excellent game and provided me with much all-body exercise.

Quite proud of my design, I showed it off to another designer. I explained the rules to him and handed him the sword. He stepped inside the circle and began lightly tapping the tire with the sword. When I asked him what he was doing, he replied, "Winning the game."

My game designer friend's clever trick demonstrates a crucial factor in the enjoyment of challenge: It's easy to ruin a good challenge by exploiting loopholes in the rules. No matter how carefully you set up the challenge, somebody will think of a way to subvert your system. One solution to this problem is to write reams of rules to prevent every imaginable form of cheating. For example, I wonder if baseball has a rule that makes it illegal for a runner to shoot opposing players to prevent them from tagging him out. Probably not. But in what we call "friendly games," players rely on simple rules and reject clever tricks that subvert the challenge of the game. "No fair!" is a cry that makes up for a lot of complicated rule-mongering.

A variation on this problem is called the "lock on victory." This is a strategy or technique that guarantees success. For example, in the classic game MazeWar, one of the earliest multiplayer games, the players move around through a maze shooting at each other. Sometimes a player would back up into a dead end, facing the only entrance. The moment somebody passed by, the dirty rat would shoot them. Since nobody could ever get into position to shoot the rat quickly enough, he was guaranteed never to lose. This behavior was perfectly legal within the framework of the rules, but everybody knew that it was "no fair."

This is a key element of challenge that is often misunderstood. The player's formal goal is to beat the system enclosing the challenge, but the player's ultimate goal is to overcome the challenge. Thus, even the cheater who finds a way to beat the rules without beating the challenge feels unsatisfied with the result. Of course, with computers, it's much easier to enforce rules— you simply make undesired behavior impossible to execute. Nevertheless, you should always be aware of this potential problem.


第四章 挑战
关键是挑战，而不是目的。
  
   我曾经自己设计过一些练习性的游戏。我把一个摩托车的轮胎用一个绳

索吊在车库的天花板上，在轮胎的中间，我拴了一个重物。这样就形成了一

个复摆，它的摆动规律非常的复杂。当整个系统运动起来的时候，中间的重

物以自己的摆动轨迹牵引着它，把轮胎带向它的方向。从地面上看，轮胎在

毫无规律地向四面八方摆动。我在拴轮胎的那个点下面画了一个一米为直径

的圆，这就是游戏的地点。

   游戏的目的就是用用剑尽可能多次数地击中轮胎，并且不能退出圆圈区

域外面或者被轮胎碰到。这就需要来回闪避，急忙蹲下，并且在不能击打到

的时候躲开轮胎。当然，击中它会造成更复杂的运动。这是一个很棒的游戏

，并且给我提供了很多的身体练习。

   我把我的设计很自豪地展示给另外一个设计师。我给他解释了这个游戏

，并且把剑递给他。他蹲在圆圈里，并轻轻地用剑碰触轮胎。当我问他在干

什么的时候，他回答：“赢这个游戏。”

   我的游戏设计师朋友的聪明做法展示了挑战中的一个很严肃的因素：利

用规则的漏洞很容易让一个挑战变得毫无意义。不论你多么小心地设置这个

挑战，，总有些人能想出办法来攻克你的系统。一种解决办法就是明确地写

下规则来制止每一种作弊形式。比如，我想棒球就有一个规则这样规定，跑

垒的球员不允许通过投掷来制止他们跑垒。但是当我们称作“友谊赛”的游戏

中，玩家们彼此之间用简单的规则进行约束，并且拒绝破坏游戏的挑战性。

“不公平！”这声尖叫是一大堆复杂规则的来源。

   这个问题的另一种表现形式就是“仅仅以胜利为目标。”这是一个保证胜

利的方针。比如，在经典游戏“迷宫之战”中，这是一个最早期的联网游戏，玩家们在迷宫中相互射击。有些人就蹲在一个死角，盯着出口。只要有人经过，这些卑鄙的家伙们就射击。如果没有人能够很快地反应过来把这个家伙干掉，那他就永远不会输。这个行为在过去是在游戏的框架之内的，但是每个人都知道，这是“不公平的”。

   这就是挑战的关键词，这通常被误解。玩家首要的目标是击败挑战，但是玩家的最终目标应该是战胜挑战。尽管玩家能够用规则漏洞来毫无困难地赢得挑战，但这不是目的。当然，使用计算机来强制执行规则更容易------你很容易让不合理的行为受到惩罚。无论如何，你应该考虑到这个潜在的问题。

   （如上的这个问题在设计阶段由游戏设计师GD考虑，在检测阶段由游戏质量检测人员QA来检测。译者按）
      
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How to "Get Creative"

You can facilitate this process in a number of ways. The best strategy is to stuff your head full of concepts and all their associations. After all, the bigger the web of associations at your disposal, the greater the chance that you'll find some odd parallel between two ideas. Wouldn't it be great if you noticed a creatively useful connection between, say, dinosaur paleontology and Polynesian language structures? Of course, if you don't know much about dinosaur paleontology or Polynesian language structures, you'll never notice the connection, will you? You want to populate your mind with a wondrous and colorful diversity of ideas, a grand carnival of conceptual heterogeneity.

And how might you go about this task? Simple: You read. Herein lies the greatest failure of the younger game designers: They don't much believe in reading. "Hey, we're the video generation," they tell me. "We were brought up on a steady diet of video. We won't put up with all those boring books. We need some sensory stimulation." Some also claim that they can find anything they need to know on the Internet, so there's no need for books, they smugly assert.

Brace yourself: I'm putting on my "Crotchedy Old Fart" hat and I'm going to give you a lecture.

Now see here! If you think that you can learn enough about the world to design games without doing a substantial amount of reading, you're never going to amount to anything! Video is designed for the lowest-common-denominator audience—people who couldn't stumble their way through a multi-clause sentence if their lives depended on it. And the Internet contains very little of intellectual substance. The grand total of all the information that I can find on the Internet about any given topic of real intellectual interest is less that what I can get in a single good book. You try looking up Erasmus on the Internet—I guarantee you won't find anything matching what you'll get in a single good biography. Or dinosaur paleontology, or Polynesian language structures, for that matter. Sure, maybe someday you'll find some of this stuff on the Net. But do you ever think you'll find anything like Fiscal Accounts of Catalonia Under the Early Count-Kings (1151?1213), or Conjunction, Contiguity, Contingency: On Relationships Between Events in the Egyptian and Coptic Verbal Systems? The latter book, believe it or not, actually contributed to some of the thinking that went into writing this book. Don't kid yourself—if you want to compete with Da Big Boys, you gonna have to do some serious reading.

LESSON 13
Read more.



Harrumph!

Reading is a lifelong process. I remember reading Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in sixth grade, primarily because it was the biggest book I'd ever seen in my life. And I've been at it ever since. You don't need to be as maniacal as I've been, but if your bookshelf contains little more than science fiction novels and technical manuals, you probably better reconsider your intention of becoming a game designer.

And if you think that this is just Chris Crawford's personal hobby horse, think again. Will Wright is always recommending to me these weird, strange books; I try them out and wonder what the hell is going on in his head. Sid Meier will floor you with his reading background. Dan Bunten read voraciously. Same thing goes for Brian Moriarty, Gordon Walton, Greg Costikyan, and Eric Goldberg. All the great game designers are reading addicts—and so am I.

第七章 创新：不可缺少的成分

如何去“创新”

   你能够用很多种方式来实现这个过程。最好的策略是把你的头脑塞满了各种想法和它们的结合。毕竟，在你的头脑中各种联想的结合越多，你就越有机会得到两种概念之间类比的思想。这难道不是很棒吗，当你找到两种思想之间相通之处的时候？比如，恐龙古生物学和波利尼西亚人语言结构之间有着共同的地方？当然，如果你对恐龙古生物学或者波利尼西亚人的语言结构了解的都不多，你永远不会发现它们之间的联系。不是吗？你想要的就是把你的思想中充满令人惊奇的和多样而又优美的想法，那么你就会得到许多种这样的联系。

    那么，你怎么才能达到这个目标？很简单，阅读。很多年轻的游戏设计师在这里就是他们最大的弱点。他们不相信阅读带来的好处。“嘿，这是视频时代。”他们告诉我。“我们从很多视频中学习。我们才不看那些令人讨厌的书呢。我们需要感官刺激。”一些人声称他们能够在网上找到所有的东西，于是不需要书，他们得意地这样断言。

    站稳了：我要戴上我“老学究”式的帽子，来给你上一课。

    现在看着这里！如果你认为你能够不需要阅读就能够学会如何设计游戏，你什么也做不了！视频是为了那些流行，迎合大众的口味来制作的------那些人甚至从来不说任何带有复杂结构的句子。网络上有的知识也是非常少的。我从一本书中得到的知识，比我在因特网上得到的关于这个话题信息还多的多。你试试看在网络上搜索传记这种书籍，我敢说你搜索不到什么。或者古生物学，或者波利尼西亚人的语言结构，等等。确实，你能够在网上找到一些类似的东西。但是你能不能找到这样的：《加素罗尼亚国王（1151-1213）的财宝数目》或者是《联合，接触，偶然：古埃及人的口头语言结构》？后面的那本书，不论你相信还是不相信，是我写这本书的一些思想基础。别自欺欺人了------如果你想要和大人物竞争，你必须做一些严肃的阅读。（译者认为这种严肃的阅读应该基于自己的兴趣。比如你看到了这里，难道这本书不就是关于游戏设计的一本严肃读物吗？：））

第十三课：
多读一些。

    阅读是一个一生的过程。我记得我六年级的时候读过鲜花郡和德意志帝国的衰亡，主要是因为那是我当时见到过的最厚的一本书。你不需要像我那么做，但是如果你读的书很少有科幻小说或者是技术文章的时候，你也许该重新考虑是否成为一名游戏设计师。

    如果你相信这仅仅是Chris Crawford的一面之词，那你再想想吧。Will Wright（EA首席设计师，设计代表作虚拟人生2译者注）曾经推荐给我很多奇怪的书；我试图通过阅读他们来看看Will Wright头里到底在思考着什么。Sid Meier会给你很多书让你看。Dan Buten疯狂地阅读。同样的，Brian Moriarty, Gordon Walton, Greg Costikyan, and Eric Goldberg.所有伟大的设计师都在阅读------包括我。

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译者注：从这一段中间我们能够找到中西文化的交汇点：中国人说“天将降

大任于斯人也，必先苦其心志，饿其体肤，空乏其身，行拂乱其所为。”西

方人是这样说的： You've got to feel the problem in your

heart. You've got to ache over it, agonize over it, make

it hurt. You've got to perceive the problem in direct

sensory terms. （你必须把这个问题放到你的心灵深处。你为此觉得疼

痛，受到折磨，心志受苦。你需要直接用感官来感受问题。）

Chapter7 Creativity:The Missing Ingredient

Another useful strategy is to wonder. Wonder about

anything and everything. Have you figured out why the sky

is blue? If not, shame on you! It's the most common

wondering question anybody could ask. And for that matter,

why aren't cows green? They spend their days outside in

the sun eating green grass; wouldn't it make sense for

them to do a little photosynthesis of their own? Why do

catchy tunes, especially commercial jingles, go round and

round inside our heads until we could scream? Why do young

adolescent girls go bonkers at rock concerts? Why are

there tiny serrations around the edges of some coins? Why

do dogs bark while cats meow? All these questions have

answers, and if you had wondered about them, you'd have

found the answers by now.

LESSON 14
Wonder more.


Wondering is important because it is an exercise in

tightening up the web of associations in your mind. When

you eventually figure out why the sky is blue, the answer

will also explain why the sunset is red—and two previously

unconnected ideas will become connected in your mind. More

connections make possible more comparisons, and therefore

greater creativity.

Reading and wondering comprise the strategy of creative

endeavor; they help build your overall creative strength.

But when it comes time to tackle a particular creative

challenge, you're into the world of tactics, and again I

have some specific advice for you.

The first step is to translate the creative challenge into

the terminology of your mind: emotion. Reason and

intellectualism are not part of the fundamental

architecture of the human mind. They are artifices added

in the last few thousand years, part of our veneer of

civilization. Scratch a modern human and you'll find a

hunter-gatherer, full of fears, quick to anger, driven by

lust and hunger. These are the basic driving forces of the

human mind, and if you want to engage the full creative

potential of that mind, you've got to express your problem

in its native language of emotion. You've got to feel the

problem in your heart. You've got to ache over it, agonize

over it, make it hurt. You've got to perceive the problem

in direct sensory terms. What does it look like? What does

it smell like? If it made a sound, what would that sound

be? Most important is the kinesthetic sense: What does the

problem feel like in your skin?

A digression on the power of kinesthetic perception: Many

times I have used a joke that Alan Kay told me to make an

important point about software design. The joke goes like

this:

There was this fellow who decided he needed a new suit. So

he went to a tailor and got measured for the suit. Two

weeks later he showed up at the tailor's shop to try on

his new suit. But when he put it on, the fit was terrible.

"Look at this left sleeve!"he exclaimed. "It's way too

long!" "No, no, no!" the tailor answered. "You just don't

know how to wear an elegant suit. Here, all you have to do

is hitch your left shoulder up high like this; see how the

sleeve lines up perfectly with your wrist now?" The man

tried it out, and sure enough, if he scrunched his body up

and stretched the left shoulder up high, the sleeve did

seem to fit well. "But what about this right leg?" he

protested, "It's too short!" Again the tailor contradicted

him: "You're not standing properly. If you keep the right

leg straight with the knee locked, the leg looks perfect!"

Again the skeptical customer tried out the tailor's

suggestion, and again the correction seemed to work.

Abashed, the man paid the tailor and, with hunched

shoulder and locked knee, left the shop, and staggered

painfully down the street. A block away, he was accosted

by a passerby. "Where did you get that magnificent suit?"

the stranger asked. The man lifted his contorted arm to

point towards the tailor's shop. "I've got to get myself a

suit from him!" the passerby exclaimed. "If he can make a

suit to fit a crippled hunchback like you so well, he must

be an excellent tailor!"




Chapter7 创造性：丢失的部分

     另外一种有用的办法是去思考。思考每件事情。你有没有弄明白为什

么天空是蓝色的？如果没有，你真应该感到羞耻！这是每个人都应该问到的

最常见的思考性的问题。还有，为什么牛不是绿色的？它们天天都在阳光下

面吃草，难道自己做一些光合作用不是更好吗？为什么那些动人的曲调，尤

其是摇滚乐，在我们头脑里面回响，几乎让我们尖叫出来？为什么年轻的女

孩子在摇滚演唱会上面几乎疯狂？为什么硬币的边缘有锯齿？为什么狗汪汪

叫，猫喵喵叫？所有这些问题都有答案。如果你对它们思考过，你现在就可

以找到答案。

第十四课
勤于思考


     思考非常重要，因为它是加强你头脑里面知识之间联系的一种练习。

当你在思考明白了为什么天是蓝的，那么你同样也可以解释为什么太阳是红

色的------两个之前毫不相关的思想将会在你的头脑里面建立起了联系。

在进行思考，更多的比较之后你会发现更多的联系，因此你就更具备创造性

。
  
     读和思考创造性行为的策略，它们会帮你建立起你的创造力。但是培

养特定的创造性需要时间，而且有很多种可能。所以我对你有一些特别的建

议。

     第一步，是把创造性的挑战翻译成你自己的思想语言：挑战。因果逻

辑并不是人类感情的最基本部分。它们是最近几千年才嫁进来的技巧，是我

们单薄文明的一部分。把文明人的外衣去掉，你会发现一个原始猎人，会恐

惧，容易愤怒，被食欲和性欲所驱动。这些才是人类思想中最为原始的驱动

力，如果你想要把你整个的创造力都发挥出来，那么你就需要用你最为原始

的情感来表达它。你必须把这个问题放到你的心灵深处。你为此觉得疼痛，

受到折磨，心志受苦。你需要直接用感官来感受问题。它看起来像什么？闻

起来呢？如果它能够发声，那么听起来像什么？更重要的是肌肉感觉：用你

的皮肤去感受，它像什么？
     关于肌肉感觉，说句题外话：很多次我都使用Alan Kay曾经告诉我

的一个笑话来表达我对软件设计的一个观点。笑话是这样说的：

     有个人想要买一套新衣服。于是他到一个裁缝那里去订做。两个星期

之后他去裁缝那里试穿新衣，但是当他穿上衣服的时候，感觉糟透了。“看

看这个左边的袖子！”他说道。“太长了！”“不，不！”裁缝说道。“你应该

知道如何去文明地穿衣服。这里，如果你把左边肩膀抬高一些；看看袖子是

不是正好合适了？” 那个人试了试看,果然很合适。于是他弯曲身体把左肩

膀抬高，那只袖子看起来很好。“但是右腿呢？”他又说道。“太短了！”裁

缝又纠正了他：“你站的不对。你如果把右腿的膝盖弯曲一些，那就正好！”

他又试了试，果然正好。这个顾客不安地付了钱，蜷缩着膝盖，抬高肩膀地

走到了大街上。有个路人看到了他，和他说话：“哪里你找到的这么合适的

衣服？”路人说。他指向那个裁缝的裁缝店。“我也要去买一套！”路人说。

“如果那个裁缝能给你这样的残疾人设计这么合身的衣服，拿他一定是个伟

大的裁缝！”

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译者注:
看这段的时候，我突然想起了七龙珠(如果你认为漫画对于游戏设计不重要,

那你就错了.大多数游戏策划面试中必然包含漫画考题)。那本漫画之所以受

到广泛的欢迎，其实它的思想根基是对于从失败中获得经验，走向强大的人

的一种抽象。比如孙悟空和代表邪恶规则的弗利沙战斗时一次次被击倒，最

后瞬间变成超级赛亚人.如下文所说：“ Then follows a quiescent

period where the creator is distracted by some extended

but mindless busywork. Finally comes the brainstorm

itself, and the subjects always report that the entire

solution leaps upon them with suddenness.”------在创新者心

烦意乱地被一些无意义的工作困惑的时候，最终头脑风暴本身，会突然之间

把整个问题揭示出来。
Chapter 7 Ctrativity:The Missing Ingredient

The moral of this story, in regards to software, is that

we accommodate ourselves so willingly to poorly designed

software that we start to think that the software itself

is good and that we are cripples. Now, when I tell this

joke to students, I embellish it by contorting myself and

comedically staggering about as the hapless customer. This

kinesthetic embellishment makes a deep impression on the

students; later in the course I am able to instantly

demolish the old "once you get used to this software, it

makes perfect sense" argument by hunching myself up and

staggering a few steps. Everybody laughs and the point is

driven home. Once I even saw an argument at a distance,

with one student hunching and staggering, and the other

student making concessionary gestures. Ideas expressed

kinesthetically really hit home. So feel the problem in

your body!

It could take days, weeks, or even months to drive the

problem deep into your subconscious. But once you have

driven it deep enough, you'll know. You'll feel an

emotional fatigue, a sense of exhausted futility. That's

when it's time to stop. Take a break, perhaps even a

vacation. Desist all conscious efforts at the problem and

let it simmer in your subconscious. Get plenty of sleep

and dreams so that it can have the time to sink its teeth

into the problem. If you've done your job well, you may

notice that your dreams are, in an emotionally abstract

fashion, indirectly addressing the problem. As the

subconscious hones in on the problem, your dreams may well

become more specific about it. And one day, when your mind

is distracted by some trivial task, the solution will leap

out at you, whole and complete. In one blinding flash,

you'll see everything and the answer will seem so simple

that you'll wonder why you didn't see it before.

This is called a brainstorm, and it has been much studied

and much has been learned about it. Great geniuses who

have experienced brainstorms have described their

experience in detail, and the common elements are widely

reported. First, there's a phase of intense emotional

involvement with the problem. The creator struggles

mightily, but fails. Then follows a quiescent period where

the creator is distracted by some extended but mindless

busywork. Finally comes the brainstorm itself, and the

subjects always report that the entire solution leaps upon

them with suddenness.

I have used the technique with reasonable success. I can't

force brainstorms to happen—sometimes I strain and strain

but my mind is hopelessly constipated. But the tactic

works often enough that I have made it a permanent part of

my intellectual lifestyle. If you have built up the abs

and pecs for heavy creative work, and apply this technique

with the intensity it requires, odds are that you will

have some creative success with it.

A Tyrannosaurus Rex for Ideas

Creative productivity is still only half the job—once you

have all those great ideas, your next task is to murder

most of them. The sad truth is that most creative ideas

are bad ideas. In my career as a game designer, I have

come up with hundreds of original ideas that I ultimately

abandoned. The chapters on specific games later in this

book will present only the most cogent of those ideas.

What you need is a Tyrannosaurus Rex stalking through your

mind, viciously attacking every idea you create. It should

pounce instantly and sink its teeth into the soft flesh of

your idea. It should rip and tear with bloodthirsty

abandon. Most of your ideas will be torn to shreds by your

inner Tyrannosaurus. That's good—better that they be prey

to your own monster than shredded by others or, worse

still, fail in the marketplace after you've invested time,

money, and reputation on them.

Thus, the ideal game designer is a prolific nursery of

creative ideas, spawning hundreds of clever new schemes,

feeding these innocent newborns to the hungry

idea-destructors. Amid all this creativity and carnage, a

few truly great ideas will emerge.

But the balance between fecundity and predation must be

perfect for the system to work. Some people just don't

generate many ideas to start with, so they tend to cherish

what few ideas they generate; it's pathetic. When they

foist their miserable little ideas on me, my inner

Tyrannosaurus jumps up and down gleefully, eager to

masticate the plump little baby ideas. In younger years, I

unleashed my Tyrannosaurus too readily, and its ferocity

hurt and angered many people. Nowadays I keep it on a

short leash; if an idea is truly bad, it will probably die

of natural causes. I unleash my monster only if the baby

idea actually poses a threat of turning into something

real.



第七章 创造性：丢失的部分
     
    这个故事对于软件设计的寓意，就是我们努力去适应糟糕的软件设计

，于是我们以为软件是好的，而我们自己是有缺陷的。现在，当我把这个故

事讲给学生们的时候，我总是扮演那个蹒跚走路的不幸的顾客。这种肌肉运

动给学生们留下了非常深刻的印象；晚些时候我只要一提到“你用这个软件

吧，它会带给你完美的感觉”的时候我就会蜷着腿跳段路。每个人都笑了，

这个观点被表达出来了。有次我在一段距离之外就看到了一个学生在给另外

一群学生表演这个。这回思想才是真正地被他们接受了，用身体去感受它！

     也需要好几天，好几个星期，甚至好几个月来把问题深入到你的潜意

识之中。但是只要你把它放的足够深，你会知道了。你将会感到一种情感的

疲乏，精疲力尽。这时候需要放松。停下来，或许应该去度个假。终止所有

关于你的梦想的创造性思考，把它深深地放在你的潜意识里面。如果你已经

把你的工作做得差不多了，你也许会注意到你的梦想在情感上形成了一个抽

象的样子。有一天，你的思想在处理一些琐事的时候，突然之间，整个思路

开阔了，完全的，彻底的。在一阵眩目的闪光之中，你会看到所有的事情和

答案，那是那么的简单，你会奇怪为什么以前没有思考到过。

      这就叫做头脑风暴，它现在被人们深入地学习和使用。天才们有经

验把他们的头脑风暴用细节来表达出来，基本的元素一般人都具备。创新者

们强烈地拼搏，但是失败。在创新者心烦意乱地被一些无意义的工作困惑的

时候，最终头脑风暴本身，会突然之间把整个问题揭示出来。

      我曾经用过这个技术取得过一些成功。我不能够强迫头脑风暴的发

生------有时我努力了又努力但是我的思想几乎不运转。但是我把它作为

了一种我的思维体系组成的一部分。如果你在创新性方面多做一些锻炼，并

且把这种技术实地应用出来，那么你最后就会获得创新性的成果。

思想上的暴龙

      创新性仅仅是工作的一半------你有了这些很棒的主意，你的下一

步是把它们其中的大部分去掉。令人伤心的事实就是，大多数创新想法是没

有用的想法。在我的游戏设计师的职业生涯之中，我曾经产生过数百个原创

的想法，但是最终都抛弃了。稍后在这本书中关于游戏设计的那个章节展示

的都是那些精选出来的想法。

       你需要的就是你思想上的暴龙，来攻击你所创造出的每一个你所创

造出来的想法。它会对你的想法突然发起袭击，并且把牙齿埋进它们的新鲜

血液中，带着嗜杀的表情把它们撕碎。大多数你的想法都会被你的思想上的

霸王龙吃掉。那是件好事------总比被别人杀掉要好，更糟的是，有时在

你投入了时间，资金和名誉之后。

        因此，游戏设计师就是一个包括了幼年创造性思想的育婴室。有

数百个新的概念来喂饱思想上的霸王龙。当创造力经历了血腥的厮杀之后，

一些很棒的想法就会诞生。
      
         但是在掠夺和多产之间应该有一个平衡关系。有些人根本没有产

生很多想法，所以他们抱着自己产生的少得可怜的想法不放；真可怜。当他

们把那些可怜的小小想法拿给我的时候，我的内心深处的霸王龙上窜下跃，

在我年轻的时候，我把霸王龙轻易地放出来，它的暴怒伤害了很多人。现在

我把它用皮带拴起来；如果一个想法很糟糕，可能就会被自然地淘汰。我只

有在这些糟糕的想法变成现实的时候才会去放开我的霸王龙。

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