Disco Elysium was an awe-inspiring writing challenge. Meaning: I was afraid of it. Pretty much every night I went to sleep. What if it doesn’t come together? What if we prove the opposite of what we set out to prove: this kind of game can’t be made - it’s not fun. Or, what if it works - but we just can’t get the bugs and logic errors out of the text? “it was an interesting idea,” they’ll say (I hate interesting ideas) “but sadly a clanky mess of Eastern European jank-ware.”
《極樂迪斯科》是一次由敬畏驅動的寫作挑戰。換句話說：我在害怕它。幾乎每晚入睡前我都會思考，要是每個人的創作沒有產生化學反應怎麼辦？要是我們駁倒了我們想要證明的事情，這種遊戲實際上不可能完成，又該怎麼辦？或者，就算它成功了，我們會不會沒法擺脫劇情中的bug和邏輯錯誤？玩家們會這樣評價：“《極樂迪斯科》充滿了有趣的想法（我討厭有趣的想法），可惜它是另一款亂七八糟的東歐垃圾軟件。”
Head bowed in shame, the lowly Eastern European jank-master walks down the street. His quests are unfinishable. There are logical inconsistencies. His Journal system doesn’t work. We came very close to that last one, by the way. We designed a terrible journal system that needed a complete overhaul one year before release. This caused considerable rewrites.
讓人愧疚的是，卑賤的東歐垃圾軟件充斥在互聯網的大街小巷。他們的關卡尚未完成，他們的邏輯前後矛盾，他們的日誌系統無法運作。順便一提，我們的作品險些成為最後那種軟件。我們設計了一套糟糕的日誌系統，在發售前一年，我們不得不重構它，這導致了大量的重寫。
“Considerable rewrites” - words no game producer likes to hear.
沒有任何一個遊戲創作者想聽到*大量的重寫*這個詞。
Some numbers: The original release of Disco Elysium was 1,000,000 words long. It took us five years to write. Quite a few RPGs have scripts above a million words and they take two, maybe three years to complete. Why, then, did it take us five to write Disco Elysium (plus one more for The Final Cut)?
這裡有一些數據：最初發布的《極樂迪斯科》擁有100萬字的文本量。我們花了5年的時間去完成它。很少有RPG擁有超過100萬字的文本量，就算有，他們也只需要花2到3年就可以完成。那麼為什麼我們花了5年時間才完成了《極樂迪斯科》的文本創作呢？（最終剪輯版又多花了1年時間）
It’s because of the rewrites. About 70% of the game is a rewrite. About 50% is a rewrite of a rewrite. There are large portions of the game that are triple-distilled, quadruple-distilled, or even quintuple-distilled. (Rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite...). You’d think this results in a perfect, polished script, but large parts of Disco Elysium are bloodied and rough around the edges. We didn’t lick one version of the text endlessly, we analyzed why it didn’t work and then wrote an entirely new one. Entire scenes and versions of characters were cast aside. Some were rewritten four months before release, spring 2019 There wasn’t time to polish, we just wanted each character and scene not to completely suck.
因為重寫。大約70%的內容經過一次重寫，50%的內容經過兩次重寫。甚至有大部分的內容經過三次、四次或者五次重寫。你可能會認為這樣做使我們獲得了一部經過千錘百煉的完美劇本，然而《極樂迪斯科》的大部分內容仍然血肉模糊並且欠缺打磨。我們沒有在一個版本之上反覆修改文本，而是分析它為什麼沒有達到我們想要的效果，然後徹底重寫一遍。整個場景和人物被廢棄。有些內容在發售前四個月的時候被重寫，2019年春天已經沒有時間再繼續打磨，我們只想做到每個人物和場景不那麼胡逼。
“Make it so that it doesn’t suck” was an oft-used instruction.
“再想想辦法讓這裡別這麼胡逼。”是我當時最常下達的指示。
This constant rewriting is not how it’s usually done. It doesn’t make for a smooth production. Large parts of the company have no idea what the writers are doing. It seems they’ve lost their minds. I hear Argo is rewriting Rene. Again!
這種持續不斷的重寫並不是一般遊戲的開發方式。它不適用於平滑的商業作品。公司裡的大部分人不瞭解作家們都在幹什麼，看起來這些作家都跟失了智一樣。我聽說Argo在重寫雷內這個角色，又一次！
What it does make for are scenes and characters that are true. You fight to get to the true version of Rene. What he’d actually say. What he’d feel. We tend to think of our characters as real people. They have real dignity we need to look after. Real hearts we need to get across to the player.
不斷重寫真正的用處是使場景和人物更加真實。你努力去將雷內塑造得更加真實。他實際會說什麼，他實際的感受如何。我們嘗試把我們創造的角色當作現實中的人。他們擁有我們需要去顧及的真正尊嚴。我們需要將他們真實的內心傳達給玩家。
Another unusual part of Elysium’s writing is the micro-reactivity. We did some spooky things with reactivity is this game, which required devilishly intricate writing. We decided every playthrough should include some examples of what we call “mind reading” - moments where you feel like a real Game Master is reacting to your choices. Especially the small ones. Micro-reactivity is the game reacting to a minor choice you made long ago. For example: you have the gardening gloves from Elizabeth the Gardener, and now, many hours later, in the middle of a completely unrelated quest, you’re considering what hobby to take on. Kim should say: “Why not gardening?”
《極樂迪斯科》故事創作中另一個獨特部分是*微反饋*。我們在遊戲中加入了一些難以差覺的反饋，這需要極其錯綜複雜的文案。我們認為每一個遊戲選擇都應該包含某種被我們稱之為*心靈感應*的例子，就好像是電腦裡住著一位真正的遊戲之主在對你的選擇作出回應。特別是某些小場景。*微反饋*指的是遊戲會對你在很久之前做出的一個選擇進行反饋。舉個例子：你從園丁伊麗莎白那取得了一對園藝手套，而在幾小時之後一個完全無關任務中，你開始思考該培養一個怎樣的業餘愛好時，金會建議：“為什麼不試試園藝？”
This is cross-quest micro-reactivity and developers who aren’t brain damaged don’t have it in their games. Those moments are a doubled-edged sword. The player starts noticing when it’s not happening. Why doesn’t this guy react like that guy did? Why can’t I do this because I did that? Suddenly your whole RPG is one giant logic error that can only be corrected with endless writing. We had to write a mad amount of small content that few players will see - a big no-no in any kind of capitalist endeavor. You want to convert budget into customer enjoyment. That is: the enjoyment of the median customer, not the outlier who wants to talk about Contact Mike at the “appropriate” time.
一個精神正常的程序員絕對不會允許這種跨任務的*微反饋*出現在他們開發的遊戲中。這種片段就像雙刃劍一樣。只有當事情沒有發生時人們才會注意到它。為什麼這傢伙的反應不像那傢伙一樣？為什麼我做了這件事就不能再做那件事？你的整個RPG瞬間成為了一個邏輯錯誤，它只能被無窮無盡的文字修正。我們不得不創作出大量根本沒幾個玩家有機會看到的小型對話場景，在任何資本主義最佳實踐當中，這都是一個大忌。你想將預算轉換為用戶滿意度，那麼，一般玩家的訴求才是你該關心的，沒人會在乎那些想要在*合適*時間去談論一擊即潰·邁克的冗長故事的離群者。
Rewrites and micro-reactivity are why it took us over half a decade to write Disco Elysium. Also, we did it in a program called Articy that’s slow as hell. Our monstrous, quadruple-distilled clusters of micro-reactivity were crashing the program. We still love Articy, though It’s so indelibly green. A green garden of cute little looping arrows - that’s what our minds became for half a decade. However bad it got in production, there was always something so nice about that green garden of visual programming nodes. The promise it represented, this sprawling Alhambra pattern that was becoming our lives’ work.
重寫和*微反饋*是我們花了5年去完成《極樂迪斯科》的主要原因。另外，我們的劇本編輯工作通過一款名叫Articy的慢得難以忍受的軟件完成。我們那些怪物般的、經過四次重寫的*微反饋*無情地蹂躪著Articy。但我們仍然愛它，儘管它綠得如此不可磨滅（譯者注：此處應該指的是整個Articy操作界面的背景是墨綠色的）。一個綠色花園中種植著幾株可愛小巧的循環箭頭——這就是五年中我們思想的種子所結成的果實。不管他在生產效率的表現上有多糟，綠色花園中的可視化編程節點總是那麼美好。它所代表的未來，這種蔓延的阿爾罕布拉樣式已經成為我們畢生的事業。
“They’re gonna f-n love it!” We were also quite sure of ourselves, I remember. And each other too. Writers are quite wonderful. They really care about people. They take responsibility for what happens in a stranger’s mind when it reacts to text. They care about the feelings that are summoned. Don’t let anyone tell you writers are self-centered assholes. Isaw so many of them work so selflessly to elicit a single giggle out of a stranger huddled over a laptop screen at 3 a.m. It was never about ego, it was all about You. That abstract unknown entity Disco Elysium is constantly addressing. You see this. You do that. We hope You are delighted.
“他們一定會愛上《極樂迪斯科》的！”我記得我們對自己充滿了信心。其他人也一樣。作家們快活極了。他們真的很關心人類。作家對他人在對自己的文字做出反應時在想些什麼負責。他們在意被喚起的感受。不要相信任何人關於作家是自我中心混蛋的言論。我看見過很多作家為了引出他人一個單純的傻笑而無私地在凌晨三點的筆記本電腦屏幕前縮成一團的景象。這絕對與自負無關，只與*你*有關。就像那個抽象且陌生的實體《極樂迪斯科》不斷在陳述的一樣。你看到了這個，你做了那個。我們希望你能開心。
“Oh, wow! I can nod till I die?”
“哇哦！我可以打盹打到死？”
In case you’re a writer yourself - I wanna close this off by saying something strange and megalomaniacal. (Megalomania is what happens when you’re starved for success for 35 years.) I think the cycle of novels - The Rougon-Macquarts, The Lord of the Rings - is no longer the biggest writing challenge out there for a writer. I think that’s now the Role-Playing Game. The colossal word count, the immense intricacy, the co-writing challenge - incorporating ten writers’ voices into a single text - is just so much larger than a cycle of novels. It’s harder to accomplish. And the payoff is greater. Strangers at night behind blue screens will be grateful to you - and there are many of them.
我想以一個奇怪而*狂妄自大*的話題結束這篇文章（當你對成功渴望了35年時，唯一能支撐你繼續走下去的便是*狂妄自大*）。如果你本身就是一名作者。我認為成套小說，比如《盧貢-馬卡爾家族》或者《指環王》，對於作家來說已經不再是寫作上最大的挑戰。現在角色扮演遊戲的劇本接過了這個難題。巨大的文本量，毫無邊際的瑣碎細節，合作寫作挑戰——將十名作家的意見融入一段文本中，已經遠遠勝過成套小說。RPG劇本更難完成。然而回報也更高。入夜後那泛著藍色光芒的屏幕前的異鄉人將會歡迎你——他們無處不在。
Games spread like wildfire over the world, in a way novels never can. They cross national borders, languages, ideologies, age cohorts - in a matter of months. They change minds. They make minds. They’re so new it’s almost impossible not to innovate in them. In short, dear beleaguered colleague, consider dropping book-writing for game-writing. It’s worth it.
遊戲的傳播就像森林大火一般點燃了整個世界，以一種小說永遠也做不到的方式。在短短幾個月內，他們跨越了國境線，跨越了語言，跨越了意識心態，跨越了年齡隔閡。他們改變了思想，他們創造了思想。它們如此年輕以至於想不對它做些革新幾乎是不可能的。簡而言之，親愛的被圍困的同胞們，丟下書籍寫作，去試試遊戲寫作。它值得一試。
Robert Kurvitz, lead designer / lead writer Brighton, England December 2020
Robert Kurvitz, 首席策劃, 首席文案
布萊頓, 英格蘭
2020.12