原文地址：https://flarkminator.com/2010/12/23/designing-enemies-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-mvc/

作者：Mike Birkhead(战神系列战斗系统高级设计师)

感谢作者和他的分享精神，我这里也不过是薪火传递，将好文引入国内。

所有你能想到的动作都已经被创造出来了。

这听起来荒谬，但一个角色打败另一个角色的方式是有限的，所有那些耗费的努力，所有那些为了想出一个“酷”的新特技的挣扎，所有的工作最终都归于无用，因为它们在本质上是衍生的。这些时间更应该花在游戏的其他方面。

不要羞于使用其他设计师的想法。使用Java中的预构建库并不比从另一个游戏中借用并重新应用想法更具冒犯性。想法并不成就设计师，执行力才是。抛开不断重复发明轮子的束缚，开始偷窃、借用、挖掘。挖掘过程始于最伟大的源头，酷炫、闪亮且强大的招式之泉：Marvel vs Capcom 2。

时间是1998年，Marvel vs Capcom在街机中爆发，并借鉴了之前VS系列的想法，将其扩展到Marvel和Capcom的角色中。两年后，其续作Marvel vs Capcom 2（MvC2）成为了杰作。它利用了前作奠定的所有简单性、巨大的粉丝服务、团队攻击和炫酷招式的精彩想法，精炼了这些想法，然后与令人眼花缭乱的角色阵容结合起来。做一下数学运算，你会很快发现这个游戏是一个创意的宝库。总共有56个角色，每个角色都有几个普通攻击、空中攻击、特技、辅助技、超级技……总数很快就会上升。

招式数量并不是MvC2成为灵感来源的唯一原因。这款游戏的设计理念，VS系列的设计理念，是如果你“打破”每个人，每个人都是平衡的。太多时候，当事情看起来过于强大时，我们的本能告诉我们要像游戏欠我们钱一样挥舞“削弱棒”，但如果你要让一个招式变得无力，那为什么还要有这个招式呢？确实，在MvC2中，并不是每个角色的每个招式都是一个破坏游戏的超级攻击（那是不现实的）。但对于每个角色，设计师都努力赋予每个角色一个“花招”——一些有趣的东西来赋予他们风格。这里展现了这个游戏的美丽和乐趣。每个角落都有一些新的、令人眼花缭乱、粉碎对手或恢复健康的宝藏等着你去发现，而且有很多东西可以发现。是的，许多招式是角色主题的，微妙扭曲的其他招式的衍生品，但它仍然为我们提供了大量的创意，无论是从主题上还是功能上。

拥有55个角色的阵容意味着你有一个很好的主题拼贴可以借鉴：植物人、巨型机器人、武士、赛博格、忍者、恶魔、浩克、埃及神、红坦克……名单还在继续。当在主题上卡住时，这个游戏可以成为一个灵感来源。即使你有一个不符合MvC2模子的角色，这种创造力的水平也有助于激发想法。

作为一个主题工具，MvC2很棒，但更有益的是它在定义功能上的帮助。当设计敌人时，你的目标是确保每个家伙都有自己的小花招。这个花招可以是简单的，例如你用来围攻玩家的害虫敌人（强调你的大范围攻击），也可以是像战神中的美杜莎那样的特例（强调移动和时机攻击）。

作为潜在创意的来源，MvC2既有深度又有广度，这种组合使它成为一个值得深入挖掘的游戏。所以，如果MvC2是我们应该偷窃的来源，从哪里开始以及如何开始？首先，你必须理解如何解构游戏，因为了解招式的构造方式会给你一个格斗游戏的词典。其次，你必须理解为什么以及如何重建它们。只是随便拿一些招式并将它们——方钉圆孔——强行塞进你的角色阵容中是违背这项练习的目的的。此外，如果你正在制作一个单人动作冒险游戏，有些哲学与格斗游戏是不相容的。你的角色有角色要扮演，所以你需要知道哪些招式有助于定义这些角色，如何修改这些招式使它们与您正在制作的游戏兼容，以及如何在你的游戏中保持平衡。

Marvel vs Capcom 2是一个惊人的资源，但它不是唯一的资源。铁拳、街头霸王、罪恶装备，名单还在继续。在下一篇文章中，我将讨论如何分析、描述和解构你在MvC2中看到的东西，武装这些知识后，你希望能够将其应用于你看到的任何游戏，而不仅仅是MvC2。

原文：

Every move you can think of has already been created.

It sounds ludicrous, but there are only so many ways that one character can beat up another character, and all of that expended effort, all of that struggle to come up with a “cool” new special move, all of that work comes to naught when you end up with something that is, at its core, derivative. That time is better spent on other areas of the game.

Do not be ashamed to use the ideas of other designers. It is no more offensive to use a pre-constructed library in Java, than it is to take the ideas from another game and reapply them. The ideas don’t make the designer, execution does. Throw off these chains of constantly reinventing the wheel and get to stealing borrowing mining. The mining process begins at the greatest source. At the fount of cool, flashy and powerful moves: Marvel vs Capcom 2.

The year is 1998 and Marvel vs Capcom explodes into arcades, and taking the ideas learned from the previous VS titles, it expands them to both the marvel and capcom casts. Two years later, its follow up, Marvel Vs Capcom 2 (MvC2), was the pièce de résistance. It used all the wonderful ideas of simplicity, massive fan service, team attacks, and bad-ass moves laid down by its predecessors, refined those ideas, and then coupled them with a dizzying cast of character. Do the math and you quickly see why this game is a treasure trove of ideas. 56 characters in total, each with several normal attacks, air attacks, special moves, assist moves, hyper moves… it quickly adds up.

The quantity of moves is not the only reason MvC2 is an inspiration. The design philosophy of this game, of the VS series in general, is that if you “break” everyone, everyone is balanced. Too often, when things seem overpowered, our instincts tell us to swing that “nerfbat” like the game owes us money, but if you are going to make a move impotent, then why even have the move? It’s true that in MvC2 not every single move, of every single character, is a game-breaking super attack (that’s just unrealistic). But for each character the designers strove to give each character a “trick” – something fun to give them style. Here emerges the beauty and joy of this game. Around every corner is some new eye-exploding, opponent-smashing or health-restoring nugget that is yours to discover, and there is a lot to discover. Yes, many moves are character-themed, subtly-twisted derivatives of other moves, but it still leaves us with a large amount of ideas to mine both thematically and functionally.

Having a cast of 55 characters means you have a great collage of themes to pull from: plant guys, giant robots, samurai, cyborgs, ninjas, demons, hulks, egyptian gods, juggernauts… the list goes on. When stuck thematically, this game can be an inspirational source. Even if you have a character that doesn’t fit a mold cast by MvC2, the level of creativity can be helpful to get ideas popping.

As a thematic tool MvC2 is great, but what is more beneficial is its help in defining functionality. When designing enemies your goal is to make sure that every guy gets his own little trick. The trick can be something as simple as the pest enemy you use to swarm the player (emphasizing your big area attacks), or it can be something as special case as the medusa from god of war (emphasizing movement and timing your attacks).

As a source of potential ideas MvC2 has both depth and breadth, and this combination makes it an intimidating game to mine. So, if MvC2 is the source we should steal from, where and how do we start? First, you must understand how to deconstruct the game, because knowing how the moves are constructed gives you a fighting game lexicon. Second, you must understand why and how you reconstruct them. Just taking random moves and smashing them — square peg round hole — into your cast of characters defeats the purpose of this exercise. Additionally, if you are making a single player action adventure game, there are certain philosophies that are incongruous with a fighting game. Your cast has roles to fulfill, so you will need to know what moves help you define these roles, how to modify these moves so they are compatible with the game you are making, and how to maintain a balance in your play.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 is an amazing resource, but it isn’t the only resource. Tekken, Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, the list goes on and on. In the next post I will talk about how to analyze, describe, and deconstruct what you are seeing in MvC2, and armed with this you will, hopefully, be able to apply this knowledge it to any game you see, not just MvC2.