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通过优化游戏内容提高用户忠诚度

发布时间:2011-10-20 11:02:59 Tags:,,,

作者:Brice Morrison

游戏如何让玩家觉得开发者“用爱”制作这款作品?游戏如何让人觉得开发者已融入所有有趣内容?游戏如何让人觉得开发者尽110%力量提供优质体验?

制作游戏涉及许多元素。有基础机制和游戏运作规则,有奖惩系统长期动机(游戏邦注:这是玩家体验游戏的理由,决定玩家体验时长)。此外,还包括美学布局、画面、音效以及旨在丰富游戏核心体验的润色元素。

游戏玩法及玩家活动是游戏设计最主要的内容。但单独来看,游戏基础机制只是个数学模型。缺乏美学元素,游戏对于非工程师人士而言不过是陈旧内容。我们需要创建规则和玩法模块。但一旦完成所有这些内容,开发者如何让人觉得自己的作品质量上乘?优秀&杰出游戏的标准是什么?

最后10%的游戏关键内容被业内人士称作“优化工作”。此时的游戏有的只是简单“完成”,只要融入更多功能和亮点,进行更多调整,游戏就能够脱颖而出,获得新生命。高度优化的作品通常都和“迷人”、“引人入胜”或“吸引人”之类的词语挂钩。制作精良的作品备受玩家青睐。

那么游戏作品可以通过哪些方式进行优化?

通过叙述优化

这里我要谈到3款游戏,它们都以类似方式巧妙完善故事叙述。《Night of the Cephalopods》是款简短的动作游戏,在游戏中,玩家扮演年轻的勇敢男子,试图从可怕的灾难中逃生。玩家只有一把猎枪和有限弹药,需凭此尽可能顺利穿过沼泽。

Night of the Cephalopods from blogspot.com

Night of the Cephalopods from blogspot.com

但《NotC》优化之处体现在故事叙事,或开发者所说的“过度叙述”。几乎所有游戏操作都会引出主角的系列言语,通常是类似这样的文字:

我怀着未知的恐惧逃离村舍,只能抓起只有几颗子弹的猎枪。几小时或几分钟过后,我恢复平静,但发现自己输了,孤独一人……

主角通常高谈论阔。当你首次重新加载,当你开枪射击但失误时,当你进入新领域或进入相同地方两次时,总会出现新音频旁白。旁白对游戏玩法没有影响,只是让玩家更加融入虚拟世界(游戏邦注:在主角呈现灾难提示的时候)。这完全就是个美学功能。

《欧顿救公主》是款截然不同的免费游戏,其中玩家进行典型但困难的平台操作。“像个管道个人”般跳上跳下,同时需避开伴随文本框中可恶叙述者的危险障碍。文本框起初旨在告知玩家控制装置的相关信息,非常正面,但几个关卡过后,它开始戏弄玩家,变成不断破坏第四堵墙的角色。评论有趣且能传递信息,但和《NotC》一样,似乎有些过度。

Orton and the Princess from jayisgames.com

Orton and the Princess from jayisgames.com

最后,颇受追捧的游戏《Portal》也将叙述机制作为自己的优化方式。和《NotC》、《Orton》类似,《Portal》融入GlaDos自动指南,引导玩家应对Aperture Science设置的离奇古怪谜题。通过使用传送门枪,玩家得以解决所有艰难的障碍,同电脑进行单方面对话,电脑会讲笑话,融入幽默元素,同时也传递信息。

游戏体验的美学优化

在《Portal》的评论中,Valve表示他们觉得融入叙述者的一大原因是虽然谜题和玩法颇具挑战性和趣味性,但一段时间后,玩家开始感到厌倦。这些游戏都是采用相同策略优化作品。玩法是基础,最重要的元素是创建模块,因为没有玩法就没有互动。但故事是供玩家猜测的内容。在玩家完成游戏设计挑战后,随之而来的故事和美学内容是促使游戏富有趣味和包含丰富体验的元素。

portal from gambrinous.com

portal from gambrinous.com

许多独立游戏都在玩法和机制上有所创新,但鲜有独立或学生作品会在旁白、故事或美学布局上下功夫。这很遗憾,因为含有故事的游戏会变成游戏世界,奇幻梦境,值得访问的情境。没有故事,游戏不过就是个数学问题,虽然这能够吸引开发者大会程序员和工程师的眼球,但很多人不喜欢只是单纯解决系列复杂数学问题。

但注意:若玩法无法顺利运作,没有人会关心游戏旁白、视觉或音效优化情况。若游戏控制装置不尽如人意,或关卡设计枯燥乏味,游戏将立即被玩家抛弃。但情况是很多开发者依然无法通过最后10%完善工作,添加美学元素或进行非玩法优化工作,将一次性用户变成终身用户。上述3个例子都通过旁白优化实现这个目标,但这并非唯一途径。特效、更多复杂音效、配乐或优质图形都是你向用户表达游戏情感的途径。

在游戏接近尾声时,不妨问自己:如何优化游戏,付出110%?如何在美学、音效或图像上下功夫创造更加丰富而具有沉浸性的玩法体验?解决好这些问题,你便能获得忠实粉丝。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Polish: Turning Onetime Players Into Diehard Fans

by Brice Morrison

How can a game feel like it was made by the developers “out of love”?  How can a game seem like the developers implemented everything that they thought would be fun and interesting, lacking nothing?  How can a game feel like it went 110% to provide a top-notch experience?

There are many components to making a game.  There are the Base Mechanics, the rules of how the game works.  There are the Punishment and Reward Systems and Long Term Incentive, which fuel why the player plays and for how long.  And there is the Aesthetic Layout, the artwork, sounds, and polish layered on top of the rest of the game that help to fill out its Core Experience.

We’ve discussed before how the gameplay, what they player is actually doing, is more often than not the most important aspect of a game’s design.  But left alone, the Base Mechanics of a game are just mathematical constructs.  Without aesthetics, the game feels stale to most non-engineers.  These rules and gameplay blocks must be built.  However, once that has been taken care of, how can a developer get their game to be perceived as the highest quality?  What are the indicators of a good versus a great game?

This final, key 10% of the game is what is referred to in the industry as “polish”.  It is the time in development when the game could in fact be considered “done”, but just a few more features, tweaks, and sparkles will help it to shine through to players and stand out from the crowd and breathe life into it.  Well polished games are described with words such as “charming”, “engrossing”, “fascinating”.  Well polished games are loved by their players.

So what are some of the ways that a game can be polished?

One Strategy: Polish as Narrative Excess

There are three games I’d like to highlight in this article that both do this masterfully through similar styles.  Night of the Cephalopods (NotC) is a short action game where you play as a young intrepid man trying to survive some kind of horrible disaster.  Armed with only a shotgun and limited ammo, you trudge through the swamp seeking to stay alive as long as possible.

But the polish in NotC is in the narration, or the “narrative excess” as the developers claim.  Almost every action in the game spawns an audio clip from the main character, with such lengthy lines as:

I had run from the cottage in a blind fear, having time only to grab my shotgun with a handful of shells.  Hours or minutes later, when the madness finally fled from my heart, I found myself lost but, blessedly alone…

The main character is constantly talking aloud.  When you reload for the first time, when you fire and miss, when you enter a new area or go to the same area twice, there is almost always a new paragraph of audio narration that plays.  The narration doesn’t have any effect on gameplay, it only serves to pull the player into the fiction of the world even more as the main character drops hints of the tragedy that unfolded.  It is a purely aesthetic feature.

Orton and the Princess is a different free game where you do classic but difficult platforming action.  Jumping up and down “like a plumber” while avoiding dangerous obstacles is accompanied by a cheeky narrator in the form of a text box.  This text box begins by teaching you the controls, innocently enough, but within the first few levels it begins to mock you, effectively becoming a character that continually breaks the fourth wall.  The comments are fun but informative and, like NotC, seems to be peppered throughout the game in excess.

Finally, the critically acclaimed pro game title Portal uses narrative system as a mechanism for its polish as well.  Very similar both to NotC and Orton, Portal features ta robotic guide named GlaDos who guides and narrates to the player through the mind-bending puzzles of Aperture Science.  Using the portal gun, the player solves impossible obstacles and has a one-way dialog with the computer, who cracks jokes, provides humor, and is also informative.

Aesthetic Polish for Incredible Experiences

In the commentary for Portal, Valve reveals that one of the main reasons they decided to provide a narrator was because even though the puzzle and gameplay were challenging and interesting, after a period of time players began to get bored. Each of these titles use the same strategy to get the same feel of a well polished game title.  Gameplay is the beginning, the most important building block, because without gameplay there is no interactivity.  But story is what keeps people guessing.  After the player has solved the game design challenges, the story and the aesthetic content coming up are what makes the game interesting and filled out.

Many independent games appear to innovate in terms of gameplay or mechanics, but few indie or student titles innovate in terms of narrative, story, or Aesthetic Layout. This is unfortunate, because with a story the game is a world, a fantasy, a place worth visiting.  Without story the game is a math problem, and while this may appeal to other programmers and engineers who meet one another at the game developer’s conference, many people are not content to just solve intricate math problems.

But beware: if the gameplay isn’t up to snuff, then no one is going to care about the narrative or visual or sound polish in a game.  If the controls had been sub-par or the level design boring in any  of these titles, then they would have been dismissed immediately.  But the fact still remains that many game developers miss out on an opportunity to turn their one time players into diehard fans by going that final 10% and adding aesthetic or non-gameplay polish.  The three examples discussed here used narrative to reach that goal, but that doesn’t have to be the only way.  Special effects, more detailed sounds or music, or stunning visuals are all other routes to express love of your game to your players.

As your game is nearing completion, ask yourself: what can be done to polish it and take it to %110?  What can be done aesthetically, in the sound or the art, to make it a richer, more immersive gameplay experience?  Answer those questions and you may find yourself with the happy problem of fans more dedicated than you thought they would ever be.(Source:thegameprodigy


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