休闲游戏的创新性编辑本段回目录
设计成功的休闲游戏需要处理平衡和精确问题，《Bejeweled》、《Zuma》和《Bookworm》开发商PopCap深谙此道，那么，他们是如何做到这些的呢？公司近期刚刚发布了《Bejeweled Twist》，这是首次对这款流行的配对游戏的主要玩法进行更新，游戏有了很大的改变。
Gamasutra曾采访了联合创始人以及首席创意官Jason Kapalka，讨论休闲游戏的创新性，他如何平衡游戏以使之能为核心用户所接受，以及他对休闲游戏领域原创性的道德问题看法。以下是游戏邦编译的采访相关内容：
先让我们来谈谈《Bejeweled Twist》的设计。这款游戏的核心机制让我想起了《Super Puzzle Fighter》中的Dreamcast模式，你玩过吗？
我玩过《Super Puzzle Fighter》。
bejeweled-twist(from ds.ign.com)
游戏中的旋转是否借鉴自Dreamcast模式？
我不记得有那个模式。当我们开始游戏开发时，我玩过大量有旋转机制的游戏。
感觉上这款游戏有点像是《Hexic》，只是游戏界面是正方形而不是六角形。我没玩过上述模式，但是对于这种巧合我并不感到惊讶。
你应该去试试那款游戏。这款游戏与之相比，缺少的是我不能朝另一个方向旋转。为何不这么设计呢？
很多人问过我这个问题。我们确实做过这种尝试。当我们筹划游戏时，这是我们一开始就考虑到的事情。但事实是，添加这种机制对多数人来说并不会让游戏的感觉变好。
我不确定这种做法对《Super Puzzle Fighter》是否产生影响，但至少它使这款游戏产生的问题是大大增加了可能做出的移动数量，这样就会使你玩游戏的节奏下降。
super puzzle fighter 2(from fightersgeneration.com)
无论你何时面对游戏界面，都会有大量可供选择的移动。这样游戏就失去了其快速的节奏，因为你需要考虑的内容变得更多。你需要考虑向左还是向右转动的结果。
对于普通玩家而言，虽然理论上来说游戏显得更加简单，但实际上这种做法会让游戏的难度变得更大，因为你在游戏中必须考虑的内容更多了。
正因为这看起来是个不错的想法，因而先前我们才对其加以尝试，但许多游戏都出现了类似于《Bejeweled》的问题。从技术上来说，我们完全可以允许玩家按对角线来移动宝石。
但是如果采取上述做法，会面临移动空间过于庞大的类似问题。而这对于多数人来说，会让游戏的节奏放缓，必须在游戏中考虑更多的内容。对于多数人而言，这并不是什么有趣的事情。
因而，我们最终决定采用现在的做法，让游戏节奏更快。因为采用另外的方法会让游戏显得过于战略性，放慢游戏节奏。然而，你不是第一个，也肯定不会是最后一个提出这个问题的人。
这项机制的取消是因为老玩家不喜欢，还是存在其他原因？
不仅老玩家不喜欢，几乎所有人都不太喜欢。这只是个听起来感觉很棒的机制而已，实际上这是我们添加到游戏中的首批机制之一。
这项机制的缺点在于需要用到鼠标右键，这原本就是个问题，对多数休闲玩家而言更是如此，他们在玩游戏时根本没有意识到还有鼠标右键。
但是我们测试的情况并不像想象的那样，玩家开始玩游戏后，这项趣味性元素迅速失去其效能，变得越来越没趣。所以，我们决定将其去除！
我很喜欢显示转动方向的那个小漩涡图像。
我们在游戏中添加了大量此类的小设置，如果你通玩教程就知道，里面对这些设置有完整的介绍。我们尽量为游戏的玩法提供视觉暗示。
因为对于休闲玩家而言，他们仍然需要一段时间来熟悉旋转机制，所以我们想让玩家培养机制感觉变得尽量简单，让这项机制在前几个关卡中更具亲和力。但是在随后的关卡中，它们可能会变得很困难。
找出休闲玩家在游戏中遇到的难点似乎是件很困难的事情。因为对我而言，这些机制是很自然的东西，但在某次会议上有个站在我旁边的老年妇女在玩游戏的时候遇到了麻烦。
她并没有真正理解游戏机制，然后有人走过来意图向她解释其中的原理，她说道：“我不要你解释给我听，我想通过游戏自己摸索出来。”于是他说道：“那好吧，我们先来玩玩教程。”
如果游戏中没有教程，那么肯定会变得更加困难。所以我们尝试利用教程来提供帮助，但是总会有某些人想通过游戏自己摸索机制。就像我母亲在玩这款游戏时那样，刚开始她也不知道要怎么玩，但一段时间后她就了解了这款游戏的大量玩法和机制。
纵然她玩得并不好，但是她开始能够理解游戏的原理。再过段时间后，你逐渐看到了更多的内容，并开始学习新的机制，这款游戏的学习曲线确实比《Bejeweled》基本版要复杂。
这是个弱点，但是从另一方面来说，这也使得游戏比《Bejeweled》基本版更有深度。一旦你掌握了游戏机制，你可以有各种令人惊奇的做法。有些人确实把游戏机制把握和运转得相当透彻。
这款游戏中有许多你无法在《Bejeweled》中看到的战略和有趣的东西。因此，复杂机制换得游戏的深度，这可以算是个公平的交易。
你是否认为像《Hexic》之类的游戏过于复杂呢？
我不觉得《Hexic》过于复杂。
hexic(from cimaxgames.com)
我的意思是，游戏对你的目标用户来说是否过于复杂？
不一定。我唯一对《Hexic》表示质疑的内容与《Bookworm》相同，即我们认为这项机制很不错，但那些六边形却很容易让人们感到厌烦。
我不确定究竟是何原因，我想六边形可能让人想起战争游戏及其六边形地图，反正这些东西让人们感到厌烦。
《Bookworm》是款很古怪的游戏。我不知道你是否玩过这款文字游戏，你可以把它想象成用字母来替代上述游戏中的宝石的游戏。游戏刚开始是直线型的格子，但似乎起不了多大作用。
最后我们选定六边形的格子，效果确实很不错，但是问题在于所有看到六边形格子的人都会迅速感到厌烦。所以，最终我们决定保留六边形格子的设计，但做些许更改。
最后，六边形变成了正方形。尽管这只是个微小的改变，但确实让游戏对休闲玩家更有吸引力。
所以，我觉得这才是《Hexic》面临的问题。游戏并没有很复杂，问题在于诡异的六边形设计让人举得很反感。我觉得原因就在于六边形的设计上肯定有让人感到不舒服的东西。
假如《Scrabble》也采用六边形的界面。从理论上来说，它或许依然是个很不错的游戏，但它可能会让许多人感到厌烦。
你们要进行多少次的反复试验才能掌握休闲玩家能够理解的内容？
我们做过大量的此类测试。类似于我发游戏提供给我妈妈试玩，这样的测试非常多。坦诚地说，你可以用任何人来做测试。
你可以随便找测试的玩家，比如厅堂中闲逛的人、负责会计的人或者不玩游戏的人，随便都可以。让他们试试游戏，然后看看他们会做出哪些动作。看看哪些内容让他们产生挫败感，做出修正和改变之后继续进行测试。我们做过大量的此类测试。
同时，这种测试只在某种程度上能够发挥其作用。我们制作游戏的原则之一是，制作我们自己喜欢玩的游戏。你应该相信你的直觉，如果你喜欢玩这款游戏，那么其他人也有可能会喜欢玩。
对你而言，进行测试只是为了确定自己的假设是否出现偏差。但是从根本上来说，开发者很难做出自己不喜欢和对其没有激情的游戏。因此，我喜欢自己的游戏，喜欢玩这些游戏。而且希望其他人也能够乐在其中。
我想知道老年测试玩家的意见是否值得参考，即便他们不喜欢游戏可能也会说喜欢，因为他们敬佩你做出了款游戏。
老年的测试者当然有可能这么做。比如说，你的妈妈不会对游戏进行批评。但是你要的不只是他们的意见。如果你将游戏展示给自己的母亲，你希望看到的结果并非是察觉她是否喜欢这款游戏，而且她能否理解游戏的原理，以及当你不在旁边时她是否还会玩游戏。当然，我们将游戏提供给这些测试者，不只是为了得到意见而已。
我也注意到了这一点。我有个朋友从未玩过《Puzzle Fighter》，他花了很长时间才理解了这款游戏的机制。而我玩前者很长时间，因而很快就明白了游戏机制。
我对此的主要看法是，游戏可以让玩家花些许时间来弄明白机制。我们想要确保的是人们花相对合理的时间来明白游戏机制，这还不至于对游戏构成伤害。如果游戏需要你不断进行学习，而且学习过程还让你极具挫败感，那么游戏的体验就会受到影响。
所以，我们努力保证教程和前期关卡的简单性，这样就不会让玩家拒绝学习游戏机制。
我们尽量降低游戏的易玩性，因而一旦玩家花在游戏中花些许时间学到游戏机制之后，他们就有很大的可能性继续挖掘下去。这便是我们解决上述问题的方法。这一点非常重要，游戏开发期间必须考虑到。
你如何处理游戏内容及机制过多的问题？
我们在开发过程中移除了大量的东西。游戏之前还有冰宝石，玩家组成X形状后便可以获得。
当你将同色宝石组成X形状时，它们会转变成冰宝石。当你使用冰宝石时，时间会暂时停止流逝。这中设置看起来很可爱，但是我们再次考虑到游戏机制过多过于复杂的问题。
因而，我们移除了大量的内容。我们努力将游戏保持在合理的层面上。我们移除了许多有着特别功能的宝石，保持基本的宝石消除游戏机制。
你在游戏中确实可以获得许多高级宝石，但是在你获得水果宝石（游戏邦注：游戏中的某种有着特殊功能的宝石）时，你已经玩了很长时间的游戏，因而肯定知道接下来要怎么做。
在更高的关卡中，你会看到一两个很可怕的东西，比如在第14关等等。但是，之所以如此设置，其理论在于当时玩家已经足够应对那种局面，他们不会被这种设置吓到。
你可曾想过发布《Bejeweled Twist》硬核游戏版本，加上那些移除掉的额外内容以及双向旋转？
我们有这种想法。有些内容我现在还不便多说，我们将来可能与其他人合作来开发《Bejeweled Twist》的变体游戏。
可能像授权版本那样吗？
是的，属于合作游戏。确实有可能制作出此类游戏，比如像《Puzzle Quest》之类的游戏，添加某些更为复杂或基于RPG的元素。
这听起来感觉很棒。
我对这类产品挺喜欢的。在这类产品中，你为产品划定基本制作线路，然后将目标定位于更多的休闲用户上。
我觉得如果你能制作款此类游戏，那确实很不错。多数人并不知道这种自1994年便已出现的《Puzzle Quest》式游戏。曾经有款《Puyo Puyo》地下城游戏，你在游戏世界地图上漫步，然后随机遇到类似传统RPG那样的战斗，但你玩的却依然是《Puyo Puyo》游戏。
事实上，我知道《Puyo Puyo》有很多变体游戏。但是我不觉得自己玩过你所说的那个。
这款游戏没有在美国发布。
奇怪的变体游戏很多，但《Puzzle Quest》肯定是最出名的。
Puzzle_quest(from en.wikipedia.org)
这款游戏在恰当的时机出现，因此才声名鹊起。
我觉得应该不止这个原因。我们在在《Puzzle Quest》之前发布了《Bookworm Adventures》，虽然前者与后者并不相同，但看起来很像RPG文字游戏。题材相同，但盈利和结果却并不相同。我见过许多抄袭《Puzzle Quest》的游戏，它们的表现也不是很好。
《Puzzle Quest: Galactrix》使用的也是六边形的格子。
我也注意到了这一点，你知道，对硬核玩家来说，这种做法并没有不妥，因为他们对此并不介意。他们的目标用户肯定不是休闲玩家。
当然不是，游戏还有个太空主题。
这听起来极像是硬核游戏。
我想知道那些喜欢《Puzzle Quest》的人会如何看待《Galactrix》。
依我们的经验来看，玩家的态度取决于最终发布出来的游戏。我还未见到完整的游戏，所以无法做出论断。《Twist》也有个模糊的太空主题，但你不能把它当成科幻游戏。
不，这款游戏更像是类似《孢子》的太空游戏，而不是《Battlestar Galactica》那样的太空游戏。
我们认为这种过于硬核化的科幻场景并不适合休闲玩家。
女性玩家也是如此。
所以他们采取这种做法表明他们并不关注这两类玩家。我对这些开发者有点了解，他们是绝对的硬核游戏玩家。
他们总是在开发那些战争游戏。
这很有趣。他们最初的想法或许是，做些能够赚钱的游戏。显然，我认为他们这样的想法让他们最终做出些非同寻常的游戏。
许多人讨论《Bejeweled》的克隆游戏，这些游戏的灵感显然来源于《Bejeweled》，但并非我想要制作的游戏。但是，我也为其他人做出克隆游戏感到高兴。因为看到我们制作的游戏成为他人制作游戏的灵感，这确实是一件很棒的事情。
在休闲游戏领域中，我对“克隆游戏”的想法时常更正，因为这个领域中的此类游戏确实很多。PopCap的许多游戏正属此类，如《AstroPop》和《Zuma》。在休闲游戏领域很难察觉到是否使用了与其他游戏类似的机制，功能克隆的情况在大型游戏中时常会出现。
我们曾被指责剽窃其他的游戏。但与此同时，你并不会常听到《魔兽世界》借鉴自《无尽的任务》，或者《半条命》窃取自《雷神之锤》。这些游戏确实非常像，如果没有《无尽的任务》，很难想象是否会出现《魔兽世界》这款游戏，这根本是不可能的事情。而且现在许多游戏也会借鉴《魔兽世界》中的功能和设计。
就个人而言，我所偏爱的是，其他开发商从我们的游戏中借鉴些许元素然后添加上某些新的内容。我很认同这种做法。《Puzzle Quest》、《Jewel Quest》以及某些其他游戏借鉴了《Bejeweled》的机制并添加了某些有趣的东西，我觉得这样子改变很不错。
我希望当我们借鉴其他早期游戏的机制时，至少也能够添加某些自己的东西。最为糟糕的情况是，你制作出比原版游戏更差的游戏，而且还没有添加任何新内容。
如果你复制某些游戏机制并且添加某些之前没有出现过的内容，如果这种改变能够提升游戏设计，那么我觉得这是个值得肯定的做法。如果你确实让游戏得到改善，你可以为自己辩解，因为你有权利这么做。
我曾经与《战争机器》的设计师Cliff Bleszinski交谈过，他感到很困惑的是人们只借鉴《战争机器》中的巡回运行机制而不借鉴主动重装机制，因为他觉得后者才是人们真正应该借鉴的东西。他并没有因为人们拿去他的机制而感到郁闷，他只是在想：“为何你不拿这项机制？这才是真正有价值的内容！”
我们两个人的想法相同。有些开发者借鉴《Bejeweled》的机制，有时他们的做法并不恰当，比如他们没有控制好宝石下落的速度，要么掉得过快要么就过慢。
这看起来像是个简单的设计，但确实能够影响到玩家对游戏的感觉。就像我会产生以下想法：如果你想要借鉴游戏的话，就把这种借鉴工作做得恰当和透彻些。
你可曾研究过任天堂的新DSi？这个设备可以下载游戏。这应该能引起你们的兴趣。
现在我们正在做某些DS游戏，但不得不面对我们还是DS游戏新手这个事实。制作可下载游戏看起来像是个很不错的想法。但是，具体情况还需时日方能知晓，就像Wii确实很棒，但WiiWare是否能够取得巨大的成功还待定。
但是，Wii不是个可下载游戏的绝佳平台。或许将来这种情况能得到改善，但我对此并不确定。然而，Xbox Live显然已成为真正适合我们的平台。DSi将来的情况如何，这还很难下结论。
而且其中的问题在于，你必须做出决定，选择或放弃某个平台。但是我们应该会在DS游戏上投入精力。
游戏邦注：本文发稿于2009年1月2日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Brandon Sheffield）
Casual Game Design: PopCap’s Jason Kapalka and Bejeweled Twist
Brandon Sheffield
Designing a successful casual game is a matter of balance and precision, and Bejeweled, Zuma and Bookworm creators PopCap are one of the masters of the art, with a projected $170 million in sales in 2008.
So how do they do it? The company has just released Bejeweled Twist, the first major gameplay update to its popular match-three title, and one that significantly changes the way the game is played.
So on the heels of the game’s release, Gamasutra spoke to co-founder and chief creative officer Jason Kapalka about just what separates a “clone” from a true innovation in casual gaming, and how he balances his games to be accessible for his core audience.
Of particular interest is Kapalka’s assertion that — legal issues aside — there is a “moral/ethical” question about what constitutes originality in the casual space; he also views the creativity issue to be one hardly relegated to that space — “You can’t imagine how World of Warcraft could have existed without EverQuest.”
Let’s talk about design for Bejeweled Twist. The core mechanic reminds me very much of one of the modes in Super Puzzle Fighter for Dreamcast. Have you played that?
Jason Kapalka: I’ve played Puzzle Fighter.
You haven’t played the mode where you rotate four blocks?
JK: I don’t remember that one, no. I wouldn’t be surprised… since we’ve started working on it I’ve run across a number of games that have the mechanic of rotating things.
In a sense it’s like Hexic only with, you know, a square grid rather than a hexagon shape. So I haven’t played that one but I’m not surprised.
You should try it. The thing I miss from playing that one when playing this one is being able to rotate the other direction. Why can’t I do that?
JK: That is definitely a question that’s been asked many times. We certainly tried that. That’s one of the first things we did, when we put the game together — put in an option to rotate the other direction. And the truth of it is, it actually, it doesn’t actually make the game better for the majority of people.
Actually, the problem is, at least in this game — I’m not sure about the Puzzle Fighter game — it increases the number of possible moves by a dramatic amount, so it slows down the way you play.
You suddenly have a lot more potential moves any time you scan the board, so instead of playing the game in a fast kind of way, it slows you down since you have so much more to consider. You have to consider left, right, left, right.
It’s one of those things where, for the average player, it makes the game more difficult, even though it actually theoretically makes it easier, because you have to consider a lot more to play it.
It sounded like a good idea when we tried it, it’s the same problem we had with some games like Bejeweled. Technically there’s no reason in Bejeweled you couldn’t allow people to move jewels diagonally, as well as up and down.
But it’s that same problem that it increases the move space by a huge number, and suddenly, for most people, it just makes it a lot slower, and more deliberate of a game — which for most people, is less fun.
So keeping it like this ends up making for a much faster and more immediate game. The other way becomes too strategic, and slows things down. But hey, certainly you’re not the first and you won’t be the last person to ask why you can’t do that.
Was it turning older players off, or things like that?
JK: Well it wasn’t just older players, really, it was really kind of everybody. It was one of those things that sounds like it made perfect sense to try. It was practically one of the first things we put in there.
There was one drawback which is that it would require right mouse button, and that’s often a problem, and that is a little bit of an issue sometimes for more casual players; they just don’t get that the right mouse button is there.
But really it wasn’t even that, the thing was that after we actually tried it, once people started playing it, the fun factor just went down radically, something about it just became less fun. So out it went!
I like that you have an actual little vortex graphic that indicates the direction that the piece is going to go.
JK: Well there’s a bunch of other little things we put in the game to try to — especially if you go through the tutorials and stuff — there’s a whole bunch of things to try and suggest that. We tried as much as we could to help give visual cues as to how it plays.
Because, still, for casual players, it takes a while to get your head around the rotating mechanic, so we wanted to make it as easy as possible to get a feel for it and make it as unthreatening as possible in the earlier levels. Later levels, they can get pretty difficult.
It seems really hard to think that way — to figure out what will be difficult for casual players. Because to me that’s very intuitive, but there was an older lady that was standing next to me at the event, who was playing and she had a hard time.
She didn’t really get it, and then someone came over and tried to explain it to her, and she said “I don’t want you to explain it to me. I want to read it in the game.” He said “Okay, we can go back to the tutorial.”
JK: Yeah, if they miss the tutorial it would be harder, for sure. So we try to make it so that the tutorial helps you, but at a certain point you want to go and play around with it. Like when my mom plays it, at first she’s just spinning things around and doesn’t get it, and then, after a while, she starts to get it a bit more.
She’s not great at it, but she starts to understand how it’s working, and after a while you start seeing more patterns to it, you start following that, so it definitely has a bit more of a learning curve than basic Bejeweled does.
That’s one drawback. I think on the upside it also has a lot more depth than regular Bejeweled has. Once you do learn the mechanic of it, there’s an awful lot you can do with that. You see some of the guys over there — they’re quite good.
There’s a lot of strategy and interesting things you can do with it that were not possible in Bejeweled. So it’s a bit of a tradeoff.
Do you think that a game like Hexic is too complicated?
JK: I don’t think Hexic is too complicated.
I mean for, say, the demographic you’re targeting?
JK: Not necessarily. The only thing I might have questioned with Hexic is the same thing we had with Bookworm, and that is that I think the mechanic is fine, but there’s a little something about hexes that turns people off.
Hexes look like, I don’t know, I think they give off a vibe of science, of dirty stuff, of war games, and hex paper, something about them just turns people off.
Bookworm is an odd one. I don’t know if you’ve played that one, but Bookworm is a word game; it’s basically Bejeweled with letters, if you imagine it that way. It started off as a straight grid, and that didn’t work.
We ended up with a hexagonal grid and that played really well, but the problem was anybody who looked at a hex grid just was turned off right away. So we ended up doing something where we kept the hex grid but faked it.
So the hexes got turned into squares, like little tiles, but they’re offset by 50 percent. And that’s just a cosmetic change, but it actually makes the game much more appealing to casual players.
So I think that’s the issue with Hexic. It’s not necessarily the game is complex; [the issue is] that it looks repellent in some way because of that weird hex thing. There’s something about hexes that’s not comforting. I think it’s the reason.
Imagine Scrabble if it was a hex board. In theory it could still be a good game, but it would turn off a lot of people.
How much trial and error stuff do you have to do to figure out what casual players are actually going to be able to grab on to?
JK: Well, we do a lot. There’s definitely a great deal of testing — like we mentioned the mom test, where you show it to your mom, but frankly you can do that with anybody.
You can go grab somebody down the hall, somebody from accounting, somebody who doesn’t play games, and say “Okay, try this out” and watch how they do it. See what frustrates them, and then try it again later on when you make some changes. We do quite a bit of that.
And at the same time, that only works to some extent. We’re still making games that we like to play. At a certain point, you have to just trust yourself that if you like playing it, that other people like playing it.
So you have these testers to find out if you’ve made some wrong assumptions, if things are not working quite the way you want — but ultimately, it’s really hard to make a game that you don’t like and put any passion into it. So I like the game, I enjoy playing it. Hopefully if I like it, other people will enjoy playing it too.
I wonder whether testers or players in an older demographic might be too nice about it, and say that they like it even if they don’t, just because they like that you made a nice game.
JK: Of course people will do that stuff. Your mom’s not going to criticize it. But you’re not looking for that; if you’re showing the game to your mom, you don’t look to see if she likes it; you look to see if she can understand how to play it, or if she continues to play it when you’re not watching, things like that. Certainly we don’t just ask for an opinion.
I did actually notice that. I’m here with a friend that actually hasn’t played that Puzzle Fighter game that I had played, and it actually did take him a little longer to pick up the mechanic. Having played that game a lot, I understood it right away.
JK: It can take a little time to pick out; that was my main concern with this. We wanted to make sure that for people who take a fair time to pick it up, it’s still not too threatening. If you start a game like that where you’re still learning, and it’s kicking your ass while you’re learning it — that’s kind of harsh.
So we tried to make sure that the tutorial and the first bunch of levels are very forgiving, so that you don’t feel like you don’t want to learn it anymore.
We tried our best to make it easy to get into, so once someone has spent a bit of time with it and does learn it, there’s a very good chance they’ll dig it. It’s how we get over that little initial thing. That is somewhat serious — you do have to consider that.
How do you know when you have too many mechanics? Because you’ve got the mines there, you’ve got the rocks, and the locks.
JK: We took out a number of things. We were pretty considerate; there were a lot of extra things that have been taken out. There used to be ice gems that you could make by forming an X.
When you formed an X of gems, they’d turn into the ice gem. And when you used the ice gem, it would freeze time for a few turns, and all that stuff. It was kind of cute — but again, along with a bunch of other things it’s like “Alright, how much stuff do we need?”
We took out a lot. We tried to keep it down to a reasonable level. There were lots more special power gems that we took out, and so we kept it to the basic fire and lightning.
There are a couple advanced gems you can get, but by the time you get to fruit gems, for example, you’ve been playing for quite a while and you have to know what you’re doing.
There are one or two scary things you see on very high levels, like level 14 or something like that, but again, the theory is by the time someone’s good enough to get to that level, they’re not going to be intimidated by that.
Do you think you might ever release a Bejeweled Twist hardcore version that had the extra bits back in it, and rotations in both directions?
JK: Oddly, both those things are within the realm of possibility. There’s some stuff I’m probably not at liberty to even discuss yet, some possible partnerships with people to do some strange variants of Twist.
Like licensed versions, perhaps?
JK: Collaborations, yeah. Some of those could be in the realm of possibility… strange hybrids, like a Puzzle Quest kind of thing, where there might be some more complex or RPG-based elements attached on to aspects of it.
That’d be nice.
JK: I kind of like some of that stuff. It’s one of those things where you have to draw a line at some point and aim more at the casual audience, and so we did restrict some of those things.
I think it’d be good if you made one of those. Most people aren’t aware that games like that have been made since 1994 — Puzzle Quest-type games. There’s a Puyo Puyo dungeon game, where you walk around on a world map and then you have random battles like in a traditional RPG, but you play Puyo Puyo.
JK: Well actually, I was aware Puyo Puyo had a lot of variants. I don’t think I’ve played that one.
It never got released in the US.
JK: There have been a few weird variants — there were occasional ones, Puzzle Quest was certainly the most high-profile one.
It hit at the right time.
JK: Yeah, I think there will be more. We had Bookworm Adventures a year or so before Puzzle Quest, which was not quite the same thing, but it was like the RPG-meets-word game hybrid. The same genre, not quite the same deal. I’ve seen a couple of Puzzle Quest rip-offs; they haven’t been very good.
The new Puzzle Quest is supposed to come out pretty soon.
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is actually using the hex grid.
JK: That’s what I saw — and you know, for a hardcore crowd, that might be okay, because they might not mind that. They’re definitely not going for a casual audience, that’s for sure.
No, they’re not. And the game also has a space theme, as well.
JK: That sounds so hardcore.
I wonder how audiences who loved Puzzle Quest are going to feel about Galactrix.
JK: In our experience, it depends on what it is. I haven’t seen the whole thing. Twist has a very vaguely spacey theme, but you wouldn’t call it science fiction.
No, it’s more like a Spore-style spacey than it is Battlestar Galactica spacey.
JK: And certainly we’ve seen that the more hardcore, crunchy sci-fi settings can turn off the casual crowd.
And the female crowd.
JK: So them trying to do that, they may not care. I do know those guys a little bit — they’re pretty hardcore gamers.
They made those Warlords games forever.
JK: It’s interesting. They may have started as a “Let’s just do whatever we can to make some money [game]“. Obviously I think their sensibilities were such that they ended up making something kind of unusual.
Many people talk about Bejeweled clones — that’s a game that obviously had some inspiration from Bejeweled, but certainly is not something that I would have done. And certainly, it’s something really cool that I’m glad someone else did. So it’s cool to see a game that we did that can inspire someone else to do something really cool.
Within the casual space, I’ve been having to revise my idea of what a “clone” is, because there’s a lot of them. You could describe a lot of PopCap games that way, as well. Like AstroPop and Zuma. Since the casual space has a narrower focus, it seems really tough to know whether you’re using a similar mechanic and tweaking it — which happens all the time in larger games — or functionally cloning.
JK: We’ve been accused of ripping off of some games. At the same time, you don’t usually hear people saying that World of Warcraft ripped off EverQuest. Or that Half-Life ripped off Quake. The similarities are pretty close; you can’t imagine how World of Warcraft could have existed without EverQuest. It’s not possible. Or any of games now, without World of Warcraft.
I don’t know; it’s kind of a tricky thing. Personally, I like if games borrow stuff from our games, then add something new to it. I’m usually pretty happy about that. Puzzle Quest or Jewel Quest, or some other games where they’ve taken the Bejeweled mechanic and done something interesting with it, I generally feel pretty cool about that.
And I hope that when we do things that are building on earlier game mechanics, that we also at least add something new to it. What sucks is if you make a clone or a derivative game that is worse than the original, and doesn’t really add anything.
If you’re iterating on it, and adding something that wasn’t there before, if it enhances the field of game design, I think that’s worth doing. That may be different from what a legal definition would be, but, [it's] the moral/ethical [definition]. If you actually make the game better, you could argue that you have a right to do it.
I was talking to Cliff Bleszinski, the Gears of War designer, and he was upset that people were stealing the roadie run mechanic from Gears of War, but not stealing the active reload mechanic, because he thought that was a really great thing that more people should steal. He wasn’t mad that they were taking any of his mechanics, he was just like, “Why didn’t you take this one? It was really good!”
JK: We get the same thing too, occasionally, and it is simple things like that, If someone rips off Bejeweled, sometimes they’ll do dumb things — like they won’t get the gravity of the gems right, so when they fall down they either fall down really fast, or really slow.
It seems like a simple thing, but it could make a big difference, in terms of how the games feel. That’s one of those things where it’s like, “Dude, if you’re going to rip off the game, rip it off right. Get those things correct.”
Have you looked at Nintendo’s new DSi? It has the ability to download games. It seems very relevant to you fellas.
JK: Well, we are doing some DS games now, but the truth is we’re just getting started on the DS right now. We’re doing Peggle for DS first and after that, probably we’ll see what comes up.
But yeah, the idea of doing downloadable content always seems like a pretty cool thing. It needs to be seen… like the Wii is cool, but WiiWare, I don’t know yet; I’m not clear that WiiWare has actually turned out to be as big of a success as they were hoping at this point.
Part of it is just that the Wii is not a great platform for downloadable. Maybe it’ll get better, but I’m not sure it will. Whereas Xbox Live obviously has turned out to be a really decent platform for us. So the DSi — yeah, maybe, it’s hard to say.
And part of this stuff is, unfortunately you have to make some decisions about which platforms to pursue and which not to. But maybe. We’re definitely doing DS stuff. (Source: Gamasutra)
