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.
過去這二十年來,我一直在設計益智遊戲, 今天我打算讓各位瞭解一下這整個過程, 從我設計的第一個益智遊戲 到現在我正在開發的遊戲。 我曾為書籍設計益智遊戲,也有一些印刷類的東西。 我是探索雜誌的益智遊戲專欄作家, 我做了有十年之久; 我還設計了一個益智遊戲月曆, 也設計一些玩具。我大部分的工作是在設計電腦遊戲, 我設計了方塊寶石(Bejeweled), (掌聲) 方塊寶石不是我發明的,我不敢居功。
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.
我設計的第一個益智遊戲, 是在六年級的時候,老師說: 「噢,我們來看看,這傢伙喜歡製作東西, 我來叫他把紙板上的字母 剪下來。」 我覺得這個作業很棒, 所以我想到了這個。我開始擺弄這些字母, 我選了其中一個字母,這是一個 只被摺疊一次的英文字母, 你們猜猜這是哪一個字母? 提示一下:不是“L”。 (笑聲) 當然有可能是“L”, 還有其他的可能嗎? 是的,你們有人猜到了。 噢,很聰明吧?
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.
這是我設計的第一個益智遊戲,我從此迷上了益智遊戲。 我創造出新的益智遊戲,我很高興, 因為我曾經做過字謎, 但那就像是陷在別人的框架裡一樣。 我做的是原創性的東西,我著迷了。 我讀了美國科學雜誌上Martin Gardner的專欄, 所以我決定要投入我所有的時間,去設計益智遊戲。
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.
現在先停下來解釋一下我所謂的益智遊戲, 益智遊戲是一種很有趣的問題, 而且有一個標準答案。 「很有趣的問題」和一般日常生活所遇到的問題不同, 也就是說日常的問題並不是設計精良的益智遊戲。 你知道,這些日常問題可能有答案, 但可能要花上很多時間解答,沒有人把規則清楚地寫下來。 那是誰設計這些日常問題的呢? 嗯,人生並不沒有那麼簡單, 所以我們還得請編劇來寫電影劇本。
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.
嗯,我每天也會面對日常生活的問題,而我從中創造出益智遊戲。 再說「標準答案」,可能不只一個標準答案, 很多益智遊戲的答案都不只一個。 但是相較於其他形式的遊戲, 像是玩具或是電玩, 你在玩玩具的時候並不會想到要達到什麼特定的目的, 你可以用樂高創造一個東西出來, 你想做什麼都可以。 而像競賽式的遊戲,比如說西洋棋, 你不是要去解決什麼問題,你當然可以製作一個西洋棋的益智遊戲, 但是目的卻只是要擊敗對手。
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.
我認為益智遊戲具有藝術的成份, 起源自非常古老以前,可以追溯到有文字記錄以前; 它的形式是小巧的,像是笑話、 詩、魔術或是歌曲等,結構很緊實。 最差的也不過是被丟掉,或是用來娛樂人們; 但是最好的益智遊戲卻可以深入人心, 讓人們留下深刻的記憶。 我的職業生涯就是在追尋 讓人留下深刻記憶的益智遊戲。
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)
早期我就發現,當我在設計電腦遊戲時, 我可以利用某些益智遊戲來改變人們的看法。 我會告訴你們怎麼做,這是很有名的一幅圖, 有二個黑色人影,或是一個白色瓶子在中間, 這叫做圖案背景幻像。 知名藝術家M.C. Escher在他幾張很棒的圖片裡 創造了這種幻像技術。 這是白晝和黑夜, 這是我做的圖案背景幻像, 這是黑色的 “FIGURE”, 這是白色的 “FIGURE”, 這些都是同一張圖裡的相同設計, 某個字樣的背景就是另一個字樣。 我本來想做“FIGURE” (圖案) 和“GROUND”(背景)這二個字, 但我承認我做不到,所以我改變了問題, 現在全部都是“FIGURE”了。 (笑聲)
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.
還有其他幾個類似的圖形。這是我的名字, 但是翻轉過來就成了我第一本書的標題 “Inversions”, 現在我們稱這種設計為「雙向字」。 我讓你們再看幾個例子, 這裡有一到十的數字,其實是零到九的數字, 每一個字母都是由這些數字組成, 這並不是傳統的「雙向字」, 我想要看看「雙向字」可以怎麼變化。
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.
這是 “MIRROR”這個字,這個不是上下顛倒的字, 而是翻面相同的字。 在Media Lab有一個了不起的傢伙, 他剛被指派為RISD的負責人,他是John Maeda, 所以我為他做了這個。這有點像視覺上的藝術作品。 (笑聲) 最近我在「魔術」雜誌上, 為幾個魔術師的名字設計了雙向字, 這是Penn and Teller,顛倒過來也是一樣。 這在我的益智遊戲月曆上也有, 好,讓我們回到投影片, 謝謝各位。
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.
那些是看起來很有趣的東西, 該怎麼做成可以互動的遊戲呢? 有一陣子我擔任界面設計師, 所以我思考了很多有關於互動的問題。 嗯,我們先來簡化剛才那個瓶子的幻像, 把它做成右邊的樣子。 現在,如果你能挑起黑色的瓶子, 就好像把圖案放到上面一層來, 若你把白色區塊挑起來, 就好像圖案跑到下一層了。 你當然不可能實際上這樣做, 但是在電腦上卻可以做到。讓我們看一下電腦。
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."
就是這個,圖案和背景遊戲。 這個遊戲是要讓人從左邊的方塊裡挑選色塊, 並且移動色塊,好變成和右邊方塊一樣的形狀。 這符合我剛才說的定義, 白色區塊裡的黑色區塊是可以被挑起來的, 黑色區塊裡的白色區塊也可以被挑起來。 所以這中間有白色區塊, 你就可以把它挑起來。 我要再進到下一關, 就是這裡, 有好幾個區塊,移動這些區塊, 這個區塊是可以移動的。 你真的可以直入人心, 讓他們體驗一些事情, 就像有一句諺語說的: 「坐而言, 不如起而行。」
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.
你還可以嚐試一個遊戲, 這個遊戲叫做尖峰時刻, 這個遊戲是真正的大師級作品, 就像魔術方塊一樣經典。 這是一個擁擠的停車場, 車子停得很滿, 你的任務是要把紅色的車子開出去,這是移動區塊的益智遊戲, 是Think Fun公司的產品。 真的很好玩,我很愛這個遊戲。
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.
讓我們來玩一下看看,這是最簡單的初級遊戲, 嗯,這個太簡單了,加上其他的方塊吧, 好,你要怎麼把紅車開出去? 嗯,先把藍車移開。 我們再試難一點的,還是很簡單吧? 再難一點,只要再難一點就好。 好,這個看起來有點難度了吧? 現在該怎麼辦? 要先移動哪一輛車? 你得先把藍車移上去,好讓紫車可以移到右邊。 你也可以把難度提昇到像這樣,完全無法解答。 這四輛車互相串接,無法分開。
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.
我想接下去做出類似的東西, 原始的創意當然不是我的,但我的工作 有一部分就是要做出類似的東西, 所以我做了這個。這是火車版的尖峰時刻, 基本上和前面的遊戲一樣,我只加了一個新的方塊, 可以上下左右移動。 在原來的遊戲裡,汽車只能前後移動, 這個方塊把遊戲的難度整個拉高了。 我現在想要把這個遊戲推廣到學校去, 裡面附有習題,讓你不只學會 如何解答每一個停車問題, 還讓你知道背後的原理, 讓你可以應用到數學、科學或其他領域上。
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."
我希望你們都能像我一樣創造出 屬於自己的益智遊戲, Gary Trudeau把自己稱為具有偵探性格的卡通畫家, 因為他在畫任何卡通之前,都會做許多研究。 在探索雜誌裡,我就是具有偵探性格的益智遊戲創作者。 我對基因的排序很有興趣, 所以我說:「你們到底是怎麼把DNA 成對排序出來的啊?」 剪斷DNA,再把每一個獨立的DNA排好, 找看看有沒有重疊的地方, 你會發現在邊緣的地方可以互相重疊。於是我說: 「這有點像拼圖,只是有些圖形是重疊的。」
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.
所以我為探索雜誌製作了這個, 剛好可以在雜誌上進行解答。 你無法把這些圖形剪下來,然後任意移動。 所以總共有九個圖形,你要把這九個圖形放進這個方塊裡, 你要挑選邊緣可以重疊的圖形放進去, 只有一個解答,不是很難, 但要有點耐心。 當你完成之後,會出現一個圖形, 你如果瞇著眼睛看,就會看到 “HELIX”這個字。 所以這是一種從內容發想出來的益智遊戲, 而不是顛倒過來的作法。
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.
還有其他的例子。這是一個物理學的益智遊戲, 這組積木會從什麼方向倒下來? 這些積木各有50磅、30磅及10磅重, 每一個積木的重量就可以決定 倒下來的方向。 而這個則是調色的益智遊戲, 我把圖片製作成青、赤、黃、黑等 基本印刷原色,然後把不同的色塊混合在一起, 就會得出這張獨特的照片。 要用哪一個色塊才能混合出這張照片呢? 讓你好好想想顏色的問題。
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.
最後,我來說說我現在正在做的事。我有一個網站ShuffleBrain.com, 你們可以上去看看,是我和我太太Amy-Jo Kim一起架設的。 如果她到台上來,也可以分享許多她的工作內容。 我們在為社交媒體製作電玩遊戲, 我待會兒會解釋這個部分。我們現在關心的有三個趨勢, 這是現在電玩產業的趨勢。 首先,長久以來 大家都認為電玩就是像世界末日(Doom)這種遊戲, 你會跑來跑去,開槍射來射去,很暴力的遊戲、講究速度, 目標族群是青少年男生。對不對?小男生就愛玩這種電玩。
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.
現在呢?電玩在改變哦, 方塊寶石很受歡迎,這個遊戲顛覆了 一般人對休閒遊戲的概念, 主要是三十五歲以上的女性在玩。 最近則是搖滾樂團(Rock Band)最受歡迎, 你可以和其他人一起玩這個遊戲, 很有真實感,一點也不像傳統的遊戲, 這逐漸變成電子遊戲的主流。
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.
電玩界還有一些有趣的事情正在發生, 目前正在興起一股健康的潮流, 為什麼?我們這一代嬰兒潮出生的人, 吃都是健康食品, 也注重運動,那我們的心智呢? 噢,不好,我們的父母都深受阿茲海默症的威脅,我們得做些什麼, 我們發現做字謎遊戲可以減輕一些阿茲海默症的症狀。 所以任天堂DS推出了頭腦年齡(Brain Age)這個遊戲,而且大受歡迎。 很多人也做數獨,還有醫師指定病人要做。
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.
然後又產生了社交媒體,也就是現在網路上最流行的東西。 每個人現在都可以是創作者, 而不只是單純的閱讀者。 這所有的事情代表什麼? 我們可以看到未來的潮流, 也就是電玩要能融入健康的生活型態, 他們是你生活的一部分,不一定要與你的生活脫鈎; 電玩可以對你的健康有幫助,同時又很好玩。 我是創作益智遊戲的人,我的太太是社交媒體的專家, 所以我們決定將二者結合。
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.
我們的第一個遊戲是找照片(Photo Grab),這個遊戲大約有一分20秒, 讓你們先玩玩這個遊戲。 我們來看看自己有多會玩這個。有三張照片, 每一張有24秒的時間, 這個圖片在哪裡? 我會儘量快一點找到, 但是如果你先看到了,就喊出來告訴我。 你會有更多...結束了,好,在哪裡? 噢,太好了,那裡,好。J..O.. 我猜是那裡...小提琴的弓,這個提示不錯, 那是他的頭髮,你會看到很多圖案背景幻像, 噢,這個簡單多了。好,現在,啊...好吧,我們到下一個, 這是鏡頭, 有誰可以幫忙嗎? 看起來是黑色的圖案,到底在哪裡? 這是照片的角落... 對,我以前就玩過這張照片了, 但即使我是這個遊戲的創作者... 你可以把自己的照片放上來, 現在全世界已經有許多人開始這樣做了。
There we are. Visit ShuffleBrain.com if you want to try it yourself. Thank you. (Applause)
這就是我們的遊戲。如果你想自己試試, 就上ShuffleBrain.com來看看吧,謝謝各位。 (掌聲)