Chapter 4 What Games Teach Us? 第四章 游戏教了我们什么？

Formal training isn't really required to become a game designer. Most of the game designers working professionally today are self-taught. That is changing rapidly as crop up all around the country and the world.

要成为一名游戏设计师，其实并不需要正规的培训。如今，大多数专业从事游戏设计工作的设计师都是自学成才的。这种情况正在迅速改变，因为全国乃至全世界的层出不穷。

I went to school to be a writer, mostly. I believe really passionately in the importance of writing and the incredible power of fiction. We learn through stories; we become who we are through stories.

我上学主要是为了成为一名作家。我坚信写作的重要性和小说不可思议的力量。我们通过故事学习；我们通过故事成为我们自己。

My thinking about what fun is led me to similar conclusions about games. I can't deny, however, that stories and games teach really different things, in very different ways. Game systems (as opposed to the visuals and presentation of a given game) don't usually have a moral. They don't usually have a theme in the sense that a novel has a theme.

我对乐趣的思考让我对游戏也得出了类似的结论。然而，我不能否认，故事和游戏以截然不同的方式传授着真正不同的东西。游戏系统（相对于特定游戏的视觉效果和表现形式）通常没有寓意。它们通常不像小说那样有主题。

The population that uses games as learning tools the most effectively is the young. Certainly folks in every generation keep playing games into old age (, anyone?), but as we get older we view those people more as the exception, though this is changing as digital gaming continues to rise in popularity. Games are viewed as frivolity. In the Bible in , we are told, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways." But children speak honestly—sometimes too much so. Their reasoning is far from impaired—it is simply inexperienced. We often assume that games are childish ways, but is that really so?

将游戏作为学习工具最有效的人群是年轻人。当然，每一代人都会一直玩游戏到老年（，有人玩吗？），但随着年龄的增长，我们更多地将这些人视为例外，尽管随着数字游戏的不断普及，这种情况正在发生变化。游戏被视为轻浮的事情。《圣经》告诉我们：“我作孩子的时候，说话像孩子，思想像孩子，推理像孩子；及至我作了成人，就弃绝了孩子的事。”但孩子们说话坦诚——有时过于坦诚。他们的推理能力远远没有受损，只是缺乏经验而已。我们常常认为游戏是幼稚的方式，但事实真的如此吗？

This shouldn't surprise us -- after all, the young of all species play.

我们不应该对此感到惊讶——毕竟，所有物种的幼崽都在玩耍。

We don't actually put away the notion of "having fun," as far as I can tell. We migrate it into other contexts. Many claim that work is fun, for example (me included). Just getting together with friends can be enough to give us the little burst of endorphins we crave.

据我所知，我们实际上并没有抛弃“玩得开心”的概念。我们将其迁移到其他语境中。例如，许多人声称工作是一种乐趣（包括我在内）。与朋友相聚就足以让我们获得渴望的内啡肽。

We also don't put aside the notion of constructing abstract models of reality in order to practice with them. We practice our speeches in front of mirrors, run fire drills, go through training programs, and role-play in therapy sessions. There are games all around us. We just don't call them that.

我们也没有放弃构建现实世界的抽象模型来进行练习的想法。我们对着镜子练习演讲，进行消防演习，参加培训项目，在治疗过程中进行角色扮演。游戏就在我们身边。只是我们不这样称呼它们。

As we age, we think that things are more serious and that we must leave frivolous things behind. Is that a value judgment on games or is it a value judgment on the content of a given game? Do we avoid the notion of fun because we view the content of the fire drill as being of greater import?

随着年龄的增长，我们认为事情变得更加严肃，必须抛开轻浮的事情。这是对游戏的价值判断，还是对特定游戏内容的价值判断？我们是否因为认为消防演习的内容更重要而回避了趣味的念头？

Most importantly, would fire drills be more effective if they were fun activities? There is a design practice called "gamification" which attempts to use the trappings of games (reward structures, points, etc.) to make people engage more with product offerings. Does it miss the point of games? It is often layered on top of systems that lack the rich interpretability of a good game. A reward structure alone does not a .

最重要的是，如果消防演习是有趣的活动，它们会更有效吗？有一种设计实践被称为“游戏化”，它试图利用游戏的外在特征（奖励结构、积分等）让人们更多地参与到产品中来。这种做法是否忽略了游戏的本质？游戏化经常被添加到那些缺乏优质游戏丰富可解释性的系统上。单凭奖励结构并不能。

With age, some games turn serious.

随着年龄的增长，有些游戏会变得严肃起来。

If games are essentially models of reality, then the things that games teach us must reflect on reality.

如果游戏本质上是现实的模型，那么游戏教给我们的东西就必须反映现实。

My first thought was that games are models of hypothetical realities, since they often bear no resemblance to any reality I know.

我首先想到的是，游戏是假设现实的模型，因为它们往往与我所知道的任何现实都毫无相似之处。

As I looked deeper, though, I found that even whacked-out abstract games do reflect underlying reality. The guys who told me these games were all about vertices were correct. Since formal rule sets are basically mathematical constructs, they always end up reflecting forms of mathematical truth, at the very least. (Formal rule sets are the basis for most games, but not all—there are classes of , but you can bet that little kids will cry "no fair" when someone violates an unstated assumption in their tea party.)

但随着我的深入研究，我发现即使是古怪抽象的游戏也确实反映了潜在的现实。那些告诉我这些游戏都是关于顶点的人是对的。由于形式规则集基本上是数学构造，因此它们最终总会至少反映出数学真理的形式(形式规则集是大多数游戏的基础，但并不是所有游戏的基础——有一些，但你可以放心，当有人在他们的茶话会上违反了一个未说明的假设时，小孩子们一定会大叫“不公平”。）

Sadly, reflecting mathematical structures is also the only thing many games do. The real-life challenges that games prepare us for are almost exclusively ones based on the calculation of odds. They teach us how to predict events. A huge number of games simulate forms of combat. Even games ostensibly about building are usually framed competitively.

可悲的是，反映数学结构也是许多游戏唯一能做的事情。游戏让我们为现实生活中的挑战做好准备，而这些挑战几乎都是基于几率计算的。它们教我们如何预测事件。大量游戏模拟了各种形式的战斗。即使是表面上是关于建设的游戏，通常也是基于竞争性构建的。

Given that we're basically , it's not surprising that so many of the basic lessons taught by our early childhood play are about power and status. Think about how important these lessons still are within society, regardless of your particular culture. Games almost always teach us tools for being the top monkey or tribe of monkeys.

鉴于我们基本上是，很多我们儿时游戏中学到的基本课程都与权力和地位有关也就不足为奇。想想看，无论你的文化背景如何，这些课程在社会中都至关重要。游戏几乎总是教我们如何成为最顶尖的猴子或猴群。

...uh...

……嗯……

gratuitous penguin

无谓的企鹅

...oh well...

……好吧……

The very phrase "it's just a game" implies that playing a game is a form of PRACTICE for a real-life challenge.

“这只是个游戏”这句话本身就意味着，玩游戏是对现实挑战的一种练习。

Games also teach us how to . From games where we fit together odd shapes to games where we learn to see the invisible lines of power projection across a grid, much effort is spent in teaching us about territory. That is what tic-tac-toe is essentially all about.

游戏还教会我们如何。从拼凑奇形怪状的游戏，到让我们学会看清网格上权力投射的无形线条的游戏，它们花费大量努力来教我们认识领土。这也是井字游戏的意图所在。

Spatial relationships are, of course, critically important to us. Some animals might be able to navigate the world using the Earth's magnetic field, but not us. Instead, we use maps and we use them to map all sorts of things, not just space. Learning to interpret symbols on a map, assess distance, assess risk, and remember caches must have been a critically important survival skill when we were nomadic tribesmen. Most games incorporate some element of spatial reasoning. The space may be a , like what we see on a soccer field, or it may be a like we see in "racetrack" board games. Mathematicians might even point out that something like at the same time. Classifying, collating, and exercising power over the contents of a space is one of the fundamental lessons of all kinds of gameplay.

当然，空间关系对我们来说至关重要。有些动物也许可以利用地球磁场来导航，但我们人类不行。相反，我们使用地图，而且我们用地图来描绘各种事物，而不仅仅是空间。当我们还是游牧部落的人时，学会解释地图上的符号、评估距离、评估风险和记住藏匿地点一定是一项极其重要的生存技能。大多数游戏都包含一些空间推理元素。空间可能是，就像我们在足球场上看到的那样；也可能是，就像我们在“赛道”桌游中看到的那样。数学家甚至会指出，像网球场这样的东西可以同时是这。对空间内容进行分类、整理和行使权力，是各种游戏的基本课程之一。

Examining space also fits into our nature as toolmakers. We learn how things . We often abstract this a lot—we play games where things fit together not only physically, but as well. We map things like temperature. We map social relationships (as graphs of edges and vertices, in fact). We map things over time. By playing , we extend mental maps of relationships between objects. With these maps, we can extrapolate behaviors of these objects.

研究空间也符合我们作为工具制造者的天性。我们学习如何将在一起。我们经常把这一点抽象化——在我们玩的游戏中，事物不仅是物理上的组合，也是。我们将温度等事物绘制成图。我们绘制社会关系图（实际上是边和顶点的图）。我们绘制事物的时间图。通过玩，我们扩展了物体间关系的心理地图。有了这些地图，我们就能推断出这些物体的行为。

Some games teach spatial relationships.

有些游戏教你空间关系。

Exploring conceptual spaces is critical to our success in life. Merely understanding a space and how the rules make it work isn't enough, though. We also need to understand how it will react to change to exercise power over it. This is why games progress over time. There are almost no .

探索概念空间是我们人生成功的关键。不过，仅仅了解一个空间以及它的运行规则还不够。我们还需要了解它对变化的反应，才能对它行使权力。这就是为什么游戏会随着时间的推移而进展。几乎没有游戏是只进行的。

Let's consider "games of chance" that use a six-sided die. Here we have a possibility space—values labeled 1 through 6. If you roll dice against someone, the game you are playing might seem to end very quickly. You also might feel you don't have much control over the outcome. You might think an activity like this shouldn't be called a game. It certainly seems like a game you can play in one turn.

让我们考虑一下使用六面骰子的“机会游戏”。这里我们有一个可能性空间——标有 1 到 6 的数值。如果你和别人掷骰子，你所玩的游戏似乎很快就会结束。你也可能会觉得自己无法控制结果。你可能会认为这样的活动不应该叫做游戏。当然，这似乎是一个你可以一局玩完的游戏。

But I suggest gambling games like this are actually designed to teach us about odds. You usually don't just play for one turn, and with each turn you try to learn more about how odds work. (Unfortunately, you often prove —especially if you are gambling for money.) We know from experiments that probability is something our brains have serious trouble grasping.

但我认为，这样的赌博游戏实际上是为了让我们了解赔率而设计的。你通常不会只玩一局，每一局你都会试图了解更多关于赔率如何运作的知识。(不幸的是，你往往会证明自己并——尤其是如果你是为了钱而赌博的话。) 我们从实验中得知，概率是我们大脑很难掌握的东西。

Exploring a possibility space is the only way to learn about it. Most games repeatedly throw evolving spaces at you so that you can explore the recurrence of symbols within them. A modern video game will give you tools to navigate a complicated space, and when you finish, the game will give you another space, and another, and another.

探索可能性空间是了解它的唯一途径。大多数游戏都会反复向你抛出不断演变的空间，让你探索其中符号的反复出现。现代电子游戏会给你一些工具来浏览一个复杂的空间，当你完成后，游戏会给你另一个空间，，然后是另一个，再另一个。

Some of the really important parts of exploration involve memory. A huge number of games involve recalling and managing very long and complex chains of information. (Think about counting cards in or playing competitive .) Many games involve thoroughly exploring the possibility space as part of their victory condition.

一些真正重要的探索部分涉及记忆。大量的游戏都需要回忆和管理很长很复杂的信息链。(想想中的算牌或玩竞技性）许多游戏的胜利条件之一就是彻底探索可能性空间。

Some games teach you to explore.

WELCOME TO WARP ZONE!

有些游戏教你探索。

欢迎来到传送区！

In the end, most games have something to do with power. Even the innocuous games of childhood tend to have violence lurking in their heart of hearts. Playing "house" is about jockeying for social status. It is richly multileveled, as kids position themselves in authority (or not) over other kids. They play-act at using the authority that their parents exercise over them. (There's this idealized picture of as being all sweetness and light, but there are few more viciously status-driven groups on earth.)

归根结底，大多数游戏都与权力有关。即使是童年时无害的游戏，在它的核心深处也往往潜藏着暴力。玩“过家家”游戏是为了争夺社会地位。它具有丰富的多层次性，因为孩子们把自己放在其他孩子的权威之上（或者之下）。他们扮演模仿使用父母对他们行使的权威。(有一种理想化的印象，认为都是甜美可人的，但世界上很少有比它更激烈地追求地位的群体。）

Consider the games that get all the attention lately: , , and war games. They are not subtle about their love of power. The gap between these games and cops and robbers is small as far as the players are concerned. They are all about reaction times, tactical awareness, assessing the weaknesses of an opponent, and judging when to strike. Just as my playing guitar was in fact preparing me for playing mandolin by teaching me skills beyond basic guitar fretting, these games teach many skills that are relevant in a corporate setting. It is easy to pay attention to the obvious nature of a particular game and miss the subtler point; be it cops and robbers or , the real lessons are about teamwork and not about aiming. In fact, the is worse than useless in teaching you how to shoot a real one.

看看最近备受关注的游戏：、、战争游戏。它们对权力的热爱毫不掩饰。就玩家而言，这些游戏与警察抓小偷之间的差距很小。他们玩的都是反应速度、战术意识、评估对手的弱点以及判断何时出手。就像我弹吉他实际上是在为弹曼陀林做准备，因为我学到了吉他基本指法以外的技能，这些游戏也教给我许多与公司环境相关的技能。人们很容易只注意到某款游戏的明显性质，而忽略了更微妙的一点；无论是《警察抓强盗》还是，真正的课程都是关于团队合作，而不是瞄准。事实上，，在教你如何射击真枪方面毫无用处。

Think about it: teamwork is a far deadlier tool than sharpshooting.

想想看：团队合作是比精准枪法更强大的工具。

Some games teach you how to aim precisely.

有些游戏会教你如何精确瞄准。

Many games, particularly those that have evolved into the classic Olympian sports, can be directly traced back to the needs of primitive humans to survive under very difficult conditions. Many things we have fun doing are in fact training us to be better cavemen. We learn skills that are antiquated. Most folks never need to shoot something with an arrow to eat, and nowadays we run marathons or other long races mostly to raise funds for charities.

许多游戏，特别是那些演变成经典奥林匹克运动的游戏，可以直接追溯到原始人类在非常艰苦的条件下生存的需要。我们所做的许多有趣的事情实际上是在训练我们成为更好的穴居人。我们学习的是过时的技能。大多数人永远不需要用箭射杀动物来吃，如今，我们参加马拉松或其他长跑比赛，主要是为了给慈善机构筹款。

Many games have become obsolete and are no longer played. During World War II, there were .

许多游戏已经过时，不再玩了。在第二次世界大战期间，有一些。

Nonetheless, we have fun mostly to improve our life skills. And while there may be something deep in our reptile brains that wants us to continue practicing aiming or sentry-posting, we do in fact evolve games that are more suited to our modern lives.

尽管如此，我们享受乐趣主要是为了提升我们的生存技能。而且，尽管我们大脑深处可能有一种原始的本能，驱使我们不断练习瞄准或站岗，但我们确实发展出了更适合现代生活的游戏。

From cops and robbers to playing house, play trains skills that provide an evolutionary advantage...

从“警察抓小偷”到“过家家”，游戏训练的技能为进化提供了优势……

For example, there are many games in my collection that relate to large-scale network building. Building railway lines or aqueducts wasn't exactly a caveman activity. As humans have evolved, we've changed around our games. In early versions of chess, weren't nearly as powerful a piece as they are today.

例如，我收藏的许多游戏都与大型网络建设有关。建造铁路或沟渠并不是穴居人的活动。随着人类的进化，我们的游戏也发生了变化。在早期的国际象棋中，并不像今天这样强大。

Farming used to be a much bigger part of the typical person's life than it is in industrialized societies. In the ancient family of games, players "sow seeds," and rotate them through "houses." In some variants, you are not supposed to leave your opponent without any seeds.

与工业化社会相比，农耕曾经是普通人生活中更重要的一部分。在古老的游戏家族中，玩家“播种种子”，并在“房子”之间轮流播种。在某些变体中，你不应该让对手没有任何种子。

For a long time, we had few new games about farming, perhaps because there was no need to model an activity that one participated in every day. When they did return in force in the form of casual online games, they were really games about running a business, not about crop rotation and cooperation. Today's won't actually help you feed yourself from crops.

长期以来，我们很少有关于农耕的新游戏，也许是因为没有必要模拟一项人们每天都要参与的活动。当它们以休闲在线游戏的形式重新强势回归时，它们实际上是关于经营的游戏，而不是关于作物轮作和合作的游戏。如今的实际上不会帮助你用农作物养活自己。

In general, the level of mathematical sophistication required by games has risen dramatically over the course of human history, as common people learned how to do sums. Word games were once restricted to the elite, but today they are enjoyed by the masses.

一般来说，随着普通人学会算术，游戏所要求的数学复杂程度在人类历史进程中大幅提高。文字游戏曾经仅限于精英阶层，但如今大众都喜欢玩。

Games do adapt, but perhaps not as fast as we might wish, since almost all of these games are still, at their core, about the same activities even though they may involve different skill sets: resource allocation, force projection, territory control, and so on.

游戏确实在改变适应，但也许并没有我们希望的那么快，因为几乎所有这些游戏的核心仍然是相同的活动，尽管它们可能涉及不同的技能组合：资源分配、武力投射、领土控制等等。

Some of which might be useful in modern life, and some of which might not.

其中有些在现代生活中可能有用，有些可能没用。

...uh...mom?...

……呃……妈？……

In some ways games can be compared to music (which is even more mathematically driven). Music excels at conveying a few things—emotion being paramount among them—but as a medium, is not very good at conveying things outside of its "sweet spot." Games also seem to have a sweet spot. They do very well at active verbs: controlling, projecting, surrounding, matching, remembering, counting, and so on. Games are also very good at quantification.

在某些方面，游戏可以与音乐相提并论（音乐的数学驱动力更强）。音乐擅长传达一些东西——情感是其中最重要的，但作为一种媒介，它并不擅长传达其“甜蜜点”之外的东西。游戏似乎也有一个甜蜜点。它们在主动动词方面表现出色：控制、投射、环绕、匹配、记忆、计数等等。游戏还非常擅长量化。

By contrast, literature can tackle all of the above and more. Over time, language-based media have tackled increasingly broader subjects. Are game systems simply more limited than literature, like music is?

相比之下，文学作品可以解决上述所有问题，甚至更多。随着时间的推移，以语言为基础的媒介所涉及的主题越来越广泛。难道游戏系统就像音乐一样，比文学作品更有局限性吗？

Pure systems probably cannot convey the same breadth of content that literature can. That said, games are capable of modeling situations of greater richness and complexity than many assume. Games like are evidence that remarkably subtle interactions can be modeled within the confines of a rule set, and traditional can reach the same heights as literature in the right hands. But it is an uphill battle for the medium nonetheless, simply because games, at their core, are about teaching us survival skills. As we all know, when you're worried about subsistence and survival, more refined things tend to fall by the wayside.

纯粹的系统可能无法像文学作品那样传达广泛的内容。尽管如此，游戏还是能够模拟比许多人想象的更加丰富和复杂的情况。像这样的游戏就证明，在规则设定的范围内，可以模拟出非常微妙的互动，而传统的游戏在合适的人手中也可以达到与文学作品同样的高度。但是，对于游戏媒介来说，这是一场艰苦的战斗，因为游戏的核心是教会我们生存技能。众所周知，当你为温饱和生存发愁时，更高雅的东西往往会被抛到一边。

Of course, games are a "compound" medium, and can have stories, artwork, and music all working alongside the game system. And at that point, games can have an incredible expressive breadth, with potential that has not yet been fulfilled.

当然，游戏是一种“复合”媒介，可以有故事、艺术作品和音乐与游戏系统并行不悖。在这一点上，游戏的表现力拥有令人难以置信的广度，其潜力尚未得到完全发挥。

timing

时机

hunting

狩猎

3... 2... 1... ollie ollie oxen free! ... or whatever...

3…… 2…… 1…… …… 都出来吧 …… 随便吧……

ollie ollie oxen free是捉迷藏的用语，大意是：躲藏的玩家可以出来露面而不会被抓住。

atari!

叫吃！（围棋用语）

territory

领土

aiming

瞄准

projecting power

投射权力

When you get right down to it, most games are teaching us about only a few things,

说到底，大多数游戏只教我们几件事，

It's worth asking ourselves what skills are more commonly needed today. Games should be evolving towards teaching us those skills.

我们应该扪心自问，当今社会更需要哪些技能。游戏应该朝着教会我们这些技能的方向发展。

The entire spread of games for children is fairly limited, and hasn't changed much over time. The basic skills needed by children are the same. Perhaps we need a few more games about using touchscreens, but that's about it. Adults, on the other hand, could use new games that teach more relevant skills. Most of us no longer hunt our own food, and we no longer live in danger every moment of our lives. It's still valuable to train ourselves in some of the caveman traits, but we need to adapt.

儿童游戏的整个传播范围相当有限，而且随着时间的推移变化不大。儿童需要的基本技能是一样的。也许我们需要更多关于使用触摸屏的游戏，但也仅此而已。另一方面，成人可能需要一些教授更相关技能的新游戏。我们中的大多数人不再自己捕猎食物，也不再每时每刻都生活在危险之中。训练自己的一些穴居人特征仍然很有价值，但我们需要适应。

Some traits are relevant but need to change because conditions have changed. Interesting research has been done into what people find disgusting, for example. is a survival trait that points us away from grayish-green, mucousy, slimy things.It does so because that was the most likely vector for illness.

有些特征是有意义的，但需要改变，因为条件已经改变。例如，人们发现什么令人恶心的研究就很有趣。是一种生存特征，它让我们远离灰绿色、粘液状、黏糊糊的东西。之所以如此，是因为那是疾病最可能的传播媒介。

Today it might be the electric blue fluid that is the real risk—don't drink any drain cleaner—and we have no inborn revulsion towards it. In fact, it's made electric blue to make it seem aseptic and clean. That's a case where we should supplement our instincts with training, since I doubt there's anything I can drink under my kitchen sink.

如今，真正危险的可能是电光蓝的液体——不要喝任何下水道清洁剂——但我们对它并没有天生的反感。事实上，为了让它看起来无菌、干净，我们把它做成了电光蓝色。在这种情况下，我们应该通过培训来补充我们的直觉，因为我怀疑厨房水槽下面有什么我可以喝的东西。

and mostly, they are things that were useful to us in the early evolution of our species.

它们大多是在人类早期进化过程中对我们有用的东西。

Some of the new patterns we need to learn in our brave new world run contrary to our instinctive behaviors. For example, humans are tribal creatures. We not only fall readily into , but we'll often subsume our better judgment in doing so. We also seem to have an . It is very easy to get humans to regard a different tribe as less than human, particularly if they look or act differently in some way.

在我们这个勇敢的新世界中，我们需要学习的一些新模式与我们的本能行为背道而驰。例如，人类是部落性生物。我们不仅容易加入由，而且在这样做时往往会削弱自己的判断力。我们还似乎。人类很容易把不同的部族视为低人一等，尤其是当他们的外表或行为在某些方面与我们不同的时候。

Maybe this was a survival trait at one time, but it's not now. Our world grows ever more interdependent; if a currency collapse occurs on the other side of the world, the price of milk at our local grocery could be affected. A lack of empathy and understanding of different tribes and xenophobic hatred can really work against us.

也许这曾经是一种生存特征，但现在不是了。我们的世界越来越相互依存；如果世界另一端发生货币崩溃，我们当地杂货店的牛奶价格就会受到影响。对不同部落缺乏同情和理解以及仇外心理真的会对我们不利。

Most games encourage "othering" the opponent, treating him as "not like us," teaching a sort of ruthlessness that is a proven survival trait. But historically, we're not likely to need or want the scorched-earth victory, despite legends of over conquered cities. Can we create games that instead offer us greater insight into how the modern world works?

大多数游戏都鼓励将对手“另类化”，将其视为“异己”，教导一种被证明是生存特征的冷酷无情。但从历史上看，尽管有在被征服的城市的传说，我们可能并不需要或想要焦土胜利。我们能否创造一些游戏，让我们更深入地了解现代世界是如何运作的？

If I were to identify other basic human traits that game designs currently tend to reinforce, and that may be obsolete legacies of our heritage, I might call out traits like:

如果让我找出游戏设计目前倾向于强化的其他人类基本特征，而这些特征可能是我们遗传的过时遗产，我可能会指出以下特征：

• to leaders and cultism: We're willing to do things in games simply because "those are the rules." 领导和偶像： 我们愿意在游戏中做事，只是因为“这是规则”。

• Rigid hierarchies or binary thinking: Games, because they are simplified, quantized models, usually reinforce notions about class, jobs, identity, and other fluid concepts. 僵化的等级制度或二元思维： 游戏是一种简化、量子化的模型，通常会强化阶级、工作、身份和其他流动概念的观念。

• The use of force to resolve problems: We don't tend to see a way to form a treaty with our opponent in chess. 使用武力解决问题： 在国际象棋中，我们往往看不到与对手缔结条约的方法。

• Like seeking like, and its converse, xenophobia: Seen in countless role-playing games where we slaughter endless orcs. 求同，但不存异： 在无数的角色扮演游戏中，我们屠杀着无穷无尽的兽人。

It's not surprising that games boil down to so few basic patterns.

游戏归结为几种基本模式并不奇怪。

danger, danger, danger, danger, danger

危险，危险，危险，危险，危险

After all, as cavemen, we needed to be able to recognize food or danger under widely varying circumstances.

毕竟，作为穴居人，我们需要能够在千差万别的环境中识别食物或危险。

For better or worse, games have been ringing changes on the same few subjects. There's probably something deep in the reptile brain that is deeply satisfied by , but you'd think that by now we would have jumped over everything in every possible way.

不管是好是坏，游戏一直在同样的几个主题上不断变化。在爬行动物的大脑深处，可能会让它们深感满足，但你可能会认为，现在我们已经用各种可能的方式跳过了一切。

When I first started playing games, everything was , meaning that you moved in discrete squares, as if you were popping from tile to tile on a tiled floor. Nowadays you move in a much freer way, but what has changed is the fidelity of the simulation, not what we're simulating. The skills required are perhaps closer to being what they are in reality, and yet an improvement in the simulation of crossing a pond full of alligators is not necessarily a real improvement in what the game teaches us.

我刚开始玩游戏的时候，一切都，也就是说，你在离散的方格中移动，就像在瓷砖地板上从一块瓷砖跳到另一块瓷砖一样。如今，你的移动方式要自由得多，但改变的是模拟的逼真度，而不是我们在模拟什么。所需的技能也许更接近于现实中的技能，然而在模拟穿越满是鳄鱼的池塘方面的改进并不一定是游戏教给我们的东西的真正改进。

The mathematical field of studying shape, and the way in which apparent shapes can change but remain fundamentally the same, is called . It can be helpful to think of games in terms of their topology.

研究形状的数学领域，以及研究表面形状变化但本质上保持不变的方式，被称为。从拓扑学的角度来思考游戏可能会有所帮助。

Early followed a few basic gameplay paradigms:

早期的遵循一些基本的玩法范式：

• "Get to the other side" games: , , . These are not really very dissimilar. Some of these featured a time limit, some didn't. “到达另一边”的游戏：、、。这些游戏本质上并没有太大的区别，其中有些有时间限制，有些没有。

• "Visit every location" games: Probably the best-known early platformer like this was . Pac-Man and also made use of this mechanic. The most cerebral of these were probably , where the map traversal could get very complex, given the fact that you could modify the map to a degree. “访问每个地点”的游戏：最著名的早期平台游戏可能是。《吃豆人》和 也使用了这种机制。其中最有创意的可能是，由于可以在一定程度上修改地图，因此地图的穿越可以变得非常复杂。

Games started to meld these two styles, then they added scrolling environments. Eventually designers added playing in , and finally made the leap to with Mario 64.

游戏开始融合这两种风格，然后又加入了滚动环境。最后，设计师们又加入了游戏，最终在《马里奥 64》中实现向游戏的飞跃。

And in fact, most games pick on subject and then run a bunch of variations on it.

事实上，大多数游戏都是选取一个主题，然后进行一系列变化。

JUMPING through THE AGES exhibit sponsored by the Int'l Assoc for Alligator Advancement

由国际鳄鱼发展协会赞助的“穿越时空”展览

HOPSCOTCH

跳房子

JUMPING ROPE

跳绳

HURDLES

跨栏

2-D PLATFORMER

二维平台游戏

3-D PLATFORMER

三维平台游戏

A modern platformer makes use of all of these dimensions:

现代平台游戏会利用所有这些维度：

• "Get to the other side" is still the basic paradigm. “到达另一边”仍然是基本范式。

• "Visit all the map" is handled by a "" system. “访问所有地图”由“”系统处理。

• Time limits add another dimension of challenge. 时间限制增加了挑战的另一个维度。

Since the original Donkey Kong, players have been able to a hammer to use as a weapon. One of the most common signs of incremental innovation in game design is designers simply adding more of a given element, rather than adding a new element. Hence, today we have a bewildering array of weapons.

从最初的《大金刚》开始，玩家就可以锤子作为武器。在游戏设计中，渐进式创新最常见的表现之一就是设计者只是简单地增加某种元素的数量，而不是增加一种新元素。因此，今天我们有了一系列令人眼花缭乱的武器。

Platformers have now covered all the dimensions. They have started pulling in elements of racing and flying games as well as fighters and shooters. They have built in secret discovery, time limits, and power-ups. Recent games have included more robust stories, and even elements from role-playing games. Are there more dimensions on which to expand?

现在，平台游戏已经涵盖了所有层面。它们开始引入赛车和飞行游戏以及战斗机和射击游戏的元素。它们还加入了秘密探索、时间限制和强化道具等元素。最近的游戏还加入了更丰富的故事，甚至还有角色扮演游戏的元素。还有更多的维度可以拓展吗？

Going from Pong to a modern tennis game is not so large a leap. How odd that we've ended up in the recursive pattern of making games that model other games—it suggests that there's something that the real-life sport of tennis can teach that doesn't require running around on a court in a white outfit. Nonetheless, rather than teaching the skill of hurling rocks and judging trajectories, it would be nice if more games instead taught things like in response to signing or not signing a global warming treaty.

从《乓》到现代网球游戏并不是一个很大的飞跃。奇怪的是，我们最终陷入了制作模拟其他游戏的游戏的递归模式——这说明现实生活中的网球运动可以教给人们一些东西，而这些东西并不需要穿着一身白衣在球场上奔跑。尽管如此，与其教授投掷石块和判断弹道的技巧，不如让更多的游戏教授等问题。

This may sound bleak, but in fact, it's not. The skills needed around a meeting room table and the skills needed at the tribal council are not so different, after all. There are whole genres of games that are about husbandry, resource management, logistics, and negotiation. If anything, the question to ask might be why the most popular games are the ones that teach obsolete skills, while the more sophisticated ones that teach subtler skills tend to reach smaller markets.

这听起来似乎很凄凉，但事实上并非如此。毕竟，在会议室的会议桌上所需的技能和在部落会议上所需的技能并无太大区别。有很多类型的游戏都是关于勤俭节约、资源管理、后勤和谈判的。如果说有什么问题的话，那就是为什么最受欢迎的游戏都是那些教授过时技能的游戏，而那些教授更微妙技能的更复杂的游戏往往市场较小。

Just like variations on a theme in music, these are basically training to recognize a pattern in a variety of situations.

就像音乐中的主题变奏曲一样，这些基本上是在各种情况下识别模式的训练。

A lot of it can probably be traced to visceral appeal. Remember, we live most of our lives in the unconscious. Action games let us stay there, whereas games that demand careful consideration of logistics might require logical, conscious thought. So we play variations on old, often irrelevant challenges because, frankly, it's easier.

其中很大一部分原因可能是内驱力。请记住，我们生活的大部分时间都是在无意识中度过的。动作游戏让我们停留在无意识状态，而那些需要仔细考虑后勤问题的游戏可能需要逻辑、有意识的思考。因此，我们玩的都是老游戏的变种，通常都是无关紧要的挑战，因为老实说，这更容易。

We've evolved exquisite sensitivity to visceral challenges. A survey of games featuring jumping found that the games with the "best controls" all shared an important characteristic: when you hit the jump button, the character on screen spent almost exactly the same amount of in the air. Games with "bad controls" violated this unspoken assumption. I'm pretty sure that if we went looking, we'd find that good jumping games have been unscientifically adhering to this unspoken rule for a couple of decades, without ever noticing its existence. That's hardly the only case of our adjusting our work to better target the unconscious mind. A very common feature of action games, for example, is to push you through a task faster and faster. This is purely intended to address the visceral reaction and the autonomic nervous system. When you learn any physical skill, you are told to do it slowly at first, and slowly increase the speed as you master the task. The reason is that developing speed without precision is not all that useful. Going slowly lets you practice the precision first, make it unconscious, and then work on the speed.

我们已经进化出了对内在挑战的极度敏感。一项针对以跳跃为特色的游戏的调查发现，“最佳操控”的游戏都有一个共同的重要特征：当你按下跳跃键时，屏幕上的角色在空中停留的几乎完全相同。而“糟糕操控”的游戏则违反了这心照不宣的假设。我相当确信，如果我们去寻找，就会发现几十年来，优秀的跳跃游戏一直在不科学地遵守这一潜规则，却从未注意到它的存在。这并不是我们调整作品来更好地针对无意识思维的唯一案例。例如，动作游戏的一个非常普遍的特点就是让你越来越快地完成任务。这纯粹是为了应对内在反应和自主神经系统。当你学习任何体能技能时，都会被告知一开始要慢慢来，当你掌握了任务之后再慢慢提高速度。这是因为，只练速度而不练精度是没有用的。慢慢来可以让你先练习精确度，使其成为无意识，然后再提高速度。

You don't tend to see "" modes in strategy games for this same reason. The tasks in the strategic games are not about automatic responses, and therefore the training to execute at reflex levels of speed would be misguided. (If anything, a good strategy game will teach you not to get too familiar with the situation and will keep you on your toes.)

出于同样的原因，在策略游戏中往往看不到“”模式。战略游戏的考验并不是无意识反应，因此训练以条件反射的速度进行操作是错误的。(如果有的话，好的策略游戏会教你不要对环境习以为常，并让你时刻保持警惕）。

This whole approach is intended for learning by rote. When I was a kid, I had a game for the console called . I got to the point where I could get a million points at the maximum difficulty setting without ever dying. With my eyes closed. This is the same sort of training that we put our militaries through—the training of rote and reflex. It's not a very adaptable mode of training, but it is desirable in many cases.

整个方法都是为了死记硬背。我小时候玩过一款游戏机上的游戏，名叫。我玩到最高难度设置时，能得到一百万分而不死。而且是闭着眼睛。这与我们对军队进行的训练如出一辙——死记硬背和条件反射的训练。这不是一种灵活变通的训练模式，但在很多情况下是可取的。

TIME ATTACK!

时间挑战！

Sometimes we ask you to do a task faster.

有时，我们会要求你加快完成任务的速度。

A more interesting tactic that applies to a wider range of games is asking the player to be thorough. This is a broader survival skill. It requires patience, and a certain enjoyment in discovery. It also works against our inclination to work directly on the final goal.

一种更有趣的战术适用于更广泛的游戏，那就是要求玩家做到全面彻底。这是一种更广泛的生存技能。它需要耐心，也需要某种探索的乐趣。这也与我们直接追求最终目标的倾向背道而驰。

In many games, you are asked to find "secrets", or to explore an area completely. This teaches many interesting things, such as considering a problem from all angles, making sure that you have all the necessary information before you make a decision, and that thoroughness is often better than speed. Not to denigrate training by rote and reflex, but this is a much subtler and interesting set of skills to teach, and one that is more widely applicable to the modern world.

在许多游戏中，玩家被要求寻找“秘密”，或彻底探索一个区域。这能教给你很多有趣的东西，比如从各个角度考虑问题，确保在做决定之前掌握所有必要的信息，以及全面往往好于快速。我并不是要诋毁死记硬背和条件反射式的训练，但这是一套更微妙、更有趣的技能教学，而且更广泛地适用于现代社会。

Games have these characteristics:

游戏具有这些特点：

• They present us with models of real things—often highly abstracted. 它们向我们展示了真实事物的模型——通常是高度抽象的模型。

• They are generally quantified or even models. 它们通常是量化的甚至是的模型。

• They primarily teach us things that we can absorb into the unconscious, as opposed to things designed to be tackled by the conscious, logical mind. 它们主要教给我们可以吸收到潜意识中的东西，而不是用有意识的逻辑思维处理的东西。

• They mostly teach us things that are fairly primitive behaviors (but they don't have to). 它们教给我们的大多是相当原始的行为（但也并非必须如此）。

Seen in this light, the evolution of the modern video game can largely be explained in terms of topology. Each generation of game can be described by a relatively minute alteration in the shape of the play space. For example, there have only really been around in all of videogaming history. Significant advances have been limited to a few features like movement on a plane, movement in 3-D, and the addition of "" or sequences of moves. The games look different because of their content, not their underlying lessons.

从这个角度来看，现代电子游戏的演变在很大程度上可以用拓扑学来解释。每一代游戏都可以用游戏空间形状相当微小的变化来描述。例如，在整个电子游戏史上，真正意义上的。显著的进步仅限于一些功能，如平面移动、三维移动以及增加“”或动作序列。这些游戏之所以看起来不同，是源于它们的内容，而不是它们所蕴含的基本课程。

This is not to say that many of the classic fighting games didn't bring significant incremental advances. Of course they did. But did they effectively "add another hole to the donut"?

这并不是说许多经典格斗游戏没有带来显著的进步。它们当然带来了进步。但它们是否真正“在甜甜圈上添加一个洞”呢？

YOU FOUND 1 OF 15 SECRETS

你找到了 15 个秘密中的 1 个

Sometimes we ask you to do it more thoroughly.

有时我们会要求你做得更彻底。

Consider the evolution of the 2-D shooter or "." offered a single screen with enemies that marched predictably. After that came , which had no defenses and enemies that attacked a bit more aggressively.

请看二维射击游戏或“”的演变。只有一个屏幕，敌人的行进速度可已预测。之后又出现了，这款游戏没有防御措施，敌人的攻击更加猛烈。

Simple topological variants then ensued: and are just in a circle. and others added scrolling, and also had an end boss and stages that changed in nature as you progressed. added verticality, which was then quickly thrown away in the development of the genre. gave you some room to maneuver at the bottom, and a charming setting, but isn't really that different from Galaxian and Space Invaders. is an inverted circle: you're in the middle, and the enemies come from outside.

随后又出现了简单的拓扑变体：和只是在一个圆圈中的。和其他游戏增加了滚动屏幕，也有终结头目和随着游戏进程而改变性质的关卡。增加了垂直性，但在该类型游戏的发展过程中很快就被抛弃了。在底部给了你一些操作空间和迷人的设定，但其实与《小蜜蜂》和《太空入侵者》并无太大区别。是一个倒置的圆圈：你在中间，敌人来自外面。

Galaga was probably the most influential of all of these, because it added bonus levels and the power-up, a concept that has become standard in every shmup since. Xevious and Vanguard added alternate modes of fire (bombs and firing in other directions). and are special cases. Both have the element of rescuing. This has been pretty much abandoned today (sadly—though was a wonderful sidetrack there).

《大蜜蜂》可能是所有这些游戏中最具影响力的，因为它增加了奖励关卡和强化道具，这一概念在之后的所有清版射击游戏中都成为了标配。《铁板阵》和《先遣部队》增加了其他射击模式（投弹和向其他方向射击）。和是特例。这两款游戏都有救援元素。时至今日，这种玩法已基本被抛弃了（虽然是一个精彩的分支，但令人遗憾）。

Now, I don't know what the first 2-D shooter to have power-ups and scrolling and at the end of stages was, but a case can be made that there hasn't been a 2-D shooter with a different "shape" since then. Unsurprisingly, the shooter genre has stagnated and lost market share. After all, we learned that mechanic a long time ago, and everything since has been learning patterns that we know to be artificial and unlikely to be repeated anywhere.

现在，我不知道第一款拥有强化道具、滚动屏幕和守关的二维射击游戏是什么，但可以说，从那时起，再也没有一款二维射击游戏拥有不同的“形状”。不出所料，射击游戏的发展已经停滞不前，市场份额不断下降。毕竟，我们在很久以前就学会了这种玩法机制，而从那时起，我们一直在学习那些我们知道是人为的、不太可能在任何地方重复出现的模式。

This offers a possible algorithm for innovation: find a new dimension to add to the gameplay. We saw this in the way that puzzle games evolved after : people started trying to do it with , with , and eventually, pattern matching of colors became the thing that replaced spatial analysis. If we really want to innovate on puzzle games, how about exploring rather than space, for example?

这提供了一种可能的创新算法：为游戏玩法添加一个新维度。我们可以从之后益智游戏的发展中看到这一点：人们开始尝试用、来进行游戏，最终，颜色模式匹配取代了空间分析。如果我们真的想在益智游戏上有所创新，比如探索而非空间的益智游戏如何？

In fact, when we design games, we often start with a previous game and change just one element in it.

事实上，我们在设计游戏时，往往会从以前的游戏开始，只改变其中的一个元素。

EVOLUTION OF THE 2-D SHOOTER

二维射击游戏的演变