NaturalMotion Games起初是家游戏技术公司，其Euphoria技术受到广泛运用（游戏邦注：包括《侠盗猎车手IV》和百事可乐的电视广告）。由于iPhone的诞生，Natural Motion开始转投制作新型手机游戏，目前他们已推出数款热门iOS作品。NaturalMotion的5款付费游戏共有1200多万次的下载量。Torsten Reil日前在谈话中分享公司的15点制胜秘诀。

游戏构思

My Horse from blasteroids.com

1. 具有独特性。市面上的游戏作品很多，你需要能够从中脱颖而出。Torsten以《My Horse》为例，这款免费游戏下载量达500多万次。

2. 保持简短。应顾及那些一次只玩几分钟的玩家。很多手机玩家一次只玩一小会儿。

3. 共同体验。支持社交异步体验，即便玩家都持有设备或玩法能够在线共享。

4. 把握游戏用户。游戏构思很多，但你需要判断自己的用户群体是否会喜欢此构思。

设计和玩法

5. 保持简单化。不要让玩家费神进行思考。也许你觉得显而易见的内容在玩家眼中不是如此。See Torsten谈及他们如何反复更新《Backbreaker》（游戏邦注：游戏下载量550万次）设计，如何通过在《My Horse》中引入用户指南将游戏首日留存率由38.5%增至44%。

6. 让用户感觉良好。玩家不希望遭遇糟糕感觉。尤其是iPhone用户，他们希望在游戏中获胜。休闲玩家通常因最初的“成功结果”而最终变成游戏用户。

7. 点击操作。这是游戏的魔力所在—–但这鲜少呈线性模式，需要付出努力，优化这种操作。

8. 完善内容。只要核心玩法形成，你就需要投入较大精力润色内容。应待到时机成熟才发行内容。这在游戏中相当重要。

9. 再次完善内容。在完成初步内容润色后，再次对游戏进行修改。Torsten表示，这会让游戏体验持久留住用户。

10. 进行优化。通过分析法测试和完善游戏内容。

推广

11. 获得推荐。Torsten表示，获得推荐的关键是创造好内容。苹果和其他推广渠道通常希望推荐高质量的内容。

12. 游戏命名。游戏名称非常重要。但你可以让用户自己命名，而不是自己命名，然后确保名称能够吸引用户下载和体验游戏。

13. 图标=包装。图标能够提高App Store的下载量。你定希望自己的图标能够吸引用户眼球，在商店货架上表现突出。

14. 进行病毒式传播。对游戏进行病毒式推广的最佳方式是最古老的方式——玩家向好友展示设备和游戏。试着在游戏中创造“口头传播”时刻，让玩家向其他好友展示游戏内容。

15.做好调整准备。留心观察市场，查看商业模式的变化，及时做出相应调整。（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）

How to Create a Hit iPhone Game – Torsten Reil

Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion, spoke at HackFwd’s Build 0.8 event on how to create a hit iPhone game.

NaturalMotion Games started out as a game technology company, and their Euphoria-technology has been used from Grand Theft Auto IV to Pepsi TV ads (check out the Pepsi ad 3:00 into the talk). With the introduction of the iPhone, Natural Motion moved into creating new types of mobile games and among them, have created multiple big hits for the iOS. NaturalMotion’s five paid games have had over 12 million downloads. In this talk, Torsten shared his 15 tips for creating a homerun. Watch the video for a discussion on all of them, with some great examples and numbers.

Game idea

1. Be unique. There are lots of games out there, and you need to differentiate with your game. Torsten’s example is My Horse, a free-to-play virtual pet-type game that’s seen over 5 million downloads.

2. Let them snack. Cater for players who play for a few minutes at a time. Many mobile users play for short amounts at a time.

3. Play together. Also cater for social, asynchronous gaming, even where the device is passed around or the gameplay is shared online.

4. Know your audience. There are huge amounts of ideas, but you have to understand how your (potentially very large) audience relates to the game idea.

Design and gameplay

5. Simplify. Don’t make people think. Things you think are obvious may well not be. See Torsten’s examples starting at 10:20 from Natural Motion’s Backbreaker (5.5 million downloads) and how they iterated the design, and, how introducing a tutorial to My Horse increased first-day retention from 38.5% to 44%.

6. Make them feel good. People don’t like to suck. Especially the iPhone audience likes to play to succeed in the game. Especially the casual gamer needs a “success event” early on in the game to convert into users.

7. Click! There’s a magic point where you realize that it just works – but it’s hardly linear, says Torsten. With the hard work, it will come.

8. Polish! Once the core gameplay is there, you will spend enormous effort in polishing it. Don’t ship it until it is ready. This is especially important in games.

9. Polish more! Once you’ve polished it, do it more. You are not hitting diminishing returns doing this, says Torsten, but you are creating the experience, the flow that will make the users stay.

10. Optimize. Use analytics to test and improve everything in the game and around it.

Distribution

11. Get featured. The hard work is done. The key to getting featured is doing the hard work described before, Torsten says. Apple and other distribution channels will want to feature the highest quality

12. You name it. The name of the game is incredibly important. But you can let people name it instead to ensure you use a name that gets people interested in downloading and playing it. Torsten shows how Natural Motion names their games, using My Horse as an example (from 20:00 in the video).

14. Icon = packaging. The icon drives the downloads from the App Stores. You want to have an icon that stops people and stands out on the store shelf.

15. Go viral. The best way for a game to go viral is the old-fashioned way, where people show the device and the game to their friends. Try to create a “word of mouth moment” in the game that the player wants to show other people, Torsten says.

16. Be ready to adapt. Keep an eye on the market, see where the business models are shifting and be ready to move based on that.（Source：hackfwd）