看似非常简单的回答_看似简单的设计-CSDN博客

看似非常简单的回答

A small analysis on Stardew Valley’s design

浅析星露谷的设计

Stardew Valley is inspiring to me as an aspiring designer. Made by one man (Eric Barone), it is an achievement in clever design that masks complexity with simplicity.

Stardew Valley鼓舞着我成为一个有抱负的设计师。它是由一个人( 埃里克·巴隆 )( Eric Barone )制造的，是一项巧妙的设计成果， 以简单性掩盖了复杂性。

Stardew Valley is a game centered around building up your farm and engaging with the fictional town that your farm is in. The game does not give you any stipulations about how to “win the game” as it becomes apparent that it is about the experience as opposed to the ending (which there really isn’t one). If you read reviews of the game, most people talk about how it is relaxing, charming, and most importantly, deceptively deep. I want to take a look at some of the elements in Stardew Valley’s design that support this notion of being “deceptively deep” as I think this where Stardew Valley has differentiated itself and lessons can be learned.

星露谷(Stardew Valley)是一款围绕建立农场并与农场所在的虚构城镇互动的游戏。该游戏没有给您任何有关如何“赢得游戏”的规定，因为很明显，这与体验有关反对结局(实际上没有结局)。如果您阅读了该游戏的评论，则大多数人都会谈论它的放松，迷人之处，最重要的是，它具有深层的欺骗性。我想看一下Stardew Valley设计中的某些要素，这些要素支持这种“欺骗性深层”的观念，因为我认为Stardew Valley得以脱颖而出，可以汲取教训。

角色制作画面 (Character Creation Screen)

I want to start with the character creation screen. While character creation is not a novel concept in video games, I believe that the way that this screen is setup sets the precedent for how Stardew Valley approaches its design.

我想从角色创建屏幕开始。虽然角色创建在视频游戏中并不是一个新颖的概念，但我相信设置此屏幕的方式为Stardew Valley如何进行设计提供了先例。

The graphics on display are simple, dated, and incredibly clever. For a game about a farmer who left corporate life behind them to pursue happiness, the graphics support that message through a sense of nostalgia and approachability that hearken back to a simpler time. With this choice, Stardew Valley is establishing a tone.

所显示的图形简单，过时且非常聪明。对于一个关于农民为了追求幸福而抛弃企业生活的农民的游戏，图形通过怀旧和平易近人的感觉回到了更简单的时间来支持该信息。通过这种选择，星露谷树立了基调。

When you first look at the screen, you are met with a fairly straightforward UI that is familiar, and what appears to be a limited set of customization options. You use your controller to select the arrows to change the item in question (i.e. Skin 1) and press the button in sync with your controller to see the new item appear on the screen. Pretty typical but effective in reinforcing how to interact with the screen and game.

第一次查看屏幕时，会遇到一个非常简单的UI，该UI很熟悉，并且似乎是有限的自定义选项集。您可以使用控制器选择箭头来更改所涉及的项目(即外观1)，然后与控制器同步按下按钮以查看新项目出现在屏幕上。非常典型，但有效地增强了如何与屏幕和游戏进行交互的效果。

However, if you click again because that skin tone doesn’t quite fit what you had in mind, and you keep clicking, you soon realize that the skin category has 24 options, the hair 56 etc. You can even further customize your avatar by selecting the color and gradient of the item with the scroll bars on the left.

但是，如果再次单击该按钮是因为该肤色与您的想法不符，并且继续单击该按钮，您很快就会意识到皮肤类别有24个选项，头发56个等等。您甚至可以通过以下方式进一步自定义头像使用左侧的滚动条选择项目的颜色和渐变。

While simple on the surface, the character creation screen has a lot of depth. It’s recognizable and straightforward UI features make usability easy, its customization depth allows for extensive user control, and its graphics help build the game’s brand. This type of design continues throughout the game.

尽管表面上很简单，但角色创建屏幕却有很多深度。 它易于识别的UI功能使可用性变得容易，其自定义深度允许广泛的用户控制，其图形有助于建立游戏品牌。 这种类型的设计在整个游戏中都将继续。

通过设计交流游戏元素 (Communicating gameplay elements through design)

How does Stardew Valley communicate gameplay elements to its users? I’m going to look a quick example, here, the basics of farming crops.

星露谷如何与用户交流游戏元素？我想看一个简单的例子，这里是农作物的基础知识。

The above screen shows a typical shot of a player’s farm. There are both harvestable and non-harvestable crops on the screen. How do I know this? Because the icons representing the crops are telling me that.

上面的屏幕显示了玩家农场的典型镜头。屏幕上既有可收获的作物，也有不可收割的作物。我怎么知道因为代表农作物的图标告诉我。

You will notice that there are blackberries on the screen. This is in contrast to some of the other icons on the screen that look more like plants. This difference is telling the player what stage each of these crops are in without using any words. When you harvest a crop, your avatar will pick it up and the sound of a “scoop” is used to indicate that the action has been completed. The crop will be in the avatar’s hands and there will be an empty spot in the dirt where the crop once was. This pattern is mostly the same for all crops. The consistency of this pattern, along with the visual/sounds cues of the crops themselves, ensures that the player understands how to engage with this element of gameplay.

您会注意到屏幕上有黑莓。这与屏幕上看起来更像植物的其他一些图标形成对比。这种差异是在不使用任何单词的情况下告诉玩家这些庄稼处于哪个阶段。当您收割庄稼时，您的化身会捡起它，并使用“瓢”声表示操作已完成。庄稼将在化身的手中，并且曾经有庄稼的土地上将有一个空白处。所有农作物的这种模式基本相同。 这种模式的一致性以及农作物本身的视觉/声音提示，可确保玩家了解如何参与游戏的这一元素。

This strategy of few words and relying on senses is used throughout many elements of the game such as the menu system, many of the activities (fishing has a rumble system used to tell you when a fish is on the line) and in its progression system. It’s effective because it makes the game’s systems more intuitive.

在游戏的许多元素(例如菜单系统)，许多活动(捕鱼都有一个隆隆声系统用来告诉您何时上鱼)中以及游戏的进行系统中使用了这种少言又少依靠感官的策略。它之所以有效，是因为它使游戏系统更加直观。

However, it recognizes that more complex areas of gameplay (such as crafting) require more in-depth information (i.e. recipes for the craftable object). Therefore, if you are in the crafting menu (seen below), you can take your cursor and hover over the object in question and a dialog box will pop up which will give you more details. This layered information approach to communicating gameplay elements helps maintain the concept of simplicity, but allows for easy navigation and a deeper understanding of the mechanics when required.

但是，它认识到更复杂的游戏区域(例如制作)需要更深入的信息(例如，可制作对象的配方)。因此，如果您处于制作菜单(如下所示)中，则可以将光标悬停在有问题的对象上，然后会弹出一个对话框，为您提供更多详细信息。这种用于传达游戏元素的分层信息方法有助于保持简单性的概念，但在需要时可以轻松导航并更深刻地理解其机制。

Now that the most basic section of farming has been covered, let’s add a layer to this (after all we’re looking at how Stardew Valley manages complexity).

现在已经涵盖了农业的最基本部分，让我们在此基础上添加一层(毕竟，我们正在研究Stardew Valley如何管理复杂性)。

When you start the game, you are given your first seeds that fall into the pattern outlined above. But when you are able to begin buying your own seeds, you are introduced to more complex options — for example, some crops are harvestable more than once. Visually, these crops act differently than those above helping to distinguish them as separate gameplay items:

当您开始游戏时，将获得属于上述模式的第一粒种子。但是，当您能够开始购买自己的种子时，就会被介绍给更复杂的选择-例如，某些农作物不止一次可以收获。从视觉上看，这些农作物的行为不同于上述农作物，有助于将它们区分为单独的游戏项目：

1. The crops are shown still attached to the greater plant (you can see the contrast from the blackberries to the pepper shown in the farm screenshot)

1.所显示的农作物仍附着在较大的植物上(您可以在农场屏幕快照中看到黑莓与胡椒的对比)

2. Once harvested, the plant remains as opposed to the blackberry which will leave an empty space of dirt behind.

2.收获后，植物将保留与黑莓相对的状态，而黑莓将留下空白的污垢空间。

These very small touches in design help to slowly ingratiate the user into the natural progression of gameplay. Because, now I’ll add other layers that factor into planting crops in the game:

设计上的这些很小的改动有助于慢慢吸引用户进入游戏的自然过程 。因为，现在我将在游戏中添加其他因素来种植农作物：

- Crops take different amount of time to grow and can only be used in certain seasons which are time bound

-农作物生长时间不同，只能在有时间限制的某些季节使用

- Crops are worth different selling values and cost different amounts

-农作物具有不同的销售价值，且成本不同

- Crops can be used to craft artisan products (such as wine)

-农作物可用于制作手Craft.io品(例如葡萄酒)

- Crops can be used to make animal fodder so that you don’t have to buy it yourself

-可以使用农作物制作动物饲料，这样您就不必自己购买

- Crops can be used as gifts for the townspeople

-庄稼可以作为给乡亲的礼物

- Crops can be used in making food items to replenish energy used or as gifts

-作物可用于制作食品以补充能量或用作礼物

- If not harvested right away, crops can merge together to form mega crops that are worth more money

-如果不立即收获，农作物可以融合在一起形成价值更高的巨型农作物

As you can see, what starts off as basic and easy to understand, gets increasingly complicated. Therefore, it’s clever of Stardew Valley to use visual/sound cues as its main form of communication, as each new gameplay element that is added, goes back to the using visual cues that are familiar, but changes them slightly in order to produce a new element. This helps the user learn these new elements faster, while never overwhelming them with brand new information.

如您所见，一开始的基本知识和易于理解的事情变得越来越复杂。因此，Stardew Valley明智的做法是将视觉/声音提示作为主要的交流方式，因为添加的每个新游戏元素都会回到熟悉的使用视觉提示，但会稍作更改以产生新的提示元件。这可以帮助用户更快地学习这些新元素，而永远不会让全新信息淹没它们。

We stepped a little into some of the decisions made regarding the progression system in the game, but how does the actual gameplay loop support this notion of being deceptively simple?

我们对游戏中的渐进系统做出了一些决策，但是实际的游戏循环如何支持这种看似简单的概念？

进展与设计 (Progression and Design)

When the game begins, it allows you some time to get into a rhythm for some of the basics of gameplay that we’ve already covered. Eventually, based off of your activities, it will start giving you subtle pointers on how to progress. Sometimes you will earn enough experience to level up a particular skill (as shown above).

游戏开始时，您可以花些时间了解我们已经介绍的一些游戏基础知识。最终，基于您的活动，它将开始为您提供有关进度的微妙指示。有时，您将获得足够的经验来升级特定技能(如上所示)。

What’s clever about this design, is it introduces crafting recipes with the skill boost (here you can see it in the forms of a scarecrow and fertilizer). Most inquisitive players will then go to the crafting menu and look at the object in more detail to determine what is does. The scarecrow in this instance, will scare crows away from your crops, and the fertilizer will improve the quality. In that level up screen, two new gameplay elements were just introduced without a whole tutorial section. In this way, the game can slowly start incorporating more depth into the gameplay, without feeling overwhelming or challenging.

这种设计的聪明之处在于，它通过提高技巧来介绍制作食谱(在这里您可以以稻草人和肥料的形式看到它)。然后，大多数好奇的玩家将进入制作菜单，更详细地查看该对象，以确定其作用。在这种情况下，稻草人会把乌鸦从您的农作物中吓走，肥料会改善质量。 在该升级屏幕中，仅介绍了两个新的游戏元素，而没有整个教程部分 。通过这种方式，游戏可以逐渐开始在游戏过程中融入更多深度，而不会感到压倒性或挑战性。

Additionally, you will also receive requests from villagers or quests that pop up while you are exploring the game. The requests are subtle ways to encourage the players to engage in certain activities in exchange for approval and money from the townspeople. For instance, if Alex is requesting a certain kind of fish, it might encourage a player to try fishing.

此外，您还将收到村民的请求或探索游戏时弹出的任务。这些要求是鼓励玩家参加某些活动的微妙方式，以换取镇民的认可和金钱。例如，如果亚历克斯(Alex)请求某种鱼类，则可能会鼓励玩家尝试钓鱼。

The quests, on the other hand, generally pop up from exploration and aim to encourage the user to keep exploring to unravel whatever mystery is present. For instance, you can run into an abandoned tunnel and find a light switch that needs power. From there, a quest will pop up in your journal to “find a power source”. While it doesn’t give straight answers, it provides a tantalizing view of a secret to uncover that will drive players to continue playing.

另一方面，这些任务通常从探索中弹出，旨在鼓励用户继续探索以解开存在的任何谜团。例如，您可以遇到一条废弃的隧道，找到需要电源的电灯开关。从那里，将在您的日记中弹出一个任务以“查找电源”。尽管它没有给出直接的答案，但它提供了一个诱人的发现秘密的视角，该秘密将驱使玩家继续玩游戏。

Both the requests and the quests are used sparingly. They do not flood the user, which allows them to be able to be completed and the activities associated with them learned without burdening the player.

请求和任务都很少使用。 它们不会淹没用户，这使他们能够完成游戏并学习与他们相关的活动而不会给玩家造成负担。

Leveling up and a quest log are far from unique features in a video game, however, I think that they are used cleverly here to help users navigate the game, while remaining easy to play and understand.

升级和任务记录远非视频游戏中的独特功能，但是，我认为此处巧妙地使用它们来帮助用户导航游戏，同时保持易玩性和易懂性。

未来 (The future)

However, all of this is not to say that Stardew Valley does not have its flaws. The biggest flaw in Stardew Valley’s design is its assumption regarding the knowledge of its audience. While I do believe that the complexity is slowly introduced to you, there is no introduction tutorial section. Stardew Valley is assuming that players understand the typical structure of a game controller (i.e. what buttons typically do) and the gameplay loop of this genre. For someone new to this, and maybe games as a whole, the lack of a tutorial section makes the learning curve for new audience members extremely difficult, especially when this is an industry standard. While I think much of the design is intuitive and extremely easy to understand, I do believe that including a “Farming 101” section is essential for better design.

但是，所有这一切并不是说Stardew Valley没有缺陷。 Stardew Valley设计的最大缺陷在于其对听众知识的假设。虽然我确实认为复杂性正在慢慢介绍给您，但是没有介绍教程部分。 Stardew Valley假设玩家了解游戏控制器的典型结构(即按钮通常会做什么)以及该类型的游戏玩法循环。对于刚接触此游戏的人，甚至可能对整个游戏来说，缺少教程部分会使新受众群体的学习曲线极为困难，尤其是在这是行业标准的情况下。尽管我认为大部分设计都是直观且非常容易理解的，但我确实认为包括“ Farming 101”部分对于更好的设计至关重要。

Additionally, there are clearly things about the UI that can be improved upon based on the robust modding community for the PC version. Modifications to the game present on these communities are UI features such as showing where villagers are on the map, or being able to use the mouse to hover over crops to see how many days are left until harvest etc.

此外，基于针对PC版本的健壮改装社区，显然可以改进UI。对这些社区中存在的游戏的修改是UI功能，例如显示村民在地图上的位置，或者能够使用鼠标悬停在农作物上以查看还剩下多少天等。

Obviously, no design is without its flaws, but I do think that what Stardew Valley has accomplished is impressive. It took a genre defined by gimmicks and simplicity, and added depth and addicting game play that is easy to use, understand and navigate.

显然，没有设计没有缺陷，但我确实认为Stardew Valley的成就令人印象深刻。它采用了由and头和简单定义的流派，并增加了易于使用，理解和导航的深度和令人上瘾的游戏。

My biggest takeaway from Stardew Valley is above all to make the users feel as though what they are doing is simple and uncomplicated, and then slowly introduce depth to them in a way that is intuitive and encouraging.

首先，我从Stardew山谷获得的最大收获就是让用户感到他们在做的事情既简单又简单，然后 以一种直观且令人鼓舞的方式 向他们慢慢介绍深度 。

I would love to know what your thoughts are on Stardew and game design in general!

我很想知道您对Stardew和游戏设计的总体看法！