zynga近日推出了西部狂野主题游戏FrontierVille，目前正成为各大游戏研究评论的热门对象。该游戏具备了一般社交游戏具备的各种特征，同时还具备了某些传统游戏的特征，比如通过对朋友的协助来获得更多的声望。

布莱恩-雷诺兹

zynga游戏设计部门的负责人Brian Reynolds在谈到FrontierVille时表示FrontierVille是活生生的，和世界共同呼吸（a living, breathing world）。如果你游戏中稍不留神，你的田地里马上就会荒草丛生，需要用用心去剔除了；而里面的小树会长大，长成真正的参天大树，而大树会落下籽来继续下一步的成长。

Reynolds认为他们游戏的使命在于释放每一个玩家心中的西部情结“在俄勒冈的小道上偶遇了茫茫大草原的一处小木屋”。为此，Brian Reynolds认为该游戏可以说适用于任何一个游戏玩家。

FrontierVille

It’s almost ironic that while social gaming is still in its Wild West phase, FarmVille creator Zynga seems to be giving us a knowing wink and nod by releasing a new Facebook game set in the Wild West — FrontierVille.

The new game, which debuted on June 9, has all of the trappings of a typical social game — neighbors, in-game currency, virtual goods, and even a little farming. The pioneering game also attempts to innovate by expanding those features and adding elements that we’ve seen in more traditional video games, such as a reputation meter which you fill by helping friends.

Zynga’s Head Game Designer Brian Reynolds calls FrontierVille “a living, breathing world” that encroaches on your plot of virtual land. “If you go away for a while, the weeds grown up, and you’ll have to clear them out. The little trees grow into bigger trees, grow into really big trees and the really big trees drop seeds that might start new trees. And that can be good or maybe you don’t want it so you have to decide if you want more trees to grow or not. It’s not exactly the same way you left it when you come back — there’s a sense that the wildness is alive.”

This is something that we’ve seen in video games for ages, but adding it to a social/Facebook game somehow makes the concept novel again.

Then there’s the Western theme, which we haven’t seen explored fully in a Facebook game (though touched upon in Meteor Games’ Ranch Town). Reynolds describes the game as “Oregon Trail meets ‘Little House on the Prairie’ meets FarmVille” He says the game’s concurrent release with Rockstar’s epic western Red Dead Redemption was purely coincidental. “Everyone has their Western thing going on,” he says with a laugh.

We also talked to Reynolds, who is also a seasoned video game vet who worked on several popular PC strategy games (Civilization II, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri) about how FrontierVille will fill a gap in the social gaming space, how the game will keep people coming back for more and plans for the game on iPhone. Read the rest of our interview after the jump.

What void do you think FrontierVille will fill in Facebook gaming?

I come from the entertainment industry, and in the entertainment industry you always wanna be doing new stuff. So I feel like there’s always room for something that’s good, for something that’s original, for something with good craftsmanship. And this is definitely a big investment for Zynga in doing an originally themed game. We thought about what kind of game we’d like to do and decided this was something that would appeal to a whole lot of people, and that’s why we did it. At the same time, we’re not just making a game about a theme, we also want to innovate in play and talk about the idea of the living world and new social features, basically give gamers gameplay that haven’t seen before. That’s what we think of as important to move the state of social entertainment forward.

Who is going to play FrontierVille? What’s the target audience?

I’d say it’s for everyone. When were picking out theme, one of the things we found with a frontier game, was that it appealed pretty strongly to both men and women. The men would think about their most recent Western adventure movie and pioneer life out West, and women would identify with raising family out on the pioneer. They would say, “Oh that reminds me of Little House on the Prairie.”

So it was a topic with a broad appeal. That’s what we’re always aiming for in a social game because you want your friends to be interested in playing it — all your different kinds of friends — so you have a good social experience.

What are the expectations for FrontierVille when you launch? Zynga is very statistics driven, so what are the expectations?
We think it’s going to do well. [Reynolds declined to share number goals]. Our most recent game was Treasure Isle and it took off really well — we’re really happy with that. If we can get going as well as Treasure Isle, that is a good start for us. Treasure was the fastest growing social game ever [5 million players in one week].

What’s been the most challenging aspect of designing a social game, even with all of your video game experience behind you?
I had to get a feel for what’s the right level of simplicity that you can put in a game for a mass market audience. I’ve done a little bit of casual game work before, but certainly not a totally mass market social game. That came pretty naturally, because the way I learn how to design games was to make simple parts and making them interact in subtle ways. So there’s nothing in FrontierVille that’s very complicated, but then there’s a lot of interesting things to click on, and it’s a very open game board where you can choose your own adventure.

I had to put a lot of thought of making a game more social — how to improve the social experience. Some of these things we talked about with reputation, visiting and seeing neighbors little person there and family as you start to accumulate family members in your make-believe frontier family. Those all seemed to resonate with people we were testing with.

Can you give us a hint at what else is to come in FrontierVille in the next few months?

I can give you a little hint because when you start the game, and you’re out there in the wilderness and gotten there in your covered wagon, and you’re unpacking and getting going — off toward the edge of the map you can see some signs leading to some potential different places that are coming soon. There’s a sign pointing toward gold rush and toward Rattlesnake Canyon, and there’s a couple more in there hidden in the forest. We’re going to have… We won’t neglect any area we’ve traditionally serviced in support of games, but in terms of hinting at some interesting broad strokes that we’ve got going — that’s what we’re kind of dangling out there.

We’ve seen FarmVille number drop quite a bit over the past few weeks/months? Do you think people are just tired of the game? Are they tired of social gaming Does that mean social games have a short shelf life? What’s your take on it?

I don’t really know why FarmVille numbers have dropped. I’m a game designer more than a metritician. My job is to keep new exciting content flowing in. I know in our development of FrontierVille seeing a whole bunch of interest in people test the game, we have little secret beta testing things — people say “Oh boy, can I keep this?… They want to keep on playing, doing more. I don’t see social gaming having any particular big dip, but again, I’m a game designer.

My strategy for FrontierVille is come to the market in the first place with something that has an original theme, has a bunch of simple but new things that players haven’t seen before, so it’s just going to be this exciting, fun, new toy keep and the strategy going for ward is keep putting new content out, keep it interesting for players and.. That’s what we plan to do. It’s not that we don’t plan to do that in FarmVille too.