CHAPTER 7

CREATING GAME LOOPS

Systems consisting of looping interactions between parts are the primary means of generating the interactive gameplay experience. In this chapter we revisit loops (first introduced in Chapter 2, “Defining Systems”), including a new look at the four principal loops in game design (introduced in Chapter 4, “Interactivity and Fun”).
由各部分之間循環互動組成的系統是產生互動遊戲體驗的主要手段。在本章中，我們將重新探討循環（首次在第二章“定義系統”中介紹），包括重新審視遊戲設計中的四個主要循環（在第四章“互動性與樂趣”中介紹）。

This chapter also defines the main kind of game system loops and discusses some examples. This is followed by a discussion of the goals, tools, and issues related to systemic game loops and how to create and document your game systems.
本章還定義了主要的遊戲系統迴圈類型，並討論了一些例子。接下來是對系統性遊戲迴圈的目標、工具和相關問題的討論，以及如何創建和記錄您的遊戲系統。

More Than the Sum of the Parts
超越部分的總和

In Chapter 1, “Foundations of Systems,” we discussed different kinds of thinking and the idea of a unified whole being other than, or more than, the sum of its parts. This is one of the central notions behind systems thinking and systemic design: that by connecting parts together to form loops, we can create emergent wholes that are not simply the additive compound of the parts but that have entirely new and ultimately engaging properties not found in any of the parts on their own.
在第一章《系統的基礎》中，我們討論了不同類型的思維方式以及整體統一的概念，這種整體不僅僅是其各部分的總和。這是系統思維和系統設計背後的核心理念之一：通過將各部分連接起來形成迴圈，我們可以創造出不僅僅是各部分相加的整體，而是擁有全新且最終引人入勝的特性，這些特性在任何單一部分中都無法找到。

In this chapter, we explore in detail how connecting parts together in different ways, via their behaviors, creates the loops that support and in a very real sense create the whole discussed in Chapter 6, “Designing the Whole Experience.” In Chapter 8, “Defining Game Parts,” we cover how to construct parts to be able to build these loops. This chapter sits in the middle of the systemic design process, much as loops sit between individual parts and the created aggregate whole. As such, while the book is linear, this chapter works together with Chapters 6 and 8 (covering wholes and parts, respectively), much as a system has to loop together to work.
在本章中，我們將詳細探討如何通過不同方式連接部分，透過它們的行為，創造出支持並在很大程度上創造出第六章「設計整體體驗」中所討論的整體的迴圈。在第八章「定義遊戲部分」中，我們將介紹如何構建部分以便能夠建立這些迴圈。本章位於系統設計過程的中間，就像迴圈位於個別部分和創建的整體之間一樣。因此，雖然本書是線性的，但本章與第六章和第八章（分別涵蓋整體和部分）一起運作，就像一個系統必須迴圈在一起才能運作一樣。

Creating effective loops from interacting parts in order to construct a desired whole experience is often referred to as “systems design” in game development circles. While creating systems intentionally includes far more than just making a combat system or crafting system, it is these kinds of systems that drive the game design and the player’s experience. By approaching game design from an intentional, systemic point of view, you can create better systems and more engaging games.
在遊戲開發圈中，將互動的部分有效地組合成一個期望的整體體驗，通常被稱為「系統設計」。雖然有意地創建系統遠不止於製作戰鬥系統或製作系統，但正是這些系統推動了遊戲設計和玩家的體驗。通過從有意識的系統觀點來進行遊戲設計，你可以創造出更好的系統和更具吸引力的遊戲。

A Brief Review of Loops
迴圈的簡要回顧

Recall from Chapter 2 that collections of parts can be simple, complicated, or complex: those that don’t really affect each other are like fruit in a bowl, sitting by one another without significant effects. Those connected linearly form processes that may be complicated (refer to Figure 2.5), but you need interactions between parts that loop back on themselves to make complex systems (refer to Figure 2.6). This characteristic of parts forming loops is what enables the creation of emergent effects and, for our purposes, interesting gameplay.
回想第二章中提到的，部件的集合可以是簡單的、複雜的或是複合的：那些彼此之間沒有真正影響的，就像碗中的水果，彼此相鄰而沒有顯著的影響。那些線性連接的形成了可能複雜的過程（參見圖 2.5），但你需要部件之間的互動回饋自身，才能形成複合系統（參見圖 2.6）。這種部件形成迴圈的特性使得創造出新興效果成為可能，對於我們的目的來說，這也帶來了有趣的遊戲玩法。

Reinforcing and Balancing Loops
強化迴圈與平衡迴圈

Looping structures fall into two broad categories: the first is those where the interactions reinforce the state of the parts within the loop, such as earning interest on a bank account balance (refer to Figure 2.7)—but also seemingly negative things, like the spread of a disease through a population. That is, reinforcing loops are sometimes called “positive feedback” loops, but it’s important to remember that what these loops do is reinforce the quality represented by the state of the parts; this effect may be either positive or negative.
迴圈結構大致分為兩大類：第一類是那些互動會強化迴圈內部狀態的部分，例如銀行帳戶餘額的利息（參見圖 2.7）——但也包括看似負面的事物，如疾病在人群中的傳播。也就是說，強化迴圈有時被稱為“正反饋”迴圈，但重要的是要記住，這些迴圈所做的是強化由部分狀態所代表的特質；這種效果可能是正面的，也可能是負面的。

The second kind of loop is the balancing loop. In these loops, the effect of one part on another eventually causes all the parts to approach a balance point. A thermostat or an oven is a common example: as the oven heats up due to a temperature gap between its current temperature and the desired setting, less heat has to be applied. Eventually the gap approaches zero, and little or no additional heat needs to be applied (refer to Figure 2.8). Other examples include how predators and prey balance each other in ecologies and how increasing the points needed to gain a new level in many RPGs balances the time it takes to acquire that level.
第二種迴圈是平衡迴圈。在這些迴圈中，一部分對另一部分的影響最終會使所有部分趨向於一個平衡點。恆溫器或烤箱就是常見的例子：當烤箱因為其當前溫度與設定溫度之間的差距而升溫時，所需的熱量會逐漸減少。最終，這個差距接近於零，幾乎不需要再增加熱量（參見圖 2.8）。其他例子包括生態系統中捕食者與獵物如何互相平衡，以及在許多角色扮演遊戲中，為了獲得新等級所需的點數增加如何平衡獲得該等級所需的時間。

Most balancing loops, particularly in games, result in dynamic rather than static balance. The mechanical spinning governor shown in Chapter 1 (refer to Figure 1.7) and Chapter 2 (refer to Figure 2.4) is a good physical example of a dynamic balancing loop: as the throttle opens, the engine spins faster, which causes the weights to fly outward, which in turn causes the throttle to close—which causes the engine to spin more slowly, thus causing the weights to fall, which opens the throttle again. As the engine operates, the throttle continues to open and close, and the weights rise and fall, keeping the engine in a dynamic balance within an acceptable range (neither too fast nor too slow).
大多數的平衡迴圈，特別是在遊戲中，會導致動態而非靜態的平衡。第一章（參見圖 1.7）和第二章（參見圖 2.4）中展示的機械旋轉調速器是一個動態平衡迴圈的良好物理範例：當節流閥打開時，發動機轉速加快，這使得配重向外飛出，進而導致節流閥關閉，這又使得發動機轉速減慢，從而使配重下降，再次打開節流閥。隨著發動機運行，節流閥不斷開合，配重不斷升降，保持發動機在可接受的範圍內動態平衡（既不過快也不過慢）。

Using Loops in Game Design
在遊戲設計中使用迴圈

Reinforcing and balancing loops have different kinds of overall effects that can be used in game design. Reinforcing loops reward winners by creating runaway, or “rich get richer,” situations. In the game Monopoly, having more money lets you buy more property, which leads to your gaining more money. This creates a divergence between players that can be useful but can also destroy the engagement for both winning and losing players: for those winning, as the gap widens, they have to attend less and less carefully to the game to keep winning. For the losers, they have fewer and fewer options that will enable them to win. For both, the gameplay space collapses to the point where the player has fewer decisions to make (fewer choices that will affect the state of the game significantly), the game ceases to be psychologically engaging, and thus it is no longer fun.
強化迴圈和平衡迴圈在遊戲設計中具有不同的整體效果。強化迴圈透過創造失控或「富者愈富」的情況來獎勵贏家。在大富翁遊戲中，擁有更多的錢可以讓你購買更多的地產，這進而讓你獲得更多的錢。這會造成玩家之間的差距，這種差距可能是有用的，但也可能破壞贏家和輸家的參與感：對於贏家來說，隨著差距擴大，他們不需要太專注於遊戲就能繼續贏。對於輸家來說，他們能夠獲勝的選擇越來越少。對於雙方來說，遊戲空間縮小到玩家需要做的決策變少（影響遊戲狀態的選擇顯著減少），遊戲不再具有心理吸引力，因此也不再有趣。

Balancing loops decrease the difference between players: they may forgive losers or punish winners, or some combination, in order to keep both in competition. Many games have a turn-taking mechanic whereby when one person or team scores, the other is given an advantage—control of the ball, as in American football and basketball. In Power Grid, the player in the best position goes last, creating an ongoing dynamic balancing loop that counteracts the other reinforcing loops of gaining money and buying better power plants and cities in the game.
平衡迴圈減少玩家之間的差異：它們可能會寬恕失敗者或懲罰勝利者，或者是某種組合，以保持雙方的競爭力。許多遊戲都有一種輪流機制，當一個人或團隊得分時，另一方會獲得優勢——例如在美式足球和籃球中控制球權。在《Power Grid》中，處於最佳位置的玩家最後行動，這創造了一個持續的動態平衡迴圈，以抵消遊戲中賺取金錢和購買更好發電廠和城市的其他增強迴圈。

Parts as Loop Components
作為迴圈組件的部分

As discussed in Chapter 2, parts within loops take on different roles, along with objects passed between them via the parts’ behaviors. It is vital that you understand these and how they create functional loops; this is what building game systems is based on.
如同在第二章中所討論的，迴圈中的各個部分扮演著不同的角色，並且透過這些部分的行為在它們之間傳遞物件。理解這些以及它們如何創造功能性迴圈是至關重要的，這是構建遊戲系統的基礎。

Resources are, generally speaking, objects passed between parts in a loop. They are in-game tokens, as discussed in Chapter 3, “Foundations of Games and Game Design”—representative objects used in the game as its “nouns.” A resource may be gold given to a vendor, money paid for property, mana points used to cast a spell, or water in a bathtub. Generally speaking, anything that is countable in a game is a resource, especially if it is created, destroyed, stored, or exchanged within the game. We will discuss resources in more detail in Chapter 8.
一般來說，資源是在迴圈中各部分之間傳遞的物件。它們是遊戲中的代幣，如第三章《遊戲與遊戲設計的基礎》中所討論的——在遊戲中作為“名詞”使用的代表性物件。資源可能是給予商人的黃金、購買財產的金錢、施法所用的魔力點數，或是浴缸中的水。一般來說，遊戲中任何可計數的東西都是資源，尤其是那些在遊戲中被創造、銷毀、儲存或交換的。我們將在第八章中更詳細地討論資源。

Resources can be simple or complex. Simple resources like gold, wood, and mana, are in essence elemental and commodified: a gold piece doesn’t break down into smaller parts of different types, and one gold piece is as good as another. Complex resources are assembled from the combination of simpler ones and may have different properties (typically assigned by the game rather than being emergent on their own). A sword may be assembled out of simple wood and metal resources, and then the sword can be used, sold, stored, and so on, and it may have different properties from another constructed sword.
資源可以是簡單的或是複雜的。像是黃金、木材和魔力這樣的簡單資源，本質上是元素化和商品化的：一枚金幣不會分解成不同類型的更小部分，而且一枚金幣和另一枚金幣是一樣的。複雜資源則是由簡單資源組合而成，可能具有不同的屬性（通常是由遊戲賦予，而非自然生成）。一把劍可能是由簡單的木材和金屬資源組成，然後這把劍可以被使用、出售、儲存等等，並且可能與另一把製造的劍有不同的屬性。

It’s possible to build up production chains of resources, too, such that wood and metal become swords and armor, and adding those to conscripts gives you an army—its own complex resource. Many games that feature crafting (for example, Terraria or Banished) create a great deal of systemic depth by having long chains of combinations of different resources that enable the creation of increasingly functional and powerful objects.
也可以建立資源的生產鏈，讓木材和金屬變成劍和盔甲，並將這些裝備加到徵召的士兵身上，形成一支軍隊——這本身就是一種複雜的資源。許多包含製作系統的遊戲（例如《Terraria》或《Banished》）透過長鏈的不同資源組合，創造出極具系統深度的玩法，從而能夠製造出功能更強大且更具威力的物品。

Currencies are a type of resource often passed between parts in a loop. The key difference between most resources and currencies is that non-currency resources are consumed in any conversion or transaction: you might use wood and metal as resources to create a weapon in a crafting system, but the wood and metal are consumed (or converted) in doing so. A currency resource is exchanged but not consumed: when the player pays gold for a weapon, the gold does not become the weapon; the person from whom the player purchased the weapon presumably uses the gold as currency for some other need of his own. In many game economies, the gold simply vanishes in a sink, as shown in Figure 2.3 and as discussed later in this chapter, but in terms of the simulation, it is assumed to have been spent on something else.
貨幣是一種經常在循環中各部分之間傳遞的資源。貨幣與大多數資源的主要區別在於，非貨幣資源在任何轉換或交易中都會被消耗：在製作系統中，你可能會使用木材和金屬作為資源來製造武器，但木材和金屬在此過程中被消耗（或轉換）。而貨幣資源則是交換而非消耗：當玩家用黃金購買武器時，黃金並不會變成武器；玩家購買武器的對象可能會將黃金作為貨幣用於他自己的其他需求。在許多遊戲經濟中，黃金會在一個沉沒中消失，如圖 2.3 所示，並在本章稍後討論，但在模擬的角度來看，假設它已被用於其他用途。

Sources are where resources come from. This might be some specific place or part, like a gold mine being a source for gold, or conceptual, like killing monsters being a source for experience points. In many games, sources create resources ex nihilo—out of nothing. While you could model how much gold is contained in the ground and how long it will take to remove it, unless that’s the point of your game, it would only add cognitive load to your game without making it more enjoyable.
來源是資源的來源。這可能是某個特定的地方或部分，例如金礦是黃金的來源，或者是概念上的，例如殺死怪物是經驗值的來源。在許多遊戲中，來源會無中生有地創造資源。雖然你可以模擬地面中包含多少黃金以及需要多長時間才能移除它，但除非這是你遊戲的重點，否則這只會增加遊戲的認知負擔，而不會讓遊戲更有趣。

Stocks are containers for resources.¹ Resources flow from their source (or from another stock) to a stock at a certain rate until some limit is reached (refer to Figure 2.2). The stock’s state is the amount of a resource it contains at any given moment, and its behavior is the rate of flow from it to another part in the system. The resource in the stock might be money in a bank account, hit points on a character, the population of a town, and so on. Some stocks have a maximum limit (like the water in a bathtub), while others don’t (like the amount of money you can have in a bank account).
庫存是資源的容器。 ¹ 資源從其來源（或從另一個庫存）以一定的速度流向庫存，直到達到某個限制（參見圖 2.2）。庫存的狀態是它在任何給定時刻所包含的資源量，而其行為則是從中流向系統中另一部分的流動速度。庫存中的資源可能是銀行帳戶中的金錢、角色的生命值、一個城鎮的人口等等。有些庫存有最大限制（如浴缸中的水），而其他則沒有（如銀行帳戶中可以擁有的金錢數量）。

Converters are objects or processes in a game that transform, or convert, one kind of resource into another or into a different sort of object. Note that the original resource vanishes as part of the conversion, while the new resource is created. Converters are a common basic type of verb in a game’s structure: how something goes from being one thing to another.
轉換器是遊戲中的物件或過程，將一種資源轉化或轉換為另一種資源或不同類型的物件。請注意，原始資源在轉換過程中消失，而新的資源被創造出來。轉換器是遊戲結構中常見的基本動詞類型：某物如何從一種狀態變為另一種狀態。

A converter can be as abstract and simple as a magic box that takes lumps of iron in one side and puts out steel (another simple resource) or a sword (a complex resource) on the other. Or, the process might be more complex, with multiple inputs and outputs; to make a sword might require metal, wood, tools, skill, and time—all possible in-game resources—which produce both the sword and waste (slag, heat, and so on). A more detailed conversion process may provide more gameplay (how does the player deal with the buildup of waste around the ironworks?), or it may be an unnecessary detail that only adds to the player’s mental load and doesn’t provide any real gameplay value. This is something you need to decide as you design the system and the game.
轉換器可以像一個魔法盒子一樣抽象而簡單，一邊放入鐵塊，另一邊輸出鋼（另一種簡單資源）或劍（複雜資源）。或者，這個過程可能更為複雜，具有多重輸入和輸出；製作一把劍可能需要金屬、木材、工具、技術和時間——這些都是遊戲中可能的資源——這些資源不僅產生劍，還會產生廢料（如爐渣、熱量等）。更詳細的轉換過程可能會提供更多的遊戲玩法（玩家如何處理鐵工廠周圍的廢料堆積？），或者這可能是一個不必要的細節，只會增加玩家的心理負擔，並不提供任何實際的遊戲價值。這是你在設計系統和遊戲時需要決定的事情。

Deciders, or decision points, are representations of logical branches in a system, where a flow may go one way or another, depending on internal logic, the amount of a given resource, or other external conditions. You want to keep the conditions for a decider as local to the part as possible—that is, as close to its level of organization as possible. Sometimes a decision point will depend on conditions at one level higher or lower in the system hierarchy, but greater hierarchical distance than this should be avoided to avoid making the overall system more brittle, as explained later in this chapter.
決策點，或稱為決策點，是系統中邏輯分支的表示，流向可能根據內部邏輯、給定資源的數量或其他外部條件而有所不同。您希望將決策點的條件儘可能地保持在其組織層級的本地化——也就是說，儘量接近其組織層級。有時，決策點會依賴於系統層級中高一層或低一層的條件，但應避免超過這個層級距離，以免使整個系統變得更脆弱，這一點將在本章後面進一步解釋。

Sinks are the opposite of sources: resources flow out to them. In some contexts, sources are called faucets, and sinks are called drains—but we don’t care where the resource (for example, water) comes from as long as it comes out of the faucet. And we don’t care where it goes as long as it goes down the drain.²
水槽與水源相反：資源流向水槽。在某些情境中，水源被稱為水龍頭，而水槽被稱為排水口——但我們不在乎資源（例如水）從哪裡來，只要它從水龍頭流出。我們也不在乎它流向何處，只要它流入排水口。

Iconography

As shown in Figure 7.1, the components within a looping system—sources, stocks, converters, deciders, and sinks are often shown with a particular, quasi-alchemical iconography: the upward-pointing triangle for sources, circles for stocks, a triangle with a line through it for converters, diamond for deciders, and downward-pointing triangles for sinks. The amount in a stock may be shown as individual resource tokens, by shading depicting how full the stock is, or by some other means. This particular iconography is adopted from Joris Dormans (Adams and Dormans 2012), the author of the online system-diagramming tool Machinations. The iconography and functionality in that tool is quite a bit more detailed than what is shown here, but it’s not necessary to learn all of it to make use of these concepts in creating systems and system diagrams. These graphics are by no means universal or prescriptive (note that the “converter” icon used in Figure 2.4 is different from the one used here), but they are useful in many cases.
如圖 7.1 所示，循環系統中的組件——來源、庫存、轉換器、決策者和匯流——通常以一種特定的、類似煉金術的圖像表示：來源用向上的三角形表示，庫存用圓形表示，轉換器用穿過的三角形表示，決策者用菱形表示，匯流用向下的三角形表示。庫存中的數量可以用個別的資源標記來顯示，或用陰影來描繪庫存的充滿程度，或用其他方式來表示。這種特定的圖像來自於 Joris Dormans（Adams 和 Dormans 2012），他是線上系統圖示工具 Machinations 的作者。該工具中的圖像和功能比這裡展示的要詳細得多，但不需要學習所有內容即可在創建系統和系統圖中使用這些概念。這些圖形並不是普遍或規範性的（注意圖 2.4 中使用的“轉換器”圖標與此處使用的不同），但在許多情況下它們是有用的。

The Four Principal Loops
四大主要迴圈

Building on the concepts of reinforcing and balancing loops, it’s useful to keep in mind four principal kinds of conceptual loops that as game designers have to be concerned about:
在強化迴圈和平衡迴圈的概念基礎上，作為遊戲設計師需要關注四種主要的概念迴圈：

The game’s model loop
遊戲模型迴圈

The player’s mental loop
玩家心智迴圈

The interactive loop
互動迴圈

The designer’s loop
設計者的迴圈

These have been discussed in earlier chapters, and we will reference them again here as a way of leading into a more specific discussion of loops within a game design.
這些內容已在前面的章節中討論過，我們將在此再次引用它們，作為進入更具體的遊戲設計迴圈討論的引導。

The Game’s Model Loop
遊戲的模型迴圈

As examined in Chapter 3—and also this chapter—a game has its own internal model of the world. This model is necessarily dynamic and looping so that the player can interact with it; if the model were static or linearly connected, there would be no interactivity and no gameplay. The game’s dynamic model is what creates the game world as experienced by the player, and it is what creates the space for gameplay. If there are only a few viable paths through the game world, then the probability space for the game is narrow; the player has few if any meaningful decisions to make. When this happens, there is ultimately no gameplay, there is no engagement, and there is no fun. Developing the game’s model via second-order design creates the space for player exploration, and thus sets up engagement and fun.
如同在第三章以及本章所探討的，遊戲有其自身的內部世界模型。這個模型必須是動態且循環的，以便玩家能夠與之互動；如果模型是靜態或線性連接的，就不會有互動性，也不會有遊戲性。遊戲的動態模型創造了玩家所體驗的遊戲世界，並創造了遊戲空間。如果遊戲世界中只有少數幾條可行的路徑，那麼遊戲的概率空間就很狹窄；玩家幾乎沒有任何有意義的決策可做。當這種情況發生時，最終就沒有遊戲性，沒有參與感，也沒有樂趣。通過二階設計開發遊戲的模型，創造了玩家探索的空間，從而建立了參與感和樂趣。

The game’s model of the world is the combination of all the game systems as defined by the designer. We will examine different kinds of systems that create this model. Broadly speaking, they are represented by engines, economies, and ecologies. From these, we get many different kinds of common game systems, such as progression, combat, inventory, skill, quest, and other systems.
遊戲的世界模型是由設計師定義的所有遊戲系統的結合。我們將探討創建此模型的不同系統。廣義來說，它們由引擎、經濟體系和生態系統所代表。從這些系統中，我們得到許多不同類型的常見遊戲系統，例如進程、戰鬥、物品欄、技能、任務和其他系統。

The Player’s Mental Loop
玩家的心理循環

In Chapter 4 we explored the player’s mental model. This emerges from the mental looping structures that the player creates in building an understanding of the game’s internal model. Like the game model, the player’s mental model is also dynamic and looping, not static or linear.
在第四章中，我們探討了玩家的心理模型。這是從玩家在建立對遊戲內部模型的理解過程中創造的心理循環結構中產生的。與遊戲模型一樣，玩家的心理模型也是動態和循環的，而非靜態或線性的。

This model has to be built by the player as they experience the game (while still keeping them engaged), and it needs to match closely with the game’s internal model. If the player’s actions in the game have unexpected—or worse, random—effects, the player will not be able to build or verify their mental model. In such a situation, their experience becomes nonsensical and not engaging.
這個模型必須由玩家在體驗遊戲的過程中建立（同時保持他們的參與感），並且需要與遊戲的內部模型緊密匹配。如果玩家在遊戲中的行動產生了意外的——或者更糟的是，隨機的——效果，玩家將無法建立或驗證他們的心理模型。在這種情況下，他們的體驗將變得毫無意義且缺乏吸引力。

In addition to the game’s internal systems, the player’s mental model includes both the explicit goals that the game sets before them, as well as the implicit goals that the player creates for themselves. The player’s sense of progress in the game as they achieve these goals is often enabled by one or more progression systems in the game. This is an important part of the player’s mental model and their sense of engagement and achievement.
除了遊戲的內部系統外，玩家的心理模型還包括遊戲為他們設定的明確目標，以及玩家自己創造的隱性目標。玩家在達成這些目標時對遊戲進度的感知，通常由遊戲中的一個或多個進度系統所促成。這是玩家心理模型中一個重要的部分，也是他們參與感和成就感的來源。

The Interactive Loop  互動循環

In Chapter 4, we also covered the interactive loop that exists between the game and the player. This give-and-take is how the player acts within the game and then learns about it based on the game’s feedback. This loop involves and subsumes both the game’s internal model and the player’s mental model: each is a subsystem of (a part within) the system of the interactive loop. The player’s actions are inputs into the game’s loop, and the subsequent change in state in the game model is communicated back to the player, acting as input to the player’s own model and state.
在第四章中，我們也探討了遊戲與玩家之間存在的互動循環。這種互動是玩家在遊戲中行動，然後根據遊戲的反饋來學習。這個循環涉及並包含了遊戲的內部模型和玩家的心理模型：每一個都是互動循環系統中的一個子系統。玩家的行動是遊戲循環的輸入，而遊戲模型中狀態的隨後變化則回饋給玩家，作為玩家自身模型和狀態的輸入。

It’s important to note that until this loop exists, the game doesn’t really exist in any functional sense. The game systems by themselves don’t create the game experience; the player has to be able to successfully interact with the game first. When developing a game, “closing the loop” so that the player can fully interact with your game world is a highly satisfying, even magical experience for the designer. When this loop exists, the player is able to make a decision, take an action, and experience the feedback from the game based on its internal model, and the player thus improves their mental model. When this happens, it is the first time you have an indication that the game experience you are trying to build might actually exist as an overall system created by the game and the player (see the section “The Designer’s Loop,” later in this chapter).
值得注意的是，在這個迴圈存在之前，遊戲在任何功能意義上都不算真正存在。僅靠遊戲系統本身並不能創造出遊戲體驗；玩家必須能夠成功地與遊戲互動才行。在開發遊戲時，讓玩家能夠完全與你的遊戲世界互動的過程，即所謂的「閉合迴圈」，對設計師來說是一種非常滿足，甚至是神奇的體驗。當這個迴圈存在時，玩家能夠做出決策、採取行動，並根據遊戲的內部模型體驗反饋，從而改進他們的心理模型。當這一切發生時，這是你第一次有跡象表明你試圖構建的遊戲體驗可能實際存在，作為由遊戲和玩家共同創造的整體系統（詳情請參見本章稍後的「設計師的迴圈」部分）。

While this interactive loop has been depicted as being solely between the player and the game (refer to Figures 4.2 and 4.4, for example), it may easily be extended to include multiple players all interacting with the game and (directly or indirectly) each other. The players use the game as the arbiter of the magic circle, and they use it (as well their own personal discussions) to communicate their current state and future goals in the game.
雖然這個互動循環被描述為僅在玩家與遊戲之間（例如參見圖 4.2 和 4.4），但它可以輕易擴展到包括多位玩家，所有玩家都與遊戲以及（直接或間接）彼此互動。玩家使用遊戲作為魔法圈的仲裁者，並利用遊戲（以及他們自己的個人討論）來傳達他們在遊戲中的當前狀態和未來目標。

Within the game, players interact with each other using its tokens and rules. From the point of view of any one player, the full game incorporates both the game’s internal model and the combined mental models of all other players involved, as expressed in the game itself. The game doesn’t include each player’s plans and intentions but does show how they are expressed via the game’s structures. It is up to each player to build a predictive model not only of what the game itself will do but what the other players may do as they pursue their own goals.
在遊戲中，玩家使用其代幣和規則彼此互動。從任何一位玩家的角度來看，完整的遊戲包含了遊戲的內部模型以及所有其他玩家的綜合心理模型，這些都在遊戲中表現出來。遊戲不包括每位玩家的計劃和意圖，但確實顯示了它們如何通過遊戲的結構表達出來。每位玩家都必須建立一個預測模型，不僅要預測遊戲本身會做什麼，還要預測其他玩家在追求自己目標時可能會做什麼。

Core Loops

As introduced in Chapter 4, a game’s core loops are the interactions between the game and the player that form the player’s primary focus—the activities that have the player’s central attention (refer to Figures 4.4 and 4.11). As in any interactive loop, in a core loop, the player forms an intention and carries it out within the game, causing some change to occur in the game’s internal model. This change is presented as feedback to the player, often with an increase in ability or information. This information allows the player to modify their mental model, including any learning (increase in understanding or skill within the game). This sets the stage for the player to form their next intent, starting the loop all over again.
如同在第四章中介紹的，遊戲的核心循環是遊戲與玩家之間的互動，這些互動構成了玩家的主要關注點——即玩家集中注意力的活動（參見圖 4.4 和 4.11）。在任何互動循環中，核心循環中，玩家形成一個意圖並在遊戲中執行，從而導致遊戲內部模型發生某些變化。這種變化以反饋的形式呈現給玩家，通常伴隨著能力或資訊的增加。這些資訊使玩家能夠修改他們的心理模型，包括任何學習（在遊戲中理解或技能的提高）。這為玩家形成下一個意圖奠定了基礎，從而重新開始循環。

A game must have at least one core loop to create engaging interactions with the player. It may have multiple core loops that take place at different times or on different time scales, as indicated by the different kinds of interactivity explored in Chapter 4 (see Figure 7.2, shown previously as Figure 4.6). For example, a role-playing game might have fast-paced combat as a primary core loop, with more strategic and long-term skill acquisition as an outer loop. In combat, the player uses action/feedback and short-term cognitive interactive loops in choosing how best to attack. The game provides feedback in terms of the player’s opponent’s state, as well as the opponent’s actions to which the player must react. If the player is successful, the result of this core combat loop may be an increase in in-game resources, such as money, loot, or skill, as well as learning about how to better play the game, which provides the player with a sense of achievement and mastery. This enables the player to face greater challenges, such as fighting more combats against even tougher foes. As the player’s attention changes from fast to slow (combat to skill selection, for example), the core loop of the game also changes.
一款遊戲必須至少擁有一個核心循環，以創造與玩家的互動樂趣。它可能擁有多個核心循環，這些循環在不同時間或不同時間尺度上發生，如第四章中探討的不同互動類型所示（見圖 7.2，先前顯示為圖 4.6）。例如，一款角色扮演遊戲可能將快速節奏的戰鬥作為主要核心循環，並將更具策略性和長期的技能獲取作為外部循環。在戰鬥中，玩家使用動作/反饋和短期認知互動循環來選擇最佳攻擊方式。遊戲會根據玩家對手的狀態以及對手的行動提供反饋，玩家必須對此作出反應。如果玩家成功，這個核心戰鬥循環的結果可能是增加遊戲內的資源，如金錢、戰利品或技能，並學習如何更好地玩遊戲，這為玩家提供了成就感和掌握感。這使得玩家能夠面對更大的挑戰，例如與更強大的敵人進行更多的戰鬥。 隨著玩家的注意力從快速轉向緩慢（例如，從戰鬥轉向技能選擇），遊戲的核心循環也隨之改變。

In similar fashion, in many strategy games, the player moves between constructing buildings, making units, fighting with those units, and researching new buildings and units. This core loop is itself built out of smaller, shorter-term core loops. These are often referred to as “inner” (shorter, quicker) and “outer” (longer-term) loops. The “core” aspect isn’t necessarily which loop is the fastest or innermost but which loop is most important to the player’s experience at the time.³
在許多策略遊戲中，玩家在建造建築物、製造單位、使用這些單位戰鬥以及研究新建築和單位之間來回切換。這個核心循環本身是由更小、更短期的核心循環構成的。這些通常被稱為「內部」（較短、較快）和「外部」（較長期）循環。「核心」的重點不一定是速度最快或最內部的循環，而是當下對玩家體驗最重要的循環。 ³

Examples of Core Loops  核心循環範例

For a real-world example, we can look at Clash of Clans, a highly successful action/strategy game. Figure 7.3 shows the core loops for this game. The gameplay consists of collecting resources, constructing (and later upgrading) buildings in your base/fortress to train units, and then sending those units to battle against other bases (typically owned by other players). Together these player actions form the core loops of the game. There are important outer loops, too, such as those involving helping others in your clan and rising in levels. While those are important for the overall success and longevity of the game, the player actions “collect resources,” “battle,” and “build and train” are the core of this game. (Note that these names are used for convenience here but are not shown or referred to in the game.)
以現實世界的例子來看，我們可以參考《Clash of Clans》，這是一款非常成功的動作/策略遊戲。圖 7.3 顯示了這款遊戲的核心循環。遊戲玩法包括收集資源、在你的基地/堡壘中建造（並在後期升級）建築以訓練單位，然後派遣這些單位去攻打其他基地（通常由其他玩家擁有）。這些玩家動作共同形成了遊戲的核心循環。還有一些重要的外層循環，例如涉及幫助你部落中的其他人和提升等級。雖然這些對於遊戲的整體成功和持久性很重要，但玩家的動作「收集資源」、「戰鬥」和「建造與訓練」是這款遊戲的核心。（請注意，這些名稱在此處為方便而使用，但在遊戲中並未顯示或提及。）

Either of the two loops formed by these actions can be seen as the innermost, or “most core,” as the player spends significant time focusing on one or the other. Figure 7.3 shows the “collect” and “battle” loop as the innermost, as they have the shortest time-loop interactions.
這些動作形成的兩個循環中的任何一個都可以被視為最內層或「最核心」，因為玩家會花費大量時間專注於其中之一。圖 7.3 顯示了「收集」和「戰鬥」循環作為最內層，因為它們具有最短的時間循環互動。

Players click on the sources of resources to “collect” them and then put them in container buildings (stocks) for use now or storage (up to a limit) for later use. In the battling part of the game, there isn’t a lot of actual interactivity (as in many mobile-platform games of this genre), but the player does have to decide when and where to deploy troops to attack, using a combination of fast action/feedback and short-term cognitive interactivity. (When defending, all the player can do is look on and hope their defenses hold; the player doesn’t even have to be present when their base is attacked.)
玩家點擊資源來源以「收集」它們，然後將其放入容器建築（庫存）中以供即時使用或儲存（有上限）以備後用。在遊戲的戰鬥部分，實際的互動性並不多（如同此類型的許多移動平台遊戲），但玩家必須決定何時何地部署部隊進行攻擊，這需要結合快速的行動/反饋和短期的認知互動。（在防守時，玩家所能做的就是旁觀並希望防禦能夠堅持住；當基地被攻擊時，玩家甚至不必在場。）

The battle loop is the more active, high-tension part of the game. In this loop, the player attacks another base with their troops and brings back coins and elixir, the primary in-game resources. The player may also increase their ranking (part of an outer loop). Of course, the player likely loses troops in battle that then need to be regenerated.
戰鬥循環是遊戲中較為活躍、緊張感較高的部分。在這個循環中，玩家用他們的部隊攻擊另一個基地，並帶回遊戲中的主要資源——金幣和聖水。玩家也可能提升他們的排名（這是外部循環的一部分）。當然，玩家在戰鬥中可能會損失部隊，這些部隊需要重新生成。

This takes us to the more restful, lower-tension, and generally longer-time period part of the game: “build and train.” To train new troops and to defend their base, the player must collect and then spend gold and elixir to construct buildings. Some of these buildings are themselves sources (as described above) for gold and elixir—gold mines and elixir collectors. As resource sources, these buildings work automatically over time to create these resources. Other buildings use these resources to create (train) offensive and defensive units. Still others are containers (stock) for resources collected and troops trained.
這將我們帶入遊戲中較為輕鬆、緊張感較低且通常時間較長的部分：「建設與訓練」。為了訓練新部隊並保衛基地，玩家必須收集並花費黃金和聖水來建造建築物。其中一些建築物本身就是黃金和聖水的來源——金礦和聖水收集器。作為資源來源，這些建築物會隨著時間自動運作以創造這些資源。其他建築物則使用這些資源來創造（訓練）攻擊和防禦單位。還有一些建築物是用來儲存收集到的資源和訓練好的部隊的容器。

There are limits to the functions of each of these buildings, of course: a source pumps out its resource at a certain rate; a storage building holds only so much gold or elixir; and only so many troops can be trained. To increase the speed of resource generation, the amount of resource that can be stored, or the number of troops that can be trained, the player must upgrade buildings, limited in this game by the upgrade level of the base’s town hall.
當然，每個建築物的功能都有其限制：資源來源以一定的速度產出資源；儲存建築只能容納一定量的黃金或聖水；而訓練的部隊數量也有限。為了增加資源生成的速度、可儲存的資源量或可訓練的部隊數量，玩家必須升級建築，而這在遊戲中受到基地大本營升級等級的限制。

In addition, the player is constrained by the fact that constructing buildings takes time, and so does training troops. This is the primary lever that Clash of Clans, a free-to-play (F2P) game, uses to induce players to pay money: players may use real-world currency to purchase gems as an intermediary in-game currency. As shown in Figure 7.3, these gems can be used to speed up construction or training time or to purchase additional gold or elixir. In effect, the player can trade money for time, fast-forwarding the game if they are willing to pay for it. This is a common trade-off in F2P games.
此外，玩家受到建造建築物需要時間的限制，訓練部隊也是如此。這是《Clash of Clans》這款免費遊戲（F2P）用來誘使玩家付費的主要手段：玩家可以使用現實世界的貨幣購買寶石，作為遊戲中的中介貨幣。如圖 7.3 所示，這些寶石可以用來加速建造或訓練時間，或購買額外的黃金或聖水。實際上，玩家可以用金錢換取時間，如果他們願意付費，就可以加速遊戲進程。這是 F2P 遊戲中常見的權衡。

The description of the core loops at this level of hierarchical specificity hints at lower-level (or more specific) interaction loops within these. Inside the primary “build and train” core loop, the player must use collected resources to upgrade buildings or troops. Within the “battle” loop, the player must choose which units to train, upgrade, and use in battle. Each decision acts as part of a reinforcing loop (creating more or better units) and a balancing loop (forestalling other decisions once the resources have been used). This combination of reinforcing and balancing loops is common in the core loops of many games, providing the player multiple meaningful decisions as key parts of the gameplay.
在這種層次的層級特異性中，核心循環的描述暗示著其中存在更低層次（或更具體）的互動循環。在主要的「建造和訓練」核心循環中，玩家必須使用收集到的資源來升級建築或部隊。在「戰鬥」循環中，玩家必須選擇訓練、升級和使用哪些單位進行戰鬥。每個決策都作為增強循環（創造更多或更好的單位）和平衡循環（資源使用後推遲其他決策）的一部分。這種增強和平衡循環的結合在許多遊戲的核心循環中很常見，為玩家提供多個有意義的決策作為遊戲玩法的關鍵部分。

Altogether these loops enable the player to create a robust, hierarchical mental model of both the structures in their base and their own goals. A player might have nested goals like, “I need to upgrade my gold storage so I can get enough to upgrade my town hall so I can upgrade my barracks.…” These interlocking structures (parts) and functions (behaviors) create a dynamic mental model that supports action/feedback, short-term cognitive, and long-term cognitive types of interactions. The outer loops of joining and being part of a clan (where players can help each other out) add a layer of social interactivity to the game. Altogether, this creates a highly engaging interactivity landscape that helps explain this game’s enduring appeal.
總體而言，這些循環使玩家能夠建立一個穩固且層次分明的心智模型，涵蓋他們基地中的結構以及他們自己的目標。玩家可能會有嵌套的目標，例如：「我需要升級我的金庫，這樣我才能獲得足夠的資源來升級市政廳，然後再升級兵營……」這些互相交錯的結構（部分）和功能（行為）創造了一個動態的心智模型，支持行動/反饋、短期認知和長期認知類型的互動。加入和成為部落一員的外部循環（玩家可以互相幫助）為遊戲增添了一層社交互動性。總體而言，這創造了一個高度吸引人的互動性景觀，幫助解釋了這款遊戲持久的吸引力。

Many other games use similar sets of core loops, often combining a high-tension, action-oriented battle, puzzle, or similar interaction loop with a lower-tension construction, crafting, trading, or similar loop. The former tend to employ faster action/feedback and short-term cognitive interactivity, while the latter tend toward slower long-term cognitive, emotional, and social interactions.⁴
許多其他遊戲使用類似的核心循環組合，通常將高緊張、動作導向的戰鬥、解謎或類似的互動循環與低緊張的建設、製作、交易或類似的循環結合在一起。前者往往採用更快速的動作/反饋和短期的認知互動，而後者則傾向於較慢的長期認知、情感和社會互動。

As another example, we can look at the core loops for a game like Marvel War of Heroes, a mobile-based card-battling game in which players create decks of virtual cards containing heroes from the Marvel universe to battle others. As shown in Figure 7.4, players can choose to take on new quests or missions against in-game groups like “The Masters of Evil,” or they can go up against other players to fight directly (which is usually more challenging). In both cases, a player receives rewards that enhance their abilities to continue playing (experience, new cards, treasures, and so on), with the braking function of using up stamina or attack power that limit their ability to play indefinitely (at least without purchasing faster refills of these resources).
另一個例子，我們可以看看像《Marvel War of Heroes》這樣的遊戲核心循環，這是一款基於手機的卡牌對戰遊戲，玩家創建包含來自漫威宇宙英雄的虛擬卡牌組來與其他人對戰。如圖 7.4 所示，玩家可以選擇接受新的任務或挑戰遊戲中的團體，例如「邪惡大師」，或者他們可以直接與其他玩家對戰（這通常更具挑戰性）。在這兩種情況下，玩家都會獲得獎勵，這些獎勵能增強他們繼續遊戲的能力（經驗、新卡牌、寶物等），而使用耐力或攻擊力的制約功能則限制了他們無限期遊玩的能力（至少在不購買這些資源的快速補充的情況下）。

There is an important outer loop to this game, as with most games of this type, where players combine and enhance their heroes. These interactions typically use an interesting combination of action/feedback and long-term cognitive interaction: the player is rewarded for enhancing or combining two heroes (into a single, more powerful hero) with satisfying animations, special effects, and sounds, which act as effective instant feedback for their actions. They also have to make long-term strategic trade-offs about which heroes to enhance, which ones to use in battle, and so on that provide a longer time horizon to their gameplay; the game is about both battling in the moment and planning for how to battle the most effectively over the long term.
這款遊戲有一個重要的外部循環，與大多數此類型的遊戲一樣，玩家需要結合並強化他們的英雄。這些互動通常使用一種有趣的行動/反饋和長期認知互動的組合：玩家因為強化或結合兩個英雄（成為一個更強大的英雄）而獲得獎勵，伴隨著令人滿意的動畫、特效和音效，這些作為他們行動的即時有效反饋。他們還必須在長期策略上做出取捨，決定要強化哪些英雄、在戰鬥中使用哪些英雄等等，這為他們的遊戲提供了更長遠的時間視野；遊戲不僅關於當下的戰鬥，還關於如何在長期內最有效地戰鬥的規劃。

This outer loop drives the player’s desire to continue battling in its own reinforcing loop: enhanced heroes mean better battle performance, and better battle performance leads to more rewards, some of which can be used to enhance their heroes further. While this outer loop is not core to the player’s moment-by-moment experience, it is vital to the player’s continued engagement with the game, as well as being the game’s primary opportunity for commercial success.
這個外環驅動著玩家持續戰鬥的慾望，形成一個自我強化的循環：強化的英雄意味著更好的戰鬥表現，而更好的戰鬥表現則帶來更多的獎勵，其中一些獎勵可以用來進一步強化他們的英雄。雖然這個外環並不是玩家每時每刻體驗的核心，但對於玩家持續參與遊戲至關重要，同時也是遊戲實現商業成功的主要機會。

Core Loops Summary

A game’s core loops are its primary interactive systems. If the core loops support different time lengths of interactivity (as described here and in Chapter 4), they help create a game that is immediately engaging and remains so for long periods of time. It is via the core loops that the player creates a mental model of the game, including both their current actions and long-term goals with it, as well as improving their understanding and skill with the game over time. Simple games may have a single interactive core loop, but these tend to be shorter experiences overall. In the game Boomshine, for example, the player’s core loop is to click one time (and one time only) per level and then witness the results of their action. This game lasts for a few minutes at most, though with each iteration, the player hones their mental model a little bit more, often increasing their skill with the game. As a result, players return to the game over and over again to test and improve their skill with it, in effect creating their own outer loop of replaying the game.
遊戲的核心循環是其主要的互動系統。如果核心循環支持不同時間長度的互動（如本章和第四章所述），它們有助於創造一個即時吸引人且能長時間保持吸引力的遊戲。玩家透過核心循環建立遊戲的心理模型，包括他們當前的行動和長期目標，並隨著時間的推移提升他們對遊戲的理解和技能。簡單的遊戲可能只有一個互動核心循環，但這些通常是較短的體驗。例如，在遊戲《Boomshine》中，玩家的核心循環是在每個關卡中點擊一次（且僅一次），然後觀察其行動的結果。這款遊戲最多持續幾分鐘，但隨著每次迭代，玩家會稍微磨練他們的心理模型，通常也會提升他們的遊戲技能。因此，玩家一次又一次地回到遊戲中，測試並提升他們的技能，實際上創造了他們自己的重玩遊戲的外部循環。

Game Mechanics

The understanding of interactive game loops provides the basis for a definition of game mechanics. This phrase is used a lot in game design to refer vaguely to recurring patterns and chunks of gameplay: platform-jumping is a common game mechanic, as are resource management, push your luck, and dice rolling. These game mechanics span the range from simple (draw a card) to long and complex (build an empire). It can therefore be difficult to nail down the essential characteristics of game mechanics; often they end up being “fuzzy chunks of gameplay” without further definition.
理解互動遊戲迴圈為遊戲機制的定義提供了基礎。這個詞語在遊戲設計中經常被用來模糊地指代重複出現的模式和遊戲片段：平台跳躍是一種常見的遊戲機制，資源管理、冒險賭博和擲骰子也是如此。這些遊戲機制的範圍從簡單（抽一張牌）到冗長而複雜（建立一個帝國）不等。因此，很難確定遊戲機制的基本特徵；它們常常最終成為“模糊的遊戲片段”而沒有進一步的定義。

What these all have in common is their systemic nature: each game mechanic forms an interactive loop between the player(s) and the game. This loop is identifiable and, as its own system, is generally free of any particular game context; lots of games use draw a card or territory control as mechanics, for example. A game mechanic may be fast and simple with no subsystems within it, or it may contain many subsystems and take a long time to complete.
這些共同點在於它們的系統性：每個遊戲機制都在玩家與遊戲之間形成一個互動循環。這個循環是可識別的，作為一個獨立的系統，通常不受特定遊戲背景的限制；例如，許多遊戲使用抽牌或領地控制作為機制。一個遊戲機制可能快速且簡單，沒有內部子系統，或者它可能包含許多子系統並需要很長時間才能完成。

Game mechanics that the player encounters repeatedly throughout a game are sometimes referred to as the core gameplay or core mechanic, incorporating both the meaningful chunk of the game found in a particular mechanic and the idea of the core loop. When these mechanics are seen in many games in slightly different forms, this leads to the formation of game genres. For example, in the platformer genre, jumping is a core mechanic, often along with variations like double-jumps, jumping between moving platforms, wall jumping, and so on. In role-playing games, combat is a typical core mechanic, as are collecting loot and gaining power. Within each genre, games share identifiable mechanics that inform the player about the kinds of interactions they will have in the game. Each game differs from others of its genre, but the similarities in the systemic interactive loops created by their mechanics create a sense of familiarity that helps a player more easily create their mental model of the game.
在遊戲中，玩家反覆遇到的遊戲機制有時被稱為核心玩法或核心機制，這包含了特定機制中有意義的遊戲片段以及核心循環的概念。當這些機制在許多遊戲中以稍微不同的形式出現時，就形成了遊戲類型。例如，在平台遊戲類型中，跳躍是一個核心機制，通常還包括雙重跳躍、在移動平台間跳躍、牆壁跳躍等變化。在角色扮演遊戲中，戰鬥是典型的核心機制，收集戰利品和提升力量也是如此。在每個類型中，遊戲共享可識別的機制，這些機制告訴玩家他們在遊戲中將會有什麼樣的互動。每個遊戲與其類型中的其他遊戲有所不同，但由其機制創造的系統互動循環中的相似性，創造了一種熟悉感，幫助玩家更容易建立他們的遊戲心智模型。

Rather than create a list of common game mechanics, this chapter takes a more systemic approach in going over three primary kinds of gameplay loops (engines, economies, and ecologies) and how to combine them together into various mechanics.
本章並非列出常見的遊戲機制清單，而是採取更系統化的方法，探討三種主要的遊戲迴圈（引擎、經濟和生態）以及如何將它們結合成各種機制。

The Designer’s Loop  設計者的迴圈

As mentioned throughout this book, what is in many ways the outermost loop of all is the designer’s loop (see Figure 7.5, shown earlier as Figures I.3 and 4.3). The designer must view the game+player system as a unified whole from the outside, where both the game and the player are necessary subsystems. The designer interacts with this overarching system by watching players experience the game and adjusting the game’s model to provide better engagement for the player. You can think of the game design process as a balancing loop, where the design as created by the designer is experienced by the player, who provides feedback to the designer. This feedback demonstrates the difference between the designer’s intent and the player’s experience. The designer then changes the design to (hopefully) reduce this difference, and the loop begins again.
如同本書中多次提到的，設計者的迴圈在許多方面是最外層的迴圈（見圖 7.5，先前已作為圖 I.3 和 4.3 展示）。設計者必須從外部將遊戲+玩家系統視為一個統一的整體，其中遊戲和玩家都是必要的子系統。設計者透過觀察玩家體驗遊戲並調整遊戲的模型來提供更好的玩家參與度，從而與這個宏觀系統互動。你可以將遊戲設計過程視為一個平衡迴圈，設計者創造的設計由玩家體驗，玩家再向設計者提供反饋。這些反饋顯示了設計者的意圖與玩家體驗之間的差異。然後，設計者改變設計以（希望）減少這種差異，迴圈再次開始。

Creating, testing, and tweaking the game’s internal model and systems is the essence of game design. Until you are able to see and interact with players interacting with your game, the game in many ways does not yet exist. A bunch of rules does not make a game. Even a simulation (a game model that runs on its own) is not yet a game. Having the game be “real” requires having the interactive game+player system in place. It is at this point that the designer’s loop can also exist, and where you can make some of the best progress on your game design. We will see more of this loop in Chapter 12, “Making Your Game Real,” in discussing the details of prototyping and playtesting.
創建、測試和調整遊戲的內部模型和系統是遊戲設計的精髓。在你能夠看到並與玩家互動之前，遊戲在許多方面尚未真正存在。一堆規則並不構成一個遊戲。即使是模擬（自動運行的遊戲模型）也尚未成為一個遊戲。讓遊戲成為“真實”的需要是建立互動的遊戲+玩家系統。正是在這一點上，設計者的迴圈也可以存在，並且你可以在遊戲設計上取得一些最佳進展。我們將在第 12 章“讓你的遊戲成為現實”中看到更多關於這個迴圈的內容，討論原型設計和遊戲測試的細節。

Levels and Hierarchy  層級與層次結構

As shown in this brief recounting of the different principal loops in a game, systems necessarily involve hierarchical levels of organization. The interactive loop has as its parts the game and player loops; and the interactive loop is one part in the designer’s loop (along with the designer’s own plans and goals).
如同在這段對遊戲中不同主要循環的簡短敘述中所示，系統必然涉及層級組織。互動循環的組成部分包括遊戲和玩家循環；而互動循環則是設計師循環中的一部分（以及設計師自己的計劃和目標）。

This principle is an important one to remember as we discuss game loops and systems: Systems typically contain other systems, with each being a part in a loop forming a higher-level system. Being able to construct systems of systems—loops within loops—while being able to keep track of what level you are currently working on in a hierarchical system and see the whole experience at the same time is a critical aspect of the game designer’s skill set (refer to Figure 5.2). This is why being able to think in terms of systems is so vital for any game designer.
這一原則在我們討論遊戲循環和系統時是重要的：系統通常包含其他系統，每個系統都是形成更高層次系統的循環的一部分。能夠構建系統中的系統——循環中的循環——同時能夠追蹤您目前在層級系統中工作的層級，並同時看到整體體驗，這是遊戲設計師技能組中的關鍵方面（參見圖 5.2）。這就是為什麼能夠以系統的角度思考對任何遊戲設計師來說都是如此重要。

As an example, consider the ecology of wolves and deer first introduced in Chapter 2. As shown in Figure 7.6, the deer make up their own small system with a primarily reinforcing loop. Excluding external events, the deer population will increase as long as existing deer have sufficient food. However, the more deer there are, the less food is available. If the consumption of food outstrips the food coming in from the source, fewer deer will be born. For clarity, the effect of adults’ starvation (running out of food) isn’t explicitly shown here; instead, deer have another behavior (dying) that they sometimes do that takes them out of their system. The boundaries of this system are shown as the dashed circle in Figure 7.6. Food comes into the deer system from outside as a simple source, and death is a sink, taking deer out of the system.
例如，考慮在第二章中首次介紹的狼與鹿的生態系統。如圖 7.6 所示，鹿形成了一個主要由增強迴圈組成的小系統。排除外部事件，只要現有的鹿有足夠的食物，鹿群就會增加。然而，鹿越多，食物就越少可用。如果食物的消耗超過了來源提供的食物，出生的鹿就會減少。為了清晰起見，這裡並未明確顯示成鹿因飢餓（食物耗盡）而死亡的影響；相反，鹿有另一種行為（死亡），有時會將牠們從系統中移除。這個系統的邊界在圖 7.6 中以虛線圓圈表示。食物作為一個簡單的來源從外部進入鹿的系統，而死亡則是出口，將鹿從系統中移除。

A similarly detailed diagram could be drawn for wolves and plants, though the wolves’ (and, in a sense, the plants’) food source is deer, as shown in Figure 7.7. This figure is one organizational level up (one level more abstract) from the previous one. The circle (stock) labeled “Deer” in Figure 7.7 contains the entire system within the gray circle in Figure 7.6. That system is now shown as a part in the larger system.
可以為狼和植物畫出一個類似詳細的圖，儘管狼（以及某種意義上，植物）的食物來源是鹿，如圖 7.7 所示。這個圖比前一個圖高一個組織層級（更抽象一層）。圖 7.7 中標記為“Deer”的圓圈（庫存）包含了圖 7.6 中灰色圓圈內的整個系統。該系統現在顯示為較大系統中的一部分。

In Figure 7.7 we see that the more deer there are, the larger the wolf population will become—at the expense of reducing the deer’s numbers (the double arrows). This is its own little balancing loop, and an external effect from the point of view of the smaller deer-centric system (except for the deer having a “die” behavior, which the wolves may force). Deer have a similar balancing relationship with plants, their food, which are now part of the system rather than being an external simple source. And both deer and wolves, when they die, make for soil on which plants grow.
在圖 7.7 中，我們看到鹿的數量越多，狼的數量就會越大——以減少鹿的數量為代價（雙箭頭）。這是它自己的一個小平衡迴圈，從較小的以鹿為中心的系統的角度來看，這是一個外部效應（除了鹿有“死亡”行為，這可能是狼所迫使的）。鹿與植物，即牠們的食物，也有類似的平衡關係，植物現在是系統的一部分，而不是外部的簡單來源。而當鹿和狼死亡時，會形成植物生長的土壤。

Note that the different rates of increase of plants, deer, and wolves balance this system. In addition to the mentioned balancing loops, here is a reinforcing loop between deer, soil, and plants that could indicate a runaway number of both deer and plants, except that it is balanced by the deer eating the plants (so they can’t make new plants) and by the wolves eating the deer. Note too that this little ecology is also bounded by a dashed circle, indicating that it too may be a part in a still higher-level system.
注意到植物、鹿和狼的不同增長速度平衡了這個系統。除了提到的平衡迴圈之外，鹿、土壤和植物之間還有一個增強迴圈，這可能會導致鹿和植物的數量失控，但這被鹿吃植物（因此它們無法產生新植物）和狼吃鹿所平衡。還要注意，這個小生態系統也被一個虛線圍繞，這表明它也可能是更高層次系統的一部分。

Three Kinds of Gameplay Loops
三種遊戲循環

As shown in the deer/wolf system in the preceding section, game systems are complex looping structures. (A game system would also include player interaction, which the deer/wolf system does not have.) These looping structures are what make the game go: they form the structural basis for the game’s internal model of the world and, when running, they create the functional aspects of the game—the complex dynamic model with which the player interacts to create gameplay.
如前一節所示，鹿/狼系統中，遊戲系統是複雜的循環結構。（一個遊戲系統還包括玩家互動，而鹿/狼系統則沒有。）這些循環結構是遊戲運行的核心：它們構成了遊戲內部世界模型的結構基礎，並在運行時創造了遊戲的功能層面——玩家與之互動以創造遊戲體驗的複雜動態模型。

As discussed in Chapter 3, you can think of each of these functional systemic elements as “a machine that does X”—as in, “I want a machine that makes deer” or “I want an ecology between deer and wolves.” Each game system “does something” by having its parts (often systems in their own right, as shown above) interact as part of systemic (complex, often hierarchical) looping structures.
如第三章所討論的，你可以將每個這些功能系統元素視為「一個做 X 的機器」——例如，「我想要一個製造鹿的機器」或「我想要一個鹿與狼之間的生態系統。」每個遊戲系統通過其部分（通常本身就是系統，如上所示）作為系統性（複雜且通常是層次化的）循環結構的一部分進行互動來「做某事」。

These systems are a mix of reinforcing and balancing loops, depending on the overall purpose of the system. In most games, there is an overall predominance of reinforcing loops. This enables player gain and progression, where the player’s in-game avatar or representation becomes more powerful over the course of the game.
這些系統是增強和平衡循環的混合，取決於系統的整體目的。在大多數遊戲中，增強循環佔據主導地位。這使得玩家的增益和進展成為可能，玩家在遊戲中的化身或表現隨著遊戲的進行變得更強大。

Each system works with resources as described earlier: the parts’ behaviors typically involve the increase, decrease, flow, and/or conversion or exchange of resources between parts; this is what creates the systemic loop. The loop may work with the same resource internally or may convert or exchange one for another resource as part of the loop. In a reinforcing system, these resources increase over time, and in a balancing system, they decrease to a predetermined level or to a dynamic balance. For this reason, reinforcing loops are sometimes thought of as “gaining,” while balancing loops are thought of as “maintaining” a particular resource or set of resources.
每個系統都如前所述地運作資源：各部分的行為通常涉及資源在部分之間的增加、減少、流動和/或轉換或交換；這就是創造系統循環的原因。循環可能在內部使用相同的資源，或可能作為循環的一部分將一種資源轉換或交換為另一種資源。在增強系統中，這些資源隨時間增加，而在平衡系統中，它們減少到預定的水平或動態平衡。因此，增強循環有時被認為是“獲得”，而平衡循環則被認為是“維持”特定資源或一組資源。

These two sets of conditions—reinforcing or balancing and same or exchanged resources—give us three broad kinds of gameplay loops to examine. Each of these are important to game design in different ways, and all of them are discussed in greater detail in the following sections:
這兩組條件——強化或平衡以及相同或交換資源——讓我們可以檢視三種廣泛的遊戲循環。每一種在遊戲設計中都有不同的重要性，並且在接下來的章節中會有更詳細的討論。

Engines: Reinforcing or balancing with the same resource
引擎：使用相同資源的增強或平衡

Economies: Reinforcing by exchanging resources
經濟：通過交換資源來增強

Ecologies: Balancing by exchanging resources
生態系統：透過資源交換來達到平衡

Engines

The first type of systemic “machine” for us to consider is broadly called engines. This word has a number of meanings, of course, even within games—for example, a development engine makes the process of constructing a game easier by taking care of a number of tedious underlying tasks.
我們首先要考慮的系統性「機器」類型廣泛稱為引擎。這個詞當然有多種意義，即使在遊戲中也是如此——例如，開發引擎通過處理許多繁瑣的基礎任務，使遊戲構建過程變得更簡單。

In game design terms, an engine may be either boosting (reinforcing) or braking (balancing). The first type adds resources to the game, and the second type drains them out.
在遊戲設計術語中，引擎可以是增強（強化）或制動（平衡）。第一種類型為遊戲增加資源，而第二種類型則將資源排出。

Boosting Engines

A boosting engine is a system that adds resources to the game in a way that enables the player to choose between using them to act within the game in the moment or to invest them to gain a greater flow of resources in the future. (This is what Adams and Dormans [2012] call a dynamic engine, as opposed to a simple source acting as a static engine.) Boosting engines have a primary reinforcing loop that begins with a source creating a resource that flows out from it: this might be iron, action points, army units, magical power, or some other quantity of objects (see Figure 7.8). The player must decide whether to use these resources to act in the game right now or to invest in greater capabilities (greater resource flow) for the future.
增強引擎是一種系統，它以一種方式為遊戲添加資源，使玩家可以選擇在當下使用這些資源來進行遊戲，或是投資這些資源以在未來獲得更大的資源流。（這就是 Adams 和 Dormans [2012]所稱的動態引擎，相對於作為靜態引擎的簡單來源。）增強引擎有一個主要的強化迴圈，從一個來源開始創造資源，然後資源從中流出：這可能是鐵、行動點數、軍隊單位、魔法力量或其他一些物品的數量（見圖 7.8）。玩家必須決定是立即使用這些資源來進行遊戲，還是投資於未來更大的能力（更大的資源流）。

Games known as engine-building games use this system (or a more complex variation of it) as the primary way for the player to gain power and ability: as they build their engine, the player increases their capabilities within the game, or they can choose to use the resources to act within the game. Acting within the game typically brings its own short-term rewards, at the cost of spent resources, but building the engine invests for the future (and completes the reinforcing loop). Balancing the choice of when to invest versus when to act is a primary decision in these games. As a result, engine-building games tend toward long-term cognitive (strategic) interactivity when this is used as the game’s core loop. If a player does not play strategically, they will lose—though if they play too strategically (investing more than acting), they can lose as well.
在被稱為引擎建構的遊戲中，這種系統（或其更複雜的變體）是玩家獲得力量和能力的主要方式：隨著他們建構自己的引擎，玩家在遊戲中的能力會增加，或者他們可以選擇使用資源在遊戲中行動。在遊戲中行動通常會帶來短期的獎勵，但需要消耗資源，而建構引擎則是為未來投資（並完成強化循環）。在這些遊戲中，何時投資與何時行動的平衡選擇是主要的決策。因此，當這被用作遊戲的核心循環時，引擎建構遊戲傾向於長期的認知（策略）互動。如果玩家不以策略方式遊玩，他們將會失敗——但如果他們過於策略性地遊玩（投資多於行動），他們也可能會失敗。

Examples

Many tabletop games use boosting engines as a primary driver of gameplay. An early example comes from the game Monopoly. Players begin with $1,500 and gain $200 from the bank (the “source”) each time they go around the board. They can use that money to invest in properties that generate more money when people land on them. There is also a secondary engine-building loop in which players with all the properties of a given color can invest in houses and hotels, driving up the money-generating aspect of the property. The only reasons a player wouldn’t want to invest money in a property in this game are so they can wait to buy a more preferred property and so they can defend against bankruptcy by having enough money to pay rent on other players’ properties or pay other in-game costs.
許多桌上遊戲使用增強引擎作為遊戲玩法的主要驅動力。早期的例子來自於遊戲《大富翁》。玩家以 $1,500 開始，每次繞行遊戲板一圈時，從銀行（“來源”）獲得 $200。他們可以利用這些錢投資於當其他玩家停留在上面時能產生更多金錢的地產。遊戲中還有一個次要的引擎建設循環，玩家擁有同一顏色的所有地產時，可以投資於房屋和旅館，提升地產的金錢產生能力。玩家不願意在遊戲中投資於地產的唯一原因是他們希望等待購買更偏好的地產，並且希望通過擁有足夠的資金來支付其他玩家地產的租金或其他遊戲內的費用，以防止破產。

More recent examples include games like Dominion, Power Grid, and Splendor. Some, like Splendor, combine the gain in resource flow with action: as a player, you use gems to purchase a card, and the card in turn adds to the number of “free” gems you have to use on each turn (increasing the resource flow from the source). In addition, this game also sets up a separate resource in the form of victory points. In such cases, the player’s decision shifts slightly: they are going to gain capability (additional resource in the form of gems to use) with any action, but they must decide whether to spend their resources to increase only their future capabilities or spend more of them to also gain more victory points. This creates the same sort of balancing act described above, with the player choosing between immediate capability gain and potential gain in the future in the form of victory points.
較近期的例子包括《Dominion》、《Power Grid》和《Splendor》。其中一些，如《Splendor》，將資源流的增長與行動結合起來：作為玩家，你使用寶石購買卡牌，而卡牌反過來增加了你每回合可以使用的“免費”寶石數量（增加了來自來源的資源流）。此外，這款遊戲還設置了一個以勝利點數形式存在的獨立資源。在這種情況下，玩家的決策會稍有改變：他們將通過任何行動獲得能力（以寶石形式的額外資源），但必須決定是將資源用於僅增加未來的能力，還是花費更多資源以同時獲得更多的勝利點數。這創造了上述同樣的平衡行為，玩家在立即獲得能力增長和未來以勝利點數形式的潛在增長之間做出選擇。

Many computer-based strategy games also use engine-building systems: you can choose to spend resources to build fighting units, or you can invest those resources into constructing facilities that will build even better fighting units. As a form of outer reinforcing loop built on top of the primary engine system, in many such games, you can also send these fighting units out to bring back needed resources, albeit at the risk of losing some of those units in the process.
許多電腦策略遊戲也使用引擎建構系統：你可以選擇花費資源來建造戰鬥單位，或者將這些資源投入於建設能夠生產更優秀戰鬥單位的設施。作為一種建立在主要引擎系統之上的外部強化迴圈，在許多此類遊戲中，你也可以派遣這些戰鬥單位出去帶回所需的資源，儘管在此過程中可能會損失一些單位。

Engine Problems

Engine building can be a great core loop within a game, but boosting engines also are prone to certain issues. First, because they are based on reinforcing loops, they have the potential to run out of control in a rich-get-richer scenario unless there are balancing loops in place to prevent this. An old example of this is the 1990 arcade game Rampart. In this game, players built castles and then fired cannons at each other. After each round, the players would rebuild their castles, adding more walls and guns, based on their performance in the previous round. This created a strong reinforcing engine-building loop, with the problem being that once one player started winning, it was difficult or impossible for the other player to catch up. There were no in-game mechanisms for catching up, and the primary balancing loop was the fact that to keep playing, you had to keep putting more coins into the arcade machine. (When the game came to home TV-based game consoles that required no coins, this flaw became more obvious.)
引擎建構可以成為遊戲中的一個絕佳核心循環，但增強引擎也容易出現某些問題。首先，因為它們是基於強化循環，所以在富者愈富的情境下，若沒有平衡循環來防止，可能會失控。1990 年的街機遊戲《Rampart》就是一個舊例子。在這款遊戲中，玩家建造城堡，然後互相發射大砲。每一回合結束後，玩家會根據前一回合的表現重建城堡，增加更多的牆壁和火砲。這創造了一個強大的強化引擎建構循環，問題在於一旦一名玩家開始贏得優勢，其他玩家就很難或不可能追上。遊戲中沒有追趕的機制，主要的平衡循環是為了繼續遊玩，玩家必須不斷投入更多硬幣到街機機台中。（當遊戲移植到不需要硬幣的家用電視遊戲機時，這個缺陷變得更加明顯。）

On the other end, games based on boosting engines can stall if the player has insufficient resources to continue playing. Imagine if in Monopoly you started with only $500 instead of $1,500. Players would be able to purchase only a few properties and would run the risk of quickly being eliminated from the game due to bankruptcy. Or, in a fantasy game, if the only source of gold with which to buy magic weapons were a monster who can only be killed with a magic weapon, the player would be unable to progress in the game. This latter condition is sometimes known as a deadlock, a situation where a loop is done before it starts because the resource gained by running through the loop is also required to start it.
另一方面，基於增強引擎的遊戲如果玩家資源不足，可能會陷入停滯。想像一下，如果在大富翁遊戲中，你一開始只有 500 美元而不是 1,500 美元。玩家只能購買少數幾個地產，並有可能因破產而迅速被淘汰出局。或者，在一個奇幻遊戲中，如果購買魔法武器的唯一金幣來源是一個只能用魔法武器才能擊敗的怪物，玩家將無法在遊戲中進展。這種情況有時被稱為死鎖，這是一種在迴圈開始之前就已經完成的情況，因為運行迴圈所獲得的資源也是啟動迴圈所需的資源。

Overall, boosting engines require careful balancing of reinforcing and balancing loops: how much of a resource is produced, and how much the flow can be increased, along with other counterbalancing factors, such as how much the player has to spend on actions rather than investing in the game. For example, if in a strategy game constructing units is cheap and the units never die, then the player can quickly build up enough units that they don’t need to worry about creating more. Then they can devote all their resources to investment and creating better units, which can lead to a runaway situation, such as one player dominating or, at minimum, all players quickly escalating the number and types of units they purchase with greater and greater investment. The latter situation can make for exciting escalating gameplay if players are balancing each other’s progress; this is a staple of many strategy games on mobile platforms, for example. However, it can lead to players eventually becoming starved for new content when they have burned through all the existing units and can progress no further. Correcting for this with the balancing loop of exponentially increasing costs delays but ultimately does not prevent the content-exhaustion problem. (Progression balancing using exponential curves is discussed in detail in Chapter 10, “Game Balance Practice.”)
總體而言，增強引擎需要謹慎平衡強化和平衡循環：資源的生產量以及流量的增加程度，還有其他平衡因素，例如玩家在行動上花費多少，而不是投資於遊戲中。例如，在策略遊戲中，如果建造單位的成本低廉且單位不會死亡，那麼玩家可以迅速建立足夠的單位，不必擔心再創建更多。然後，他們可以將所有資源投入於投資和創建更好的單位，這可能導致失控的情況，例如一名玩家主導局勢，或者至少所有玩家迅速增加他們購買的單位數量和類型，並進行更大的投資。後者的情況如果玩家能夠平衡彼此的進展，則可以帶來令人興奮的升級遊戲體驗；這是許多手機平台策略遊戲的常見特徵。然而，當玩家耗盡所有現有單位並無法再進一步進展時，可能會導致玩家最終對新內容感到飢渴。 透過指數增長成本的平衡迴圈來修正這一問題，雖然能延遲但最終無法避免內容耗竭的問題。（使用指數曲線進行進度平衡的詳細討論請參見第十章《遊戲平衡實踐》。）

A final problem with boosting engines can come from the act of balancing the game itself. Players will work to find an effective strategy to make the most powerful engine they can as quickly as possible so that they can win the game. Of course, this is set against their need to act in the game, which at least partially balances (and delays) their ability to invest and gain additional power in the game. If this set of loops is balanced too carefully, however, there is a risk that the game designer will unintentionally collapse the potential paths through the game-space, leaving only one strategy that makes sense. In game theory, this is known as a dominant strategy: one that is always preferable and has the highest probability of producing a win condition for the player who chooses it.
提升引擎的最終問題可能來自於平衡遊戲本身的行為。玩家會努力尋找一種有效的策略，以最快的速度打造出最強大的引擎，從而贏得遊戲。當然，這與他們在遊戲中需要採取的行動相對應，這至少在一定程度上平衡（並延遲）了他們在遊戲中投資和獲得額外力量的能力。然而，如果這組循環被過於謹慎地平衡，則有可能導致遊戲設計師無意中壓縮了遊戲空間中的潛在路徑，只留下唯一合理的策略。在博弈論中，這被稱為優勢策略：一種總是更可取的策略，並且對選擇它的玩家來說，具有最高的贏得遊戲的可能性。

If, for example, in a fantasy game there is one combination of weapons and armor that beat all others, or if in a strategy game there is one kind of unit that can be purchased and beats all others, then the players will rush to exploit those and gain power quickly. However, in creating such a situation, the designer has left the players with few if any decisions to make: players will either rush to the preferred dominant strategy solution if they know it exists, or they will cast about until they find it, and then be frustrated that others knew of the secret optimal path before they did. In either case, the lack of meaningful decisions causes the player’s engagement and sense of fun in the game to evaporate quickly.
例如，在一款奇幻遊戲中，如果有一種武器和盔甲的組合能夠擊敗所有其他組合，或者在一款策略遊戲中，有一種單位可以購買並擊敗所有其他單位，那麼玩家將會急於利用這些優勢快速獲得力量。然而，創造這樣的情況，設計者讓玩家幾乎沒有決策可做：玩家要麼急於採用這種優勢策略解決方案（如果他們知道它的存在），要麼四處摸索直到找到它，然後對於其他人早已知道這條最佳路徑而感到沮喪。無論哪種情況，缺乏有意義的決策都會迅速消磨玩家對遊戲的投入感和樂趣。

Braking Engines

In contrast to boosting engines, braking engines have a predominant balancing loop. A braking engine is therefore in many ways the inverse of a boosting engine: a source in the loop generates a resource, but the action of the loop serves to decrease the amount of that resource and in some cases reduce the amount (or frequency) of gain of that resource in the future. A real-world example of this structure is the brakes on a car: when applied, they reduce the speed of the wheels either down to some level or to a complete stop. Another physical example is the mechanical governor we saw in Figure 1.7, where the motion of the spinning weights regulates the speed of the engine to which it is attached. These loops are also sometimes known as friction structures (Adams and Dormans 2012), as they slow the action or resource gain in gameplay.
與增壓引擎相反，制動引擎主要具有平衡迴圈。因此，制動引擎在許多方面是增壓引擎的反面：迴圈中的一個來源產生資源，但迴圈的作用是減少該資源的數量，有時甚至減少未來該資源的增長量（或頻率）。這種結構在現實世界中的一個例子是汽車的剎車：當應用時，它們會將車輪的速度降低到某個水平或完全停止。另一個物理例子是我們在圖 1.7 中看到的機械調速器，其中旋轉配重的運動調節了其所連接的引擎的速度。這些迴圈有時也被稱為摩擦結構（Adams 和 Dormans 2012），因為它們在遊戲中減緩了行動或資源的增長。

This may seem like an odd structure for part of a game design, and unlike the other loop structures, these tend to be seen as parts within other loops rather than on their own. Referring back to earlier examples, however (refer to Figures 7.3 and 7.4), we can see how putting a regulator or a brake on a player’s progress can be an important part of a game. In a card battling game like Marvel War of Heroes, players could continue to play without restriction if there were not some regulation and reduction of their abilities. In that game, both stamina and attack power serve this purpose. In other games, similar regulating or braking conditions include a variety of forms of friction, or conditions to which the players must attend and that divert resources from their overall progression. The “make repairs” Chance card in Monopoly, where players have to pay an amount proportional to the number of houses and hotels they own, is an example of this: a random event that drain’s the player’s resources as a way of regulating them. This card also exhibits the “rubberbanding” effect mentioned earlier, as it does not affect a lagging player nearly as much as it affects one who is winning and owns many properties.
這可能看起來像是遊戲設計中一個奇怪的結構，與其他循環結構不同，這些結構往往被視為其他循環中的一部分，而不是獨立存在。然而，回顧之前的例子（參見圖 7.3 和 7.4），我們可以看到在玩家的進度上設置一個調節器或制動器如何成為遊戲中的重要部分。在像《Marvel War of Heroes》這樣的卡牌對戰遊戲中，如果沒有某種能力的調節和削弱，玩家可以不受限制地繼續遊玩。在該遊戲中，耐力和攻擊力都起到了這個作用。在其他遊戲中，類似的調節或制動條件包括各種形式的摩擦，或是玩家必須注意的條件，這些條件會分散他們的資源，影響他們的整體進展。《大富翁》中的“進行修理”機會卡就是一個例子，玩家必須支付與他們擁有的房屋和酒店數量成比例的金額，這是一種通過隨機事件來消耗玩家資源以進行調節的方式。 這張卡片也展現了先前提到的「橡皮筋效應」，因為它對落後的玩家影響不大，但對於那些正在贏得比賽並擁有許多資產的玩家影響卻很大。

Slowing to a Stop

Not surprisingly, braking engines must be used carefully within the context of a game. If the regulation of the player’s resources is too severe, such that it overcomes the main reinforcing loop in a boosting engine or an economic system, the player will soon have insufficient resources to act in the game. As with a stagnating economy, the game will grind to a halt. For example, if the Chance card in Monopoly that requires the player to pay for repairs on all their properties appeared in the game more often, or if its costs were higher, it would have the effect of overly constraining the player’s actions, leaving them unable to act in the game in other ways. Like a car with dragging brakes providing too much friction, this has the overall result of removing too much energy from the game’s systems, and the game will slow to a stop.
不出所料，在遊戲中使用制動引擎必須謹慎。如果對玩家資源的調控過於嚴苛，以至於超過了增強引擎或經濟系統中的主要強化迴圈，玩家很快就會缺乏足夠的資源來在遊戲中行動。就像經濟停滯一樣，遊戲將會陷入停頓。例如，如果《大富翁》中的機會卡要求玩家支付所有房產的維修費出現得更頻繁，或者其成本更高，這將過度限制玩家的行動，使他們無法以其他方式在遊戲中行動。就像一輛車的剎車過緊，提供了過多的摩擦，這最終會從遊戲系統中移除過多的能量，導致遊戲逐漸停滯。

Economies

The second type of systemic machine is the economy. Like the engine system, this is a commonly used word with different meanings. In the sense used here for game design, an economy is any system dominated by a reinforcing loop (or set of loops) where the increase in resources or value comes not from internal investment of a resource (as with boosting engines) but from exchanging one resource for another or converting one resource to another with a nonlinear gain in value. As game designer Brian Giaime (2015) said, “A game economy is the dynamic exchange of resources, time, and power between multiple systems and entities.” These are exchanged “because players perceive a gain in value for the exchange.”
第二種系統性機器是經濟。就像引擎系統一樣，這是一個常用的詞彙，具有不同的意義。在此處用於遊戲設計的意義上，經濟是任何由強化迴圈（或一組迴圈）主導的系統，其中資源或價值的增加不是來自於資源的內部投資（如同提升引擎），而是通過將一種資源交換為另一種資源或將一種資源轉換為另一種資源，並且在價值上有非線性的增長。正如遊戲設計師 Brian Giaime（2015）所說：「遊戲經濟是多個系統和實體之間資源、時間和力量的動態交換。」這些交換是因為玩家認為這樣的交換能帶來價值的提升。

Let’s break that down. In a boosting engine, as described above, the player can choose whether to use a resource or invest it to increase the flow of that resource in the future. In an economy, the player can use a resource to perform a needed action in the game—for example, using wood as a resource to construct a building. Or the player can trade the wood for bread to feed their workers—who can then go chop down more wood. In this case, the player gains capability by trading one resource for another, enabling them to get even more of the resource they had in the first place, typically after a delay that keeps the player from creating a runaway reinforcing loop.
讓我們來解析一下。在一個增強引擎中，如上所述，玩家可以選擇使用資源或投資資源以增加未來該資源的流量。在經濟體系中，玩家可以使用資源來執行遊戲中所需的動作——例如，使用木材作為資源來建造建築物。或者，玩家可以將木材換成麵包來餵養工人——工人可以再去砍伐更多的木材。在這種情況下，玩家通過將一種資源交換成另一種資源來獲得能力，使他們能夠獲得更多原本擁有的資源，通常是在一段延遲之後，防止玩家創造出失控的增強循環。

In the wood-for-bread example, the player could instead choose to convert their wood into lumber and exchange it for even more bread. Suppose that a worker controlled by the player requires one bread to cut down a tree and produce one wood. If the player can then trade one wood for two bread, they gain the ability to then chop down two more wood, so they have increased their capability (albeit after a delay, as on their next turn or similar). That is the core of the economic reinforcing loop. See Figure 7.9.
在木材換麵包的例子中，玩家可以選擇將木材轉換成木料，然後用木料換取更多的麵包。假設由玩家控制的工人需要一個麵包來砍伐一棵樹並生產一個木材。如果玩家能夠用一個木材換取兩個麵包，他們就能夠砍伐兩個木材，從而提高了他們的能力（儘管是在下一回合或類似情況下的延遲之後）。這就是經濟增強循環的核心。見圖 7.9。

Suppose further that if the player has a sawmill, a worker can convert one wood into one lumber—and one lumber can be exchanged for four bread. This creates a strongly nonlinear increase in ability and thus in economic value. The costs to the lumberjack player in this scenario for moving from trading wood for bread to lumber for bread are that the player has to do the following:
假設如果玩家擁有一座鋸木廠，工人可以將一根木材轉換成一根木材，而一根木材可以兌換成四個麵包。這樣就創造了一個強烈的非線性能力增長，從而提高了經濟價值。在這種情況下，伐木工玩家從用木材換麵包轉變為用木材換麵包的成本是玩家必須做到以下幾點：

Accumulate enough wood to construct the sawmill (boosting-engine investment)
收集足夠的木材來建造鋸木廠（提升引擎投資）

Devote a worker (a potentially scarce resource) to the saw to convert wood to lumber, so less wood is being chopped
將一名工人（可能是稀缺資源）分配到鋸木機上，將木材轉換為木料，從而減少木材的砍伐

Take additional time to convert wood to lumber
花更多時間將木材轉換成木料

Pay back the investment of time and wood needed to create the sawmill and that they could have otherwise used to trade directly for bread
償還建造鋸木廠所需的時間和木材的投資，否則他們本可以直接用來換取麵包

These scenarios, costs, and benefits provide the player with an interesting set of decisions of timing and investment that are at the heart of economic gameplay. The player is trying to gain ability and power within the context of the game by exchanging and/or converting one resource into another.
這些情境、成本和收益為玩家提供了一組有趣的決策，涉及時機和投資，這是經濟遊戲玩法的核心。玩家試圖在遊戲的背景下通過交換和/或轉換一種資源為另一種資源來獲得能力和力量。

Unfolding Complexity  展開的複雜性

One other aspect of economic gameplay like this is the ability to introduce new objects and abilities, along with new resources and currencies (described shortly), as the game progresses. In the example above, a player may know only about bread and wood early in the game. Once they have mastered that limited economy, the game introduces the sawmill as a new object and lumber as a new resource. These allow for a new loop, expanding the player’s mental model as well as the number of decisions they can make in the game (when to build the sawmill, how many workers to devote to it rather than to cutting down trees, and so on) since each object and resource opens up new possibilities.
在這類經濟玩法中，另一個方面是能夠隨著遊戲進展引入新的物件和能力，以及新的資源和貨幣（稍後會描述）。在上述例子中，玩家在遊戲初期可能只知道麵包和木材。一旦他們掌握了這有限的經濟體系，遊戲就會引入鋸木廠作為新物件，並將木材作為新資源。這些允許新的循環，擴展玩家的心智模型以及他們在遊戲中可以做出的決策數量（何時建造鋸木廠，分配多少工人給它而不是砍伐樹木，等等），因為每個物件和資源都開啟了新的可能性。

Many games with economic loops use this concept by having production chains that are introduced over time. Converting wood to lumber is a short chain. In the same game, the player might have to have other workers who mine ore, convert it to iron, convert that to steel, and convert that to tools or weapons. Each one requires a new building, workers, and potentially knowledge or skills—so you might have to build an academy to train smiths (converted from undifferentiated workers) before you can make weapons with your steel (Figure 7.10).
許多具有經濟循環的遊戲使用這個概念，透過逐步引入生產鏈來實現。將木材轉換為木料是一個短鏈。在同一個遊戲中，玩家可能需要其他工人來開採礦石，將其轉換為鐵，再轉換為鋼，然後再轉換為工具或武器。每一個步驟都需要新的建築、工人，並可能需要知識或技能——因此你可能需要建造一所學院來訓練鐵匠（從未分化的工人轉換而來），然後才能用鋼製造武器（圖 7.10）。

For players who enjoy the cognitive challenges of building up and managing these chains, this creates engaging gameplay. While this can all be done by one player, one aspect of economic gameplay that makes it so interesting is that players can also take on specialized roles, creating some resources and trading for others: perhaps a player doesn’t make their own weapons if they don’t have a ready supply of ore, or they have to purchase the stone to make the chimney to refine the ore into iron. This purchase may be from another player or a computer-driven agent in the game; either way, it is another example of conversion and exchange of resources and currencies, which is the heart of economic-system gameplay.
對於喜歡建構和管理這些鏈條的玩家來說，這提供了引人入勝的遊戲體驗。雖然這一切都可以由一名玩家完成，但經濟遊戲玩法之所以如此有趣的一個方面是，玩家也可以擔任專業角色，創造一些資源並交易其他資源：或許玩家如果沒有現成的礦石供應，就不會自己製造武器，或者他們必須購買石材來建造煙囪以將礦石提煉成鐵。這種購買可能來自其他玩家或遊戲中的電腦驅動代理；無論哪種方式，這都是資源和貨幣轉換與交換的另一個例子，這是經濟系統遊戲玩法的核心。

Economic-system games can start simply and add new steps and loops, gradually unfolding into greater and greater systemic complexity as the player progresses. The player may start simply, with say an ore mine and selling the ore, then refining the ore to iron and finding that it sells for enough more to justify the expense and extra steps, and eventually working all the way up to having multiple resource paths that generate weapons and armor, among many other production-based goods.
經濟系統遊戲可以從簡單開始，然後逐步增加新的步驟和循環，隨著玩家的進展，逐漸展現出越來越複雜的系統性。玩家可能會從簡單的開始，比如擁有一座礦場並出售礦石，然後將礦石提煉成鐵，發現這樣的銷售價格足以抵消成本和額外的步驟，最終發展到擁有多條資源路徑，生產武器和盔甲，以及其他許多基於生產的商品。

This unfolding, additive system provides the player with a sense of exploration, mastery, and achievement as their mental model grows and he can do more in the game. As the game reveals increasing complexity, this provides the player with an experience of multiple interlocking systemic loops that create a broad play-space within which the player can make innumerable decisions. This creates long-term engagement and a deep sense of fun in the game.
這種展開的、累加的系統讓玩家在心智模型成長的同時，感受到探索、掌握和成就感，並能在遊戲中做更多事情。隨著遊戲揭示出越來越多的複雜性，這為玩家提供了多個相互交織的系統迴圈體驗，創造了一個廣闊的遊戲空間，讓玩家可以做出無數的決策。這樣的設計帶來了長期的投入感和深刻的遊戲樂趣。

Currencies

Economies often use currencies as a sort of catalytic resource, as described earlier. Strictly speaking, currencies are exchanged but not consumed as resources are, so they may be exchanged again. If the lumberjack player in the previous example could pay for bread using silver instead of wood, and if the baker player could then use that same silver to buy wheat to make bread, then the silver is a currency that is usable by both, and not just a resource that is converted in the transaction. Like a chemical catalyst, a currency enables the exchange but does not participate directly in it by being consumed during the exchange. However, in many game economies, currencies are effectively destroyed (drained out of the economy via a sink) when spent, even if they don’t transform from one type of object into another, as a resource does.
如前所述，經濟體系通常將貨幣視為一種催化資源。嚴格來說，貨幣是被交換而非像資源那樣被消耗，因此它們可以再次被交換。如果在前面的例子中，伐木工玩家可以用銀幣而不是木材來支付麵包，而麵包師玩家可以用同樣的銀幣購買小麥來製作麵包，那麼銀幣就是一種雙方都能使用的貨幣，而不僅僅是交易中被轉換的資源。就像化學催化劑一樣，貨幣促成了交換，但並不直接參與其中而被消耗。然而，在許多遊戲經濟中，貨幣在花費時實際上是被銷毀的（通過一個消耗機制從經濟中排出），即使它們不像資源那樣從一種類型的物品轉變為另一種。

Currencies have another important property as well: unlike resources that may have only one or a few direct uses, currencies can be used in almost any form of exchange. So if in a RPG a player finds 1,000 gold pieces, they may spend that currency on training, better weapons or armor, or information, or save them for spending later. This provides the player with a multitude of choices in addition to the feeling of having obtained a valuable reward.
貨幣還有另一個重要特性：不同於可能只有一種或少數幾種直接用途的資源，貨幣幾乎可以用於任何形式的交換。因此，如果在一個角色扮演遊戲中，玩家找到了一千枚金幣，他們可以將這些貨幣用於訓練、更好的武器或盔甲、資訊，或者儲存起來以備日後使用。這不僅為玩家提供了多種選擇，還讓他們感受到獲得了寶貴獎勵的滿足感。

However, currencies are also subject to the problems of inflation and stagnation, as described later in this chapter. In short, players must perceive a currency to have value as a means of exchange, or it just becomes an annoyance or something to be ignored. Keeping your in-game currencies in balance so that they retain some value without becoming overly precious can be a difficult design problem. This is something that must be viewed at the level of the whole economy as a system rather than by looking at only one part of it. It typically takes considerable iterative design and tweaking of economic values (resource creation rates, prices, and so on) to create a stable but still dynamic economy.
然而，貨幣也會受到通貨膨脹和停滯的問題影響，這些問題將在本章稍後描述。簡而言之，玩家必須認為貨幣具有作為交換手段的價值，否則它只會成為一種煩擾或被忽視的東西。保持遊戲內貨幣的平衡，使其保有一定價值而不過於珍貴，可能是一個困難的設計問題。這必須從整個經濟作為一個系統的層面來看，而不是僅僅關注其中的一部分。通常需要相當多的迭代設計和經濟價值（資源創造率、價格等）的調整，才能創造出一個穩定但仍具動態的經濟體系。

Economies with Engines  引擎驅動的經濟體

It is common for an economy to have engines built into it as subsidiary systemic loops. In the example above, the woodcutting player may have to decide whether to sell wood for bread or invest the wood in constructing a sawmill in order to get even more bread, as shown in Figure 7.9. Having sources that produce resources that can be used for internal investment or profitable exchange is the core of many engaging games: players must make economic trade-off decisions, balancing short-term needs with long-term desired gains.
在經濟體系中，通常會內建一些作為輔助系統循環的引擎。在上述例子中，伐木玩家可能需要決定是將木材賣掉換取麵包，還是將木材投資於建造鋸木廠以獲得更多的麵包，如圖 7.9 所示。擁有能夠生產資源的來源，這些資源可以用於內部投資或有利可圖的交換，是許多引人入勝的遊戲的核心：玩家必須做出經濟上的取捨決策，平衡短期需求與長期期望收益。

Examples of Economies  經濟體系的範例

Economies come in many different forms, some of which don’t seem particularly “economic” at first glance. For example, in a typical role-playing game, the player’s core loop likely is an economy. This loop can be bluntly described as “kill monster, get loot, buy stuff.” There is more to it, of course, though the experience does often boil down to that. In particular, the resources that the player is exchanging for the “loot” are their time and (often) their character’s health (also sometimes things like weapon and armor fatigue, as these become weaker with use). In economic terms, the player is essentially saying, “I will trade some of my time as a player and some of my character’s health for the loot that this monster will provide to me.” (Note, however, that combat itself is an ecology that exists as a subsystem of the overall economy, as discussed later in this chapter.)
經濟體系有許多不同的形式，其中一些乍看之下似乎並不特別「經濟」。例如，在典型的角色扮演遊戲中，玩家的核心循環很可能就是一種經濟。這個循環可以簡單地描述為「打怪、拿戰利品、買東西」。當然，這其中還有更多的內容，儘管體驗通常可以歸結為這樣。特別是，玩家用來交換「戰利品」的資源是他們的時間和（通常）他們角色的健康值（有時也包括武器和盔甲的耐久度，因為這些會隨著使用而變弱）。從經濟學的角度來看，玩家基本上是在說：「我願意用一些作為玩家的時間和一些角色的健康值來換取這個怪物將提供給我的戰利品。」（然而請注意，戰鬥本身是一個存在於整體經濟中的子系統的生態，這一點將在本章後面討論。）

In trading time and health for loot, the player is betting that their character will gain new abilities in the exchange, in the form of experience points (or new skills), the potential for better weapons and armor, and possibly gold with which they can buy new weapons and armor or repair the ones they have. None of these are assured in any given encounter with a monster. In that respect, each encounter provides a reward on a variable schedule—a powerful method for encouraging continued play. Variable schedule is a term from psychology used when someone is rewarded at various times for a particular behavior but doesn’t know when the next reward will appear. You might think that being rewarded on a regular schedule would create the most engagement and best performance, but this isn’t the case. A variable schedule reward creates strong engagement (persistent, focused behavior) and creates a spike of dopamine in the brain with each reward—making this particularly useful for fast action/feedback interactivity (Zald et al. 2004). This reward and resulting engagement is an important aspect of why we persist at playing games, gambling, purchasing stocks, and other similar behaviors.
在以時間和健康換取戰利品的過程中，玩家賭的是他們的角色能在交換中獲得新的能力，這可能以經驗值（或新技能）的形式出現，還有可能獲得更好的武器和盔甲，甚至是金幣，這些金幣可以用來購買新武器和盔甲或修理現有的裝備。在與怪物的每次遭遇中，這些都不是保證能獲得的。在這方面，每次遭遇提供的獎勵是基於一個變動的時間表——這是一種強有力的方法來鼓勵持續遊玩。變動時間表是心理學中的一個術語，指的是當某人因某種特定行為在不同時間獲得獎勵，但不知道下一次獎勵何時出現時的情況。你可能會認為在固定時間表上獲得獎勵會創造出最強的參與度和最佳的表現，但事實並非如此。變動時間表的獎勵能創造出強烈的參與感（持續且專注的行為），並在每次獲得獎勵時在大腦中引發多巴胺的激增——這使得它特別適用於快速行動/反饋的互動性（Zald et al. 2004）。這種獎勵和由此產生的參與感是我們持續玩遊戲、賭博、購買股票及其他類似行為的重要原因。

Traditional trading economies also exist in many games. In these, resources of one type are exchanged for others, either by direct barter or mediated by the use of currencies. Each resource has to have value to the purchaser (as in the wood-for-bread example). In any working economy, purchasers either fulfill basic needs (food, shelter, and so on) with the things they buy, or they use them to create an increase in value—as with a smith who uses her time and skill to convert metal ingots into weapons, armor, or decorative objects. It is this increase in value that ultimately powers any economy, keeping the overall loop reinforcing itself.
傳統的交易經濟也存在於許多遊戲中。在這些遊戲中，不同類型的資源可以通過直接以物易物或使用貨幣進行交換。每種資源對購買者來說都必須具有價值（如木材換麵包的例子）。在任何運作中的經濟體系中，購買者要麼用他們購買的物品來滿足基本需求（如食物、住所等），要麼用來創造價值的增長——就像鐵匠利用她的時間和技藝將金屬錠轉化為武器、盔甲或裝飾品。正是這種價值的增長最終推動了任何經濟體系，使整體循環自我強化。

Moving beyond single-resource economies to those using multiple resources, the systems become far more dynamic and unpredictable. If there are multiple buyers and sellers in the market (whether human players or NPCs), resources will have different relative values to different actors, depending on their needs and budget constraints. While the prices remain dynamic, over time and numerous transactions, the prices for a given resource will tend to settle into a fairly narrow range (assuming no external change). On the other hand, if there aren’t many transactions for a given resource, its price may fluctuate wildly, given the relative value at any given time and lack of general history to act as a precedent for any particular price. (At this point, we stand on the precipice of microeconomics, an entire subject on its own and an excellent analytic companion to the kind of system creation discussed here. However, that is beyond the scope of this book.)
從單一資源經濟轉向使用多重資源的經濟體系，系統變得更加動態且難以預測。如果市場中有多個買家和賣家（無論是人類玩家還是 NPC），資源對不同的行動者而言會有不同的相對價值，這取決於他們的需求和預算限制。雖然價格保持動態，但隨著時間的推移和大量交易的進行，某一資源的價格往往會穩定在一個相對狹窄的範圍內（假設沒有外部變化）。另一方面，如果某一資源的交易不多，其價格可能會劇烈波動，這取決於任何給定時間的相對價值，且缺乏一般歷史作為任何特定價格的先例。（在這一點上，我們站在微觀經濟學的邊緣，這是一個獨立的主題，也是這裡所討論的系統創建的絕佳分析伴侶。然而，這超出了本書的範疇。）

In general, if more people are interested in a particular resource, its price goes up. The same is true if the amount of the resource available becomes reduced, assuming that there is still interest in it from potential purchasers. This is the classic economic law of supply and demand: if something is easily obtainable on the market, the price people are willing to pay for it drops; but if it becomes scarce and people still have a need for it, people will outbid each other trying to obtain the resource, and its price rises. The economy occurs if the sellers and buyers are able to come to an agreement where both are willing to make an exchange.
一般來說，如果有更多人對某項資源感興趣，其價格就會上漲。同樣地，如果該資源的供應量減少，而潛在購買者仍然對其有興趣，價格也會上升。這就是經典的供需法則：如果某物在市場上容易取得，人們願意支付的價格就會下降；但如果它變得稀少，而人們仍然需要它，則人們會相互競價以獲得該資源，其價格便會上升。經濟活動發生在賣方和買方能夠達成雙方都願意進行交換的協議時。

Contained in this is an argument against a few practices that are common in many games. Designers often want to set the prices for resources or goods in their games rather than let them float based on supply and demand. To some degree, this makes sense: players want a consistent experience and don’t want to know that the lizard hides they just hauled back from the wilderness are suddenly worthless. At the same time, taking all variation—all the “float”—out of the market where the aggregate action of all sales sets the price, also takes the dynamics and life out of the economy. Among other things, this means fewer decisions players have to make since they don’t have to look for the best place to sell, for example, since they know that their lizard hides will always sell for a certain amount in any location, as this has been centrally set by the game. This can work, but it reduces the economy to a mechanistic exercise. That may or may not be best for the game you’re making. If you want players to have the opportunity to make economic decisions, you need to allow for some variability in prices. If, however, it’s more important for the player’s experience that they are just able to sell their goods than that they get the best price, introducing pricing variability may just be adding to the player’s mental load and taxing their interactivity budget.
在這段文字中，對於許多遊戲中常見的一些做法提出了反對意見。設計師通常希望在遊戲中設定資源或商品的價格，而不是讓它們根據供需浮動。在某種程度上，這是有道理的：玩家希望有一致的體驗，不希望剛從荒野拖回來的蜥蜴皮突然變得一文不值。然而，將市場中所有的變化——所有的“浮動”——去除，讓所有銷售的總體行動來設定價格，也會使經濟失去動態和活力。這意味著玩家需要做的決策更少，因為他們不必尋找最佳的銷售地點，例如，他們知道蜥蜴皮在任何地方都會以某個固定價格出售，因為這是由遊戲集中設定的。這種做法可能有效，但會將經濟簡化為一種機械化的練習。這對於你正在製作的遊戲來說可能是好或壞。如果你希望玩家有機會做出經濟決策，你需要允許價格有一些變動。 然而，如果對玩家來說，能夠順利出售商品比獲得最佳價格更為重要，那麼引入價格變動可能只是增加玩家的心理負擔，並消耗他們的互動預算。

Similar to central price setting, many games provide vendors who have infinite cash (or resources to trade), infinite stock, and an infinite appetite for whatever the player is selling. If the NPC vendor buys 10 lizard skins for 1 gold piece each, he will buy the next 10—and the next 100 or 1,000—for the same amount. As with fixed prices, this creates a consistent experience for the player but also one that is relatively lifeless and presents no challenges or meaningful decisions to the player.
類似於中央定價，許多遊戲提供的商人擁有無限的現金（或可交易的資源）、無限的庫存，以及對玩家出售的物品無限的需求。如果非玩家角色（NPC）商人以每件 1 金幣的價格購買 10 張蜥蜴皮，他將以相同的價格購買接下來的 10 張——甚至是接下來的 100 張或 1,000 張。與固定價格一樣，這為玩家創造了一個一致的體驗，但同時也相對缺乏生氣，並且不會給玩家帶來挑戰或有意義的決策。

Player-to-player economies are far more dynamic in large part because the players themselves set the prices for all the resources they exchange. This can create terrific amounts of economic gameplay, but it also presents significant problems, as discussed in the following section.
玩家對玩家的經濟體系之所以更加動態，很大程度上是因為玩家自己為他們交換的所有資源設定價格。這可以創造出極具吸引力的經濟遊戲性，但也帶來了顯著的問題，這些問題將在接下來的部分中討論。

Economic Issues

Economies can suffer from some of the same issues that can plague boosting engines. First among these is the problem where one player is able to harness the reinforcing loop to their advantage and the exclusion of others. By doing so, this player can quickly zoom ahead in an in-game rich-get-richer scenario. If unchecked, this capability can lead to one player (or a small number) gaining disproportionate benefit from the game—that is, winning based on forcing others to lose. This often comes at the cost of other players’ enjoyment, or even at the cost of their presence in the game. Classic board games like Monopoly and Risk are based on the idea of eliminating players as the game progresses until there is only one remaining. This is a classic zero-sum view (“I win, you lose”), where in an economic sense all value is concentrated in one player. Unless your desire is to make a hyper-competitive game, most people will not end up enjoying themselves (unless they find the thrill of potential loss itself attractive), and allowing this kind of runaway economic scenario will not create a healthy, engaging game design.
經濟體系可能會遭遇與增壓引擎相似的問題。首先是某位玩家能夠利用強化循環來獲得優勢，排除其他玩家。這樣一來，該玩家可以在遊戲中迅速領先，形成富者愈富的情況。如果不加以控制，這種能力可能導致一名（或少數幾名）玩家從遊戲中獲得不成比例的利益——即通過迫使其他人失敗來獲勝。這通常會以其他玩家的樂趣為代價，甚至可能導致他們退出遊戲。經典的桌遊如《大富翁》和《風險》就是基於隨著遊戲進行逐步淘汰玩家，直到只剩下一位的理念。這是一種典型的零和觀點（“我贏，你輸”），在經濟意義上，所有價值都集中在一名玩家身上。除非你的目的是創造一個超級競爭的遊戲，否則大多數人不會享受這樣的過程（除非他們對潛在失敗的刺激感到吸引），而允許這種失控的經濟情境不會創造出健康且引人入勝的遊戲設計。

There are a variety of ways to prevent or mitigate the runaway reinforcement loop. As discussed earlier in this chapter (and in the discussion of ecologies later in the chapter), balancing loops can be used to either help those lagging behind or slow those who are getting too far ahead. Collectively, these techniques are sometimes called “rubberbanding,” from the image of forcibly hauling back a leading player or bringing forward a lagging one, as if they were connected by an elastic band that has reached its limit. (Sometimes this is also referred to as “forgive losers and punish winners” to keep the game going.)
有多種方法可以防止或減輕失控的增強循環。如本章前面所述（以及本章後面關於生態系統的討論），平衡循環可以用來幫助那些落後的人，或是減緩那些過於領先的人的速度。這些技術統稱為「橡皮筋效應」，源自於強行拉回領先玩家或推進落後玩家的畫面，就像他們被一條已達極限的橡皮筋連接著。（有時這也被稱為「寬恕失敗者，懲罰贏家」，以保持遊戲的進行。）

Often a sharp, one-time balancing effect is sufficient as a corrective action, as when a losing player in Mario Kart is able to lob a spiny shell (commonly known as the “blue shell”) at the player in first place, thereby stopping them for a few seconds while others catch up. Another similar device is the thief in the Settlers of Catan games. This isn’t automatically used against the leading player, but players typically try to put it on land used by one or more of the leading players to prevent them from gaining valuable resources from that area until the thief can be moved. Finally, built-in effects, like the balancing loop used in Power Grid to determine turn order, helps prevent one player from running away with success in a game with a prominent economy, thus helping to preserve the engagement and fun for all players.
在《瑪利歐賽車》中，當落後的玩家能夠向第一名的玩家投擲一個尖刺龜殼（通常稱為「藍龜殼」）時，往往一次性、短暫的平衡效果就足以作為矯正措施，從而讓其他玩家有機會追上。另一個類似的裝置是在《卡坦島開拓者》遊戲中的強盜。這個裝置並不會自動用於領先的玩家，但玩家通常會試圖將它放在一個或多個領先玩家使用的土地上，以防止他們從該地區獲得寶貴的資源，直到強盜被移走。最後，內建的效果，如《電網》中用於決定回合順序的平衡循環，有助於防止某個玩家在經濟顯著的遊戲中獨佔鰲頭，從而幫助維持所有玩家的參與感和樂趣。

Inflation

There are two other main ways in which game economies experience issues and tend to fail. The first, as discussed earlier, is with a primary reinforcing loop that is too strong. This is also similar to a common problem seen in engines: if the exchange or conversion is too easy or too profitable, the player ends up with too much of a given resource and not enough meaningful ways to spend it. In the real world, this is a classic recipe for economic inflation, and the same is true in games. This problem is sometimes known as “more faucets than drains” because resources are pouring into the game and have too few ways to drain out of it.
遊戲經濟體系出現問題並趨於失敗的主要方式還有兩種。第一種，如前所述，是主要增強迴圈過於強大。這也類似於引擎中常見的問題：如果交換或轉換過於容易或過於有利可圖，玩家最終會擁有過多的某種資源，而缺乏足夠有意義的方式來消耗它。在現實世界中，這是經濟通脹的經典配方，遊戲中亦然。這個問題有時被稱為「水龍頭多於排水口」，因為資源不斷湧入遊戲中，但排出的方式卻太少。

However, handled carefully, this inflation can be used to increase the player’s engagement at least for a time: if players are able to gain amounts of currency that they once thought unattainable and then use that currency to purchase meaningful items in the game, they can feel powerful. When a lowly character who initially barely had two coppers to rub together attains vast sums of wealth that allow them to buy castles or extra lives, they can feel a great sense of achievement. But this is true only as long as the amounts remain meaningful in that the player can use them in some way in the game. The idle game Adventure Capitalist starts players as entrepreneurs running lemonade stands making a few dollars, the in-game currency. Eventually, if a player persists, they can find themselves purchasing and upgrading movie studios, banks, and oil companies, in the process accruing over $1 novemnonagintillion—that is a 1 followed by 300 zeros.⁵
然而，若能小心處理，這種通膨可以用來增加玩家的參與度，至少在一段時間內是如此：如果玩家能夠獲得他們曾經認為遙不可及的貨幣數量，然後用這些貨幣購買遊戲中有意義的物品，他們會感到強大。當一個起初連兩個銅板都湊不齊的小角色獲得了巨額財富，能夠購買城堡或額外生命時，他們會感到極大的成就感。但這只有在這些數量仍然有意義，且玩家能在遊戲中以某種方式使用它們時才成立。放置型遊戲《Adventure Capitalist》讓玩家從經營檸檬水攤的小企業家開始，賺取少量的遊戲內貨幣。最終，如果玩家堅持下去，他們會發現自己購買並升級電影製片廠、銀行和石油公司，過程中累積超過 1 novemnonagintillion——也就是 1 後面跟著 300 個零。

Whether that amount of money is in any way meaningful is a different question. Few players last anywhere near that long in the game, as the gameplay typically becomes repetitive and not meaningful long before that. One way this and many other idle games have partially solved this problem is by creating another external boosting engine loop called the prestige loop. As the player progresses in the game, they accrue a “prestige” resource, such as angel investors in Adventure Capitalist. As with any boosting engine, the player can choose to use this resource in the game or wait and “invest” it in their next iteration of it. When the player sees that their current rate of increase is too small to yield any meaningful benefit in a short period of time, they can restart the game and carry over only their prestige resources, and everything else gets wiped clean for a fresh start. The prestige resources then act as a multiplier to increase the rate of increase of the primary resource (cash in Adventure Capitalist). This enables the player to quickly get past the now-boring lower levels of the game and progress even further than the last time. Of course, they continue to accrue their prestige resource, so they have an incentive to cycle through the outer prestige loop once again when the game becomes boring. This prestige loop increases the life span of the game for the most dedicated players and is a great example of using a boosting engine structure to both make inflation work as part of the gameplay and extend the life of the game for the player.
這筆錢是否有任何意義是另一個問題。很少有玩家能在遊戲中持續那麼久，因為遊戲玩法通常在那之前就變得重複且無意義。為了解決這個問題，許多放置型遊戲部分地引入了一個稱為聲望循環的外部增強引擎循環。隨著玩家在遊戲中的進展，他們會累積一種“聲望”資源，例如在《Adventure Capitalist》中的天使投資者。與任何增強引擎一樣，玩家可以選擇在遊戲中使用這種資源，或者等待並將其“投資”到下一次的遊戲中。當玩家發現他們目前的增長速度太小，無法在短時間內帶來任何有意義的收益時，他們可以重新開始遊戲，並僅攜帶他們的聲望資源，其他一切都被清除以重新開始。聲望資源然後作為一個乘數來增加主要資源（在《Adventure Capitalist》中是現金）的增長速度。這使得玩家能夠快速越過現在無聊的低級別，並比上次進展得更遠。 當然，他們會繼續累積他們的聲望資源，因此當遊戲變得無聊時，他們有動力再次循環外部聲望循環。這種聲望循環延長了遊戲對於最忠實玩家的壽命，是利用增強引擎結構使通脹成為遊戲玩法的一部分並延長玩家遊戲壽命的絕佳範例。

Another example of economic inflation occurred in the economy surrounding Diablo II. In this fantasy RPG, every time you killed a monster, gold coins rained out of it, and often magic items did as well. While gold could be used as a currency to purchase some items in the game, players quickly found themselves awash in it with no use for it (more faucets than drains). Thus, in player-to-player transactions, it was worthless—a classic inflationary scenario. Players turned to various gems first as a new more valuable (if unofficial) currency, but due in large part to the amount of them given as loot (and to some degree to “dupes”—cheating players duplicating items themselves), these also quickly became worthless. In time, players settled on an item called the Stone of Jordan, or SOJ for short, as the preferred currency, as it was small, expensive, and useful in the game. However, eventually even that became nearly worthless, and players finally turned to “high runes” as their medium of exchange. These were also small (so easily transported), expensive, and useful, and unlike the SOJ, they had different statistics and so became seen as having different values, acting very much like different denominations of real-world paper currency.
另一個經濟通膨的例子發生在《暗黑破壞神 II》的經濟體系中。在這款奇幻角色扮演遊戲中，每當你擊殺一個怪物時，金幣就會從中掉落，通常還會有魔法物品。雖然金幣可以作為貨幣來購買遊戲中的一些物品，但玩家很快就發現自己擁有大量金幣卻無處可用（進水口多於排水口）。因此，在玩家之間的交易中，金幣變得毫無價值——這是一個典型的通膨情況。玩家首先轉向各種寶石作為新的更有價值（即使是非官方）的貨幣，但由於這些寶石作為戰利品的數量龐大（以及某種程度上因為“複製品”——作弊玩家自行複製物品），這些寶石也很快變得毫無價值。最終，玩家選擇了一種名為喬丹之石（簡稱 SOJ）的物品作為首選貨幣，因為它小巧、昂貴且在遊戲中有用。然而，最終連這個也幾乎變得毫無價值，玩家最後轉向“高級符文”作為他們的交易媒介。 這些物品同樣體積小（因此易於攜帶）、昂貴且實用，與 SOJ 不同的是，它們擁有不同的屬性，因此被視為具有不同的價值，非常像現實世界中不同面額的紙幣。

This entire process occurred due to inflation, due to having a too-strong reinforcing loop pouring gold and other currencies into the economy and not enough content to keep the players satisfied: they no longer had meaningful decisions to make or goals to set for themselves within the economy. This is a problem that almost every game that features an economy has to face at some point, as it becomes increasingly difficult to add more and more content at the high end of the game without it becoming boring and repetitious to players.
整個過程是由於通貨膨脹所引起的，因為有一個過於強大的增強循環將黃金和其他貨幣注入經濟體系，而沒有足夠的內容來滿足玩家：他們不再能在經濟中做出有意義的決策或為自己設定目標。這是幾乎每個具有經濟系統的遊戲在某個時刻都必須面對的問題，因為在遊戲的高端階段增加更多內容變得越來越困難，而不會讓玩家感到無聊和重複。

Stagnation

Though it’s less common, stagnation can also occur in an economy. Economic stagnation happens when the supply of resources or currency (money, loot, and so on) is too constrained or when the costs of remaining in the game are too high. In either case, players believe it is in their best interest to hang on to a dearly won coin or bit of loot rather than spend it and regret doing so later. Alternatively, they have to continue paying out currency for maintenance (a form of braking engine), and soon they simply do not have enough to keep their character, army, nation, and so on, going. One of the reasons stagnation is rare is because when it begins to happen, players simply stop playing the game. Nothing is keeping them there, especially when the game ceases to be fun, so they leave, and the game—and its economy—slowly grind to a painful halt.
雖然較不常見，但經濟停滯也可能發生。經濟停滯發生在資源或貨幣（如金錢、戰利品等）的供應過於緊縮，或是繼續留在遊戲中的成本過高時。在這兩種情況下，玩家認為保留辛苦贏得的硬幣或戰利品比花掉它更有利，避免日後後悔。或者，他們必須持續支付貨幣來維持（這是一種制動引擎），很快地，他們就沒有足夠的資源來維持他們的角色、軍隊、國家等運行。停滯罕見的原因之一是因為當它開始發生時，玩家就會停止玩遊戲。沒有什麼能留住他們，尤其是當遊戲不再有趣時，他們就會離開，遊戲及其經濟便會緩慢地陷入痛苦的停滯。

In games economic stagnation happens when designers are so intent on balancing their in-game economy—refusing to let the reinforcing loop do its work and allow the economy to grow—that they take the life out of it. It’s true that reducing the primary reinforcing loop will prevent inflationary problems, but doing so can also remove any useful economic gradient: when no one feels that a trade is in their favor, then no trades are made and ultimately there is no economy. Recall that a systemic loop requires interaction between parts. In an economic system, if there are no interactions that exchange or convert two resources, then there is no system, and thus, if this is a core loop, there is no game.
在遊戲中，經濟停滯發生在設計師過於專注於平衡遊戲內的經濟——拒絕讓強化循環發揮作用並讓經濟增長——以至於使其失去活力。確實，減少主要的強化循環可以防止通脹問題，但這樣做也可能消除任何有用的經濟梯度：當沒有人覺得交易對自己有利時，就不會有交易，最終也就沒有經濟。請記住，系統循環需要部分之間的互動。在經濟系統中，如果沒有交換或轉換兩種資源的互動，那麼就沒有系統，因此，如果這是一個核心循環，那麼就沒有遊戲。

Ecologies

Like a braking engine, an ecology system has a predominant balancing loop, or set of loops, rather than a reinforcing one. In this balancing loop, resources are exchanged as they are in an economy, but they are exchanged such that each part ultimately balances rather than reinforces the others. Within the overall balancing loop, ecologies typically have reinforcing loops that exist within the parts as subsystems themselves (as shown in Figures 7.6 and 7.7), but these are not the primary driver of the system structure.
如同一個剎車引擎，生態系統中有一個主要的平衡迴圈，或是一組迴圈，而非增強迴圈。在這個平衡迴圈中，資源的交換如同經濟體系，但交換的方式使得每個部分最終達到平衡，而非相互增強。在整體的平衡迴圈中，生態系統通常在各部分內部作為子系統存在增強迴圈（如圖 7.6 和 7.7 所示），但這些並不是系統結構的主要驅動力。

In an ecology, while the overall target is balance rather than unrestrained growth, this does not mean that the system approaches stagnation. As discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, a healthy ecology is in a state of metastability, also known as internal equilibrium or dynamic balance. The parts within the ecological system are constantly changing, but viewed as a whole, the system remains balanced. This can be seen in the deer/wolf example discussed earlier and in the discussion in Chapter 2 of the lynx and hare predator–prey relationship (refer to Figure 2.10) and the “trophic cascade” example of wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park (refer to Figure 2.22).
在生態系統中，整體目標是平衡而非無限制的增長，但這並不意味著系統會趨於停滯。如同在第一章和第二章中所討論的，健康的生態系統處於一種亞穩態，也稱為內部平衡或動態平衡。生態系統內的各個部分不斷變化，但從整體來看，系統仍然保持平衡。這可以從之前討論的鹿/狼例子中看到，以及在第二章中討論的猞猁與野兔的捕食者–獵物關係（參見圖 2.10）和狼重新引入黃石國家公園的“營養級聯”例子（參見圖 2.22）。

In principle, the kind of ecology shown in Figure 7.7 is fairly easy to understand: plants grow and deer eat them, making more deer (loosely speaking). Wolves eat the deer, making more wolves. And eventually deer and wolves die, decomposing and making more fertile soil for the plants. While each part in this loop—plants, deer, and wolves—is trying to maximize its growth (each is a subsystem with internal loops, as shown in Figure 7.6), overall they act by their behavior to counterbalance each other; in effect, together they act as braking engines against each other. The deer eat the plants, balancing their growth, and the wolves eat the deer, balancing theirs. Wolves are known as an “apex predator,” meaning they typically have few or no direct competitors or predators. Such animals also tend to be few in number due to their enormous metabolic needs and slow growth—which also create balancing factors on their population. Their population growth is thus not constrained by predation but by the relative scarcity of their food sources.
原則上，圖 7.7 所展示的生態系統相當容易理解：植物生長，鹿吃植物，從而增加鹿的數量（簡單來說）。狼吃鹿，從而增加狼的數量。最終，鹿和狼會死亡，分解後為植物提供更肥沃的土壤。雖然這個循環中的每個部分——植物、鹿和狼——都在努力最大化其生長（每個都是具有內部循環的子系統，如圖 7.6 所示），但整體上它們的行為是相互制衡的；實際上，它們共同作用如同彼此的制動引擎。鹿吃植物，平衡植物的生長，狼吃鹿，平衡鹿的生長。狼被稱為“頂級掠食者”，這意味著它們通常沒有或幾乎沒有直接的競爭者或掠食者。這類動物的數量通常也較少，因為它們巨大的代謝需求和緩慢的生長速度——這也對其族群數量形成了平衡因素。因此，它們的族群增長並非受掠食限制，而是受其食物來源相對稀少的限制。

Different Kinds of Ecologies
不同類型的生態系統

Not all ecologies are biological, even in terms of simulation. Most systems with a predominantly balancing loop and an exchange of resources can be analyzed as ecologies. For example, inventory systems in role-playing games can be seen as simple ecological systems. The more stuff you put into your character’s inventory, the less space you have to carry more (“stuff” and “space” being the resource parts that are exchanged and that balance each other). In some games, like Diablo II, this is carried to an extreme, with each piece competing not just for space as an abstract resource but for a particular configuration of space.
並非所有的生態系統都是生物性的，即使在模擬方面也是如此。大多數具有主要平衡迴圈和資源交換的系統都可以被分析為生態系統。例如，角色扮演遊戲中的物品欄系統可以被視為簡單的生態系統。你在角色的物品欄中放入的東西越多，你能攜帶的空間就越少（“東西”和“空間”是交換並相互平衡的資源部分）。在某些遊戲中，如《Diablo II》，這一點被發揮到了極致，每一件物品不僅僅是為了空間這一抽象資源而競爭，而是為了特定的空間配置而競爭。

Combat can also be considered an ecology: two or more sides (player character versus monster, for example) attempt to “balance” each other by their actions—a nice way of saying that they each try to kill the other. In doing so, assuming that the player character is the victor (the remaining subsystem that is not balanced out of existence), the rewards gained feed back into their overall economic loop.
戰鬥也可以被視為一種生態：兩個或多個陣營（例如玩家角色對抗怪物）試圖通過各自的行動來「平衡」彼此——這是一種委婉的說法，意指他們各自試圖殺死對方。在這過程中，假設玩家角色是勝利者（即未被平衡至消失的剩餘子系統），所獲得的獎勵將回饋到他們整體的經濟循環中。

Many games also have important social ecologies. The MMO Dark Age of Camelot had what it called “Realm vs. Realm” combat for different factions. There were three factions in the game, Albion, Hibernia, and Midgard. Members of each fought the others for dominance. The interesting thing about having three factions, or Realms, is that this kept the overall realm system in a metastable dynamic balance: if ever one of the Realms became too powerful, members of the other two would temporarily ally with each other to take down the leader. This led to a constantly changing balance that avoided stasis and was thus highly satisfying for the players. Had there been only two Realms in the game, the balancing loop would have been swamped by a reinforcing one: as soon as one side gained supremacy, players would begin to flock to the winning side, creating a runaway rich-get-richer scenario and making it impossible for the other realm to catch up. This is in fact what happened on many early World of Warcraft servers: for a variety of reasons (including just that the Alliance characters were more attractive), more players played on the Alliance side than on the Horde side. On servers that allowed player-versus-player combat, the Alliance was regularly dominant. It took a number of changes to the character types available and other incentives to begin to balance this, though it arguably has never been completely corrected—and certainly has never approached an organic, dynamic balance, as in Dark Age of Camelot.
許多遊戲也有重要的社會生態系統。MMO《Dark Age of Camelot》擁有所謂的「Realm vs. Realm」戰鬥，針對不同的陣營進行對抗。遊戲中有三個陣營，分別是 Albion、Hibernia 和 Midgard。每個陣營的成員都為了主導地位而互相戰鬥。擁有三個陣營或領域的有趣之處在於，這使得整體領域系統保持在一個亞穩態的動態平衡中：如果其中一個領域變得過於強大，其他兩個領域的成員會暫時聯合起來打倒領先者。這導致了一個不斷變化的平衡，避免了停滯，因此對玩家來說非常滿意。如果遊戲中只有兩個領域，平衡循環將被一個增強循環所淹沒：一旦一方取得優勢，玩家就會開始湧向勝利的一方，創造出一個富者愈富的局面，使得另一個領域無法追趕。這實際上就是許多早期《World of Warcraft》伺服器上發生的情況：由於各種原因（包括聯盟角色更具吸引力），更多玩家選擇在聯盟方而非部落方遊玩。 在允許玩家對戰的伺服器上，聯盟經常佔據優勢。雖然經過多次對角色類型的調整及其他激勵措施，這種情況才開始有所平衡，但可以說從未完全得到糾正——更不用說達到如《卡美洛的黑暗時代》那樣自然且動態的平衡。

Ecological Imbalances  生態失衡

With any system of exchange that is dominated by a balancing loop, the primary problems that can occur have to do with either balance that is too static and is therefore boring or balance that veers out of control and wrecks the overall system.
在任何由平衡迴圈主導的交換系統中，主要可能出現的問題要麼是平衡過於靜態，因而顯得乏味，要麼是平衡失控，從而破壞整個系統。

Balancing systems are sometimes described as being resilient or brittle: within a certain range of change, the ecology can rebalance itself. At some point, however, the system reaches a point of no return from which it cannot rebalance. Physiological systems are said to be in homeostasis when they are, as a sort of mini-ecology (in the terms we are using here), in dynamic balance internally despite outside influences. The outside air temperature may be hotter or colder than your body temperature, but your body will work hard to keep its temperature within a very narrow range. As long as your body can keep your temperature balanced, the system is resilient to outside changes. At some point, though, the body’s ability to be resilient and rebalance breaks down: your body begins to freeze or overheat. If this continues, the body system itself will shut down, unable to recover. When this happens, the body as a system has gone from being resilient to brittle: there is a point of no return where the system cannot balance itself.
平衡系統有時被描述為具有韌性或脆弱性：在某個變化範圍內，生態系統可以重新平衡自身。然而，在某個時刻，系統達到了一個無法回復的臨界點，無法再重新平衡。當生理系統在內部動態平衡時，儘管受到外界影響，仍被稱為處於穩態（在我們使用的術語中，這是一種小型生態系統）。外界的空氣溫度可能比你的體溫更熱或更冷，但你的身體會努力將溫度保持在一個非常狹窄的範圍內。只要你的身體能夠保持溫度平衡，系統就能對外界變化具有韌性。然而，在某個時刻，身體的韌性和重新平衡的能力會崩潰：你的身體開始凍結或過熱。如果這種情況持續下去，身體系統本身將會崩潰，無法恢復。當這種情況發生時，作為一個系統的身體已經從韌性變得脆弱：有一個無法回復的臨界點，系統無法再平衡自身。

The problem in building game systems is that it can be very difficult to know when an ecological system has become brittle. If you had a lynx and hare ecology going and you saw the hare population nose-diving, you might think that the system had fallen over into being brittle and that soon everything would die off. Once you begin to see that such cycles are within normal historical parameters, you can better detect when the system is in a healthy dynamic balance and when it is about to veer off an edge with no chance of return. In large ecologies with sufficient historical data, it’s possible to construct mathematical models to show when the overall system is “in control” or “out of control.” These are terms used in statistical process control. Essentially, if a resource ever goes more than three standard deviations from its historical mean, the process is out of control, and the system is in severe danger of becoming brittle and collapsing. Unfortunately, in dynamic balancing systems, it can be too late when this lack of control is detected, and in games it is rare to have sufficient data on which to build a historical model of a resource’s changing value.
在構建遊戲系統時，問題在於很難知道生態系統何時變得脆弱。如果你有一個猞猁和野兔的生態系統，並且看到野兔的數量急劇下降，你可能會認為系統已經變得脆弱，很快一切都會消亡。一旦你開始看到這樣的循環在正常的歷史參數範圍內，你就能更好地檢測系統何時處於健康的動態平衡，何時即將偏離邊緣而無法回頭。在擁有足夠歷史數據的大型生態系統中，可以構建數學模型來顯示整體系統何時“受控”或“失控”。這些是統計過程控制中使用的術語。基本上，如果某個資源的變動超過其歷史平均值的三個標準差，則過程失控，系統面臨變得脆弱和崩潰的嚴重危險。不幸的是，在動態平衡系統中，當這種失控被檢測到時可能已經太晚，而在遊戲中，很少有足夠的數據來建立資源價值變化的歷史模型。

While some amount of control of an ecological system is important, the danger in trying to control such a system too tightly is that you can either “oversteer,” leading to a different brittle failure, or create an enforced static nature, rather than allowing the system’s own dynamic balance to occur. For example, in a strategic game, if it becomes clear that one unit type is far stronger than is balanced with its cost, players will quickly detect this as a dominant strategy and build that type of unit as much as possible. This quickly unbalances the overall combat ecology, much like an invasive species taking over a biome in a real-world ecology. If this isn’t corrected soon, players will build only that type of unit, collapsing the game-space (with no decisions left to make) and reducing their engagement and gameplay. One impulse in correcting this kind of situation can be to create a new kind of unit that specifically counters the first one. The problem here is that if the new unit is too powerful (often called “overpowered” for its cost, or OP), players begin to use that unit exclusively. Then the temptation to introduce another unit to counter the second one is very high, and soon the game begins to feel like the old song about a woman who swallowed a fly and her increasingly implausible attempts to get rid of it.⁶
雖然對生態系統進行一定程度的控制是重要的，但過度控制這樣的系統的危險在於，你可能會「過度操控」，導致不同的脆弱失敗，或者創造出一種強制的靜態狀態，而不是讓系統自身的動態平衡發生。例如，在一個策略遊戲中，如果某一單位類型明顯比其成本所平衡的強得多，玩家會迅速察覺這是一種主導策略，並盡可能多地建造這種類型的單位。這很快就會使整體戰鬥生態失去平衡，就像入侵物種在現實世界的生態系統中佔據一個生物群落一樣。如果不及時糾正，玩家將只會建造這種類型的單位，遊戲空間將崩潰（沒有決策可做），從而降低他們的參與度和遊戲性。糾正這種情況的一種衝動可能是創造一種專門反制第一種單位的新單位。問題在於，如果新單位過於強大（通常稱為「超強」或 OP），玩家就會開始專門使用該單位。 然後，引入另一個單位來對抗第二個單位的誘惑非常大，很快遊戲就開始讓人感覺像那首關於一位女士吞下蒼蠅的老歌，以及她越來越不切實際的嘗試來擺脫它。

Alternatively, some designers try to clamp down on all possible uncertainty to ensure that such a system is completely balanced, if in a completely static manner. This is often done for the purpose of ensuring a consistent experience for the player. In game terms, however, this becomes boring and un-engaging quickly, as there is no mental model for the players to construct and there are no decisions for them to make. In systemic terms, this also gives rise to a different form of brittleness: because the system is not dynamically balancing itself, it cannot react effectively to any significant outside influence, and so it will break down quickly if anything in the system of which it is a part affects it. To go back to the example of homeostasis and body temperature, if your temperature were locked to 37°C, your body would be unable to react effectively to a cool breeze or a warming ray of sunshine: either one would cause a disproportionate expenditure of energy to keep your body at the single locked temperature, and this would quickly be overwhelmed by even mild changes to external conditions. Your physiological systems would quickly become brittle and fail.
或者，有些設計師試圖壓制所有可能的不確定性，以確保這樣的系統完全平衡，即使是以完全靜態的方式。這通常是為了確保玩家有一致的體驗。然而，在遊戲術語中，這很快就會變得乏味且無趣，因為玩家無法構建心智模型，也沒有決策可做。在系統術語中，這也會引發另一種形式的脆弱性：由於系統無法動態地自我平衡，它無法有效地應對任何顯著的外部影響，因此如果系統中的任何部分影響到它，它將很快崩潰。回到恆定性和體溫的例子，如果你的體溫被鎖定在 37°C，你的身體將無法有效地應對涼風或溫暖的陽光：任何一種都會導致為保持單一鎖定溫度而消耗不成比例的能量，這將很快被外部條件的輕微變化所壓倒。你的生理系統將迅速變得脆弱並失效。

Combining Loops Together
結合迴圈

Engines, economies, and ecologies are generally useful as primary system loop types; many more specific patterns—game mechanics—can be made from these. Many efforts have been made to create inventories or more detailed lists of patterns or mechanics, some of which you may find useful—in particular, Bjork and Holopainen (2004) and Adams and Dormans (2012). However, many game designers find such detailed lists to be of limited use and prefer instead to work with more general patterns like these as hierarchical building blocks for constructing specific gameplay systems.
引擎、經濟體系和生態系統通常作為主要系統迴圈類型是非常有用的；許多更具體的模式——遊戲機制——可以從這些中製作出來。已經有許多努力嘗試創建模式或機制的清單或更詳細的列表，其中一些可能對你有用——特別是 Bjork 和 Holopainen（2004）以及 Adams 和 Dormans（2012）。然而，許多遊戲設計師發現這些詳細的列表用途有限，反而更喜歡使用這些更一般的模式作為階層式構建塊來構建特定的遊戲系統。

It’s rare for a game to have only one system or one game mechanic in it. Most games are combinations of systems operating at different hierarchical levels of organization, with one system being a part in the context of a larger system.
很少有遊戲僅包含一個系統或一種遊戲機制。大多數遊戲是由多個系統組成，這些系統在不同的層級中運作，其中一個系統在更大系統的背景下成為其中的一部分。

For example, in role-playing games there is typically a primary reinforcing economy centered on the player character’s progression in the game: the player character is intended to become more powerful over time by trading time (and hit points, and so on) for experience and loot, resulting in increased hit points, skill, better tools, and so on (see Figure 7.11). Within this high-level description, however, there may be many other systems: an experience- or skill-boosting engine, where the player has to choose when and how to invest points;⁷ economic systems like item crafting or trading; or an ecological inventory system, as discussed earlier. There may also be a role-based economic system of different members of a party, each reinforcing the others’ abilities by a form of exchange with their own (for example, tough “tank” characters absorb damage from opponents while ranged attack characters do damage from afar and while healer characters keep the tank in good health). There is typically some form of combat ecological system that exists within the overall player character economic system, and, as described earlier in this chapter, there may be one or more balancing systems (that is, braking engines) that prevent the player from progressing too quickly. These are often part of a larger system, as with the loss of energy or stamina (which must then regenerate over time) being part of an overall combat system in many free-to-play games. Altogether these systems illustrate why designing RPGs can be so complex and why playing them can be so engaging: there are many different systems operating at the same time, and the player is trying to maximize all of them at different levels of organizational hierarchy.
例如，在角色扮演遊戲中，通常有一個主要的強化經濟系統，圍繞著玩家角色在遊戲中的進展：玩家角色預期會隨著時間的推移變得更強大，通過投入時間（以及生命值等）來獲取經驗和戰利品，從而增加生命值、技能、更好的工具等（見圖 7.11）。然而，在這種高層次的描述中，可能還有許多其他系統：一個經驗或技能提升引擎，玩家必須選擇何時以及如何投資點數；如物品製作或交易的經濟系統；或如前所述的生態庫存系統。也可能存在一個基於角色的經濟系統，隊伍中的不同成員通過某種形式的交換來強化彼此的能力（例如，堅韌的「坦克」角色吸收來自對手的傷害，而遠程攻擊角色從遠處造成傷害，治療角色則保持坦克的健康狀態）。 在整體玩家角色經濟系統中，通常存在某種形式的戰鬥生態系統，如本章前面所述，可能會有一個或多個平衡系統（即制動引擎）來防止玩家進展過快。這些系統通常是更大系統的一部分，例如在許多免費遊戲中，能量或耐力的損失（然後必須隨時間恢復）就是整體戰鬥系統的一部分。這些系統共同說明了為什麼設計角色扮演遊戲（RPG）會如此複雜，以及為什麼玩這些遊戲會如此吸引人：有許多不同的系統同時運行，玩家試圖在不同的組織層級上最大化所有這些系統。

As the subsystems shown in Figure 7.11 interact, they reinforce each other in an overall economy: the more the player has in skills and inventory, and the more characters they have in their party, the better able they will be to defeat monsters. The more monsters they defeat, the more experience and loot they gain. While the balancing nature of combat (balancing/reducing the character’s abilities and regulating their overall progress) and inventory ecological system may force the character to make difficult decisions (for example, about what to keep or throw away), and thus potentially reduce the reinforcing loop of the character’s progression, the predominant systemic effect is one of a loop reinforcing and increasing the character’s overall power.
如圖 7.11 所示的子系統相互作用時，它們在整體經濟中相互強化：玩家擁有的技能和物品越多，隊伍中的角色越多，他們就越能打敗怪物。打敗的怪物越多，獲得的經驗和戰利品就越多。雖然戰鬥的平衡性（平衡/減少角色的能力並調節他們的整體進度）和物品生態系統可能迫使角色做出艱難的決定（例如，選擇保留或丟棄什麼），從而可能減少角色進展的強化循環，但主要的系統效果是強化並增加角色的整體力量的循環。

Bringing All the Systems Together
將所有系統整合在一起

Viewing a role-playing game’s systems as we’ve just looked at them shows you how designing a hierarchy of systems creates a broader and deeper play experience. The core loop can change as the player shifts focus from one subsystem to another or to the highest-level systemic loop. Having multiple systems working in parallel gives players more kinds of things to do, providing game breadth. Designing nested systems with the ability for the player to mentally zoom in on a lower-level subsystem or zoom out to a higher-level one (as in Figures 7.6, 7.7, and 7.11) provides comprehensible complexity in the game and thus game depth. This is how second-order design creates a space for play, as the player has goals and decisions within each system and subsystem. And, by revealing the complexities of these systems carefully over time, the game can help the player build a mental model of it in an engaging way: as each new system in a hierarchy is revealed, the player gains new knowledge, new decisions, and new ways to act within the world, along with a new sense of achievement based on these factors.
將角色扮演遊戲的系統視為我們剛剛所探討的那樣，能讓你了解如何設計一個系統層級的架構，以創造更廣泛且更深入的遊戲體驗。當玩家從一個子系統轉移到另一個或最高層級的系統循環時，核心循環可以改變。多個系統並行運作，為玩家提供更多種類的活動，增加遊戲的廣度。設計嵌套系統，讓玩家能夠在心理上放大到較低層級的子系統或縮小到較高層級的系統（如圖 7.6、7.7 和 7.11 所示），提供遊戲中可理解的複雜性，從而增加遊戲的深度。這就是二階設計如何創造遊戲空間的方式，因為玩家在每個系統和子系統中都有目標和決策。而且，通過隨時間仔細揭示這些系統的複雜性，遊戲可以以一種引人入勝的方式幫助玩家建立其心理模型：隨著層級中的每個新系統被揭示，玩家獲得新的知識、新的決策，以及在世界中行動的新方式，並基於這些因素獲得新的成就感。

Examples of Game Systems
遊戲系統範例

As discussed earlier in this chapter, engines, economies, and ecologies can form all sorts of systems, especially when combined together as hierarchical systems of systems. While an exhaustive list of all the possible ways these kinds of systems could be assembled isn’t possible (such a list wouldn’t be very systemic!), we can examine some well-known kinds systems in terms of their primary loops, what subsidiary systems they have inside them, and how they work with other systems to help create the unified whole of the desired game experience.
如同本章前面所討論的，引擎、經濟體系和生態系統可以形成各種系統，尤其是當它們結合成為層級系統時。雖然不可能列出所有這類系統可能組合的方式（這樣的清單不會很系統化！），但我們可以從它們的主要循環、內部的附屬系統，以及它們如何與其他系統協作來創造出所需遊戲體驗的統一整體，來檢視一些知名的系統類型。

Progression Systems

Nearly all games present the player with some way to progress—to increase in ability, power, resources, or knowledge. In-game ability or power works hand-in-hand with a player’s knowledge of the game. As they gain more knowledge of the game world (using knowledge as an in-game resource), a player is able to do more and perform better. Similarly, as they construct their mental model of the game, they gain the ability to navigate the game’s systems more effectively, using their own internal tools and skills. Progression in the form of increasing the number of different kinds of things the player can do (due to being aware of more parallel systems and a deeper hierarchy of systems) is a good way to help the player build an effective mental model; this method introduces game concepts little by little and gives the player a feeling of increasing mastery at the same time.
幾乎所有的遊戲都提供玩家某種進步的方式——提升能力、力量、資源或知識。遊戲中的能力或力量與玩家對遊戲的知識密切相關。隨著他們對遊戲世界的了解增加（將知識作為遊戲中的一種資源），玩家能夠做得更多，表現得更好。同樣地，當他們構建自己的遊戲心智模型時，他們獲得了更有效導航遊戲系統的能力，運用自己的內部工具和技能。以增加玩家能做的不同類型事情的數量（由於了解更多平行系統和更深層次的系統層級）來促進進步，是幫助玩家建立有效心智模型的好方法；這種方法逐步引入遊戲概念，同時給予玩家不斷增強掌控感的體驗。

Because progression loops are so pervasive and so easily rewarding to players, they often form the core loop of a game. They map closely to the interactive loop between player and game, where the player receives positive feedback and reward for their actions that then impel the player on to new choices and actions. Questions such as “What does the player do?” often reduce to “How does the player progress?” Because of the reinforcing nature of the loops, these systems are economies or engines and often have subsystems of either type built in.
由於進程迴圈在遊戲中無處不在且容易讓玩家獲得回報，它們通常構成遊戲的核心迴圈。這些迴圈與玩家和遊戲之間的互動迴圈緊密相連，玩家因其行動獲得正面反饋和獎勵，從而推動玩家做出新的選擇和行動。像「玩家做什麼？」這樣的問題通常簡化為「玩家如何進展？」由於迴圈的強化特性，這些系統是經濟或引擎，並且通常內建有這兩種類型的子系統。

Giving the player some way to progress, to increase their abilities in the game, can be a useful way to turn a toy into a game. As discussed in Chapter 3, games without explicit goals are often referred to as toys. It’s often easy for some game designers (those who operate primarily as toymakers or inventors, as discussed in Chapter 5, “Working as a Systemic Game Designer”) to come up with a small game system or mechanism that seems initially attractive but then fails to hold the player’s interest for more than a few seconds or minutes. The reaction to these is often along the lines “that’s neat…but what does the player do with it?” Some toys are fine as toys—but adding explicit goals, and therefore a progression system of some sort, can be a great way to turn a toy into a game and build in longer-term engagement.
給予玩家某種方式來進步，提升他們在遊戲中的能力，可以是一種將玩具轉變為遊戲的有效方法。如同在第三章所討論的，沒有明確目標的遊戲通常被稱為玩具。對於某些遊戲設計師（那些主要作為玩具製造者或發明家運作的人，如第五章“作為系統性遊戲設計師工作”中所討論的）來說，想出一個看似吸引人的小型遊戲系統或機制往往很容易，但這些系統或機制卻無法在幾秒鐘或幾分鐘後繼續吸引玩家的興趣。對這些的反應通常是“這很不錯……但玩家能用它做什麼呢？”有些玩具作為玩具是很好的——但加入明確的目標，因此某種進程系統，可以是一個將玩具轉變為遊戲並建立長期參與的絕佳方法。

Progression systems can be thought of in terms of reward or resource gain per unit time. This increase or reward might be experience points, gold, number of troops, or something else, depending on the game, or it might be less quantifiable, more in terms of the increase in the player’s mental model and the cognitive tools they possess to manipulate the game’s systems to their advantage. As we will discuss in Chapter 10, determining the dimensions for progression is an important aspect of tokenizing a game’s design: the player may gain health, magic, knowledge, items, and/or other resources, each of which must be specified in the design as the state of different parts.
進程系統可以被視為每單位時間的獎勵或資源增長。這種增長或獎勵可能是經驗值、金幣、部隊數量或其他，這取決於遊戲的類型，或者可能是較難量化的，更多的是玩家心智模型的增長以及他們擁有的認知工具，以便操控遊戲系統來獲得優勢。正如我們在第十章中將討論的，確定進程的維度是將遊戲設計標記化的一個重要方面：玩家可能會獲得生命值、魔法、知識、物品和/或其他資源，每一項都必須在設計中明確為不同部分的狀態。

For each in-game dimension along which a player progresses, a rate of increase must be specified. In many cases, not only does the amount of a progressing resource increase but the rate itself increases over time. This both maintains the aspirational quality of the reward and prevents the reward from fading in significance as the player experiences what is known as habituation or hedonic fatigue.
在遊戲中，每一個玩家進展的維度都必須指定一個增長速率。在許多情況下，不僅是進展資源的數量增加，連增長速率本身也會隨著時間增加。這樣不僅保持了獎勵的吸引力，還防止了玩家因習慣或享樂疲勞而使獎勵的重要性減弱。

Habituation and Utility  習慣與實用

Increasing rewards give the player something to aspire to—a goal to shoot for. If today their reward is 10 points but they know that later they could do something that merits a reward of 50 or 100 points, this unmet goal will drive their behavior—as long as the goal remains meaningful and the reward feels significant. The heart of this is that for we humans, wanting rather than having drives attention and behavior—and thus engagement. Having a higher goal, even one that seems ridiculously out of reach initially, helps maintain players’ engagement. If, however, a player realizes they have achieved everything they can—they have beaten the biggest monster, obtained the most valuable treasure, and so on—then their engagement quickly drops off.
增加的獎勵給予玩家一個追求的目標——一個值得奮鬥的目標。如果今天他們的獎勵是 10 分，但他們知道之後可以做一些事情來獲得 50 或 100 分的獎勵，這個尚未達成的目標將驅動他們的行為——只要這個目標保持有意義且獎勵感覺重要。其核心在於，對我們人類來說，渴望而非擁有驅動著注意力和行為，從而促進參與。擁有一個更高的目標，即使最初看似遙不可及，也有助於維持玩家的參與度。然而，如果玩家意識到他們已經達成了所有可以達成的目標——打敗了最大的怪物，獲得了最珍貴的寶藏，等等——那麼他們的參與度就會迅速下降。

The loss of engagement due to a loss of perceived significance of rewards also happens when we get used to, or habituate to, an existing situation: no matter how good the current rewards are, we quickly tire of them; as mentioned earlier, this is called hedonic fatigue (or sometimes hedonic adaptation or satiation). In economics, this is known as marginal utility, and it has to do with how the value (or utility) of something changes as you get more of it. For example, the first bite of ice cream is great. The third is okay. By the twentieth bite, you may really not want any more at all: so 20 bites of ice cream is not 20 times the value of one bite! If you are forced to each too much ice cream, the utility can actually drop below zero; you really don’t want any more.⁸ (This has been tested empirically using ice cream, among other things, and you can try it yourself to see this effect [Mackenzie 2002].)
由於獎勵的感知意義減少而導致的參與度下降，也會發生在我們習慣或適應現有情況時：無論當前的獎勵有多好，我們很快就會對它們感到厭倦；如前所述，這被稱為享樂疲勞（有時也稱為享樂適應或飽和）。在經濟學中，這被稱為邊際效用，與當你獲得更多時某物的價值（或效用）如何變化有關。例如，第一口冰淇淋很棒。第三口還可以。到了第二十口，你可能真的不想再吃了：所以 20 口冰淇淋並不是一口的 20 倍價值！如果你被迫吃太多冰淇淋，效用實際上可能會降到零以下；你真的不想再吃了。（這已經通過冰淇淋等物品進行了實證測試，你可以自己嘗試看看這種效果 [Mackenzie 2002]。）

So being rewarded feels great—but the second time you get the same reward, it doesn’t feel as good, and the third time it barely feels like a reward at all. We humans don’t evaluate a reward objectively but see it in terms of its relative value, based on what we have already received. In a game, if a player feels that they are no longer being meaningfully rewarded, their engagement will suffer, and they will drop out of the “boring bottom” of the flow channel shown in Figure 4.11. As a result, rewards tend to get bigger over time, meaning that their rate of increase (again, whether in gold, experience, fame, or something else) also goes up over time. This results in an exponentially increasing curve for rewards as the rate of resources given increases over time.
因此，獲得獎勵的感覺很棒——但第二次獲得相同的獎勵時，感覺就沒那麼好了，第三次幾乎感覺不到是獎勵。我們人類不會客觀地評估獎勵，而是根據我們已經獲得的東西來看待其相對價值。在遊戲中，如果玩家感覺不再獲得有意義的獎勵，他們的參與度就會下降，並會掉入圖 4.11 所示的「無聊底部」的流動通道。因此，獎勵往往會隨著時間的推移而變大，這意味著它們的增長率（無論是金幣、經驗、名聲或其他）也會隨著時間的推移而上升。這導致隨著資源給予率的增加，獎勵呈現指數增長的曲線。

Because the rate of increase goes up over time, as the player progresses, more resources are pumping into the game. Unless the in-game resource sinks also increase to match the sources, this results in an increase in resource supply and thus in inflation.
由於隨著時間的推移，增長速度會上升，隨著玩家的進展，更多的資源被注入遊戲中。除非遊戲內的資源消耗也相應增加以匹配資源來源，否則這將導致資源供應增加，從而引發通貨膨脹。

Realizing how habituation can ruin engagement, many games work hard to avoid it by using a variety of methods, including the following:
意識到習慣化會破壞參與感，許多遊戲努力避免這種情況，並採用多種方法，包括以下幾種：

Limiting sources: Many games make resources scare by decreasing their sources—reducing the number of sources, decreasing the rate at which the resources are produced at each source, or increasing the cost or difficulty of obtaining the resources. This happens in role-playing games, for example, in the difficulty of obtaining a better weapon, obtaining the last piece of a set of armor that has nonlinear benefits as a set, or even obtaining the experience points needed for the next level, where the curve for this is nonlinear. (You’ll learn more about this in Chapter 9, “Game Balance Methods,” and Chapter 10.)
限制資源：許多遊戲透過減少資源來源來使資源變得稀缺——減少來源數量、降低每個來源生產資源的速度，或增加獲取資源的成本或難度。例如，在角色扮演遊戲中，獲得更好的武器、獲得一套裝甲的最後一件，這些裝甲作為一套具有非線性效益，甚至獲得升到下一級所需的經驗值，這些曲線都是非線性的。（您將在第 9 章“遊戲平衡方法”和第 10 章中學到更多相關內容。）

Limiting stock: Games like World of Warcraft and those in the Diablo series put a cap on the inventory stock a player can keep, which creates a balancing ecology between “things I’m carrying” and “space I have left,” as described earlier. Limiting how much the player can carry pushes off (but does not eliminate) inflation and also gives the player another progression path as he discovers how to increase the amount he can carry.
限制庫存：像《魔獸世界》和《暗黑破壞神》系列這樣的遊戲，對玩家可以攜帶的庫存量設置了上限，這在先前所述的“我攜帶的物品”和“剩餘空間”之間創造了一種平衡生態。限制玩家可以攜帶的物品數量，推遲了（但並未消除）通貨膨脹，並且當玩家發現如何增加可攜帶的物品量時，提供了另一種進步的途徑。

Increasing sinks: Many games increase the outflow of resource items from the game. For example, in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (as in many other games), weapons can be broken, meaning they are no longer useful and leave the game. As a result, the player almost never considers a good sword to be worthless (it retains its marginal utility) because you know you may need it when others break.
增加資源消耗：許多遊戲會增加資源物品從遊戲中的流出。例如，在《薩爾達傳說：曠野之息》（以及許多其他遊戲中），武器會損壞，這意味著它們不再有用並會離開遊戲。因此，玩家幾乎不會認為一把好劍是無價值的（它保留了其邊際效用），因為你知道當其他武器損壞時，你可能需要它。

Inflation and accompanying habituation are common conditions, and they are difficult to avoid entirely. These conditions also highlights why taking a systemic approach to game design—including different kinds of hierarchical systems in a game—helps maintain player engagement. Games that depend on content and progression eventually come to an end. Added content becomes more and outlandish to support the exponential progression curves of challenge and reward, and it also becomes increasingly expensive to create and maintain. Games that rely more on systems that have a strong ecological, balancing component (for example, the “Realm vs. Realm” combat described earlier) are able to go on much longer with no clear limit on the player’s engagement.
通貨膨脹和隨之而來的習慣化是常見的情況，且很難完全避免。這些情況也突顯了為何採取系統性的方法進行遊戲設計——包括在遊戲中引入不同類型的階層系統——有助於維持玩家的參與度。依賴內容和進程的遊戲最終會結束。為了支持挑戰和獎勵的指數進程曲線，新增的內容變得越來越離譜，且創建和維護的成本也越來越高。相較之下，依賴於具有強大生態平衡組件的系統（例如，先前描述的“領域對領域”戰鬥）的遊戲，能夠持續更長時間，且對玩家的參與度沒有明顯的限制。

Combat Systems

Combat systems are typically ecologies, as described earlier: two or more opponents seek by their actions to balance each other and ultimately eliminate the other(s) from the game. In terms of time scale and interactivity, individual combat systems typically focus on action/feedback and short-term cognitive interactions. As a result, combat may be a significant part of the core loop of a game, but it is usually accompanied by other reinforcing loops—progression systems in particular—to provide longer-term goals and offset the inherent balancing nature of the combat system. Note that some games (especially mobile games) include combat systems in which the player has few if any decisions to make. While these games have the surrounding reinforcement loop as their core loop that keeps the player playing, the loss of the fast action/feedback interactivity in combat almost inevitably reduces the player’s engagement and thus longevity in the game. Even with a strong core loop, compelling moment-to-moment decisions and interactivity remain vital to making a successful game.
如前所述，戰鬥系統通常是生態系統：兩個或多個對手通過他們的行動來平衡彼此，最終將其他對手從遊戲中淘汰。在時間尺度和互動性方面，個別戰鬥系統通常專注於動作/反饋和短期認知互動。因此，戰鬥可能是遊戲核心循環的重要部分，但通常會伴隨其他強化循環——特別是進程系統——以提供長期目標並抵消戰鬥系統固有的平衡性。需要注意的是，一些遊戲（尤其是手機遊戲）包含玩家幾乎沒有決策空間的戰鬥系統。雖然這些遊戲以周圍的強化循環作為核心循環來吸引玩家，但戰鬥中快速動作/反饋互動的缺失幾乎不可避免地降低了玩家的參與度，從而縮短了遊戲壽命。即使擁有強大的核心循環，吸引人的瞬間決策和互動性仍然是成功遊戲的關鍵。

Many games use combat as a primary balancing system that interacts with other systems. For example, the card game Star Realms has each player’s individual core loop focused on engine building. Combat occurs between players as a way for each player to slow or balance an opponent’s progress. This has the effect of heightening the need for effective decision making in the engine-building loop, as the player must choose to construct ships for immediate gain or long-term investment, knowing that the opponent will certainly provide a challenge to whatever choice the player makes.
許多遊戲使用戰鬥作為主要的平衡系統，與其他系統互動。例如，卡牌遊戲《Star Realms》中，每位玩家的核心循環都專注於引擎建設。戰鬥在玩家之間發生，作為每位玩家減緩或平衡對手進展的一種方式。這使得在引擎建設循環中做出有效決策的需求更加迫切，因為玩家必須選擇是建造船隻以獲得即時收益，還是進行長期投資，並且知道對手肯定會對玩家所做的任何選擇構成挑戰。

Construction Systems  建築系統

Many games include various kinds of “building” systems, where the player can add more to the world than was there before. This includes crafting, farming, breeding, and constructing and modifying vehicles, buildings, or (as in the case of role-playing games) an individual character. These systems typically involve both engines and economies (including long production chains), depending on whether the emphasis is on reinvesting past gains for future increases via an engine-based system (as many deck-building games do as their core loop) or exchanging resources to gain value. They tend to focus on short-term and long-term cognitive interactivity, though some very detailed construction systems include significant action/feedback components as well.
許多遊戲包含各種「建造」系統，玩家可以在原有的世界中添加更多內容。這包括製作、耕作、繁殖，以及建造和修改載具、建築物，或（如角色扮演遊戲中）個別角色。這些系統通常涉及引擎和經濟體系（包括長生產鏈），取決於是透過引擎系統重新投資過去的收益以獲得未來的增長（如許多牌組構築遊戲的核心循環所做的）還是交換資源以獲取價值。它們傾向於專注於短期和長期的認知互動，儘管一些非常詳細的建造系統也包含顯著的動作/反饋組件。

Construction systems are often supporting subsystems within a larger progression loop. In a role-playing game, the player builds up skills, weapons, armor, world knowledge, and often a social set (party and guild membership) as parts in a progression loop. Likewise, in strategy games, players pursue research to construct new buildings to train more powerful units to get greater fame and loot—a nicely nested series of engine and economic loops.
建設系統通常是更大進程循環中的支持子系統。在角色扮演遊戲中，玩家透過提升技能、武器、防具、世界知識，並經常建立社交圈（如隊伍和公會成員資格）作為進程循環的一部分。同樣地，在策略遊戲中，玩家進行研究以建造新建築，訓練更強大的單位，以獲得更大的名聲和戰利品——這是一個精巧嵌套的引擎和經濟循環系列。

Skill and Technological Systems
技能與技術系統

Many games include long-term goals built around discovering new skills and technologies. These provide new abilities for the player (their character, empire, and so on) and are typically limited reinforcing loop engine systems. Often these are organized as “trees,” where one skill or technology leads to two or three more, and the player navigates the skill or technology space to create a custom character or civilization. As discussed earlier, the player gains experience research points and then invests them in a particular new skill or technology to gain its abilities. Rarely does the player have the ability to use these points for a noninvesting action, though this is an area for exploration in game design.
許多遊戲包含圍繞發現新技能和技術的長期目標。這些目標為玩家（他們的角色、帝國等）提供新的能力，通常是有限的強化循環引擎系統。這些通常被組織成「樹狀結構」，其中一項技能或技術會引導至兩或三項更多的技能或技術，玩家在技能或技術空間中導航，以創建自定義角色或文明。如前所述，玩家獲得經驗研究點數，然後將其投資於特定的新技能或技術以獲得其能力。玩家很少有能力將這些點數用於非投資行動，儘管這是遊戲設計中值得探索的領域。

Social and Political Systems
社會與政治體系

In games with social gameplay, interacting with others (especially other human players but sometimes also non-player characters), there may also be opportunities for systems of social or political play. These systems are social ecologies; it’s not a huge leap from the negotiations between wolves and deer and those between various human factions.⁹ Most cliques, competing gangs, political parties, and so on form an ecology, each balancing the other by striving for their own reinforcing dominance. The interactivity is long term and social, focusing on those types and time scales. As with any other ecology, if any “side” comes to a position where its actions are self-reinforcing and it has effectively won, outstripping its opponents in ways that can no longer be challenged, the system collapses, and there is no remaining gameplay.
在具有社交遊戲玩法的遊戲中，與他人互動（尤其是其他人類玩家，但有時也包括非玩家角色），可能還會有社交或政治遊戲系統的機會。這些系統是社交生態；從狼與鹿之間的協商到各種人類派系之間的協商，這並不是一個巨大的飛躍。大多數小圈子、競爭幫派、政黨等都形成了一個生態系統，每個都通過追求自身的增強優勢來平衡其他。這種互動是長期且社交的，專注於這些類型和時間尺度。與任何其他生態系統一樣，如果任何一方達到其行動自我增強並有效獲勝的地步，以至於超越對手的方式不再受到挑戰，系統就會崩潰，遊戲玩法也不復存在。

Defining a System’s Loops—And Goals
定義系統的循環——以及目標

Designing a system starts with the design goals you have for the system: what purpose does the system have within your game? To answer this you need to do the following:
設計一個系統始於你對該系統的設計目標：在你的遊戲中，這個系統有什麼用途？要回答這個問題，你需要做到以下幾點：

Construct the system’s looping form to support the gameplay and player experience you want to create
構建系統的循環形式，以支持您想要創造的遊戲玩法和玩家體驗

Consciously and carefully consider the kinds of player interactions, goals, and behaviors you want to enable by including this system in your game
有意識且仔細地考慮您希望通過在遊戲中包含此系統來啟用的玩家互動、目標和行為類型

Clearly define the parts and their interactions you have to work with to create your system and other systems in the game with which this one will interact
明確定義您必須處理的部分及其互動，以創建您的系統以及與此系統互動的其他遊戲系統

Overall, the goals for any system can be expressed in terms of higher and lower hierarchical levels: First, consider goals in terms of the higher-level system that this one is a part of. The highest systemic level of this is the player’s experience, which arises out of the game+player system. This includes the ways the player interacts with the game (fast or slow, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, or social), and the way they build their mental model to correspond with the systemic game model.
總體而言，任何系統的目標都可以用高層次和低層次的層級來表達：首先，考慮該系統所屬的高層次系統中的目標。這一系統的最高層次是玩家的體驗，這是從遊戲+玩家系統中產生的。這包括玩家與遊戲的互動方式（快速或緩慢、感知、認知、情感或社交），以及他們如何建立與系統遊戲模型相對應的心理模型。

From there we descend into hierarchical subsystems. You may be building a system that exists within another higher-level system, such as the hierarchy of systems shown in Figures 7.6 and 7.7. In this case, you need to look at the system you’re designing in its context—the larger system that this one is reinforcing or balancing and how it interacts with other peer-level systems (those that are other parts in the higher-level system).
從那裡，我們進入層級子系統。您可能正在構建一個存在於另一個更高層次系統中的系統，例如圖 7.6 和圖 7.7 中顯示的系統層級。在這種情況下，您需要在其上下文中查看您正在設計的系統——這個系統所加強或平衡的更大系統，以及它如何與其他同級系統（那些在更高層次系統中的其他部分）互動。

Defining the Looping Structure
定義迴圈結構

For the system you’re designing, you need to consider what kind of looping structure it needs to have: is it a simple reinforcing or balancing loop, an engine, an economy, an ecology, or some hybrid of these? Does it also have subsystems within it? Sketching out the primary loops (see the discussion in the section “Tools,” later in this chapter) will help you gain a quick understanding of the overall dynamic behavior of the system and how it supports the player’s experience, as well as the subsystems and/or resources that interact to form the loop. Sketching the system’s loops will also help you clarify where the system fits in the game and why it’s needed. You will likely need to do this multiple times, defining and redefining the systems’ structures and relationships. This iterative process will help you define the systems and the overall player experience more precisely, and it will also help you begin to define the game objects that become the parts of your system.
在設計系統時，你需要考慮它需要什麼樣的循環結構：是簡單的增強或平衡循環、引擎、經濟、生態，還是這些的某種混合體？它是否也包含子系統？勾勒出主要的循環（參見本章稍後的“工具”部分討論）將幫助你快速理解系統的整體動態行為，以及它如何支持玩家的體驗，還有那些互動形成循環的子系統和/或資源。勾勒系統的循環也將幫助你釐清系統在遊戲中的定位及其必要性。你可能需要多次進行這個過程，定義和重新定義系統的結構和關係。這個反覆的過程將幫助你更精確地定義系統和整體玩家體驗，並且也將幫助你開始定義成為系統一部分的遊戲物件。

As you do this, you may find that a system you’re designing really isn’t needed after all—that it adds little to the player’s experience. It’s important that you not leave in a system that doesn’t fit with the rest of the game. For example, a crafting system in a game about social relationships may be out of place. Don’t keep it in the game just because you like it or worked hard on it. Set it aside, and either you’ll find a place for it in the game later on, or you’ll find a way to use it in another game.
在設計過程中，你可能會發現某個系統其實並不需要——它對玩家的體驗幾乎沒有幫助。重要的是，不要留下與遊戲其他部分不相符的系統。例如，在一個以社交關係為主題的遊戲中，加入製作系統可能顯得不合時宜。不要因為喜歡或投入了大量心血就將其保留在遊戲中。將它擱置一旁，或許你會在之後的遊戲中找到合適的位置，或者在其他遊戲中找到使用它的方法。

In addition to the looping structures, you have to consider how the parts within the system, along with their interactions, support your gameplay goals for the system. This will lead you to confront issues of game balance and whether the system enables the player to make meaningful decisions. (The specifics of designing parts and balancing them are covered in Chapters 8, 9, and 10.)
除了迴圈結構之外，你還必須考慮系統內部的各個部分及其互動如何支持你的遊戲目標。這將使你面臨遊戲平衡的問題，以及系統是否能讓玩家做出有意義的決策。（設計部分和平衡它們的具體細節在第 8、9 和 10 章中討論。）

By working at all these levels—parts, loops, and the whole—at the same time (or at least shifting your focus back and forth from one to another; refer to Figure 5.2), you can more clearly articulate your design goals not as static content, but as a set of dynamic machines that create the space within which the player can act.
透過同時在這些層次上工作——部分、迴圈和整體（或至少在它們之間來回切換注意力；參見圖 5.2），你可以更清晰地表達你的設計目標，不是作為靜態內容，而是一組動態機制，創造出玩家可以行動的空間。

Linking the Player Experience and System Design
連結玩家體驗與系統設計

In designing any game system, you need to think about how it fits into and supports the player experience. For example, in the case of a combat system, you should consider whether the gameplay you want is a grand sweeping army-to-army combat where the player sees the effects of their orders to different groups of units unfold over minutes or a more intense personal combat experience where the player determines every subtle movement or combination of moves on a subsecond basis. Each of these is overall a combat-ecology system, but the interactions the player has with the game differ greatly, as do the underlying game parts necessary to create the system and support the desired gameplay experience. Defining the goals for the system in terms of the player’s interactions and experience, as well as the parts, attributes, and behaviors needed to support those will help you clarify the structure of the system itself.
在設計任何遊戲系統時，你需要考慮它如何融入並支持玩家的體驗。例如，在戰鬥系統的情況下，你應該考慮你想要的遊戲玩法是大規模的軍隊對軍隊戰鬥，玩家可以看到他們對不同單位群組的命令效果在幾分鐘內展開，還是更為激烈的個人戰鬥體驗，玩家可以在毫秒間決定每一個微妙的動作或動作組合。這些都是整體的戰鬥生態系統，但玩家與遊戲的互動大不相同，創建系統和支持所需的遊戲部分也各異。從玩家的互動和體驗角度定義系統的目標，以及支持這些目標所需的部分、屬性和行為，將有助於你明確系統本身的結構。

Similarly, if you are designing a progression system, a natural consideration is how fast you should allow the player to progress. How can you give a player the feeling of early mastery in a fast interaction loop early on so you can build engagement but also continue to hold their interest over the long term? If the player has no positive feedback early in the game, they will be unable to construct their mental model and won’t be engaged by the game. Creating a positive feedback “success experience” (“you did it!”) in a core loop that occurs in the first minute or so of the game is a way to help the player begin building their model and become hooked by the game. Such positive feedback is important, but as discussed earlier, hedonic fatigue sets in if you keep giving the same rewards at the same rate. However, if the player is rewarded too much and progresses too fast, the game will be over—or become boring—quickly. On the other hand, if a player progresses too slowly, or if the progression itself is not intrinsically rewarding, then the game becomes a “grind,”¹⁰ and the player persists only if they believe there is a sufficient reward waiting for them later; otherwise, they will simply drop the game as not being engaging.
同樣地，如果你正在設計一個進程系統，自然需要考慮應該讓玩家以多快的速度進行進展。如何在遊戲初期的快速互動循環中，讓玩家感受到早期的掌握感，以便建立參與感，同時又能在長期內保持他們的興趣？如果玩家在遊戲初期沒有正向的反饋，他們將無法構建自己的心理模型，並且不會被遊戲吸引。在遊戲的第一分鐘左右的核心循環中創造一個正向反饋的「成功體驗」（「你做到了！」），是一種幫助玩家開始構建他們的模型並被遊戲吸引的方法。這樣的正向反饋是重要的，但如前所述，如果以相同的速度持續給予相同的獎勵，享樂疲勞就會出現。然而，如果玩家獲得過多獎勵並進展過快，遊戲將很快結束或變得無聊。 另一方面，如果玩家進展過於緩慢，或者進展本身並不具備內在的獎勵性，那麼遊戲就會變成一種「重複勞動」，玩家只有在相信後面有足夠的獎勵等待他們時才會堅持下去；否則，他們就會因為覺得遊戲不夠吸引人而放棄。

Tools for Designing Game Systems
設計遊戲系統的工具

Designing game systems doesn’t require any exotic tools. A great deal of work can be done with paper, whiteboards, and other simple tools. This work is highly iterative; you will end up sketching out looping structures over and over again to more accurately depict the kind of systems you want. Just the act of trying to draw out a looping diagram for a system helps you focus and clarify your thoughts on it and shows you how it works as part of the game. At some point, as these structures and diagrams begin to solidify, you need to move to making prototypes to see if your designs actually work and fulfill the goals you set for them.
設計遊戲系統不需要任何特殊工具。許多工作可以用紙張、白板和其他簡單工具完成。這項工作是高度迭代的；你將不斷地勾勒出循環結構，以更準確地描繪你想要的系統。僅僅是嘗試為系統繪製循環圖的過程，就能幫助你集中注意力並澄清對它的想法，並展示它作為遊戲一部分的運作方式。當這些結構和圖表開始成形時，你需要製作原型來檢驗你的設計是否真正有效並達到你為其設定的目標。

Whiteboards and Fast Prototyping Tools
白板和快速原型工具

One of the most common tools for game designers is the whiteboard. This tool is completely “analog” (that is, it involves no electronics), and it allows you and those working with you to draw, erase, and redraw over and over in different colors. You can expect to spend a lot of time in front of whiteboards, puzzling out the systems diagrams you want to represent your gameplay.
遊戲設計師最常用的工具之一是白板。這個工具完全是“類比”的（也就是說，不涉及電子設備），它允許你和你的團隊成員用不同顏色反覆地畫、擦、重畫。你可以預期會花很多時間在白板前，解開你想用來代表遊戲玩法的系統圖表。

There are a few digital tools as of this writing that can help with this stage of defining your systems. Loopy, a free online tool by Nicky Case (2017), allows you to easily draw reinforcing and balancing loops. While the functionality of this tool is limited, it enables you to create many kinds of looping diagrams with a clean and pleasing aesthetic and then to see them in action. A similar and far more detailed tool is Joris Dormans’ Machinations, mentioned earlier. This tool provides a comprehensive toolset for creating working, functional looping diagrams and even full games (albeit without any game-like presentation—just the raw systems). Unfortunately, this tool is also aging quickly and appears to not be actively maintained. There are other tools, as well, including many intended for simulation rather than game design work, such as NetLogo (Wilensky 1999).
在撰寫本文時，有一些數位工具可以幫助您定義系統的這個階段。Loopy 是由 Nicky Case（2017）開發的一個免費線上工具，讓您可以輕鬆繪製增強和平衡迴圈。雖然這個工具的功能有限，但它能讓您創建多種迴圈圖，並且擁有乾淨且令人愉悅的美學，然後可以看到它們的運作。類似且更為詳細的工具是之前提到的 Joris Dormans 的 Machinations。這個工具提供了一套完整的工具組，用於創建可運作的功能性迴圈圖，甚至是完整的遊戲（儘管沒有任何遊戲化的呈現——只有原始系統）。不幸的是，這個工具也在快速老化，似乎沒有積極維護。此外，還有其他工具，包括許多旨在模擬而非遊戲設計工作的工具，例如 NetLogo（Wilensky 1999）。

Beyond these tools for system or simulation creation, there are many other programming environments that can be used for rapid prototyping. Many designers like to use JavaScript, Python, and full game-development tools like Unity to create fast, ugly (the emphasis is not on art) prototypes to test their system designs. The key to using any of these is to use them as a means to an end: you want to test your ideas, moving from your conceptual looping system diagrams to fast working prototypes that you can examine, test, and refine as quickly as possible.
除了這些用於系統或模擬創建的工具之外，還有許多其他程式設計環境可用於快速原型設計。許多設計師喜歡使用 JavaScript、Python 和完整的遊戲開發工具如 Unity 來創建快速且不注重美觀（重點不在於藝術）的原型，以測試他們的系統設計。使用這些工具的關鍵在於將它們作為達成目標的手段：你想要測試你的想法，從概念性的循環系統圖轉變為可以快速檢視、測試和改進的工作原型。

Challenges

Two major challenge with any of these tools are how complex or complete you can make an interactive system on one hand and the time it takes to learn and use them on the other.
這些工具的兩大挑戰在於，一方面是你能夠製作多麼複雜或完整的互動系統，另一方面則是學習和使用它們所需的時間。

A whiteboard is easy to use, and you can draw any system you like on it. On the other hand, you have to use your own brain as the computer to make it come to life—and humans are notoriously fallible when it comes to maintaining an accurate understanding of a dynamic system’s behavior. Machinations includes more detailed operators, including user input ones, than does Loopy, but while both are relatively easy to learn and use, neither allows the creation of systems containing subsystems (at all in Loopy’s case, and in any modular, usable form with Machinations). NetLogo is more advanced in its capabilities and can be used to create full game systems for simple games, but it has a longer learning curve and is not as rapid in iterative prototyping as the simpler tools.
白板使用起來很簡單，你可以在上面畫出任何你喜歡的系統。然而，你必須用自己的大腦作為電腦來使其栩栩如生，而人類在維持對動態系統行為的準確理解方面是出了名的不可靠。Machinations 包含比 Loopy 更詳細的操作員，包括用戶輸入的操作員，但雖然兩者都相對容易學習和使用，卻都不允許創建包含子系統的系統（在 Loopy 的情況下完全不行，而在 Machinations 中則無法以任何模組化、可用的形式實現）。NetLogo 在功能上更為先進，可以用來創建簡單遊戲的完整遊戲系統，但它的學習曲線較長，並且在迭代原型設計方面不如較簡單的工具快速。

Whether this or a general language-based development system is best in terms of depth of expressivity and speed of prototyping depends on your design style and how willing you are to learn the language or tool. Ultimately, there is no one best solution; as has often been said, use what you consider to be the right tool for the job at the time.
無論是這種還是基於語言的開發系統，在表達深度和原型設計速度方面哪個更好，取決於你的設計風格以及你學習該語言或工具的意願。最終，並沒有一個最佳的解決方案；正如常言所說，使用你認為在當下最適合的工具來完成工作。

Spreadsheets

A mainstay of any system design process is the electronic spreadsheet. Across the games industry, Microsoft Excel is the most popular, given its long history and many capabilities, but others, such as Google Docs Spreadsheet and Apache OpenOffice, have their own followings as well. In any case, you will need to be intimately familiar with using spreadsheets to enter, visualize, and compare the game data that define your lowest-level systems’ parts and make your looping systems function. (We discuss how spreadsheets are used to this end in Chapters 8 and 10.)
在任何系統設計過程中，電子試算表都是一個重要的工具。在遊戲產業中，Microsoft Excel 是最受歡迎的選擇，因為它擁有悠久的歷史和眾多功能，但其他如 Google Docs 試算表和 Apache OpenOffice 也有其支持者。無論如何，你需要非常熟悉如何使用試算表來輸入、視覺化和比較定義最低層系統部分的遊戲數據，並使你的循環系統運作。（我們在第 8 章和第 10 章中討論了如何使用試算表來達成這一目的。）

Documenting Your System Designs
記錄您的系統設計

As with the game concept documents, it’s vital when designing game systems to articulate them in a form that communicates well to others and that remains comprehensible to you during development. Anyone who works on your game (including you, months from when you start) needs to understand the following:
如同遊戲概念文件，在設計遊戲系統時，將其以一種能夠有效傳達給他人並在開發過程中對自己保持清晰的形式表達出來是至關重要的。任何參與你遊戲開發的人（包括你自己，在開始後的幾個月）都需要理解以下內容：

Why the systems are designed as they are
為什麼系統是如此設計的

How the systems support the game concept and the desired player experience
系統如何支持遊戲概念和期望的玩家體驗

How the systems are embodied by the game’s objects as the system parts
系統如何由遊戲的物件作為系統部件來體現

System Design Documents  系統設計文件

The primary documentation for a system’s design is an explanatory description of its goals and how it works. As the design is refined and becomes more settled, technical documentation is used primarily on the programming side—actually implementing the system in the game.
系統設計的主要文件是對其目標及運作方式的解釋性描述。隨著設計的完善和穩定，技術文件主要用於程式設計方面——實際在遊戲中實現系統。

As with any other game design documentation, it is important to stay up-to-date on deliverables¹¹ like this as your design progresses. These are not write-once-and-forget documents but ones that should be updated and consulted often as you iterate on the system’s design. Documentation is often dreaded or avoided, but failing to document a game can lead to making poor decisions in the future when you can no longer trace the thread of thinking that led you to a particular set of design decisions. This is especially true with system design, as there are often subtle design decisions that do not have obvious effects. Part of the job of documentation is to make these clear so that the essence of the system is not lost.
如同其他遊戲設計文件一樣，隨著設計的進展，保持這類交付物的最新狀態是很重要的。這些文件不是寫完就可以忘記的，而是應該在系統設計迭代時經常更新和參考的。文件常常被人畏懼或迴避，但如果不記錄遊戲，未來可能會因無法追溯到某些設計決策的思路而做出錯誤的決定。這在系統設計中特別真實，因為常常有一些不明顯影響的微妙設計決策。文件的一部分工作就是要將這些決策清楚地表達出來，以免系統的精髓被遺失。

The System Design Document
系統設計文件

The design document for a game system should include the following:
遊戲系統的設計文件應包括以下內容：

The system name and a high-level description.
系統名稱及高階描述。

The goals for this system, expressed in terms of the player’s experience: how does this system help create the gameplay? This explanation is often qualitative and focused on the experiential nature of the system. Using words related to how the player feels when interacting with this system is entirely appropriate.
此系統的目標，以玩家體驗的角度來表達：這個系統如何幫助創造遊戲玩法？這種解釋通常是定性的，並著重於系統的體驗性質。使用與玩家在與此系統互動時的感受相關的詞語是完全合適的。

A graphical depiction of the system, showing important subsystems and internal parts and behaviors. These typically take the form of the kinds of looping diagrams used throughout this book. A high-level diagram might look a lot like Figure 7.11.
系統的圖形描述，展示重要的子系統以及內部部件和行為。這些通常以本書中使用的循環圖的形式呈現。高階圖可能看起來很像圖 7.11。

Any player interactions enabled or required by this system.
任何由此系統啟用或需要的玩家互動。

A list of (or, ideally, live links to) the descriptions of subsystems, peer systems, and the system within which this one exists (the highest level of them being the game+player system).
一份包含子系統、同級系統以及該系統所屬的更高層次系統（最高層為遊戲+玩家系統）描述的清單（或理想情況下，提供這些描述的即時連結）。

Any other details needed to fully understand the purpose of the system and its implementation.
任何其他需要的細節，以充分了解系統的目的及其實施。

Each system should have its own brief design document that incorporates these points. Just as it is important not to neglect this documentation, it is also important to make it as clear and brief as possible. Create a separate document for each system, not one huge document. Separate but linked documents (web pages, documents stored at Google Docs, wiki entries, and so on) are often ideal for this, as they enable you to edit each design document as needed without having to wade into a huge “design bible” that inevitably becomes out of date quickly.
每個系統都應該有自己的簡要設計文件，並包含這些要點。正如不應忽視這些文件一樣，也應確保其清晰且簡潔。為每個系統創建單獨的文件，而不是一個龐大的文件。分開但相互連結的文件（網頁、存放於 Google Docs 的文件、wiki 條目等）通常是理想的選擇，因為這樣可以根據需要編輯每個設計文件，而不必陷入一個不可避免地迅速過時的龐大“設計聖經”中。

The System Technical Design Document
系統技術設計文件

Along with creating a system design document, you need a more technical document that focuses more on how the system is to be implemented than why. These two documents should remain in step, but separating them this way allows the designers to focus on things like the player’s experience and feelings while those more focused on the implementation can get right to how it is to be accomplished. In short, the design document is mainly for game designers, and the technical design document is mainly for game programmers. These two documents aren’t always necessary, but it can be useful to separate them even if the same person is the designer and the programmer, as they provide two complementary but distinct points of view on the same system.
除了創建系統設計文件外，您還需要一份更具技術性的文件，該文件更側重於系統如何實施，而非為什麼要這樣做。這兩份文件應保持同步，但這樣分開可以讓設計師專注於玩家的體驗和感受，而那些更專注於實施的人則可以直接著手於如何完成。在簡單來說，設計文件主要是為遊戲設計師準備的，而技術設計文件主要是為遊戲程式設計師準備的。這兩份文件並非總是必需的，但即使設計師和程式設計師是同一個人，將它們分開也可能是有用的，因為它們提供了對同一系統的兩種互補但不同的觀點。

The technical document contains specific, implementable descriptions of the system’s attributes and behaviors—that is, the code-like definitions for its parts and how they interact. As the design progresses and becomes more settled, the technical design document includes implementation-specific definitions for attributes by type (string, integer, and so on), valid ranges for each, formulas for how behaviors alter them to produce the effects described in the design document, and descriptions of tests and results to ensure that the system is working as expected. It likely includes format descriptions of and links to data files (spreadsheets or similar), and it may include software architectural elements such as class descriptions, depending on the level of specificity needed. (More is generally required on large teams and long-term projects.)
技術文件包含系統屬性和行為的具體、可實施的描述——也就是其各部分的類似代碼的定義以及它們如何互動。隨著設計的進展和穩定，技術設計文件會包括屬性的實施特定定義，按類型（字串、整數等），每個的有效範圍，行為如何改變它們以產生設計文件中描述效果的公式，以及測試和結果的描述以確保系統按預期運作。它可能包括數據文件（如電子表格或類似文件）的格式描述和鏈接，並可能根據所需的具體程度包括軟體架構元素，如類別描述。（大型團隊和長期項目通常需要更多。）

Mockups and Prototypes  模型與原型

In addition to—and often as part of—the documents described in the preceding sections, mockups and prototypes of your design help communicate the purpose and behavior of the system. They help ensure that you and others thoroughly understand your system’s purpose, design, and function. They provide needed examples of how the system works and the kind of player experience it is designed to create or support. Note, however, that they do not provide examples of how the system should be implemented at a technical level; many shortcuts may be taken to get a prototype to work and would not be appropriate in the final game implementation.
除了前面章節所描述的文件之外，設計的模型和原型也有助於傳達系統的目的和行為。它們幫助確保您和其他人能夠徹底理解系統的目的、設計和功能。它們提供了系統如何運作的必要範例，以及它旨在創造或支持的玩家體驗。然而，請注意，它們並不提供系統在技術層面上應如何實施的範例；為了讓原型運作，可能會採取許多捷徑，而這些捷徑在最終的遊戲實施中並不合適。

Mockups are nonfunctional diagrams with supporting text. They may include player-facing drawings or storyboards and/or narrative descriptions (though more diagrams and less text is better!) of how the system works. For example, a mockup of a combat system includes a depiction of the choices the player has, as shown in the user interface, as well as a diagrammatic/narrative description of how a combat proceeds. This shows the effects of the player’s choices and interactions with the system’s internal functioning.
模型圖是帶有輔助文字的非功能性圖表。它們可能包括面向玩家的繪圖或故事板，和/或系統運作方式的敘述性描述（不過多圖少文字為佳！）。例如，一個戰鬥系統的模型圖包括玩家在用戶介面中所擁有選擇的描繪，以及戰鬥進行過程的圖解/敘述性描述。這顯示了玩家選擇的效果以及與系統內部運作的互動。

Whereas mockups are nonfunctional, prototypes for digital games have some actual working functionality. Prototypes are put together quickly to bring more life to the system description than a mockup, though this functionality may be highly limited and is likely to leave out important features that are not related to the system’s function. They are also not meant to be indicative of final art and often use stand-in art that is as simple as possible; you want to keep the focus on the system being prototyped, not creating and refining art for the game. As a result, prototypes are often described as being fast and ugly—and in this case, these are positive qualities.
相較於模型是無功能的，數位遊戲的原型則具備一些實際的工作功能。原型被快速組合起來，以比模型更生動地呈現系統描述，儘管這些功能可能非常有限，並且可能會省略與系統功能無關的重要特徵。它們也不代表最終的藝術效果，通常使用盡可能簡單的替代藝術；你希望將重點放在正在製作原型的系統上，而不是為遊戲創建和完善藝術。因此，原型常被形容為快速且粗糙——在這種情況下，這些都是正面的特質。

A prototype can be made in any tool, as described above, from a spreadsheet to a full programming environment. Prototypes should be considered off-limits for any transfer (other than of ideas) to a final working game: keep them fast, highly iterative, and ugly and then transfer the lessons you learned from them to the game’s production code when you rewrite it completely. The temptation to copy and paste “just a little” of the system’s code can be strong, but you will save yourself far more time and grief by not doing so than you will by giving in to this temptation.
如上所述，原型可以在任何工具中製作，從試算表到完整的程式環境。原型應被視為禁止轉移到最終工作遊戲中的任何部分（除了想法），保持它們快速、高度迭代且醜陋，然後在完全重寫時將從中學到的經驗轉移到遊戲的生產代碼中。複製和貼上系統代碼的「一小部分」的誘惑可能很強烈，但不這樣做會為你節省更多的時間和麻煩，而不是屈服於這種誘惑。

Having a working system prototype referenced in your documentation helps you be more certain that your design meets the system’s goals and makes the system’s function (rather than its structure) more easily understood. This doesn’t mean you need to prototype every system in the game, but the more important the systems—those that make up the game’s core loops, for example—the more you want to create prototypes while it’s still fast an inexpensive to do so. Discovering later during production of the game that the core loop or some major system doesn’t work creates far larger and more expensive delays than does taking the time to iterate on prototypes early on.
在文件中引用一個可運作的系統原型有助於確保您的設計符合系統的目標，並使系統的功能（而非結構）更容易被理解。這並不意味著您需要為遊戲中的每個系統製作原型，但系統越重要——例如構成遊戲核心循環的那些——您就越希望在仍然快速且成本低廉的情況下創建原型。在遊戲製作過程中才發現核心循環或某些主要系統無法運作，會造成比早期花時間反覆改進原型更大且更昂貴的延誤。

More details on effective prototyping practices can be found in Chapter 12.
更多關於有效原型設計實踐的詳細資訊，請參閱第十二章。

Questions to Consider About Your Game Loops
關於遊戲循環的問題考量

As with your description of the game’s concept and the whole of the player’s experience, there are useful questions to evaluate when reviewing the design of any game system as you develop it. The following are some of them:
如同您對遊戲概念及整體玩家體驗的描述，在開發過程中審視任何遊戲系統的設計時，有一些有用的問題可以評估。以下是其中一些問題：

Is the system’s purpose clear, especially to other people besides those who designed it (those on your team first and then players)? Note that this requires a working prototype and playtesting, as discussed in Chapter 12.
系統的目的是否明確，尤其是對於設計者以外的其他人（首先是您的團隊成員，然後是玩家）？請注意，這需要一個可運行的原型和遊戲測試，如第 12 章所述。

Are the system’s internal resources, currencies, and/or subsystems apparent and well understood?
系統的內部資源、貨幣和/或子系統是否明顯且易於理解？

Is it clear where this system lives within the entire game? Is it a part in another higher-level system? Does it have peer subsystems within that higher-level system? Is it what forms one of the player’s core loops in the game?
這個系統在整個遊戲中所處的位置是否清晰？它是否是另一個高階系統的一部分？在該高階系統中是否有同級的子系統？它是否構成了玩家在遊戲中的核心循環之一？

Does the system have a readily definable primary loop of its own? Is there sufficient interaction and feedback between parts (whether atomic or subsystems) within the system? Does this loop act by reinforcing or balancing the resources within it to support the gameplay experience?
系統是否有一個易於定義的主要循環？系統內部的各部分（無論是原子還是子系統）之間是否有足夠的互動和反饋？這個循環是否通過強化或平衡其中的資源來支持遊戲體驗？

Is the system resilient to internal or external changes? Do you understand (and can you predict) in what situations the system will become brittle and fail? Are there any parts in the system that override the effects of all others, or are there choke points where if one part or subsystem fails, the entire system will fail?
系統是否能夠抵禦內部或外部的變化？你是否了解（並能預測）在什麼情況下系統會變得脆弱並失效？系統中是否有任何部分會覆蓋所有其他部分的效果，或者是否有瓶頸點，一旦某個部分或子系統失效，整個系統就會失效？

Does the system provide for and even require meaningful decisions by the player? Does the system force the player into one dominant strategy or not provide interactions at an appropriate frequency (based on the type of interactivity to create the desired gameplay experience)? Alternatively, does the system require so many decisions from the player that the game is likely to be overwhelming?
系統是否提供並且甚至要求玩家做出有意義的決策？系統是否迫使玩家採用一種主導策略，或未能以適當的頻率提供互動（基於創造所需遊戲體驗的互動類型）？或者，系統是否要求玩家做出太多決策，以至於遊戲可能讓人感到不堪重負？

Does the system provide sufficient feedback to the player about its internal operations that the player can build an effective mental model of how it works?
系統是否為玩家提供足夠的反饋，讓玩家能夠建立一個有效的心理模型來理解其運作方式？

Can the system be progressively unfolded as the player’s understanding of it increases? That is, can you represent a simple or high-level version of it to which increasing detail (and interaction) is added as the player learns how the system operates?
隨著玩家對系統的理解加深，系統是否可以逐步展開？也就是說，您能否表示一個簡單或高層次的版本，隨著玩家學習系統的運作方式，逐漸增加細節（和互動）？

Does the system create emergent gameplay? Do the parts and subsystems within this system combine to create new effects that are not resident in any of them and, in particular, that surprise and delight the player?
系統是否創造了突現的遊戲玩法？系統內的部分和子系統是否結合創造出新的效果，這些效果在任何一個部分中都不存在，特別是那些讓玩家感到驚喜和愉悅的效果？

Can you show how the system functions via a working prototype rather than just talking about it?
你能否展示一個運行中的原型來說明系統的功能，而不僅僅是口頭描述？

Is the system adequately and clearly documented, both in terms of its design goals and implementation-specific elements?
系統是否在設計目標和實施細節方面都有充分且清晰的文件記錄？

Summary

Looping systems are the beating, cycling heart of a game and the player’s experience of it. As a systemic game designer, you need to be able to identify, analyze, and create game systems, breaking them down into their constituent loops.
循環系統是遊戲的跳動心臟，也是玩家體驗的核心。作為一名系統遊戲設計師，你需要能夠識別、分析和創建遊戲系統，並將它們分解為各個組成循環。

Designing games systemically requires a knowledge of not only reinforcing and balancing loops but how resources and currencies move around between parts to create the system. Seeing things from a systemic point of view highlights the different principal loops involved in game design: the game’s model, the player’s mental model, the interactive loop (including the all-important core loops) and the game designer’s loop surrounding all of these. This also allows us to look at different kinds of gameplay loops and how they combine together to create and support the gameplay desired for the player’s experience. Finally, understanding and constructing game systems also requires the use of appropriate tools and communication of the designs via mockups, prototypes, and design documents.
設計遊戲系統需要了解不僅是強化和平衡循環，還有資源和貨幣如何在各部分之間流動以創建系統。從系統的角度來看，可以突顯出遊戲設計中涉及的不同主要循環：遊戲的模型、玩家的心理模型、互動循環（包括至關重要的核心循環）以及圍繞這些的遊戲設計師循環。這也讓我們能夠觀察不同類型的遊戲循環如何結合在一起，以創造和支持玩家所期望的遊戲體驗。最後，理解和構建遊戲系統還需要使用適當的工具，並通過模型、原型和設計文件來傳達設計。

 

1. The use of “stock” may be unfamiliar to some in this context as a container for a resource. This comes from the early days of systems thinking and has persisted in the field. For our purposes, think of a “stock pond” containing fish or a “stock yard” for animals, or even how much stock a store has on its shelves. Some game developers use the term “pool” for this concept.
在這個語境中，使用「庫存」作為資源的容器可能對某些人來說不太熟悉。這個用法源自系統思維的早期時代，並在該領域中持續使用。對於我們的目的來說，可以想像成一個「魚塘」裡有魚，或是「牲畜場」裡有動物，甚至是商店貨架上的庫存量。一些遊戲開發者會使用「池」這個詞來表達這個概念。

2. This is not a particularly ecologically responsible view in the real world, but in creating game systems, it can be useful to consider anything beyond the source or sink as being outside the system and to not worry about the dynamics of any larger system context.
這在現實世界中並不是一種特別負責任的生態觀點，但在創建遊戲系統時，將源頭或匯集之外的任何事物視為系統之外，並不必擔心任何更大系統背景的動態，這可能是有用的。

3. Or, in some cases, the core aspect may be where the player spends most of their time, or which part of the game the designer believes provides the greatest value. The usage of core loop as a term of art still isn’t entirely consistent.
或者，在某些情況下，核心部分可能是玩家花費最多時間的地方，或者是設計師認為遊戲中提供最大價值的部分。作為一種專業術語，核心循環的使用仍然不完全一致。

4. This division of loops may be so pervasive because it fits well with our own biological heritage: in humans and other mammals, the fast reaction-oriented sympathetic part of the nervous system covers “fight or flight” reactions, while the slower, longer-term-oriented parasympathetic part of the nervous system controls what has been called “rest and digest” functions. The first carries us through battle; the second helps us maintain and restore the balance to our bodily systems.
這種迴圈的劃分可能如此普遍，是因為它與我們自身的生物遺傳特徵相契合：在人類和其他哺乳動物中，快速反應導向的交感神經系統負責“戰鬥或逃跑”反應，而較慢、長期導向的副交感神經系統則控制所謂的“休息和消化”功能。前者帶領我們度過戰鬥；後者則幫助我們維持並恢復身體系統的平衡。

5. Technically, the game goes up to just over $179 uncentillion, or about $1.79×10³⁰⁸ before there is an integer overflow and the dollar balance resets to zero.
從技術上來說，遊戲的金額可以達到略高於 $179 uncentillion，或大約 $1.79×10 ³⁰⁸ ，然後會發生整數溢位，美元餘額將重置為零。

6. This has real-world parallels in nonsystemic solutions to systemic problems, such as the 1962 New York Times article about the overuse of insecticides in Vietnam that began “American DDT spray killed the cats that ate the rats that devoured the crops that were the main props against Communist agitation in the central lowlands” (Bigart 1962).
這在現實世界中與非系統性解決系統性問題的情況相似，例如 1962 年《紐約時報》的一篇文章，討論了越南過度使用殺蟲劑的問題，文章開頭寫道：「美國的 DDT 噴霧殺死了吃老鼠的貓，而老鼠則毀壞了作物，而這些作物是中部低地抵抗共產主義煽動的主要支柱」（Bigart 1962）。

7. It’s rare, but a few RPGs have situations where you can choose to spend experience points rather than use them for leveling up. For example, in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons version 3.5, you have to spend XP to cast some spells or create scrolls or magic items. I don’t know of RPGs that allow you to sacrifice your experience points or skill points on a difficult action rather than investing them in a new level or skill (the Deadlands RPG comes close, as does Torg), but it could be an interesting twist to add to a game. It’s the kind of mechanism that becomes apparent when you start seeing the skill-gain system as an engine.
雖然很少見，但有些角色扮演遊戲（RPG）中會有情況讓你選擇花費經驗值而不是用來升級。例如，在《Advanced Dungeons and Dragons》3.5 版中，你必須花費經驗值來施放某些法術或製作卷軸或魔法物品。我不知道有哪款 RPG 允許你在執行困難動作時犧牲經驗值或技能點，而不是將它們投資在新等級或技能上（《Deadlands RPG》和《Torg》接近這種設計），但這可能是為遊戲增添趣味的有趣轉折。這是一種當你開始將技能增長系統視為一個引擎時會顯現的機制。

8. Note, however, that marginal utility can work the other way, too: in what are commonly known as network effects, some things—building blocks, telephones, networked computers, and so on—gain more utility slowly up to some point, after which having more of them makes each one have greater value, and the marginal value rises quickly. This continues up to a point of saturation, where the marginal utility increase slows again.
然而，值得注意的是，邊際效用也可以反向運作：在一般所知的網路效應中，一些事物——如積木、電話、網路電腦等——在某個點之前，其效用會緩慢增加，之後隨著數量的增加，每一個的價值都會提升，邊際價值迅速上升。這種情況會持續到達飽和點，之後邊際效用的增加再次放緩。

9. Marvin Simkin wrote in 1992 that “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch.” He prefaced this with “Democracy is not freedom” and went on to write that “Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.”
1992 年，Marvin Simkin 寫道：「民主是兩隻狼和一隻羊投票決定午餐吃什麼。」他在此之前寫道：「民主不是自由」，並接著寫道：「自由來自於對某些權利的承認，這些權利即使是 99%的投票也不能剝奪。」

10. The “grind” is a familiar staple of many RPGs and MMOs. Players endure largely joyless quests or other explicit goals that the game has laid out for them as part of what has been called the leveling treadmill. This is the price the player pays for gaining greater levels and abilities so they can go on to grind more quests at a higher level. While grinding gameplay is not in itself engaging or fun, both players and designers have come to accept it as part of the landscape of these games. A more systemic approach to the player’s experience and interactions may yield designs that do not rely on a mindless, repetitive grind but instead on systemic mastery.
「練功」是許多 RPG 和 MMO 中熟悉的元素。玩家忍受著大多乏味的任務或其他遊戲為他們設置的明確目標，這被稱為升級跑步機的一部分。這是玩家為了獲得更高等級和能力所付出的代價，以便能在更高等級上進行更多的任務練功。雖然練功的遊戲玩法本身並不吸引人或有趣，但玩家和設計師都已經接受它作為這些遊戲的一部分。採用更系統化的方法來處理玩家的體驗和互動，可能會產生不依賴於無腦、重複練功，而是依賴於系統化掌握的設計。

11. A deliverable is anything that you’re providing to others who have a stake in the game you’re making. This may well be you in the future when you’ve long forgotten your own reasoning during the design process.
11. 可交付成果是指您提供給在您所製作的遊戲中有利害關係的其他人的任何東西。這也可能是未來的您，當您早已忘記設計過程中的初衷時。