Description
A game which ends with either no winners or the players winning as a group but a single player being recognized as the individual winner as well.
Discussion
Semi-cooperative games are like cooperative games because players can all lose together to the game itself. However, if the players manage to overcome the game, one of the players will be crowned the individual victor, or a kind of most valuable player, based on some in-game achievement. A group’s enjoyment of this style of the game depends on all members having the same answer to the question of whether a group win, coupled with an individual loss, is superior to a total group loss. If players are split on this question, those for whom an individual loss is as bad as a group loss will not seek optimal cooperative plays and may even sabotage the group while trying to secure a winning individual position. Players who prefer to win as a group, even if they lose as individuals, will be incensed by this conduct, and unhappiness will follow for everyone. There’s a strong connection between semi-cooperative games and roleplaying games (RPGs). RPGs typically feature a similar dynamic: all players want to follow the main plot narrative and defeat the big bad, but each player has individual motivations that may sometimes work at cross-purposes, and in any case, each player is motivated to secure the greatest in-game rewards in terms of wealth, experience points, glory, etc. These competing motivations can help weave a complex and gripping narrative. In tabletop games,
a semi-cooperative structure can create memorable moments of last-second betrayal and competitive jockeying for position. Semi-cooperative games are fascinating as a design study because of how players engage with them. Many groups will play semi-cooperatives as co-ops, ignoring the individual win conditions or treating them as a means for recognizing a great performance by some players, rather than as a win condition to be claimed. Others will embrace the notion of an individual win and engage in brinksmanship in almost total violation of the cooperative element of the game. Despite the broad range of possible play styles, each group typically has a very narrow idea of the “right way” to play the game. In other words, it’s unlikely that the same group would play Arkham Horror as a total co-op one night and then as a semi-co-op another night. Actually, you might be hard-pressed to find anyone who plays Arkham Horror with any care for the individual win condition. The game holds little attraction for players looking for that experience. Crafting a semi-co-op that is satisfying to play and that manages to incentivize both the individual and cooperative aspects of the game is like trying to land a jet plane in a phone booth. Another route a designer can consider is introducing cooperative elements into a competitive game without creating a cooperative loss condition. Games like Kingsburg and Survive: Escape from Atlantis achieve this in different ways. In Kingsburg, all players must face a common foe at the end of each year. In Survive, players can share common resources like lifeboats to escape the ocean’s dangers. These cooperative opportunities can enrich the game and create internal drama without confusing players as to their incentives or causing distress over what type of game players they thought they sat down to. Note that this structure is not applicable to games where players sometimes cooperate and sometimes compete but where one player ultimately wins. The “everyone loses” condition is a necessary component of semi-cooperative games under our definition. Games that feature both cooperation and competition but only a single winner are not structurally distinct from competitive games (STR-01), though they often have explicit Negotiation mechanisms (ECO-18).
Sample Games
Archipelago (Boelinger, 2012) Arkham Horror (Krank, Launius, Petersen, and Willis, 1987) Castle Panic (De Witt, 2009) CO2 (Lacerda, 2012) Defenders of the Realm (Launius, 2010) Kingsburg (Chiarvesio and Iennaco, 2007) Legendary Encounters family of deck-building games (Cichoski and Mandel, 2014) The Omega Virus (Gray, 1992) Republic of Rome (Berthold, Greenwood, and Haines, 1990) Survive: Escape from Atlantis (Courtland-Smith, 1982)
描述
以没有赢家或玩家作为一个群体获胜（但单个玩家也被认为是个人赢家）结束的游戏（Semi-Cooperative Games）。
讨论
半合作游戏类似于合作游戏，因为玩家可能会一起输给游戏本身。然而，如果玩家设法战胜游戏，其中一名玩家将根据某些游戏内成就加冕为个人胜利者，或某种最有价值玩家（MVP）。团队对此类游戏的享受取决于所有成员是否对以下问题有相同的答案：即群体胜利加上个人失败是否优于完全的群体失败。如果玩家在这个问题上分歧，那些认为个人失败与群体失败一样糟糕的人将不会寻求最佳的合作游戏，甚至可能在试图确保获胜的个人位置时破坏群体。即使作为个人失败也更喜欢作为一个群体获胜的玩家会被这种行为激怒，每个人都会感到不快。半合作游戏和角色扮演游戏（RPG）之间有很强的联系。RPG通常具有类似的动态：所有玩家都想跟随主要情节叙事并击败大坏蛋，但每个玩家都有可能有时会相互冲突的个人动机，无论如何，每个玩家都有动力在财富、经验值、荣誉等方面获得最大的游戏内奖励。这些相互竞争的动机有助于编织一个复杂而扣人心弦的故事。在桌面游戏中，
半合作结构可以创造最后一秒背叛和竞争位置的难忘时刻。作为设计研究，半合作游戏令人着迷，因为玩家如何与其实动。许多小组会将半合作游戏当作合作游戏玩，忽略个人胜利条件，或者将其作为某种认可某些玩家出色表现的手段，而不是作为要主张的胜利条件。其他人将拥抱个人胜利的概念，并几乎完全违反游戏的合作元素进行边缘政策。尽管可能的游戏风格范围很广，但每个小组通常对玩游戏的“正确方式”有一个非常狭隘的想法。换句话说，同一组人不太可能在某个晚上将《Arkham Horror》作为完全合作游戏玩，然后在另一个晚上作为半合作游戏玩。实际上，你可能很难找到任何在乎个人胜利条件下玩《Arkham Horror》的人。该游戏对寻求那种体验的玩家没有什么吸引力。制作一个令人满意的半合作游戏，并且设法激励游戏的个人和合作方面，就像试图在电话亭里降落喷气式飞机一样。设计师可以考虑的另一条路线是在不创造合作失败条件的情况下将合作元素引入竞争性游戏。像《Kingsburg》和《Survive: Escape from Atlantis》这样的游戏以不同的方式实现了这一点。在《Kingsburg》中，所有玩家必须在每年年底面对一个共同的敌人。在《Survive》中，玩家可以共享救生艇等公共资源以逃避海洋的危险。这些合作机会可以丰富游戏并创造内部戏剧，而不会混淆玩家的动机或导致玩家对他们以为自己坐下来玩的游戏类型感到苦恼。请注意，此结构不适用于玩家有时合作有时竞争但最终一名玩家获胜的游戏。“每个人都输”的条件是我们定义下半合作游戏的必要组成部分。既有合作又有竞争但只有一个赢家的游戏在结构上与竞争性游戏（STR-01）没有区别，尽管它们通常具有明确的谈判机制（ECO-18）。
游戏范例
Archipelago (Boelinger, 2012) - 《群岛争霸》 Arkham Horror (Krank, Launius, Petersen, and Willis, 1987) - 《魔镇惊魂》 Castle Panic (De Witt, 2009) - 《城堡危机》 CO2 (Lacerda, 2012) - 《二氧化碳》 Defenders of the Realm (Launius, 2010) - 《Defenders of the Realm》 Kingsburg (Chiarvesio and Iennaco, 2007) - 《Kingsburg》 Legendary Encounters family of deck-building games (Cichoski and Mandel, 2014) - 《传奇遭遇》系列 The Omega Virus (Gray, 1992) - 《The Omega Virus》 Republic of Rome (Berthold, Greenwood, and Haines, 1990) - 《罗马共和国》 Survive: Escape from Atlantis (Courtland-Smith, 1982) - 《逃离亚特兰蒂斯》