玩了Kahuna和Balloon Cup两个小型二人桌游。

前者看似简单，却需要严密推理，胸有大局，我一败涂地；后者运气成分浓厚，计算较少，我赢了两次。


规则很简单，通过手牌在岛屿之间架桥，然后类似提卡尔古城的机制，在取得绝对优势后，宣布对一个岛屿的控制。
不过，复杂的地方在于，这种占领会被推翻，并且由于周边局势的变化而产生连锁反应。
计分方式也很奇怪，分为三轮。


这个之前在石脑店里看到有人玩过，机制，流程，游戏组件类型和布局，和Battleline有点类似，不过没那么考推理。
运气成分较重，因为每次抽取的Token颜色组合直接决定小Round局势，手牌一旦偏单一，麻烦就大了。
设定里可以用“无用”的Token兑换剩余Trophy所需的资源让游戏深度增加，时间延长，但也似乎会容易让人囤积Token故意不兑换Trophy。

这是近来集中精力通关的两个游戏。这里指的通关，是以动作游戏苦手著称的我，以最低限度通关，并且看到制作人名单了。

生化危机5以Normal难度通关，用时11小时40分钟，不包括看CG的时间，那几十段CG加起来也有1小时了吧。

大金刚丛林之鼓打通12个普通关，外加一个非常简单的Boss关，莫约用了10小时。

生化危机5有些地方让人不太爽，比如虽然场景发生在非洲，可除了开摩托艇到四个小村子拿碎片那关有很强的非洲部落特色之外，其他所有关卡都看不出来是在非洲；比如BOSS战中BOSS的行为单一的令人发指，“当某种新鲜的挑战成了例行公事，也就是乐趣的终点”，BOSS的表现很酷，但所作的事情却相当枯燥，让你缺乏一种内在的紧张感。当制作团队将4代的操作方式，以及那经典的瞄准时不能移动继承下来的时候，好像忘掉了4代的神髓，就是利用出色的关卡设计让你始终处于难以自拔的紧张感，你会觉得自己是尼奥，而5代中，你只会觉得自己是在操纵克里斯。最让人不能容忍的的是遇到吉尔那一关，处理手法很缺乏想象力，更缺乏人情味。

大金刚是一个特别注意细节的游戏，虽然大金刚本人的动作模式相对马里奥要少，他和环境的互动也多体现在“拍手”产生的震波上。这就意味着，大金刚是一个“弱动作游戏”，不像马里奥那么强调精确的跳跃和反应。也确实如此，这个游戏在横版过关形式下，实际上目的并不在于对地图中各种障碍的躲避，或是轰杀，而是想尽办法多拿香蕉，以取得高分。13场Boss战具有典型的马里奥特点，你遇到的总是那少数几个BOSS，但第二次第三次遇到总会让你在同样的游戏机制下多一点挑战。抛开这些不谈，任天堂的游戏在细节上所作的功夫也确实罕见，整个游戏场景的设色，那些小猴子的动作，怪物的鬼叫，无处不在的音乐，充分利用手柄的震动和发声，5，6分钟的过关游戏，没有一秒钟会让你感到冷场。

这是网上找来的图片，我从Nintendo World买的大金刚模型，就摆不出来这么帅的姿势喽。





大金刚VS大爹地，友情出演：野蛮人首领，奎托斯，小妹妹，无名诸葛弩士兵

拳击项目结束后，最近加入BLM项目，加班等版本时，玩了几局YUNA同学的Battle Line。双人卡片游戏，短平快，我喜欢。

这个游戏的规则很简单。

Setting：古希腊，牌面上有希腊波斯士兵画像，战术卡的名称也有军事风格。

Component：一共60张数字牌，1-10，六种颜色。外加10张战术卡。9个token。

Object：游戏目的就是达成对9个token代表区域的占领，有两种方式，连续三个地区占领，或者分散的五个区域。

Game Flow：游戏开始，将9个小token拍成一排，两人游戏时，各分7张数字牌开局。轮到自己的回合，有三个行动，首先出一张牌，数字牌必须放在token向着自己的这一边，战术牌要用的话，要先检查对方用了多少张，自己当前用过的战术牌数量不能大于对方；其次如果在某个token上，自己的数字牌（与战术牌组合）达成绝对优势，即可宣布占领，将token移动过来；最后，抓一张数字或者战术牌。

Game Rule：每个区域，每边最多只能放三张牌。这三张牌之间比大小的办法是……当当当当

同花顺〉炸弹〉同花〉杂顺〉纯杂

OK，这就是麻将了。RK他一定是在打麻将的时候想出这个游戏的亚。游戏过程中最有趣也是最核心的玩点，就在于何时宣布占领一个区域，首先，游戏要求你必须通过已经上场的牌来推断，你形成的三张，对方无论如何也扛不过；其次，你要把握好宣布占领的时机，并且要有全局观，因为连续三个token获胜比分散的五个来的快，而且有效的多。

话说就在BLM项目组的空前紧张的气氛下，我还是挤出时间来做PMS项目的Concept Design。做下来感觉比较有趣的一点就是，因为旁边正好有一个Artist MM，我一边想游戏框架概念，一边让她帮我画体现框架的概念图，一边用她在概念图中放置的元素来充实文档，一边继续对着已经有相当Perspective的概念图来补充游戏框架概念，Bang!本来头大至极的文档，就这样一个个谷出来的，根据拳击项目的经验，最终最终的游戏还需要N多N多的打磨和修改，但是这CDD，它就是一切讨论的基础，就是推动开发的第一块多米诺骨牌。重要的不是在今后的研发中多大程度上实现当前的想法，而是能通过一片纸张上的草图来汇聚大家的经验，成品最终能将每一位开发人员的乐趣传递给玩家。制作人和设计师所要做的就是抛出扎实的讨论方案，不遗余力的调动每个人的积极性，理性分配资源，推动游戏性向前进步。

11月19号，也就是上周三，Jonathan Blow（Braid的主设计师，主程序员，自己管自己的项目经理……）在Montreal的Game Summit上发表了一篇演讲，我听了下来，觉得有些启发。

对于这篇名为《Fundamental Conflicts in Contemporary Game Design》的演讲，需要记录几个要点，以免忘了，好记性不如烂笔头。

演讲PPT和录音下载：点这里。

Jonathan认为，既然我们不能奢望让游戏达到文学和电影的高度，给人带来深刻启迪，至少也不要让游戏玩上去，看上去很假，很弱智。根据他的分类，一类游戏以“情”动人，如MGS4，GTA4，HL2这种具有丰富剧情的；还有一类以“活力”吸引人，比如各种体育游戏和Pac-Man这种non-Story游戏。
对于第一类产品，Jonathan认为当代游戏普遍存在三个主要的矛盾。

冲突一：Story Meaning vs Dynamical Meaning，简单来说就是故事和游戏性之间的矛盾。他举例Bioshock，Bioshock的故事，是大爹地和小妹妹之间的感人依存，不过，为了游戏的平衡性考虑，实际上你杀/救小女孩对你获得的ADAM影响不大……另外，还举例GTA4，有个很Boring的女的叫Kate，你是经常带她出去玩，不过毫无火花可言，到了主线需要的时候，你扮演的NB突然说很喜欢她……（大多时候，玩家都认了，也忍了，这也是Jonathan觉得业界不够重视的缘故）。解决这个矛盾，并且还想在游戏中保留故事，唯一的办法就是不断调整游戏性，使之为叙事让步，配合；同时也可以不断的调整叙事，使之和发展中的游戏性配合。

冲突二：游戏挑战和故事进展之间的矛盾

从太空大战，Pong以来，不断强化挑战，就是现代电子游戏的核心机制，当你“觉得”你学会了用什么“特技”来杀死[大量][更多][更强]敌人的时候，你Feel So Good。不过Jonathan以为，为了降低游戏难度，当代游戏大量使用的是“伪挑战”，比如拼命按键，背板。这种挑战的核心是一些机械反映，外围则很空虚，与游戏同时给你的另一种奖励：故事，格格不入。游戏和其他媒体的一个很大的不同点，也是游戏的真正价值所在，就是能让受众直接面对挑战。不过现在的游戏做得并不好，不够深刻。

冲突三：互动性和预制剧情之间的矛盾

制作者再怎么有能耐，也无法预知玩家的所有行为，所以说，当互动性和故事叙述搅到一起之后，就会大大破坏叙事的真实感和代入感，玩家不但不会感动，还会觉得可笑。

Jonathan在第五十页的话说得最好，他说，我就是一个普通人，如果说我在我制作的游戏中，放上一些我理解的道理，并且希望玩家通过努力来认识他们，这太不自量力了，并且更重要的是，也限定了这个游戏本身的界限。我更想做的是，创造一个世界，在这个世界中，玩家和我一起去探索未知的秘密，一起领略不同事物的意义，包括我在内的所有人，每个人玩这个游戏，都会有不同的思索。

如果有听力上的理解问题，还请指出。

前不久，好朋友钟文将一篇谈Braid艺术风格的文章打印出来，给我看，我从那时起便多方收集Braid的资料。直到最近，才在Xbox360上玩了它的试玩版，作者（Jonathan Blow对待这部作品的态度更像是一位作家，而不是游戏开发者）和画家David Hellman的完美配合更令我深深感动。也许不久后会有机会在PC或360上玩到这款出类拔萃的个人作品的完整版，不过，我迫不及待的要将这篇出自David Hellman的文章介绍给你，希望你能喜欢这款作品。由于译者并不从事美术相关工作，有错漏之处，还请行家不吝指出。


Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

谁见到过风？
你没有，我也没有。
但当树儿低下头，
便是风儿经过的时候。

《Braid的艺术：为不凡的游戏创造卓绝的艺术世界》

作者：David Hellman
译者：陈灼

在我参与进来之前，Braid已经在GDC上露面过两次了。创造者Jonathan Blow在Experimental Gameplay Workshop和独立游戏节上展示了Braid的独特游戏性：基于时间操纵的2D横版解谜游戏，甚至还获得过最佳创意奖。除了还需要一些很微小的打磨之 外，这款个人风格突出的作品已经基本完成，从头到尾玩起来毫无问题。

不过，从视觉效果而言，Braid还显得十分粗糙。那些方块，梯子，钉刺，看起来是那样的“横版解谜过关游戏化”，形貌毫不掩饰其作用，他们的存在目的就是在向玩家直接了当的传递：“我是某某游戏元素”，这样的信号。是的，从游戏的观念出发，Braid也许只需要简单的视觉效果就够了，但是它处处强烈表现出一种信念，那就是它要利用游戏这一媒介传递某种思想。

散布在Braid各关卡开始前的散文般的文字段落，令作者的野心昭然若揭。这些文字片断之中，充满了对友情，悔恨，时间悖论的敏感与沉思。“世界2”揭示 了一种无限制的复现机制——面对所有的错误，你都可以令时间倒转，这意味着不再存在“错误”。显然，这儿映射的是恋人之间油然而生的那种相互间完美的宽恕 之情。

你似乎要匆匆下结论，说这一切听起来太堂皇了。不，并非如此。上述联系，从来都不显得牵强。当我享受这款，一方面向超级马里奥致敬，另一方面又是一个独树一帜，活泼利用其时间控制机制的平台游戏时，这些观念啦，映射啦，都是自然而然的在我脑海中浮现的。

2006年夏天，我以Visual Artist的身份加入到项目中来。我的挑战，不仅仅在于要清晰的展现出Braid世界的机制与行为，更重要的是要帮助作者完成他的叙事意图，随你怎么理 解，逸事也好，技巧也罢，或许还有哲学。总之，这篇文章的目的在于，向大家展示，我如何为一款几乎已经完成开发，特立独行的作品进行视觉效果设计的过程。 还有我所遇到的挑战，以及我们拉拉杂杂的一些想法和工具相关的话题。

不以尝试为耻

起初，Jonathan给我传了一幅游戏截图，让我在上面涂涂画画。



就是这张啦，以程序员的美术细胞之名，主赞美它。尽管视觉效果十分简陋，但是从功能角度来看，游戏风格已经相当老练。钥匙，开关，楼梯，钉刺，怪物，还有一个穿西服的家伙，全都有了。和最终的发售版本相比，这款游戏从外观上来看，发生了巨大的变化。


这是我的第一次尝试。我故意不去理会截图所框定的元素和调色板。看上去很像超任时代的耀西岛。背景有散射光样的风格，颜色从中央荡漾开去。在e-mail中，我用“飘逸”来形容这种气氛。


接下来的一张，风格大变样。相当诡异，背景充满了舞者的身影。Jonathan曾用“思索推测型世界”来描述Braid的设定，因此我试图体现出一种空间意义上的抽离感，不想把制作者的意图透露得那么直白。

为什么不看看前景呢，其中有些完全不同的想法，但却与主题更为合拍。（舞蹈家到底有什么关联？不说啦。）我们最终没有采用这个点子，而使用了其他更为巧妙和隐蔽的手法来为故事提供铺垫和陪衬。下面还会详述。


古代废墟版。(TM).


调色板是这幅图的精华所在，粉蓝，豆绿和浅橙，极为优美的混合在一起。我就喜欢这样，当这些弱势颜色相遇时，它们都指望对方来撑场面。

举例来说，粉蓝在这儿并不是真的蓝色，实际上是灰色和同样分量的绿色以及黄色的混合。不过对我而言，从整体上来看，它更像是蓝系颜色。在别的地方有更戏剧化的案例，比如这儿：Joseph Albers 。

经过这一番提炼后，对于怎样表现一个世界，我的新想法又来了。我给乔纳森写信。信中提到，可以创造出一种具有特殊背景的世界，这个背景将会利用视差容纳不同层次的图层。这样一来，当背景元素“飘落”到近处时候，远处的元素就会产生效果明显的景深。

很多游戏都运用过上述手法，但是对我而言，我想尽量避免由此带来的背景元素相互之间的割裂感。因而，我对所有物品的边缘都进行了模糊化处理，并且在边缘通过特别的绘图手法来进行过渡。我们最终采用了这种方法，游戏背景显得像流水一样交汇，但总是带有有一层模模糊糊的感觉。



啊，色调调节了。我们尝试过多种色调。这张图最引人瞩目的改变是那些叶子。我的想法是让那些叶子“飘落”到屏幕上，然后停留在那里，这会令人像是要仰起头来看背景。
还是那回事，这都是为了“思索推测型世界”，为了模糊空间感而作的努力。不过实际情况却表现得有点太过了，“向你的脸上飘了过来”。

当我把这张概念发给乔纳森后，他对下面中间“挖”出来的那一块大矩形咬牙切齿。这种几何学上的诱惑，显然会让玩家在一款解谜游戏中产生疑惑，他们下意识里会认为所有特别的事物都有存在理由。

如果某些纯粹出于美学意义考虑放置到游戏中的元素和物品，在解谜游戏中让玩家对着它想破了脑瓜子，这无疑是很失败的设计。随着我们进一步开发，我越来越注意到这一点，我明白，千万不能让玩家感到迷惑，让他们分散注意力。



现在我们一下子跳到了未来，同样的场景，看我们的多次原型设计和最终游戏风格差别有多大！万岁！

“等一等，Hellman，”你没准会想。“你刚刚还在说，你要尽力避免那些纯美学上的事物和元素。但是现在我却看到了你在里面画了一百万棵植物和海藻！这是不是所谓的‘智识上的不诚实’？嗯？”实际上一点也不是。

好玩的地方就在这里，大量的大量的海藻画在这儿，堆在那儿，目的就是为了让玩家一眼扫过去就会产生“一大堆海藻啊”，这样的印象。他们不会再浪费精力和头 脑来思考这堆海藻到底会对过关和解谜起到什么作用。我觉得，为了体现上述概念，这款作品的表现形式相当优雅，这样，你就能集中精力，从你要寻找的事物上学 习到所需的东西。当然，以自己的角度出发，我宁愿从另外的切入点来看待这个问题。


世界2先行

经过这些不同方向的概念图创意之后，到了该进行实际工作的阶段了。我们得花时间抽出一些能实际放到游戏中的组件，看看在游戏中的表现效果如何。乔纳森已经专门为引擎写了一个地图编辑器，它很强大，无论尺寸怎么样，形状如何奇怪的组件，都能拼进去。

他让我挑一张已经完成的概念图。然后把它打碎，打碎到这样一种程度：利用那些碎片可以将游戏中的第一个世界完整的拼合起来。（世界2是玩家在游戏中遇到的第一个世界，因为某种含蓄的原因，没有一开始就告诉他们理由）

我在这儿撰写幕后故事，有时候会给人造成一种错误的印象，人们会把事情想象得更加简单和绝对。就像那些展示进化论的肤浅插图：鱼儿跃出海面，变化成黑猩猩，在变成直立智人，直到最后变成Groucho Marx（美国喜剧演员）的形象。

如果你把那些在千百万年的进化过程中，被残酷淘汰掉的物种统统忽略不计的话，看起来是挺简单的。你在本文中看到的每一张图片的背后都有至少半打的后备，我之所以不能把他们都拿过来，是为了不让文字被图片彻底淹没。但是，这丝毫不能减弱那些未见天日的图片的重要性。



无疑，整个制作过程中，也包含了某些更顺畅的阶段。你看这幅概念图，绿色在整体上得到压倒性的充分应用。假定我在创作这幅概念图的时候，心里憋闷得很，这 样可能保险些。岩石构成的石壁犬牙交错，乍一看像某种两栖动物的皮肤，再一看又像是破碎的绿玻璃。现在到了要做出决定的时候了，在我所有的尝试中，到底哪 一份最令我满意呢？我继续在探索。

最终，我坐到了更早期的概念图面前：



在下面这幅图中，我对豆绿和粉蓝进行更细节化，更自然的处理。草地现在看起来就更柔软，也更“草”，石头看起来也更加棱角分明。背景是进行抽象后的图案，教堂和房屋的白色轮廓风格特别，线条感十足。


我长吁了一口气，这样看上去好多了。不过乔纳森告诉我，气氛不对头，和世界2不符。颜色很鲜活，但是不自然，有点过了。世界2是整个冒险的开始阶段，充满乐观精神。在这一大关里，游戏还得向玩家介绍基本的要素呢，包括怎么跳，怎么攀爬。

最重要的是，这儿的时间特技是“倒放”，不附带任何惩罚的，让玩家在任何时候都可以让时间倒流。这是一个非常强调宽恕的世界。艺术风格必须表现出这种宽恕和进取。



这样，就带来了接下来这幅，看她，拥有更“朴素”的颜色：褐色的岩石，蓝蓝的天空。这幅图的大问题在于扰人心绪的背景。我想要在图中增加更多的“视觉亮点”，于是才会有背景中的天然拱门，以及左侧那片渐渐升高的草原。这样一来，三维世界的维度感变得含糊了。

随着我越来越深入到整个项目中，同时也越来越欣赏这款作品，再加上乔纳森的进一步阐释。我开始意识到，增加与游戏性截然相反的视觉亮点，是毫无意义的。需要增强的部分，必然是对游戏性起到支撑作用的。

举例来说，当玩家走到悬崖边缘时，他看到一座梯子从天而降，问题在于，这是悬崖和梯子的双重概念。在上面这张概念图中，背景的右侧将悬崖部分延伸出去了。这就干扰了悬崖概念，给玩家带来的直接印象。

同理，亮黄色的树木也太过于夺人注目了，虽然他并未和任何实质的游戏性相关联。



与此同时，我仍旧继续探索适合的表现方式，来应用在岩石和草地上。上面这幅图中，我分别用了各种不同的风格来展现岩石和草地的风貌。一步步的，我开始敲定 下来某些成分，并且将这些概念性的图片打成碎片。这些碎片必须可以导入到乔纳森的开发工具中去，随意排列组合，复制粘贴。下面会详述这一点。





这幅图中包含了早期的一些碎片，它们要么就是太大了，要么就是形状太特别了。无法满足开发工具对于灵活性的强烈要求。最后还是保留了这些碎片，不过只能在世界2第一幕的某些特别地点，无法在整个游戏中加以应用。



一些石崖和石头。


总是石头和草地，看久了未免让人生厌，我画了些花儿。（顺便说一句，从现在开始，原型阶段的主人公造型，将被Edmund McMillen的设计所替代。当然，最终这两个设计都会在发售版游戏中被另一个设计取代。）



增加一个让玩家进出的门。还有一个梯子，当然，最后我们没有在所有地方加以应用。


一棵树。看起来很像瑞士军刀啊，没错，我就是从中汲取了灵感，画成了这样一棵树。所有的枝丫都是可以移走的碎片，也就是说，可以组成各种不同形状的树。结果呢，根本就没有怎么用到它们！这棵树还是保留了下来，在游戏中，不过没有任何枝条了。


点我看大图

通过这张大图，你会看到，这些碎片最终是如何拼成了一整张地图的。不过，这里看到的仍然是Photoshop下面的mockup（模型）。青草，岩石和花 儿都处在前景的图层中。我另外在背景图层绘制远景。利用PS来制作mockup非常重要，因为只有这样我才能确保所有的组建都能够相互完美融合，就像是一 幅绘画所需要的不同元素。

尽管背景部分的概念设计起步更早，但对于早期的研究方向，我根本不能满意。它们太过卡通化，不够含蓄，线条分明。

自始至终，我都希望能够创造出某种具有抽象感的，特别的画风，要含蓄，不能太过直白的定义一处风景。如果你正在创作的作品，他的深度含义，是确定与模糊的 综合体，你就很难运用不含蓄的手法。特别是在游戏中，你实际上是要赋予各种分离的对象，以明确的功能。总之，我希望她们之间能融会得更加完美。

我当时主要在考虑的就是前景和背景之间的关联问题，以及如何对他们进行显著的区分化。也许前景可以通过更高的渲染度，更强的细节，来和背景拉开距离？

还有，背景的物体可以做的粗糙些，例如有含混不清的边缘。换句话说，越是和游戏性相关联的物件，就越会容纳高度的细节设计。

与游戏性关联较弱的物体，将会融入到周遭的气氛中去，参与美学意义上的构建，但是绝不会干扰玩家对他身边具体的物理环境的观感。



这幅图片令我相信，我的方向是正确的。在背景中，来自天空的蓝色与来自树叶的绿色相融，树叶的绿色反过来又和天空的颜色交融。在门的上方，一棵树被蓝色的烟雾缭绕所笼罩，这阵烟雾，同时也向右散开……

既要保证即兴风格，又要留下特别的自然笔触，我如何才能将这幅绘画打碎成种种可以复用的组件呢？将整幅画铺开来作为地图的平实背景，尺寸还显得过小。我心目中的背景应当有纵深感，有显著的远近视差效果，远处的物件将会比近处的移动起来更慢。

如果构图元素的边缘通常既不规则，也不明确，我怎么样才能决定哪儿是头，哪儿是尾呢？将手头的各种分离的图案和造型加以组合，创造出具有内在聚合效应，富有视觉冲击力的印象派感觉的绘画背景，对我来说是一个极大的挑战，我接受了这个挑战，并且应战到了项目的最后时刻。



这是在Photoshop中进行编辑的天空碎片。我对边缘用橡皮擦工具进行了羽化处理，因而，即便在相互重叠的情况下，它们之间仍可以保持一种连绵不绝的形态。


树木


所有背景元素都已经为世界2准备好了……



开发者模式

下面让我们看看，那些石头和草皮的碎片如何组合成可玩的关卡。本章将向大家展示乔纳森开发的编辑工具，我用这个工具来搭建Braid的游戏场景。这是实际游戏的一个后台，好像工地，充满了脚手架和其他器械。（声明：按钮上的字太大，因为我们把字体修改后，再也没去管了。）



这是游戏中，玩家在离开家之后，一开始来到的世界2的第一个场景。一张截图完全不能说明问题，你必须要到游戏中去，才能感受到这个场景的动态效果。（陈灼 译注：在实际游戏中，这个场景美丽的让人心碎，草地上光影流转，空气中雾霭蒙蒙，天上云影变换，太阳光芒萦绕，凡高的《星空》精神在这里有了活的形态。）



按下一个秘密按钮，哗，我们来到了开发者模式！Tim（主人公）消失了，各种各样的控制面板出现了，那些开发者才需要看到的组件也现形了。现在我们可以隐藏掉各种不同的元素，那么，就让我们一块一块来解释吧。



前景：现在我们只打开前景部分，这儿是Tim跑来跳去的场所。注意到了吗？草地和石块不再斑斓，阴影也不再显得那么自然。为什么呢？因为所有的粒子效果都关闭了。


粒子效果： 现在我们来打开粒子效果模式。在开发者状态下，每一个粒子物件都有一个很大“点和箭头”标志，在正常情况下，玩家是看不见的。对于不太了解粒子发射器是什么的人来说，我解释一下，粒子物件实际上就是将一张或者多张系列图片的组和。

举例来说，有些关卡设定在秋天的森林中，背景是落叶纷飞的景色。我手绘了一批叶子，然后将它们导入进粒子物件。粒子物件会由此创造出成千上百的叶子，每一 个都会旋转和飘零。你可以通过调整各种各样的参数，来决定最终发射粒子的动态效果。基本上来说，在Braid中你看到的风景中，所有能动的东西，只要不是 特别的物件例如角色，都要拜各种不同的粒子效果所赐。

在上图的 下方，你可以发现，这些粒子效果是如何应用到草地上的，他们带来了草地上流转的光华。地表由许许多多单独的草叶构成，往下一点，则是绒毛样的，锯齿状的， 波浪形的粒子效果构成。当所有东西都组合到一起来之后，他们并不会显得太过于夺目，而是会和草地很好的融和在一起，使整体效果看上去更加醒目和活泼。当 然，这也是意图所在。



背景： 这是背景。红色的线框勾画出一片天空。为了减少空白像素的比率，不对称的图片将会自动的被打碎，填补到各种矩形部分。



碰撞： 这个部分通常而言都是隐藏起来的，虽然它是游戏中最重要的。整个世界的物理空间范围由此定义，没有了碰撞你的角色一出门就会直接掉到看不见的地底。




好了，这个关卡竟然就这样诞生了。如此“魔力”到底是怎么产生的呢？我新建了一个文件，将一组事先准备好的图片导入。现在，他们一开始都凑在一起，是我手动把它们排排好，才会让你看到现在这样整齐的样子。

我真走运，我准备的图片一屏都放不下。好在我可以用WASD热键来控制他们，还可以用空格键来让我在当前工作关卡之间来回切换。我可以简单的利用Ctrl+C和Ctrl+V来复制粘帖它们。



每块组件都可以缩放，旋转，裁剪和上色。各个组件之间还可以很方便的通过输入数值来决定图层堆叠的优先顺序。 你可以看到，在那块红色的组件下面，又可以三边都是直线的组件。他在那儿的目的就是为了将上面两块大组件之间的缝隙填满。裁剪工具大大提高了组建的易用性。

上色没有听起来那么酷，大部分时候，我只是用它来将组件的颜色加深，对于远离可玩区域的组件进行变暗处理。

对于我而言，到了这一开发阶段，确实是充满了欢乐。度过了一段极其艰苦的艺术创造和筛选过程后，现在我可以随意摆弄这些玩具方块，看看他们组合在一起的动态效果。回想当年，我在红白机上用《挖金子》的自带工具编制地图，啊，我又怎么会料到，今天，那竟成了我的工作！



不要阿！那都是我辛辛苦苦的工作成果！（上图图说）



这下好多了！

Braid 在今年6月最终发售了。谢天谢地，总算世界还能在不情不愿的折衷主义和完美主义之间找到平衡（毫不妥协，这也太理想主义化了）。我们还是花了比预计多得多的时间，但是，我仍旧为最终结果感到无比自豪。我希望你们，能够在游戏过程中，体会到我的良苦用心。

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

谁见到过风？
你没有，我也没有。
但当树叶微微摇首，
便是风儿穿过的时候。

另：原文地址

文章前后的诗句来自Christina Rosetti的诗作，Jonathan将这两段诗分别放在游戏Credits名单的开头和结尾处。

Gamasutra采访Jonathan Blow文章的地址，其中提到了卡尔维诺小说对游戏的影响，我注意到，在Credits的感谢名单中，第一个就是这位意大利作家。

钟文，Bryan对译文也有贡献。

沉迷开心网48小时记^^

周六下午，肩颈处的酸痛稍缓，便去Funbox应约参加罗马征服大战。在等人的时候，Jomy让我们尝试了一个用各种线条和形状排雷成某个“物品”“动作”的考验形象思维能力的游戏，结果我拼成的鱼儿和狗狗都没有人能够认出来，游戏的名字叫Sq什么（据说这是如厕好游，可以打发时间，按，据说Funbox的厕所又添高级装备，会自动打开的宝盒，我没亲眼见到……）。不巧的是，开罗马征服局的朋友家里有事，不能来。于是我和Luna，LD兄再蒋大的指导下，玩了几盘新游戏。

是有名的蓝月城（Blue Moon City），去年我曾对照着斯考特的录像看过这个游戏的玩法介绍，真正接触下来，真是拍着大腿称赞……它的卡片和地形真精美。玩法实际上也很简单，就是靠手牌的合理运用，不断地在地盘上收集水晶，注意利用已经建成的区域收集边缘水晶，顺便让三条颜色龙飞来飞去为自己创造龙鳞。结果Luna首先达到纪念碑要求的贡献数量（基于水晶）。我们觉得这个游戏后来者难以超越前者，就没有再继续玩了。Luna和我都为那些精美的卡片感到可惜，因为他们虽然人物各个不同，同一类的作用都是完全一样的。为了这么精美的卡片和地形，再加上是Reiner Knizia的作品，有机会一定再玩一次。

然后蒋大又教我们三个人玩了一个名叫“乱七八糟”（Drunter und Drüber）的游戏，果然是乱七八糟，双层地图，底板是大家各自的破乱建筑物的存在点，第二层则是大家手中的下水道，砖石路，土路卡，好像是eastfire在旁边说的，游戏好像银河系漫游指南，每个人都怕对方的道路把自己的建筑物给拆了。所以，当道路跨过厕所，轮到大家煞有介事的用手中的投票权来决定厕所是否要拆的时候，就可以乘机[保护]自己的建筑物。这个游戏时间很快，半小时不到就结束了，大家都没法放道路了，因为它有一个很特别的规定，放置道路的地方，必须有小人存在，小人大概就是筑路工人吧，后来筑路工人都跑到一个角落去了，河流土路砖石路全都搅到一起。玩了一盘，我又输了，Luna和LD得分相同，对比手中剩余的投票卡价值，又是相同。

最后和蒋大一起玩了两盘德国什么，德国什么这个游戏有六十四张牌，分别由苍蝇，蝙蝠，什么，臭虫，什么，铲除，蝎子，老鼠各八张组成，大家平分洗运了的牌。据说有点像扑克牌里面的吹牛，你推一张牌到对方面前，夸口说这个什么是什么，如果对方猜对了，那么你留着这个什么，并且摊在自己面前，vice versa。谁面前的同一类什么摊到数量达到4，此人输了，其他人欢呼雀跃。第一局，我输了，第二局，蒋大在两个什么达到3张的不利情况下，成功地把一张什么传递到LD手中，结果LD输了。

此外，蒋大还跟我们讲解了机器人游戏Robots的规则，灰常可爱的各类机器人啊。他还给我们说明了《1960美国大选》这个超级复杂的双人游戏的规则，因为时间关系，当然，更因为我在看了那些内容超丰富的卡片之后，发现自己对那场大选的很多史实都忘记了，所以就没有去玩。最后，大家打开罗马征服的大盒子，观摩了一下游戏里面多的吓人的配置和大的要命的地图，然后我就和Luna去吃田蛙了。

今天下午，冒着酷暑，继一年之后，大家再度相聚在Alan教官的桌前，开始一场新的文明兴 衰游戏。与上次不同的是，Alan带来了原版文明的进阶扩展包，在这个扩展包之中，增加了更多种类的资源卡，和灾难卡。并且简化了资源交易环节中，使得灾 难卡不再像初版那样不容易“送”出去。其中Alan再次负责教学，我和陆人吉算是玩过一次，其他三位都是第一次玩。值得注意的是，Alan这次并没有应观 众要求，选择起始点难度最大的克里特文明，而是易守难攻，有着天然海域防御纵深的阿非利加文明。我抽签的顺序是5，轮到我的时候，肥沃的伊利里亚起始点， 乌克兰草原已经被LD君夺得，气势最强，向着文明中心可以一马平川打下来的亚述起始点，黑海北岸也由陆大拿走，Jomy更是毫不客气地当上了埃及的土地 主。我选择了和伊利里亚文明起始点接近的意大利文明起始点，大约在今奥地利腹地。那么，出场的各位人员分别是：意大利酋长（陈灼），伊利里亚酋长（LD 君），亚述酋长（陆人吉），阿非利加酋长（Alan），巴比伦国王（小包），埃及法老（Jomy）。另外，还有一位络腮胡大哥，在旁观战许久，为我们整理 卡片。

接下来，先流水账似的把我记忆中的古文明兴衰史回顾一遍，然后再通过图文介绍(需登陆)让大家多一些感性认识。

初，意大利人经略亚平宁，与伊利里亚密谋分割势力范围，走多瑙河路线，取道色雷斯，以为巴尔干必在囊中也。伊利里亚向东一线，剑指黑海西岸。亚述凭出生点 优势，南下不久，即和巴比伦北方战略领土接壤。阿非利加与埃及各自繁殖不提。各文明皆有两城，鱼贯突破石器时代，进入早期青铜器时代。

四回合后，各文明领土扩张立趋极限，意大利人在亚平宁建城两座，阿非利加登陆西西里，埃及人建大金字塔（12人换来的城市）于沙漠腹地，巴比伦子民纵横中东，亚述人如入无人之境，取小亚西亚入怀，伊利里亚与意大利再次战略和谈，双方在近保加利亚一带达成战略缓冲区，意大利承诺退出亚得里亚海北岸一带，举国之力移民伯罗奔尼撒半岛。

第五回合资源交易阶段，风云突变。意大利人抽中特洛伊木马卡，狡猾的酋长将埃及人急需的成衣装在木马之中送到耶路撒冷一带。简言之，我用木马卡从Jomy 手中硬抢一座战略城池，此城恰是巴比伦西锋，亚述南锋，埃及北锋交汇之处。取此城，却无意经略此地。意图是在三股东方势力之间插入一个维持平衡局面的棋 子，这样能让今后两三个回合中让他们互相之间的进退有所顾忌。另外，阿非利加经略亚平宁意图明显，但不料后院起火，埃及人不依不饶的对利比亚一代进行骚 扰。在北方，伊利里亚人从黑海两端，利用渡船过海，先后在欧亚大平原和安纳托尼亚西北角落足，与陆人吉两路冲突。巴比伦巩固领土，人口泛滥，甚至在阿拉伯 沙漠中建城。此间灾荒，地震等灾害爆发，平民死伤，城镇塌陷，自然不提。

早期青铜器时代注定是一个不平凡的年代，国际纷争好像爱琴海的波涛起起伏伏，巴比伦国发生的内战，也使得整个文明进程出现重大的变化。由于抽中内战卡，小 包不得不将国土一分为二，赠与远在地中海另一端的意大利帝国（不，意大利人现在已经更名为希腊帝国，因为他们已经遍布伯罗奔尼撒半岛，并且将克里特和塞浦 路斯收入囊中）。意大利·希腊国王选择了两河发祥地的几座城市，意图令后世史学家颇费思量。后经考证，实际上这是一场五方外交决定的大势，由于意大利民族 工于科技发展，税重，人口锐减，无法支撑两河飞地，Alan坐收三城。西亚一带顿时成为国际局势的焦点，巴比伦，埃及，意大利，亚述，还有乘坐外星科技飞 船从天而降的非洲人，混居在一起。到底谁能力挽狂澜呢？

文明的洪流滚滚向前，邪教传播令伊利里亚，埃及和非洲受到不同程度的损失，许多千年古城毁于一旦。意大利人用白银从巴比伦人手中换来黄金，然而却在金矿开 采的路上遇到了海上游牧民族，他势力，腓尼基人（文明进阶版本中新加速的元素，野蛮人入侵）。意大利人果然狡猾，不动声色地将黄金赠于阿非利加兄弟，同时 也把腓尼基人引向了迦太基一带的海岸。在北方，伊利里亚人仍和亚述人缠斗。巴比伦人励精图治，将享国者逐一剿灭，大有中兴之势。亚述人一方面和伊利里亚人 两线作战，一方面则觊觎西亚一带的肥沃土壤，还有一方面则是登陆塞浦路斯岛，将盘亘在那里几百年的意大利人后裔逼死。

六点半的钟声敲响，我们这场限时文明也走到末尾，陆人吉人品爆发，抽中内战卡，非洲人再夺西亚大片领土，巴比伦人虽然失地尽收，但却元气大伤，城市在几番 文明冲突和内战损耗中消磨殆尽，倒退回到石器时代……意大利人专心经略伯罗奔尼撒半岛，意外因为非洲发生暴动，获得迦太基福地，任由大本营罗马被非洲人占 领，利用资源优势（城市数量决定抽卡数量和等级），在最后两个回合一鼓作气发展后青铜时代所需的科技数量和类型，成为游戏终局唯一跨入早期铁器时代的文 明。

环顾其他各国，亚平宁半岛如今已姓Alan，但是阿非利加人民不得不分心照看西亚大片领土；亚述人的势力虽广，战线却太长，收复内战失地也势必会影响到全 盘布局；伊利里亚人总有一天会撕破条约，入住巴尔干；科技发达的意大利人在伊利里亚人的压力之下，很可能会渡海向埃及人传播文化；埃及基础尚在，成立北非 -西亚大帝国的梦想指日可待；巴比伦发奋图强，不出两个回合，就可以再造新巴比伦王国，从石器时代迎头赶上大家！

五个小时的文明兴衰录，就此拉下帷幕。

原文来自1up

这篇文章虽然是针对GTA4发售前的一个惯例访谈，记者却发现平常不好露面的Sam Houser话闸打开了说个不停。其中谈到了一些我十分感兴趣的话题。因此，

全文转载如下：

It's not that Rockstar founder Sam Houser is a man of few words. Get him talking about Grand Theft Auto IV and the British-born executive producer of the GTA series will fill two hours of audio tape. He'll go on about how his game's Russian accents trump Hollywood's. He'll disclose the Nintendo-spawned inspiration for the game's interpersonal relationships. He'll discuss the tricky business of developing for two consoles simultaneously. He'll even vent about the previously taboo topic of the Hot Coffee scandal. Landing a sit-down with the notoriously press-shy Houser isn't so easy, but we were granted one in early January for EGM's GTA4 cover story. And here, for the first time, is the full interview....

1UP: Now that you've been living in New York for 10 years, how has that changed this second trip to Liberty City and your perspective on the game's world?

Sam Houser: When we were making the first [few GTAs], we had been in the country a couple of years. It was all still new to us. It was all still -- I was about to say it was all still exciting, but it's still exciting. I still find going to the supermarket exciting. So it's not that it isn't exciting today; it was just when you move your life 3,000 miles away, it's a very different thing to go through. The difference here is that, as you can see from the [new] game, the game is very, very detailed now, and we really want to have the player get that whole new level of immersion, that sense of being somewhere, albeit virtual. Really soak up the atmosphere and the sounds and the smells and the sights, everything. I feel that our being here a long time, the way some of the practices and things that we've cultivated to make these games -- combined with actually learning about the place -- have enabled us to actually make a game about New York -- obviously it's Liberty City, but it evokes New York -- that people really can plug into, feel like they're there, and in a lot of the cases, be visiting areas of our world that they otherwise really wouldn't get to. In a lot of the research trips for this game, we ended up in places that are very, very unusual, to say the least.

（就像我曾经推测的那样，Houser兄弟从1998年来到纽约之后，果然一直保持着对这块土地的激情）


1UP: What was the most unusual place you wound up?

SH: Brighton Beach is pretty incredible. I can't speak highly of it enough. I went there once a week for about nine months, the end of the summer through winter and then into spring, seeing slightly hard conditions. You know about Brighton Beach at all, what goes on there?

1UP: No....

SH: OK, that's fine then. Because it's the inspiration for Hove Beach in the game. Hove Beach...the reason we called it Hove is in England, Brighton and Hove are next to each other and Brighton & Hove Albion is a football team. So that's pretty obscure, but we got our feet in both the American camp and the British camp, and we can jump back and forth between the two, which is something I think this game does really on a different level. In terms of the humor, in terms of the vibe, it's going to speak to British people; it's going to speak to American people. We can do that in a way that is unusual, in a way that is made possible, like you said, by being there a long time. So Brighton Beach is an area that's just next to Coney Island. Obviously, Coney you know from The Warriors, and also it's just an amazing place. Brighton Beach is this unusual sort of strip of about eight blocks, like a shopping street, underneath an elevated train section, like the thing in The French Connection. It's in the game: the area you see with the elevated section over it. It's all very dark....

But as I understand it from local friends, before the mid- to late '80s, it was predominantly Hasidic Jews, of which there's a lot in the outside and connected areas. But it got taken over in the late '80s and beyond by Eastern Europeans. So it really is, now -- it's completely Russian. There will be Ukrainians and Lithuanians and a whole load of other nationalities there, but the overarching resonance is Eastern European, and predominantly Russian. I've been different places all over the world. I've been to Chinatown in San Francisco, the Chinatown in New York, this quarter of somewhere in Paris or something, and I've never been anywhere like Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. You cross a line, and you are in another world. The people are actually very friendly, but they don't come across as particularly friendly when you first visit -- quite dour faces, heavy atmosphere. So working on this game, when I actually started going there, it blew my mind. Creatively, it was so inspiring and so uplifting, because we were making this game about these Eastern European guys who I think are fascinating anyway, and suddenly I ended up in this place where I was there. Every shop has Russian logos. I've not seen anything like it before. If you go into a shop and you speak English...you'll get what you want, but it's a battle. It's like you're crossing this line and you're suddenly in Moscow.... There's this weird mixture in places of opulence and decay which I love. Like Coney Island is all being transformed into condos. You're not going to know it the way I have. I've been lucky enough to visit it and spend time there. Five years from now it's all going to be converted, yuppified, whatever.

1UP: In a way, GTA4 will be a snapshot of it.

SH: Exactly, we're capturing it.... Recently, I watched a film, Eastern Promises. It's a scary movie. I'm a big fan of [director] David Cronenberg. So I watched Eastern Promises with some amount of trepidation. I didn't know what I was going to make of this, because it's in our sort of vibe. As ever, I think Cronenberg did a magnificent job. I think he picks up on an atmosphere, which is something I'm interested in, and he can really evoke that very powerfully.... I loved the Russian vibe in there, loved the tattoos -- he and I have clearly got the same book on Russian mobster tattoos.

The area where I feel as a game we did something different from [Cronenberg] -- I don't want to say "better" because I don't really think like that -- but he used Viggo Mortensen, who I think is American or Danish or Scandinavian or something like that, and then the other guy, Vincent Cassel, he plays the son. He's a French actor. I thought Viggo's accent was OK. I thought Vincent Casell's accent, having studied a lot of accents, was just like a French guy doing a Russian voice. I was just, like, "I can't take this seriously." He's a great actor. He's been in some wicked films, but it just didn't work. So when I went back to our game and I was meeting Vlad and Faustin, and particularly Faustin -- who's this really scary, proper, deep mobster -- running the scene out in Hove Beach, I'm like, "You know what -- we're actually competitive with [the movie's performances]." That's remarkable.

1UP: The past 3D GTAs were obviously inspired by movies and TV shows -- Goodfellas, Boyz in the Hood, Miami Vice. This is the first one that seems to go off on its own. Have you run out of inspirations for the series?

SH: ...We felt that the Italian mob thing had been done to death a little bit. I think we've got some good Italian mobsters in this game, but they're not leading the game. I'm a big, big fan of The Sopranos -- how could I not be? -- but I also feel as if that stuff's had its run. We also read a bunch of books and did a bunch of research on it, and the more we dug into it, the guys who are in this day and age the real-deal thugs -- the real-deal gangsters -- are the Eastern Europeans, these new transplants from different parts of Eastern Europe.... These new guys off the boat, they're coming with something to prove, and they mean business. They are f***ing fearless....

I think [that's why] Niko's a real strong character. I like the setup that someone would have been involved in some of the difficult conflicts that took place in Eastern Europe 10 years ago -- not because he's a good person or a bad person or this or that or the other -- but because that was what was on his doorstep, as many guys like you or I would have had to do. What would you do if your town got attacked and that was what was going on around you? You'd defend yourself. All of these young men like you or I went off and did that, and then the stuff got resolved, and they're all like, "What do I do now?"

Obviously, a lot of guys...got on boats or got on planes, and there's a collection of these guys here. I got excited because I felt that it was something that's very "now." Liberty City was very "now" at the time that [GTA3] came out in 2001. Vice City obviously captured the '80s. San Andreas captured the '90s. I really was obsessed with us making sure that we made something feel very, very contemporary and of the moment. I think that is so key. So this plugged into that. It's not that we necessarily ran out of other things to be inspired by, because I can get inspired by pretty much anything. But the fact is, from wanting to do New York and just dicking about a little bit, these pieces just came together. We're a long way from having just sort of a great big, white, alpha-male dude running around with a bazooka. Our games aren't really set up like that. We want to have a character that makes you ask questions -- that can be a little confusing in terms of how you empathize with them and how you relate to them....

（以上大段谈话中，Sam Houser详细解释了GTA4中一个重要场景，HOVE BEACH在现实中的来历，并且，还由此延伸，谈起了黑帮电影对他的影响）

1UP: The theme in GTA4 seems to revolve around relationships -- building them with characters using your cellphone.

SH: Cultivating relationships, like [in] the real world, is bloody hard. People get pissed off with you; they expect you to call them back. That's one of the things that I've personally been obsessed with in games for years.... I think the first time I really felt that in a videogame -- not a PC game -- was in Star Fox on the Nintendo 64.

1UP: Your copilots?

SH: Yes, that's it! The little froggy mate or the rabbit. I'd be flying in and looking across [the game world], and there they'd be. I thought, "That is hot!" I was probably 20-odd [years old], and I remember my friends saying, "You're getting a little bit too into this." You didn't want to see them get hit, even if he is just a rabbit. That stuck in my mind: one of those things where that felt different. With games, to me, it's all about the feeling -- it's about making original, unique sensations and emotions. [Like] the mission "Bomb the Base" in GTA3, where you're sniping for 8-Ball; I remembered the feeling between the two of us then. I remember thinking, "That's cool." So we pushed it along a little bit for Vice City, and we pushed it on a little bit for San Andreas. But in this one, because of the amount of resources and power that these new machines give us, we're able to bring it to life so much more....

1UP: And you get material as well as emotional rewards. Little Jacob brings you weapons; another guy will bring a helicopter....

SH: Yep. It's very integrated into it like that. The idea is that if you do cultivate these relationships, you'll do fun things with them. [The characters] will be amusing people to hang out with, and then other things will come from that: Either they'll introduce you to other people who will introduce you to other things to go and do, or they'll come and bring a present for you of some description, whether it's a weapon or what have you.... But it's a really important area to explore. The idea of having feelings for a bunch of polygons is very profound. It's something that I want to see more games push, and I certainly want our games to keep on pushing it....

1UP: And once a player is invested in the characters, that's when you can do things like kill them off....

SH: Yes, exactly. Once you're invested, then you can turn them on their heads. There's a mission where you have to rescue Roman from some rather hostile characters. You can hear him yelling down at you, and you're yelling up at him, but there's about 15 scary Albanian guys in between: That feels heavy.... There's an emotional charge to [our game], to why you're doing it, that makes you feel very different about it.

1UP: San Andreas put a lot of emphasis on customizing your appearance to interact with other characters, but now that's out.

SH: Yes. You spend more time working at the relationships rather than working on yourself, to some extent. You have to put time in with the friends doing activities or errands for them, or just hanging out, going and having a drink, playing a game of darts, playing a game of pool. The darts is particularly my favorite: I actually win at it, which I can't believe. I've always been terrible at darts my whole life.... But if you put the effort into these relationships, I think -- as in the real world, really -- they blossom and grow and evolve. And if you don't, you start getting these more and more pissed-off text messages and phone calls from them. They're like, "Look...I haven't seen you in a week. What the f***'s this all about?"

1UP: But you can blow people off if you're not into that -- you just won't get the full experience.

SH: You can play the story the whole way through and pretty much ignore all the friends. You will miss out on some really fun, funny, and cool things that'll happen in the course of that, but that's your choice. And I think, more than ever, one of the things that people like about GTA3 and Vice and San Andreas was that freedom to just go around the world, tool about, and do their own little thing. I think this takes that to the absolute next level....

（以上主要说的是GTA3以来，Sam Houser力图在游戏中表达给玩家的一种感觉，就是和NPC之间感情上产生共鸣，互动，让玩家的感觉深入到游戏中去，并且描述了一些有关GTA4种加强人际关系建设的必要性和可能性）

1UP: GTA4 seems like a bit of a harder sell, because players might look at it after playing San Andreas and say, well, you've pruned features. It doesn't have the suburbs, the planes, the working out to build up your character....

SH: When we first started talking about the game, the first map that we were all looking at here...it was f***ing enormous. It was the logical move on from San Andreas. You had the Catskills, the Adirondacks. I'd only been to the Adirondacks once; it took me six hours to get there! It's f***ing miles away. And the more we looked at it, the more we thought, "How are we gonna achieve the level of fidelity?" How are we going to increase the resolution of the experience -- not just the graphics but the experience, the gravity of everything, the weight of every action, the intensity of everything -- if we just go farther and farther out? The more we chatted about that as a group...the more it started to shrink down. The more it became a traditional, what you think of as a "New York City" kind of environment. It was a very conscious thing.

So we wanted to make sure that every single thing that you do, whether it's walking down the street, getting into a pawn shop, using the guns, driving a car or a bike or a boat or a helicopter or whatever -- just general basic interaction -- felt reengineered and reengaged so it feels new for people. Because for me as a consumer, that's what I demand. If I'm going to buy an expensive machine and this beautiful, immersive piece of entertainment, I want to be engaged on levels that I've not had before. And I feel that by going what we flippantly refer to as "back to basics," we were able to really go into each area of the game, each mechanic of the game, each bit that makes up the overall experience, and just crank the absolute life out of it and take everything to that next level that we wanted....

（上面这段Sam提到了之所以将地域集中在纽约市区的原因，是为了更集中精力打造游戏，提升各基本方面的游戏性，而不是一味的求大求全）

1UP: The first trailers made the game look more serious than the past GTAs, which had us worried because we really like the humor in the games. After playing it, we can tell the humor's still there.

SH: We take our games very seriously, but we don't take ourselves very seriously. Because I think that's a slippery slope for life. So we take the piss out of ourselves, and we take the piss out of anything we can think of. It's sort of unilaterally offensive. No one can get their nose put out of joint, although I'm sure they will. One of the jobs that [brother and Rockstar cofounder] Dan [Houser] and [radio host] Lazlow and those guys really have had to do...is keep being funny but make it get older and more mature and more sensible.... I feel that they have absolutely retained the GTA humor and attitude. But it's grown up, because people who enjoyed it in 2001 are seven years older. Kids that were 10 in 2001 can now play it.... The world is seven years older. When we made the first game, blogs didn't really exist. Now blogs are a way of life. What would this game be without a bunch of bloggers in it? So we have bloggers in there....

（保持幽默感，这件光荣的使命交给了他的光头弟弟DAN HOUSER）

1UP: When you think of what Rockstar has been through lately, it's like there are two ways you can go. You can play it supersafe, or you can push it. The American media can take one thing, like the drunk-driving minigame, and make it a bullet point for the news.

SH: Our games are consciously made for adults -- it's why we started the company.... [From 17 years old] and up, I think we have a right to play what we want to play. And that's that. And as long as it's not touching on themes that are socially inappropriate -- and some films do it, and I think games should be allowed to do it, but let's be respectful -- as long as you're not doing that, what's the f***ing problem? Adults should be able to play what they want. America, the country I'm now a citizen of and love, is built on that premise....

I think the problem that games have got is that they're called "games," and that makes people think of 8-year-olds and Mario.... I've been a fan of Mario games as long as I've been playing games. My hat goes off to [Nintendo] -- we learned so much from those people -- but it obviously skews younger.... We're doing our thing. But I think for politicians, for lawyers, and for parasites, you go "game" and you go "killing" and you go "children," and it's too easy. It's a nice way to get half a page in the paper.... When you look at how much work goes into making this stuff, and how much passion and creativity and ambition is behind it, to boil it all down to that is really, really depressing. One of the things that I've struggled with during Hot Coffee is [that] San Andreas is a game that I think is absolutely wicked, top to bottom -- a seminal piece of work -- that's now going to be remembered for Hot Coffee. I think actually we're getting past that now, just about two or three years later, but that stuff really upset me, because it boiled it all down to a bunch of salacious, cheesy muck. We're just not about that. We're not going out to court controversy from anybody. We're looking to make stuff that inspires us, turns us on as young people that are involved in this incredibly powerful, incredibly exciting, incredibly no-rules medium where we sit and go, "What should we make? Let's make this! Let's make that!" All this wonderful energy.

Going back to your point about [the reaction to things like drunk driving], I know there was some reaction to the previews about that, but it never even crossed my mind.... This is something that Strauss Zelnick, who's the chairman of [Rockstar parent company] Take-Two, has spoken to me about, because he has a lot of experience now. He was at BMG, and he had to go and defend rap lyrics in the '90s. He was in Congress doing that, so he was a really good guy.... He was able to give me some great counsel and support.... One of the things that he [brought up] was a notion I didn't even know of before, the notion of "chilling" our thought. [Chilling is any activity that inhibits creativity and the exercise of Constitutional rights -- Ed.] So when I'm making my game with my friends, we're going to make the game we want to make. If, as you said, we'd gone the other way and said, "We're all too scared -- let's go talk to Mattel and get the Barbie license because I feel safer in that territory," then A) I'd probably do something wrong and get in trouble doing that, so it's probably better I don't [laughs], and B) probably if I hit that point, I'd just pack it in and go do something else....

We want to push the boundaries of this medium in terms of the experiences we can give. That's got nothing to do with sex or violence or any of those other things -- it's just in this series of games, gangster games, there's a certain amount of content that goes with that. And it's no different [from] any movie or any book or anything like that. Well, it's interactive, but what happened when we went from a book to TV? When we went from printed words on a page to fully realized [images] on a screen? It's no different. It's called evolution.... I'm obsessed with the fact that they stopped the [supersonic jet] Concorde, because it's one of those things that was so progressive, and they stopped doing it, and they've gone backward. I'm really a fan of progress in the world, new things, evolution, creativity, and maybe that Concorde thing doesn't make a lot of sense....

1UP: Games at least don't depend on ticket prices or fossil fuels. They're limited by imagination.

SH: Exactly.... I just like progress. You're exactly right: Why would we want to curb people's imagination, people's thoughts? I couldn't agree more with the need for intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive, accurate, aggressively enforced ratings systems. Of course. But when I see politicians coming out and saying parents are too busy to pay attention to what their kids are playing, well, how am I supposed to argue with that? It's such a nonsensical statement. I can't engage it.... We know we can't win in that discussion. We can't win.

I will tell you this: When they dragged me and some of the other guys down to Washington [for the Federal Trade Commission investigation into Hot Coffee], they seized all our e-mails, and they had all that stuff in front of them, and they're going through thousands of them. You sat there in a room like this...and there's you and your lawyers and then all these government investigators sitting opposite. They've got your e-mails, and they say, "Why have you put that word in apostrophes? Why have you done this? Why have you done that?" It's a heavy one, right? It's not many game designers that have been in that position that I know of...which goes back to the point about having the fire for this game. I felt those people were out to crush us, and if they could have crushed us, they absolutely would have. If they could have found that smoking-gun e-mail that says, "Oi, mate, stick the thing in there," [then] off we go. We would have been crucified. But they didn't have it....

The other thing that bothered me about that one is that if you actually know us at all and if you played San Andreas, that section that got unlocked was so not creatively in sync with everything else in the game. It was so not finished.... It was embarrassing. So for that thing to become our whole world was bloody awful.... We just didn't let them [get] in our heads. Because if I'd done that, I'd have to give up.

（孩子无娘，说来话长，SAM HOUSER提起热咖啡事件，激动得回忆了当年受到的那些难以想象的“待遇”，表达了捍卫游戏内容自由创造权利的精神）

1UP: You also have that issue in American culture where sex is really inappropriate....

SH: But guns are OK. I tell you, Dan and I own a little place in upstate New York, and the first time I went to Gander Mountain.... It's a chain of outdoor shops on the East Coast. As a British person, these shops are amazing. You can buy a quad [bike] or canoe, a pair of Timberland boots, some Carhartt clothing.... But at the back you can buy a bloody M-16, a pump-action this -- un-be-lievable.

1UP: It's a real-life Ammu-Nation.

SH: And then some! It makes Ammu-Nation seem very light on stock. And I remember at the time going, "Wait a minute. Wal-Mart are going to pull our game, but you can go in there and buy a pump-action or a Glock or whatever." I don't get it. One of the things I struggle with, with that whole episode, was that it just felt like we were being used for a political football, at a political time.... It's been very clear to me that it's been an easy way for politicians to talk about something that makes them sound relevant, contemporary. It's a lot easier to talk about than climate change or oil prices or conflicts in the Middle East, things that actually require real thought.... I could really go on and bore you with this stuff, but let's talk about more positive and constructive things. It's very interesting stuff, and I think we are at a real moment in time. I think to some extent it's the publishers' duties and the press' duty as one unit to kind of defend it a little bit. I know I haven't done a particularly good job of it, but I don't think I'm the person to do it. I think they'll look at me and go, "Right, we know why we don't like videogames now. There he is, the cheeky guy over there." But I think we all, as a group, need to be doing a better job. I level that at myself as much as anybody else. And we will, the industry will, they'll get better....

（枪支和性，怀着摇滚明星梦的SAM HOUERS在美国土地上感受伪善的美国人民对待这两者的截然不同的态度）

1UP: Let's talk about the hardware issues. Back when GTA4 was delayed, PS3 technical hurdles were cited as a contributing factor. I take it those have been ironed out.

SH: I don't know what anybody's said on that stuff. I didn't say anything, and I stay out of it.... Both machines are absolutely fantastic, but they both come with strengths and weaknesses. The strength of the 360 is a very, very accessible, familiar, effective environment to work in. You're making the game from the get-go, everyone understands its PC environment -- boom, off we go. It's pretty good. One of the problems with the 360, and it affects games like Grand Theft Auto if you think about how much content we put in the actual machine, is the fact that they don't have a significantly larger storage medium than the previous systems. It's a slightly bigger DVD disc.

1UP: Plus, you're not guaranteed a hard drive in every system.

SH: That's a complicated one. I met with a bunch of the senior fellows from [Microsoft]. I said, that's kind of complicated.... The upshot of the technical challenges we've experienced on either the 360 or on the PS3 is [that] both companies stepped up to the plate and have supported us in a way that was beyond even my greedy expectations. They've been amazing. I think that the 360 is going to have to get 'round this issue we're talking about. I can think of various ways they can do it. Hopefully, they're going to adopt one of those in the next year or so, because it's going to become more of an issue. If we're filling up the disc right now, where are we going? It's not like our games are going to get any smaller. I think that issue's on the table with a bunch of games right now. I'm sure they'll come through with an intelligent solution.

Getting things running on the PS3 initially was challenging. I think it was challenging for a lot of companies, but it's also a machine where, now that we've got comfortable with it -- I don't want to say we've cracked it, but we've got comfortable with it -- we know we can make our games. We're at a point now where the games pretty much look identical side by side. There's a slight difference in the way they look. I think that's to do with really low-level technical stuff that I'm not the guy to explain. The 360 games have a certain look to them; PS3 games have a certain look to them. I like the way [the PS3] renders. There's a certain kind of softness without being blurry -- some warmth to it -- and then there's a certain more clinical element to how the 360 looks. Both have plusses and minuses. As far as I'm concerned, they're neck and neck now. That's very much our goal; we do not want to get in the middle of that rather heated, fervent debate.... These guys who wanna defend their systems, you know what? Good on 'em, and let them do it. We just didn't want to give them something that would in any way fuel it....

（技术问答，SAM HOUSER不满360的光盘容量限制）

1UP: GTA4 has some online modes, but what about a massively multiplayer GTA? Is that something this world can support, or do you think you need a world where you're mining ore and grinding like in World of WarCraft?

SH: I think a subscription-based Grand Theft Auto-type game...is very, very doable and is a very, very compelling proposition. Your question about mining ore, I think you've hit on the core of what the challenge would be. I think the basic things that you can get away with in a fantasy thing -- that fantasy players don't mind doing -- just wouldn't fly for the kind of mass-market users that we really talk to. But I think that there's other ways that we can get at them, and it's definitely something that we're very keen to explore.... I do think that the combination of the multiplayer games that we've got for GTA4 is pretty good. It's a range of different modes. It's pretty deep, pretty sophisticated. It's still Grand Theft Auto, so it's got a rawness to it.... Our multiplayer experiences definitely have a different vibe. [They're] a lot of fun, have a lot of character. It's got a lot of standard modes, but it's also got some modes we've not really done before....

For me, though, the combination of what we're doing with multiplayer and what we're doing with the [downloadable XB360] episodes is the start of us putting our toes in this water and seeing how our audience...adapts to online. Is episodic content the way forward for them? These are things we're going to find out. I'm very excited about the episodes. I think they're going to work beautifully well, particularly if you played the single-player experience -- how they connect. Again, without giving too much away, we're absolutely going to head down that path. We're already kind of on it....

1UP: Nobody's been very successful with the massively multiplayer thing on the consoles....

SH: No one's done it, and it's like the Holy Grail. I think if you can combine the vibe and the attitude and also the gameplay and the tangibility of the games we make with some kind of -- for want of a better term -- MMO subscription model, I think that's like the golden-goal kind of thing. It's such a creatively fascinating place to be.... Keeping the world like the one you experienced for a couple of hours today alive -- I could think of a hundred ways of doing that every day. So I think this is a world that really can support it. But it's not just a done deal. It's a complex, challenging process. Imagine that world, populated by a lot of people -- it wouldn't be unpleasant, would it?

1UP: It might be chaos.

SH: Well, that's the thing: How you manage the chaos is the trick, where it's not just everybody running around and firing f***ing rocket launchers. That wouldn't be fun. It's how you can bring mass-market people over and make them be comfortable with some amount of roleplaying, in a way that World of WarCraft players -- these are people who maybe 15 years ago were playing D&D or Magic: The Gathering -- did. Those people get roleplaying. We have to get mass-market people.... We have to find ways of getting around some of those challenges. Having 2,000 people run around a map shooting each other, that's just not interesting to me.

（SAM对于GTA4网络化部分的一些观点，看得出来，对待这个问题他还是十分冷静的）

1UP: The world's a lot different now than when GTA3 came out -- 9/11 had just happened. How has the war on terror affected GTA4? I know that there's a terror scare in the city, and that's why one-third of it is closed at the beginning.

SH: It's not a massive theme in the game, because it's not actually that relevant to our game. But to not reference it in the world would be inaccurate and in some ways inappropriate. This goes back to one of the things that we were really obsessed with in the game, which was making it be as "now" as possible. As much as this reality TV thing is part of now, or this type of music is now, what's going on with some terrorism issues and things like that, that's now. So for a game that prides itself on being relevant and being socially aware, even if it's inappropriately socially aware, it knows what's going on. We make reference to it, but we don't go into any huge amount of detail with it. Because again, if we were to do that, you can imagine what would happen.

（对于恐怖主义在GTA4中所占的比例，SAM做出了解释，并且不乏自我解嘲的解释了在游戏中缩小反恐主题所占比例的原因）

通关，并不意味着游戏已经结束。

制作人名单浮现……

一幕幕场景在眼前闪过：风波平息，儿时伙伴乘着马车回到家乡，故乡的小桥流水边，是乡亲们的笑颜；雪山依旧，鱼人王子在星空下若有所思；时间神殿外，会移动的武士仍在守候；湖面上的大桥，早已没有怪物存在，狭路相逢时豪气干云的啸声尤闻；城中喷泉旁，昔日里忙着各自生活的市民，聚在一起跳起欢庆的舞蹈；酒吧中间，胖乎乎的心机猫，和侠义老板娘相视而笑；塞外沙漠中壮丽的罗马竞技场式舞台中央，泪珠儿划向镜面……时间定格在女神雕像的中央。

丝毫没有预料到，主题极具轻奇幻色彩，内容偏儿童向的《塞尔达传说：黄昏公主》，在五分钟的结局动画内，情感戏陡然达到高潮。一切仿佛刚刚开始，却又嘎然而止。林克最后竟像山姆一样，回到家乡，等在路口的是青梅竹马的女孩。在整个游戏过程中，任天堂的剧作家，没有刻意强调林克与三位主要女性的情感戏，至于最后的煽情部分，我们作为经历了五六十个小时游戏历程的人来说，到底是感到惊讶，欣喜，从容，惋惜，伤感，遗憾，还是无所谓，也都是我们自己的事情。

《博得之门》《异域镇魂曲》乃至稍逊一筹的《旧共和国武士》，这些欧美角色扮演游戏中的情感戏份，之所以让我难忘，一个主要原因，可能是那些和我（主角）产生感情的人，都是同生共死的队友，或者是前队友（戴尔纳娜）。因此，林克与黄昏公主在游戏结尾处之间的惆怅对视，就特别能打动人心。欧美RPG中的女性队友和主角之间的感情，是通过对话和自己的行为慢慢培养的，一切水到渠成，到了游戏结束的时候，已经有些老夫老妻（或者老夫少妻）的感觉的。除了戴尔纳娜这样可望而不可及，永远是心中的痛。黄昏公主却就出现两幕，对话也少得只有三四句，颇给人一种生境无常，时光难再的感觉。也让人想起《鹰狼传说》中那对苦命的冤家，当然了，这一切在游戏的倾少儿背景下，都不是很明显。

不得不说，整个《塞尔达传说：黄昏公主》的故事显得有些老套，似曾相识，也让人不能一直保持对故事走向的激情，但最终的结局，为什么会如此伤感，却完全建立在这个故事的前提和背景之上。所以，还是纳兰词里说得好：

人生若只如初见，何事西风悲画扇？