For the last 20 years I've been designing puzzles. And I'm here today to give you a little tour, starting from the very first puzzle I designed, through what I'm doing now. I've designed puzzles for books, printed things. I'm the puzzle columnist for Discover Magazine. I've been doing that for about 10 years. I have a monthly puzzle calendar. I do toys. The bulk of my work is in computer games. I did puzzles for "Bejeweled." (Applause) I didn't invent "Bejeweled." I can't take credit for that.
过去的20年中,我一直致力于设计益智游戏。 我今天来这儿,是带领大家 一起来回顾这20年的旅程, 从我的第一件作品开始 一直到我正在设计的作品。 我为各种书籍,印刷品设计游戏。 我为《发现》杂志,撰写游戏专栏 已近10年。 我还设计游戏月历。 我也做玩具。我的一大部分工作是设计计算机游戏。 我为宝石迷阵做设计。 (掌声) 我没有发明宝石迷阵, 我不能以此自夸。
So, very first puzzle, sixth grade, my teacher said, "Oh, let's see, that guy, he likes to make stuff. I'll have him cut out letters out of construction paper for the board." I thought this was a great assignment. And so here is what I came up with. I start fiddling with it. I came up with this letter. This is a letter of the alphabet that's been folded just once. The question is, which letter is it if I unfold it? One hint: It's not "L." (Laughter) It could be an "L," of course. So, what else could it be? Yeah, a lot of you got it. Oh yeah. So, clever thing.
那么, 我的第一个发明, 那是在六年级, 我的老师说, “额, 让我们瞧瞧, 这位同学,他喜欢动手做小发明。 我们来让他用一张白纸剪出一个字母来 帖到黑板上。“ 我感到这个作业很棒。 这就是我的成果。 我开始折纸。 我做了这个, 它是一个字母, 但被折叠了一次。 我的问题是,如果我把它展开的话, 会是哪个字母呢? 提示: 它不是字母L。 (笑声) 它可能是“L”。 那么, 这到底是哪个字母呢? 哈哈, 还是有很多人猜出来啦。 是的, 一个调皮的小玩意儿。
Now, that was my first puzzle. I got hooked. I created something new, I was very excited because, you know, I'd made crossword puzzles, but that's sort of like filling in somebody else's matrix. This was something really original. I got hooked. I read Martin Gardner's columns in Scientific American. Went on, and eventually decided to devote myself, full time, to that.
这就是我的第一个设计。 我从此迷上了设计游戏。 我创作了新的东西,我为此而兴奋。 因为, 你们知道, 我也设计过填字游戏, 但设计填字游戏让我感觉循规蹈矩。 而这个让我觉得我真的在创造些什么。 这让我着迷。 我开始阅读《科学美国人》杂志中 Martin Gardner的专栏。 我一直坚持并且最后决定将此作为自己的事业。
Now, I should pause and say, what do I mean by puzzle? A puzzle is a problem that is fun to solve and has a right answer. "Fun to solve," as opposed to everyday problems, which, frankly, are not very well-designed puzzles. You know, they might have a solution. It might take a long time. Nobody wrote down the rules clearly. Who designed this? It's like, you know, life is not a very well-written story so we have to hire writers to make movies.
现在, 让我稍作停顿, 并且解释一下, 到底什么是游戏呢? 益智游戏是一种有问题,有正确答案 而且,我们会从探索解决方法的过程中,获得乐趣的游戏。 这样的“有乐趣的解决问题”与我们日常生活中遇到的“问题”不同, 我们生活中碰到的那些问题, 坦率的讲,“设计”的太“粗糙”啦。 那些生活问题, 或许会有个解决方案。 但找到那个方法或许很费时间, 也没人能清楚的告诉我们应该怎么做。 到底是谁给我们“设计”了那么多生活难题? 这就像我们说的, 生活是一个蹩脚的小说, 所以,我们得雇人写电影剧本。
Well, I take everyday problems, and I make puzzles out of them. And "right answer," of course there might be more than one right answer; many puzzles have more than one. But as opposed to a couple other forms of play, toys and games -- by toy I mean, something you play with that doesn't have a particular goal. You can create one out of Legos. You know, you can do anything you want. Or competitive games like chess where, well, you're not trying to solve ... You can make a chess puzzle, but the goal really is to beat another player.
我所做的,就是从日常生活的那些问题中获得灵感,再将他们设计成小游戏。 这些小游戏, 有正确答案, 而且可能还不止一个。 许多小游戏, 都不止一个答案。 但相对于其他形式的娱乐 比如玩具和竞赛, 玩玩具,我的意思是,你在玩玩具时并不抱有任何特别的目的。 你可以用乐高创造你自己的玩具。 你可以用乐高做出任何你想做的造型。 我们也玩竞赛类游戏, 比方下棋。 我们下棋并不是解决某个问题。 当然, 我们可以搞个棋类游戏。 但下棋终归是要把你的对手打败。
I consider that puzzles are an art form. They're very ancient. It goes back as long as there is written history. It's a very small form, like a joke, a poem, a magic trick or a song, very compact form. At worst, they're throwaways, they're for amusement. But at best they can reach for something more and create a memorable impression. The progression of my career that you'll see is looking for creating puzzles that have a memorable impact.
我觉得益智游戏是一种艺术。 这种古老的艺术, 从人类有书写史的时候就开始有了。 游戏可以很短小, 比方一个小玩笑 也可以是一句诗歌,一个小魔术,一首诗,结构紧凑。 最差的游戏,也不过是被扔掉了,他们就是为了娱乐而生的。 但最好的游戏却能深入人心, 让人难以忘怀。 我的职业发展,你们可以看到 就是设计出让人难以忘怀的游戏来。
So, one thing I found early on, when I started doing computer games, is that I could create puzzles that will alter your perception. I'll show you how. Here is a famous one. So, it's two profiles in black, or a white vase in the middle. This is called a figure-ground illusion. The artist M.C. Escher exploited that in some of his wonderful prints. Here we have "Day and Night." Here is what I did with figure and ground. So, here we have "figure" in black. Here we have "figure" in white. And it's all part of the same design. The background to one is the other. Originally I tried to do the words "figure" and "ground." But I couldn't do that, I realized. I changed the problem. It's all "figure." (Laughter)
早期我就发现,在我刚开始做电脑游戏的时候, 我能创造出一些能够改变我们感观的游戏。 我来告诉你们怎么做。 下面这个很有名。 看,这是两个黑色的人像剖面,或者说中间是一个白色的花瓶。 这叫图像背景幻象。 艺术家M.C. 埃舍尔在 他的一些精美画作中创造了这种艺术。 这个是白天和夜晚。 下面是我利用图像和背景所做的。 所以,我们这里有黑色的“图像”。 我们有白色的“图像”。 而它们都是同一个图像的一部分。 背景对于一个前景来说是背景但本身又是一个前景。 起初我想用“图像”和“背景”的单词。 但我承认我做不到。我就把问题变通了一下。 于是都成了“图像”。 (笑声)
A few other things. Here is my name. And that turns into the title of my first book, "Inversions." These sorts of designs now go by the word "ambigram." I'll show you just a couple others. Here we have the numbers one through 10, the digits zero through nine, actually. Each letter here is one of these digits. Not strictly an ambigram in the conventional sense. I like pushing on what an ambigram can mean.
再看其他的一些。这个是我的名字。 而它变成了我第一本书的名字,“Inversions”。 这种图案现在有个新词叫做“双向图”。 我再给你们看几个其他的。这个是 数字从一到十,实际上是从零到九。 这儿每个字母都是其中一个数字。 不是传统意义上严格的双向图。 我喜欢推进到双向图的意义。
Here's the word "mirror." No, it's not the same upside-down. It's the same this way. And a marvelous fellow from the Media Lab who just got appointed head of RISD, is John Maeda. And so I did this for him. It's sort of a visual canon. (Laughter) And recently in Magic magazine I've done a number of ambigrams on magician's names. So here we have Penn and Teller, same upside-down. This appears in my puzzle calendar. Okay, let's go back to the slides. Thank you very much.
下面这个单词是“mirror”。不,上下颠倒过来不行。 左右颠倒,才是一样的。 一个来自Media Lab优秀的家伙 他刚被任命为RISD的头儿,叫约翰前田。 我给他设计了这个,有点像视觉艺术作品。 (笑声) 最近在《魔术》杂志上 我设计了很多魔术师名字的双向图。 这个是Penn and Teller,上下颠倒过来一样。 这个也出现在我的游戏月历上。 好,让我们回到幻灯片上来。 非常感谢。
Now, those are fun to look at. Now how would you do it interactively? For a while I was an interface designer. And so I think a lot about interaction. Well, let's first of all simplify the vases illusion, make the thing on the right. Now, if you could pick up the black vase, it would look like the figure on top. If you could pick up the white area, it would look like the figure on the bottom. Well, you can't do that physically, but on a computer you can do it. Let's switch over to the P.C.
这些都是看起来好玩的东西。 但是你怎么做成互动的呢? 有段时间我是一名互动界面的设计师。 因此我思考了很多关于互动的问题。 好,首先让我们简化一下花瓶幻象, 作出右边的东西来。 所以,如果你捡起黑色的花瓶, 它看起来就像是在表层的图案。 如果你捡起白色的区域呢 它看起来就像是底层的图案。 额,按自然道理来说你做不到, 但是在电脑上你能做到。让我们转到电脑上来。
And here it is, figure-ground. The goal here is to take the pieces on the left and make them so they look like the shape on the right. And this follows the rules I just said: any black area that is surrounded by white can be picked up. But that is also true of any white area. So, here we got the white area in the middle, and you can pick it up. I'll just go one step further. So, here is -- here is a couple pieces. Move them together, and now this is an active piece. You can really get inside somebody's perception and have them experience something. It's like the old maxim of "you can tell somebody something and show them, but if they do it they really learn it."
就是这个,图案背景。 目标是移动左边的图案 重组它们从而使它们看起来像右边的形状。 而且这些符合我刚才所说的规则, 被白色围着的任何黑色区域都可以被捡起来。 但是任何白色区域也可以。 所以,中间有块儿白色区域, 你可以将它捡起来。 进一步地说。 所以,这个-- 这是两块儿图案。把他们移到一起, 现在这块儿变成了活动的了。 你可以真正地深入人心 让他们体会到一些东西。 就像古老的格言所说的 “你可以把事情告诉一个人 展示给他们,但是只有他们去做了才能真正的学到。”
Here is another thing you can do. There is a game called Rush Hour. This is one of the true masterpieces in puzzle design besides Rubik's cube. So, here we have a crowded parking lot with cars all over the place. The goal is to get the red car out. It's a sliding block puzzle. It's made by the company Think Fun. It's done very well. I love this puzzle.
这个是另一个你可以做的事。 有个游戏叫尖峰时刻。 这个在游戏设计上是真正的一个杰作 仅次于魔方。 现在,我们这儿有一个拥挤的停车场 挤满了汽车。 目标是把红色的汽车开出来。这是一个物体移动游戏。 它是由Think Fun公司做的。 做得非常好。我非常喜欢这个游戏。
Well, let's play one. Here. So, here is a very simple puzzle. Well, that's too simple, let's add another piece. Okay, so how would you solve this one? Well, move the blue one out of the way. Here, let's make it a little harder. Still pretty easy. Now we'll make it harder, a little harder. Now, this one is a little bit trickier. You know? What do you do here? The first move is going to be what? You're going to move the blue one up in order to get the lavender one to the right. And you can make puzzles like this one that aren't solvable at all. Those four are locked in a pinwheel; you can't get them apart.
好,让我们玩一个。这个是一个非常简单的游戏。 哎,这个太简单了,让我们再加上一块。 好,那么你们怎么解决这一个? 额,把那个蓝色的移走。 好,让我们再把它变难一点。仍然很简单。 现在我们把它变得难一点,稍微难一点。 现在,这个有点难对付了。 你知道么?你们会怎么做? 第一步该做什么? 你会把蓝色的向上移来使淡紫色的移到右边。 而且你可以设计像这一个的游戏,根本没有答案。 这四个串在一起;你不能把它们分开。
I wanted to make a sequel. I didn't come up with the original idea. But this is another way I work as an inventor is to create a sequel. I came up with this. This is Railroad Rush Hour. It's the same basic game except I introduced a new piece, a square piece that can move both horizontally and vertically. In the other game the cars can only move forward and back. Created a whole bunch of levels for it. Now I'm making it available to schools. And it includes exercises that show you not just how to solve these puzzles, but how to extract the principles that will let you solve mathematical puzzles or problems in science, other areas.
我想做一个后续。 原始的想法不是我想出来的。但是 我作为一名发明家也创作后续。 我创作了这个。这是铁路尖峰时刻。 基本上是同样的游戏,除了我引入了一块的新的方块儿, 一个既可以水平移动也可以垂直移动的方块儿。 在其他游戏中汽车只能前后移动。 有很多的不同的等级。 现在我正在把它推广到学校。 它还有习题,不仅告诉你 怎样解决这些益智游戏, 而且也告诉你怎样从中提取出原理,从而让你解决 数学问题或在科学或其他领域的问题。
So, I'm really interested in you learning how to make your own puzzles as well as just me creating them. Garry Trudeau calls himself an investigative cartoonist. You know, he does a lot of research before he writes a cartoon. In Discover Magazine, I'm an investigative puzzle maker. I got interested in gene sequencing. And I said, "Well, how on Earth can you come up with a sequence of the base pairs in DNA?" Cut up the DNA, you sequence individual pieces, and then you look for overlaps, and you basically match them at the edges. And I said, "This is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle, except the pieces overlap."
因此,我对于你们正在学习怎样设计你们自己的游戏非常感兴趣 就如同我自己设计一样。 加里特鲁多称他自己是调查研究漫画家。 你们知道,在他创作一个漫画之前,他做大量的调查研究。 在《发现》杂志上,我是一个调查研究型的游戏设计者。 我对基因排序很感兴趣。 并且我说,“啊,你们到底是怎么想出的 DNA碱基对的排序的? 把DNA切开,你给独立的部分排序, 然后你再找出重叠部分, 而且你再把他们的边连起来。我看, “这有点像拼图游戏,除了重叠的部分。”
So, here is what I created for Discover Magazine. And it has to be solvable in a magazine. You know, you can't cut out the pieces and move them around. So, here is the nine pieces. And you're supposed to put them into this grid. And you have to choose pieces that overlap on the edge. There is only one solution. It's not that hard. But it takes some persistence. And when you're done, it makes this design, which, if you squint, is the word "helix." So, that's the form of the puzzle coming out of the content, rather than the other way around.
这就是我给《发现》杂志创作的。 而且恰好它在杂志里被解决了。 你们知道你们不能把它们切碎再移动它们。 这里是九个部分而你要把它们放在这个框中。 而且你必须选择那些在边缘上重叠的。 只有一个答案。没有那么难。 但是需要一些耐心。 当你完成了,它就是这个图案, 如果你眯眼看的话就是“hilix”这个词。 所以,这种形式的益智游戏源于内容, 而不是颠倒过来的那样。
Here is a couple more. Here is a physics-based puzzle. Which way will these fall? One of these weighs 50 pounds, 30 pounds and 10 pounds. And depending on which one weighs which amount, they'll fall different directions. And here is a puzzle based on color mixing. I separated this image into cyan, magenta, yellow, black, the basic printing colors, and then mixed up the separations, and you get these peculiar pictures. Which separations were mixed up to make those pictures? Gets you thinking about color.
这儿还有更多的。这是一个基于物理的游戏。 它们会以哪种方式掉下来? 它们每个分别是50磅,30磅和10磅。 而且根据它们的重量 他们会落向不同的方向。 这儿还有一个基于混合颜色的游戏。 我把这个图像分成青色,品红色,黄色,黑色, 这些最基本的印刷色彩然后把它们混合起来, 你就得到这些奇特的图片。 这些图片是由哪些颜色混合起来组成的? 让你们思考起颜色来了。
Finally, what I'm doing now. So, ShuffleBrain.com, website you can go visit, I joined up with my wife, Amy-Jo Kim. She could easily be up here giving a talk about her work. So, we're making smart games for social media. I'll explain what that means. We're looking at three trends. This is what's going on in the games industry right now. First of all, you know, for a long time computer games meant things like "Doom," where you're going around shooting things, very violent games, very fast, aimed at teenage boys. Right? That's who plays computer games.
最后,我现在正在做的,是ShuffleBrain.com, 这个网站,你可以访问,是我和我的妻子艾米乔金创立的。 如果她到台上来,也会告诉你她的工作 所以,我们正在为社会媒体设计益智游戏。 我会给你们解释什么意思。我们正在关注着三个潮流。 这是游戏产业正在进行着的。 首先,你知道,在很长一段时间 电脑游戏就意味着毁灭, 你到那里去射击,是非常暴力,节奏非常快的游戏, 目标是青少年男孩子。是吧?只有男孩子们才玩电脑游戏。
Well, guess what? That's changing. "Bejeweled" is a big hit. It was the game that really broke open what's called casual games. And the main players are over 35, and are female. Then recently "Rock Band" has been a big hit. And it's a game you play with other people. It's very physical. It looks nothing like a traditional game. This is what's becoming the dominant form of electronic gaming.
可是你猜怎么着?情况变了。 宝石迷阵游戏获得了巨大成功。就是这个游戏真正地开启了 所谓的休闲游戏。 而且主要玩家年龄在35岁以上,而且是女性。 最近摇滚乐队又获得了巨大成功。 而且这是一个与其他人一起玩的多人游戏。 非常新潮,看起来一点也不像传统游戏。 这就是现在正变成电子游戏主流的游戏。
Now, within that there is some interesting things happening. There is also a trend towards games that are good for you. Why? Well, we aging Boomers, Baby Boomers, we're eating our healthy food, we're exercising. What about our minds? Oh no, our parents are getting Alzheimer's. We better do something. Turns out doing crossword puzzles can stave off some of the effects of Alzheimer's. So, we got games like "Brain Age" coming out for the Nintendo DS, huge hit. A lot of people do Sudoku. In fact some doctors prescribe it.
现在,这内部又发生了一些有趣的事情。 又一种潮流就是有益性。 为什么?我们年老了, 我们是婴儿潮时出生的,我们吃保健品, 我们在锻炼身体。可是我们的智力呢? 不,我们的父母开始患上阿尔茨海默氏症。我们最好做点什么。 结果是做填字游戏能避开阿尔茨海默氏症的一些影响。 所以,我们为任天堂做的大脑时代游戏,是个巨大成功。 很多人玩数独。实际上一些医生要求病人玩。
And then there is social media, and what's happening on the Internet. Everybody now considers themselves a creator, and not just a viewer. And what does this add up to? Here is what we see coming. It's games that fit into a healthy lifestyle. They're part of your life. They're not necessarily a separate thing. And they are both, something that is good for you, and they're fun. I'm a puzzle guy. My wife is an expert in social media. And we decided to combine our skills.
然后是社会媒体,还有现在互联网上发生的一切。 现在每个人都认为自己是个创造者, 而不仅仅是一个旁观者。 而这些意味着什么呢? 接下来就是我们能看到的将要发生的事。 适合健康的生活方式的游戏。 它们是我们生活的一部分。它们不一定非得是一个独立的东西。 而且它们既是对你有益的东西,又很有趣。 我是个游戏迷。我妻子是社会媒体方面的专家。 我们决定将我们的技能结合起来。
Our first game is called "Photo Grab." The game takes about a minute and 20 seconds. This is your first time playing my game. Okay. Let's see how well we can do. There are three images. And we have 24 seconds each. Where is that? I'll play as fast as I can. But if you can see it, shout out the answer. You get more -- Down, okay, yeah where is that? Oh, yeah. There, okay. J-O and -- I guess that's that part. We got the bow. That bow helps. That's his hair. You get a lot of figure-ground problems. Yeah, that one is easy. Okay. So, ahhh! Okay on to the next one. Okay, so that's the lens. Anybody? Looks like a black shape. So, where is that? That's the corner of the whole thing. Yeah, I've played this image before, but even when I make up my own puzzles -- and you can put your own images in here. And we have people all over the world doing that now.
我们的第一个游戏叫“抓图”。这个游戏花费大约一分钟二十秒。 这是你们第一次玩我的游戏。好。 让我们看看我们能玩到什么程度。这儿有三张图。 而我们每张图都有二十四秒。 这个在哪儿? 我会尽我最快的速度来玩。 如果你们能看出来,喊出答案。 你们还有--下面,好的,这个在哪儿? 啊,好。那儿,好的。J-O还有-- 我猜这是那一部分。我们看到弓形了。这个弓形有帮助作用。 这个是头发。你们看到有很多图案背景问题。 啊,这个简单。好,那,啊-!好,看下一个。 好的,这个是镜头。 谁知道? 看起来像黑色的形状。那,这个在哪儿? 这个是整个东西的角儿。 是,我以前玩过这张图。 但是即使我设计我自己的游戏-- 而你们可以把你们自己的图案放在这儿。 现在全世界的人都在玩儿这个。
There we are. Visit ShuffleBrain.com if you want to try it yourself. Thank you. (Applause)
就到这里。访问ShuffleBrain.com 如果你想亲自尝试的话。谢谢。 (掌声)