#2 Chris Bell 面向友情的设计 Designing For Friendship
我希望推荐并翻译的是游戏设计师Chris Bell 2012年的GDC分享《Designing For Friendship》的全文,他从个人经历出发,我们能十分清晰地看到他对自身经历的思考与在游戏设计中的实践。
他所谈论的《Journey 风之旅人》和《WAY》中的匿名性,以及陌生人之间前语言式的建立联系的方式是共通并且有效的,而这在人与人信任崩塌,社会日益原子化而建起藩篱的今天显得额外珍贵。
诚然,这种电子游戏的买断特性,以及反向的筛选机制使得社区氛围是更好的,但是这样的设计实验被证明是有效的。
我们也能看到在那之后,使用了言语文字,但同时保持了匿名性的晚近的独立游戏《Kind Words》是如何制作出电子游戏式的善意漂流 瓶的,而陈星汉也继续在《Sky 光遇》中继续做更大范围,更多人之间的新的且包括商业化的尝试,更别提最近的《双人成行 It takes two》也在双人合作的玩法上做了集大成式的探索与呈现。而我也期待电子游戏在人与人之间的误会消除,重建前语言的沟通和善意上能做得更多。
这是我认为这篇演讲值得一读的原因。
Chris Bell 是一位游戏设计师,在参与《风之旅人》开发之前,他学生时代的参与设计的游戏作品《WAY》拿到了2012年Game For Change的年度游戏,以及当年IGF的学生组大奖,以及NUOVO奖的Finalist,随后他参与了《艾迪芬奇的回忆 What Remains of Edith Finch》和《Sky 光遇》等情感叙事向大作的开发, 现在则在一个名为Gardens的游戏工作室试图开发一款新的联网奇幻冒险游戏。可见其个人网站 https://chrisbelldesign.com/
作者:Chris Bell
翻译:DeepL
校对润色、幻灯片翻译、图片补充:叶梓涛
原作者已授权
面向友情的设计
Shaping Player Relationships With Rules & Freedom
通过规则-自由来塑造玩家的关系
(This is a transcript of the original talk given at the 2012 Game Developer's Conference)
这是在2012年GDC游戏开发者大会上演讲的文字记录
"I studied abroad in Japan 4 years ago.
"4年前我在日本留学。

It was my first morning there and I was at the Tsukiji Fish Market searching for inspiration for some collage work that I was creating for a gallery show. Tsukiji is the largest wholesale fish market in the world. There are about 1000 vendors, each selling live fish just as it comes in off the boats. Fish of every color and shape. Some were familar, but I was especially fascinated by the ones that seemed alien.
在那里的第一个早晨,我在东京筑地鱼市场为当时正为画廊展览创作的拼贴作品寻找灵感。筑地是世界上最大的鱼类批发市场。这里有大约1000个商贩,每个人都在销售刚从船上运来的活鱼。各种颜色和形状的鱼都有。有些我们很熟悉,但我却特别着迷于那些看起来特别怪异的。

It was incredibly immersive—so much so that I lost all sense of time and place.
这令我沉浸,忘记了时间和地点。
Earlier that day, my professors, classmates, and I passed by a nearby shrine and chose it as our rendezvous point. At a very specific time, a bus was going to show up and we would depart. The bus was on a schedule, and so we couldn’t be late.
那天早些时候,我的教授、同学和我路过附近的一个神社,我们将它作为集合点。在某个具体的时间点,将会有一辆公交接我们离开。公交车是有时间表的,所以我们不能迟到。
When I finally pulled myself away from the fish, I realized that that time was only a few minutes away.
当我终于从对那些鱼的沉浸中反映过来时,集合时间只剩下几分钟了。
My first morning in Japan...No phone... a few words of Japanese...I didn’t even know the name of the hotel we were staying at. I was about to be stranded with very little means to get me home.
这是我在日本的第一个早晨......没有电话......只会几句日语......我甚至不知道我们所住的酒店名字。我将会被困在这里,很难能够回到家中。
I began to panic.
我开始紧张了起来。
Fortunately, I had taken a photograph of the shrine—and so I pulled out my camera and called out to the closest person to me. I said “Sumimasen”, one of the only words of Japanese I knew, which means “Excuse me!”.
幸运的是,我拍了一张神社的照片,所以我掏出相机,向离我最近的人呼喊。我说 "Sumimasen",这是我仅会的几个日语单词之一,意思是 "打扰了!"。
That person happened to be a woman, about 60 or so years old, speaking to a man in a truck. Upon hearing me she turned, and I pointed to the display and threw my hands up as if to question “Where is this?”. She immediately ended her conversation, grabbed my hand and took off running. We ran about four blocks to the shrine, just as my classmates were boarding the bus to leave. She bowed, smiled, and disappeared forever.
那个人是个60岁左右的女性,正和一个卡车上的男人说话。听到了我的话后,她转过身来,我指着屏幕,举起双手,似乎在问:"这是哪里?"。她立即结束了谈话,抓住我的手就跑了起来。我们跑了大约四个街区到了神社,当时我的同学们正登上巴士准备离开。她鞠了一躬,微笑着,然后消失了,我们再也没见过。

Now, this event took place in the infinitely complex system we call reality.
现在,这个事件发生在我们称之为「现实」的无限复杂的系统中。
To recreate it and find meaning, as designers we have to focus in and choose the parts relevant to the scope of my perspective and my narrative as a player, and the woman’s perspective and her narrative as a player.
为了重新创造它并找到意义,作为设计师,我们必须集中精力,选择与我的视角和我作为玩家的叙述范围相关的部分,以及那个女人的视角和她作为玩家的叙述。

And so we pick out factors like the stimulating environment that led to me feeling overwhelmed, my goal of getting to the rendezvous point, the amount of time before the bus leaves, the high stakes of getting left behind, the distance of the shrine, the camera with the picture of the shrine which served as my only available tool...
我们挑出了一些因素,如令我感到不知所措的刺激性环境,到达集合点的目标,离巴士出发剩余的时间,被落下的高风险,神社的距离,作为我唯一可用的工具的带有神社照片的相机。
...and because its multiplayer, we simultaneously need to be doing the same for the woman. Her old age, her investment in her conversation, her knowledge of where the shrine was.
...因为是多人游戏,我们同时需要为这个女人做同样的分析。她的年龄,她对她的谈话的投资,她对神社位置的了解。
And then there’s the relationship between us, the communication barrier that separates us, and the empathy that allows us to understand each other in spite of that.
然后是我们之间的关系,分割我们的沟通障碍,以及尽管如此,我们仍能相互理解的共情。
All of these relate to create a dynamic that leads to players feeling what we want. And then we have to take a deep breath, sit back, and give them the freedom to act.
所有这些相互关联并创造一种动态,使得玩家能感受到我们想要让他们感受的东西。然后我们就得深呼吸一口,坐好,给他们行动的自由。
【译注:这里指的更多是不通过强行设计流程并强干预玩家之间的关系,而是预设了初始条件并且让玩家之间自然进行交互】

Both games I’ve helped design, "Journey" and "WAY", attempt to herd two strangers toward friendship. And both do it in similar and different ways.
我帮助设计的两个游戏,《风之旅人 Journey》 和 《WAY》,都试图把两个陌生人引向友谊。两者都以某种类似但有差异的方式做到了这一点。
But how do we do that? How do we design so friendship will emerge? And what is friendship really?
我们是如何做到的?如何设计才能使得友谊涌现?什么是真正的友谊?
It’s impossible to completely define or quantify. Nor can it be forced between players. Their emotional connection has to happen as a spontaneous creation of the participants.
它是不可能被完全定义或量化的。它也不可能在玩家之间被强迫。这种情感连接必须作为一种参与者的自发创造而发生。
So what type of friendship am I speaking about?
那么,我想说是什么类型的友谊呢?
What I’m interested in, is that spontaneous bond between strangers. I want to focus on online multiplayer that emphasizes shared goals, freedom of choice, anonymity, vulnerability, and communication.
我感兴趣的是,陌生人之间那种自发的联系。我想把重点放在强调共同目标(Shared Goals)、自由选择(Freedom of Choice)、匿名(Anonymity)、脆弱性(vulnerability)和沟通(Communication)的在线多人游戏上。

Online Multiplayer provides an incredible opportunity for people around the world to play together, exempt of prejudices or stereotypes. If we can get two people to have a connection in a game, before their prejudices get in the way, then perhaps we can challenge those prejudices. Get the two people to empathize before they draw lines between each other.
在线多人游戏(Online Multiplayer【译注:这里说的更多是联网的,可多人游玩的游戏,该定义囊括了通常所说的 MMO 大型多人在线Massive Multiplayer Online Game,诸如Journey 和 WAY都只是两人同时进行的】)提供了一个绝好的可能,使得世界各地的人们能够一同游戏,免除偏见或刻板印象。如果我们能让两个人在游戏中产生联系,在他们受到偏见的阻碍之前,那么我们也许可以挑战这些偏见。让两个人在彼此之间划清界限之前产生共情。
Play is a language all humans speak—it’s fundamental, universal, neurobiological, it’s how we’re wired—and so we can use play to build an understanding between people around the world.
游戏是所有人类的语言——它是基础性的、普遍的、神经生物学意义上的,它是我们的相互连接的方式,因此我们可以利用游戏在世界各地的人之间建立某种理解。
Because of this potential, I’m advocating that we treat Play with all the seriousness it deserves. A lack of seriousness can lead to oversight, misuse or abuse...and so we need to put care into our designs to ensure players are acting in the ways we value. And value is obviously subjective to the designer.
正是因为这种潜力,我主张我们应以严肃态度对待游戏,这本就是其应得的。缺少严肃性会导致疏忽、误用或滥用......因此我们需要在我们的设计中谨慎行事,以确保玩家以我们所认同的方式行事。而这种认同的价值显然是来自设计师的主观。
So I just recounted a story about spontaneous face-to-face interaction... Well let’s take that face-to-face interaction and add a few different rules. By rules I mean all the things we put into our games to define the space. Instead of being face-to-face in the same physical space, we’re connected over the internet by cameras—randomly—each of us in our own home.
我刚刚讲述了一个关于自发的面对面的互动的故事... 好吧,让我们把这种面对面的互动,加上一些有些不同的规则。这里我所说的规则是指「我们在游戏中定义空间的所有东西」。我们不再是在同一个物理空间里面对面,而是通过摄像机--随机地--我们每个人都在自己的家里通过互联网连接。

Chat Roulette is an amazing story. What could have been an incredible portal to engage and empathize with people around the world was instead used for other things. I’m sure we all know what those were.
《聊天轮盘》是一个惊人的例子。本可以成为与世界各地的人接触和共情的一个绝佳的窗口,但却被用来做其他事情。我相信我们都知道那些是什么。
【译注:Chatroulette是一个随机视频聊天网站,你可以和一个随机选出来的人进行视频聊天或者是语音聊天,网站不需要用户名和密码,在唯一的页面上有显示聊天对象视频的黑框、有输入文字内容的白色对话框。你只要用鼠标轻轻点击,就可以与网络随机抽取的陌生网友视频聊天,若不满意,你只要点击“NEXT”,就可以换一位聊天对象】
Now, why did this happen?