我认为《废土》和《辐射》用来吸引玩家的东西是相似的……我们给出一个开放世界，在这里我们不会用说教的方式站在道德制高点上来告诉你要做什么。这两个世界里“正确”的事从来不明晰，有时也没有明确的、正确的事情。还有很多因果关系和很多微妙的东西。在一个末世的世界中，有多层的游戏性，以及一个有趣的战斗系统。

I think the things that drew people to Wasteland and Fallout are the similarities. [...] There was this open sandbox world and we weren't preaching to you as to how to behave, in terms of a morality perspective. The ‘correct' thing to do was never clear, and sometimes, there weren't clear, correct things. There was also a lot of cause and effect and a lot of subtlety; layers and layers of gameplay in a post-apocalyptic world, with an interesting combat system.

布莱恩·法戈，
《废土》制作人

Brian Fargo,
Wasteland’s director

《废土》的这套设定系统复杂但优雅。这种优雅体现在游戏机制操作的简单上，即能够选择任何属性、物品或技能，然后在环境中选择一个物体，使其发挥作用。敢这样设定的冒险类游戏往往都很成功：玩家想研究物体，可以；想用质子斧一刀把门或者墙劈开，也可以。

这就是《废土》的亮点。同样的闪光点还有远超说明手册记录内容的技能树。这为游戏增添了更多的神秘要素，让玩家有探索游戏世界的动力——玩家总会想看看在下一个图书馆能学到什么新奇技能。

尽管如此，《废土》还是有很多设计上的不足。例如在近身格斗中很难分清拳击、近战武器和斗殴的区别。有些技能对某个职业而言基本没用，但对另一个职业（比如医生）而言就是核心能力。游戏状态数据也是如此：比如魅力属性就没什么意义。

The system is elegant, difficult and confusing at the same time. The elegance comes in the simple mechanic of being able to select any attribute, item, or skill, and then select an object in the environment for that to act on. An adventure game mechanic taken to the extreme with brilliant results. If you want to use Intelligence on an object, you can. If you want to use your proton axe on a wall or door, you can.

It is touches like this where Wasteland shines. Similarly, the fact the skill tree grows beyond what's in the manual adds a powerful element of mystery, driving you to explore more of the world and see what's in the next library, making the world deeper.

That said, Wasteland has its share of design confusion. It's difficult to see the differences in combat between Pugilism, Melee Weapons and Brawling. Some skills are largely useless, while others are critical (Doctor, for example). The same is true for stats: some attributes, such as Charisma, hold little value.

由于当时的设备内存限制，游戏的大部分文本是写在说明手册上的，然后再根据游戏过程的要求来阅读相关页数。
为了避免玩家自行剧透，手册里加入了假文本，比如一段假代码和一个完整的火星人入侵的故事。

Due to memory limitations, most of the game's text is in the printed manual. The game then asks you to read certain paragraphs.

To stop players from reading them early, fake ones were added, such as false codes or an entire storyline about a Martian invasion.

《废土》还有一个负责激怒玩家的自动存档功能，有时会把玩家困在死胡同里。（有些区域会被设计为能让玩家强制离开，例如让玩家掉进河里接受辐射的“光芒”并影响所有人，然后游戏会立即自动保存，几乎就是让玩家坐着等死）遇到这些问题我会直接把磁盘给强退出来，我年纪大了一点之后会预先单独制作一份带存档的游戏拷贝，免得把自己搞得手足无措。

《废土》是我玩过的最好的 RPG 游戏之一。它将优秀的理念融入到了实际的设计当中，而创造了如此高的成就；关卡富有创造力，背景设定在当时也相当新颖。蝎子机甲、机器人、嗜血兔子和游戏中的一切，20 年后依然还保留在我的心中。

我曾发誓，如果有机会，我一定要加入到续作的开发中去。感谢布莱恩・法戈，我才有机会加入到《废土 2（Wasteland 2, 2014）》关卡设计工作中。我希望新一代玩家能像我一样喜欢上《废土》。

Wasteland also had an annoying auto-save function that could sometimes trap you in dead-end situations (some area designs can push you out of an area, say, by falling into a river and irradiating everyone, then saves the game right after, almost guaranteeing a slow death). This often forced me to quickly yank the disk or, when I was older, set up copies of the game to prevent being trapped with no hope of salvation.

Wasteland is one of the best role-playing games I've ever played, and it's echoed in the design philosophy and how they accomplish so much by exposing their systems to design. That, matched with the sheer creative brilliance of the levels and the novelty of the setting, has kept it in my heart for over 20 years, Scorpitrons, androids, bloodthirsty rabbits, and all.

I swore that if I ever had the chance, I'd work on a sequel, and, thanks to Brian Fargo, I got the opportunity with Wasteland 2 (2014). I hope the next generation enjoys the wasteland as much as I did.