剧情/玩法一致性编辑本段回目录
所有人都喜欢谈论游戏的沉浸感。让玩家（或你自己）沉浸到游戏世界中，尽管可能实现不了，但一直是许多开发者努力的终极目标。但这种追求太肤浅了——让玩家废寝忘食般地沉迷于你的游戏，真的合适吗？
我们不应该让玩家沉迷于游戏世界，而应该努力达到一半的程度。因此，对于突出剧情的游戏，我一直在研究剧情和玩法一致性的使用。通过机制，用一致性将玩家的渴望和体验与玩家角色的渴望和经历相给合，以便让玩家在半沉浸于游戏的同时也能学到游戏玩法。换句话说，半沉浸状态就是当玩家的渴望与角色的渴望一致的时候。
《失忆症》：《深海末日》开发商Frictional Games称之为“玩家-主人公联系性”；也有人称之为玩家/主人公同步性；但无论称它为什么，如果运用得当，这种重叠可以产生强大的、深刻的游戏体验。
例如：
在《半条命》中，当你被俘虏，所有武器都被拿走时，你的无助感就像Gordon的一样。你重新武装自己的努力使这种体验更加有意义。
在《半条命2》中，当升级后的重力枪终于让你可以翻过那些在整个游戏中一直撞你的组合机时——当对付不了这些家伙时，你的挫败感也反映了Gordon在与他们进行无数次交战时的感觉。
half-life-2-gravity-gun-2(from gamasutra)
在《行尸走肉》中，当你（和Lee）像养父母一样把Clementine拥在怀里时，虽然她确实不是你的孩子（只是一个电脑游戏角色），也不是Lee的孩子，但你产生了一股莫名的监护人责任感，这种感觉贯穿于整个游戏过程中。在《Fez》中（程度较低），当你第一次切换游戏世界时，你感觉到的新鲜感和Gomez的一样。
在《dys4ia》中，当你艰难地通过那些棘手的动作小游戏时，你和主人公一样感到不知所措。
尽管这种技巧不算新，却难以运用到极致。最经典的例子就是《失忆症》的主人公，虽然没有达到完美，但仍然是很出色的，可以说超越了80年代后期和90年代的所有游戏，挑战了其他开发者的创意。
但仍然有太多我们能做到却没有努力尝试的东西。我们如何利用这些事件？我们先找出以上例子中的共性。
1、在以上例子中，玩家在整个线程中一直是参与者；而这个线程建立了剧情/玩法一致性。
walking_dead_train(from gamasutra)
在《行尸走肉》中，在游戏一开始你并没有与Clementine在一起——你先认识了Lee和这个游戏世界，这样当你见到Clementine，你会更理解Lee的想法，因此，玩家和Lee一样，产生了想保护Clementine的心情。
在《半条命》或任何没收你的武器的游戏中，你受到的打击是非常大的（毕竟你经过了从没有或只有少量武器到收集武器再到失去所有武器的过程）。而有些游戏一开始让玩家操作全副武装的角色，引入事件一结束就拿走角色的所有武器，这样做的效果并不比《半条命》的例子来得好，因为玩家没有亲历收集过程，所以不会觉得可惜或损失很大。
2、剧情/玩法一致性的动态基于游戏的主要机制。
在《半条命》和续作中，无论是没收武器还是升级重力枪，都是以射击这个活动有关的。《行尸走肉》的焦点在于通过对话和互动活动创造玩家/主人公同步性，游戏的核心是内心操纵。在《Fez》中，发现事件是以切换游戏世界这个核心玩法为基础的；在《dys4ia》中，玩家的脱节感来自在游戏中做的唯一的一件事：努力对付曾经熟悉，突然变得不熟悉的世界。
3、游戏模拟得越真实，一致性就越强，玩家与玩家角色的联系性就越强。
游戏后期的准备量和整合量看起来似乎与游戏体验的质量和结果直接相关，与一致性也成正比。而在《半条命》中，没收武器事件并不需要专门的设计，与其说是游戏的转折点，不如说是中场休息；在《半条命2》中，玩家要一直升级重力枪，直到被没收——这个事件让玩家在整个过程中都感到痛心。《行尸走肉》利用Lee/Clementine的关系渲染整个游戏中投射真正利害关系的事件，而《Fez》的最初发现“Eureka”事件一直持续到玩家走出开始区域。
有了这些观察结果，我们如何利用它们？我们再来看看：
1、在以上例子中，玩家在整个过程中一直是参与者；而这个过程建立了剧情/玩法一致性。
通过玩法创造有意义的利害关系。如果怪物即将破坏一个村庄，不要在文本、旁白或过场动画中传达这个信息。而要在玩法中展示这个事件；比如，在玩家选择与怪物战斗或逃跑时，让怪物摧毁一座桥或杀掉一个重要的NPC。这样，玩家和玩家角色都不得不直面挑战，努力存活下来。
limbo-spider(from gamasutra)
2、剧情/玩法一致性的动态基于游戏的主要机制。
把潜层含义放在机制之下。《行尸走肉》煞费苦心地告诉玩家他的决定会影响故事的结局——首先是显眼的游戏标题画面，然后是让玩家的决定直接影响事件结果。如果有可能，就将叙述潜藏文本与核心玩法机制相融合，使每一个玩法事件都富有深意。例如，在射击游戏中，利用能量武器的再生率削弱角色的防御力，这样玩家就不得不在攻击和防御之间做选择。
3、游戏认同感越强，一致性就越强，玩家与玩家角色的联系性就越强。
利用模拟技术消除玩家与玩家角色之间的隔阂。《重铁骑》那套多达40个铵钮的控制器在将玩家体验和玩家角色的体验融为一体的历史上，简直是前所未有的壮举，不过，这种深刻的认同感（和体验）注定这款游戏会受到玩家的狂热崇拜。一个不那么激进的例子是，玩家远程控制战斗无人机参与星际大战，由玩家的游戏角色使用类似于玩家的操作器的界面。如果玩家的无人机被打坏了，就换上另一架，非常像玩家接上另一条命继续游戏——在玩家体验和操作无人机的玩家角色之间创造一个体验重叠层。
无论如何，这些想法只是创造剧情/玩法一致性的几个方法。玩家应该能想到其他将一致性与玩法相融合的方式或与之有关的游戏案例。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Ben Serviss）
Using Narrative and Gameplay Congruency to Enhance Meaningful Play
by Ben Serviss
The following blog was, unless otherwise noted, independently written by a member of Gamasutra’s game development community. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Gamasutra or its parent company.
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This article originally appeared on dashjump.com.
The Walking Dead does an outstanding job of combining the player and protagonists’ desires.
Everyone loves to talk about immersion in games. The act of submerging the player (or yourself) into a game world, impossible though it may be, remains an unobtainable goal that many developers strive for. But this pursuit is shortsighted – is it really desirable to make someone so entranced by your game they forget to eat, bathe, sleep?
Instead of striving to immerse the player into the game world, we should instead be trying to meet them halfway – which is why, for games that feature narrative of any kind, I’ve been investigating uses of narrative and gameplay congruency to combine, through mechanics, the player’s desires and experiences with those of the player character in order to imbue gameplay with that special quality that stays with you long after the credits roll. In other words, anytime when the desires of the player are in alignment with the desires of the character.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent developer Frictional Games calls it the player-protagonist connection; others refer to it as player/protagonist synchronicity; but whatever the terminology, this overlap can make for powerful, memorable moments when utilized aptly.
Like when:
? In Half-Life, when you’re captured and all of your weapons are taken away. Your sense of powerless is the same as Gordon’s, and your scramble to re-arm yourself is made that much more meaningful;
? In Half-Life 2, when the upgraded gravity gun finally lets you toss around those Combine jerks who’ve been pushing you around the entire game – your frustration mirrored in Gordon’s endless encounters with them;
One of the most satisfying gaming moments of all time: turning the Combine’s technologies against them.
? In The Walking Dead, when you (and Lee) take Clementine under your wing as an adoptive parent. While she’s certainly not your child (being a computer game character), she’s not Lee’s either, and a shared sense of unrelated guardianship is established that lasts the entire game;
? In Fez (to a lesser extent) when you rotate the world for the first time, as it’s as new a sensation to you as it is to Gomez;
? In dys4ia, as you stumble your way through snapshots of awkward movement-based mini-games with barely a sense of how to navigate through this world, just like the narrator.
Though this technique is hardly new, it remains difficult to perfect. And while the most common instance of it – the amnesiac protagonist – is still certainly effective, it was pretty much done to death in every genre over the late 80s and 90s, forcing developers to get creative.
But there’s still so much we can do that has yet to be attempted. How can we distill these kinds of events into something resembling guidelines? To start, let’s look at commonalities between some of the above examples, in rising degrees of complexity:
1. In all of the above examples, the player is a participant during the entirety of the thread that establishes narrative/gameplay congruency.
In The Walking Dead, you don’t begin the game with Clementine in tow – you’re introduced to Lee and the game world in advance, so that you feel more grounded in his character when you do meet her, and so that the sense of adoption is felt by both the player and the character.
In the Half-Life example, or in any other game where you are stripped of your weapons, you feel the full brunt of the “loss” arc (have no or few weapons -> accumulate weapons -> lose all weapons). While some games start you out with a fully-powered character only to remove abilities after an introductory sequence, this is not as effective since you haven’t gone through the process of earning them yourself, and so you don’t properly value them or feel the loss as much.
Shadow of the Colossus intentionally forgoes aligning player/protagonist desires to create a mysterious atmosphere.
2. The narrative/gameplay congruency dynamic is centered around the primary mechanic of the game.
In Half-Life and its sequel, both the weapon confiscation and gravity gun upgrade events are based around the act of shooting. In The Walking Dead, the focus is on creating a player/protagonist synchronicity through conversation and interaction, the heart of the game’s inner workings. In Fez, the moment of discovery is firmly based around the act of rotating the world; and in dys4ia, the sense of disjointedness permeates the one thing you do in the game: try to navigate an at once familiar and unfamiliar world.
3. The stronger the game’s commitment, the stronger the congruency, the stronger the connection.
The amount of preparation and integration on the development end seems to be directly correlated with the quality of the payoff and corresponding increase in congruency. While Half-Life’s weapon confiscation sequence doesn’t require much specialized development and serves as more of a break in pace than a game-defining event, the buildup for Half-Life 2’s gravity gun upgrade takes the entire game before manifesting as a supremely satisfying twist (with nontrivial gameplay ramifications) that lasts for the duration of the game. The Walking Dead uses the Lee/Clementine relationship to color the entire game’s events cast against real stakes, while Fez’s initial “Eureka” moment of discovery lasts only until you leave the starting area.
Armed with these observations, how do we transform them into takeaway points? Let’s take a look:
1. The player is a participant during the entirety of the thread that establishes narrative/gameplay congruency.
→ Create meaningful stakes through gameplay, not other means. If a monster is about to wreak havoc on a village, don’t communicate this through text, audio logs or a cutscene. Show it through gameplay; have it destroy a bridge or kill a notable NPC while the player is fighting or fleeing from it. This way, both the player and player character will have faced and survived the challenge firsthand.
Limbo leaves all narrative elements unexplained, but presents everything else directly in gameplay to instill a sense of danger.
2. The narrative/gameplay congruency dynamic is centered around the primary mechanic of the game.
→ Layer subtext under your mechanics. The Walking Dead takes great pains to inform the player that his decisions affect the outcome of the story – first with a blatant title screen, then by immediately having player decisions effect the outcome of events. If it’s possible, integrate narrative subtext into core gameplay mechanics to infuse every instance of gameplay with added meaning. For example, in a shooter, tying the regeneration rate of an energy weapon to a vulnerable character’s shield would add ramifications for choosing to attack versus defend.
3. The stronger the game’s commitment, the stronger the congruency, the stronger the connection.
→ Use grounding techniques to bridge the gap between player and player character. Steel Battalion’s legendary 40-odd button controller accomplished an unparalleled feat in aligning the player’s experience with that of the player character, though such a heartfelt (and expensive) commitment doomed the game to cult status. A less drastic example: players control remote combat drones fighting an interplanetary war, with their in-game player character using an interface similar to the player’s controller. If the player’s drone dies, another one is deployed, much like how extra lives function to the player – creating an overlap between the player’s experience and the drone pilot player character.
Regardless, these ideas reflect just a few ways of creating narrative/gameplay congruency. If you have ideas for other ways to integrate this into gameplay, or more examples of it in other games, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.（source：gamasutra）
