"The Door Problem" of Game Design

一个关于门的问题

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“So what does a game designer do? Are you an artist? Do you design characters and write the story? Or no, wait, you’re a programmer?”

Game design is one of those nebulous terms to people outside the game industry that’s about as clear as the “astrophysicist” job title is to me. It’s also my job, so I find myself explaining what game design means to a lot of people from different backgrounds, some of whom don’t know anything about games.

策划这个职位非常模糊，对我来说和天体物理学家这个职位一样不可理解。

The Door Problem

I like to describe my job in terms of “The Door Problem”.我想用"门的问题"这个话题来描述下我的工作

Premise: You are making a game.前提：你在制作游戏

• Are there doors in your game?  你的游戏里有门吗？
• Can the player open them?       玩家能开门吗？
• Can the player open every door in the game?  玩家能打开每一扇门吗？
• Or are some doors for decoration?                  还是说有些门只是装饰？
• How does the player know the difference?       玩家怎么去分辨哪些能打开，哪些不能打开呢？
• Are doors you can open green and ones you can’t red? Is there trash piled up in front of doors you can’t use? Did you just remove the doorknobs and call it a day?  绿色的门可以打开，红色的门不能打开，要设计成这样吗? 还是说不能打开的门，门前都要有一堆垃圾？
• Can doors be locked and unlocked? 门有锁吗，能锁门吗，能开锁吗？
• What tells a player a door is locked and will open as opposed to a door that they will never open?  怎么区分那些锁住的门和那些打不开的门呢？
• Does a player know how to unlock a door? Do they need a key? To hack a console? To solve a puzzle? To wait until a story moment passes? 玩家知道怎么开锁吗，需要钥匙吗，通过解谜来解锁还是说怎么样
• Are there doors that can open but the player can never enter them? 会不会有些门可以被打开，但是玩家进不去
• Where do enemies come from? Do they run in from doors? Do those doors lock afterwards? 敌人从哪里来，会从门那过来吗，他们过来后，门会锁上吗？
• How does the player open a door? Do they just walk up to it and it slides open? Does it swing open? Does the player have to press a button to open it? 玩家怎么开门呢，只要靠近门就会自动开吗，开的形式是什么，转动开？玩家是不是得按钮才能开？
• Do doors lock behind the player? 玩家进门后，就锁上吗？
• What happens if there are two players? Does it only lock after both players pass through the door?  如果有两个玩家怎么办，都进门然后再上锁吗？
• What if the level is REALLY BIG and can’t all exist at the same time? If one player stays behind, the floor might disappear from under them. What do you do? 如果场景非常大，这俩玩家不会同时显示出来，那么其中一个玩家进门后，锁门吗？
• Do you stop one player from progressing any further until both are together in the same room? 你会让一个玩家停下，直到所有玩家都在同一个房间里吗
• Do you teleport the player that stayed behind? 对于后面的玩家，会被传送过来吗
• What size is a door? 门有多大
• Does it have to be big enough for a player to get through? 需要大到和玩家一样吗
• What about co-op players? What if player 1 is standing in the doorway – does that block player 2?  要是有一个玩家待在门那，会挡住另外的玩家吗
• What about allies following you? How many of them need to get through the door without getting stuck?  跟着玩家的友军怎么处理，有多少需要通过门而不被卡主
• What about enemies? Do mini-bosses that are larger than a person also need to fit through the door?  怪怎么办，有些小怪，比玩家大点，穿过门的时候应该怎么破？

It’s a pretty classic design problem. SOMEONE has to solve The Door Problem, and that someone is a designer.

The Other Door Problems

To help people understand the role breakdowns at a big company, I sometimes go into how other people deal with doors.

• Creative Director: “Yes, we definitely need doors in this game.” 创意总监说：我们游戏里当然需要有门了
• Project Manager: “I’ll put time on the schedule for people to make doors.” 项目经理：我会把制作门的时间加到时间表里
• Designer: “I wrote a doc explaining what we need doors to do.” 策划：我会写个文档，说明我们需要门来做什么
• Concept Artist: “I made some gorgeous paintings of doors.” 概念美术：我来弄些牛逼的门的原画
• Art Director: “This third painting is exactly the style of doors we need.”  美术总监：第三个画风就是我们要的
• Environment Artist: “I took this painting of a door and made it into an object in the game.” 关卡美术：我把画的门搞到游戏里去
• Animator: “I made the door open and close.” 动画师：我来让门能开启和关闭
• Sound Designer: “I made the sounds the door creates when it opens and closes.” 音效策划：我来给门的开启和关闭制作声音
• Audio Engineer: “The sound of the door opening and closing will change based on where the player is and what direction they are facing.” 音效工程师：声音的播放要依据玩家是否面向门
• Composer: “I created a theme song for the door.” 调音师：我来给门配个音乐
• FX Artist: “I added some cool sparks to the door when it opens.” 特效工程师：我来给门的开关行为加点特效
• Writer: “When the door opens, the player will say, ‘Hey look! The door opened!’ “  文案：门开的时候，玩家要说，看，门开了
• Lighter: “There is a bright red light over the door when it’s locked, and a green one when it’s opened.” 光影师：门开的时候，门板上要有绿光，门关的时候，要有红光
• Legal: “The environment artist put a Starbucks logo on the door. You need to remove that if you don’t want to be sued.” 法务：关卡美术把星巴克的图标放到门上了，得去掉，免得被起诉。
• Character Artist: “I don’t really care about this door until it can start wearing hats.” 角色美术：这玩意儿不是人，和我没关系，什么时候它成妖精了，再找我
• Gameplay Programmer: “This door asset now opens and closes based on proximity to the player. It can also be locked and unlocked through script.” 玩法工程师：门的开启和关闭要基于和玩家的距离，门的开关也要通过代码来实现
• AI Programmer: “Enemies and allies now know if a door is there and whether they can go through it.” AI程序员：怪物和佣兵需要知道哪里有门以及是否能通过这个门
• Network Programmer: “Do all the players need to see the door open at the same time?” 网络程序员：门的开启和关闭需要同步给所有玩家吗？
• Release Engineer: “You need to get your doors in by 3pm if you want them on the disk.” 版本程序员：门的存储空间要够小才行，不然不让打到包里。
• Core Engine Programmer: “I have optimized the code to allow up to 1024 doors in the game.” 引擎程序员：已经优化过了，允许程序里同时有1024个门
• Tools Programmer: “I made it even easier for you to place doors.” 工具程序员：我在工具里做了一个牛逼的功能，摆放门会很容易
• Level Designer: “I put the door in my level and locked it. After an event, I unlocked it.” 关卡策划：关卡里有个门，我锁上了，设计了个事件，触发后就开门
• UI Designer: “There’s now an objective marker on the door, and it has its own icon on the map.” UI策划：门上有个标记，并且地图上有它自己的图标
• Combat Designer: “Enemies will spawn behind doors, and lay cover fire as their allies enter the room. Unless the player is looking inside the door in which case they will spawn behind a different door.” 战斗策划：门后会生出很多怪
• Systems Designer: “A level 4 player earns 148xp for opening this door at the cost of 3 gold.” 系统策划：4级的玩家开门时会消耗3个金币，得到148点经验值
• Monetization Designer: “We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now, or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.” 数值策划：要打开门，玩家要么就等24小时，要么就得花费0.99美元
• QA Tester: “I walked to the door. I ran to the door. I jumped at the door. I stood in the doorway until it closed. I saved and reloaded and walked to the door. I died and reloaded then walked to the door. I threw grenades at the door.” 测试：我打算走着过门，跑过去，跳过去。
• UX / Usability Researcher: “I found some people on Craigslist to go through the door so we could see what problems crop up.” 体验工程师：我发现有的人行为比较怪
• Localization: “Door. Puerta. Porta. Porte. Tür. Dør. Deur. Drzwi. Drws. 문” 本地化：各种语言的门的表述
• Producer: “Do we need to give everyone those doors or can we save them for a pre-order bonus?”  制作人：需要给每个人都配这些门吗，或者可以作为一个预售的奖励
• Publisher: “Those doors are really going to help this game stand out during the fall line-up.” 发行：这些门很重要？
• CEO: “I want you all to know how much I appreciate the time and effort put into making those doors.” CEO:我想让你们都知道，我是多么欣赏你们为了这些门而付出的努力
• PR: “To all our fans, you’re going to go crazy over our next reveal #gamedev #doors #nextgen #retweet” 
• Community Manager: “I let the fans know that their concerns about doors will be addressed in the upcoming patch.” 社区经理：一定要让玩家知道，他们对门的想法，会在接下来的版本里出现
• Customer Support: “A player contacted us, confused about doors. I gave them detailed instructions on how to use them.” 客服：玩家联系我们了，对这些门有些困惑，我给了他们详细的指令说明如何使用他们
• Player: “I totally didn’t even notice a door there.” 玩家：我完全注意不到那里有门

One of the reasons I like this example is because it’s so mundane. There’s an impression that game design is flashy and cool and about crazy ideas and fun all the time. But when I start off with, “Let me tell you about doors…” it cuts straight to the everyday practical considerations.