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以“玩家《权利法案》”阐述游戏设计原则

发布时间:2013-02-10 09:14:06 Tags:,,,,

作者:Laralyn McWilliams

几年以前,我常常玩文字冒险游戏,偶然看到了Graham Nelson写的《玩家的<权利法案>》。那是他的《Craft of Adventure》文章中的一部分内容。尽管那些内容陈旧又晦涩,仍然是关于游戏设计和玩家体验的深刻见解。它的许多核心观点仍然适用于现在的游戏设计。

本文的内容部分取自Graham的《玩家的<权利法案>》,不过针对的是文字冒险游戏。以下是我提出的玩家的《权利法案》,除了结合原文的条款,我还补充了更适用的例子。

 bill-of-rights(from rickbillings.com)

bill-of-rights(from rickbillings.com)

作为玩家,我拥有的权利包括:

1、未经警告,不得被杀害

Graham在原文中以《全能战士》为例,你的任何战士随时都可能被打死——甚至躲在掩护之后也不可避免(因为当战士在角落里偷看时,敌人仍然可以瞄到他)。但是,我们创造的游戏体验毕竟是作为一种训练工具,这种死亡显然并不好玩,即使是玩家的糟糕决定导致了死亡。

为了给玩家一秒钟时间评估情形和做出反应,我们做了一系列调整。例如,我们保证在难度最低的两个模式下,敌人的第一枪永远不会杀掉你的小队里的战士。你始终有至少几秒钟的时间对敌人的进攻做出反应。这么做使玩家觉得游戏更加公平,更加有趣。策略游戏的核心是学习如何思考,如果玩家不明白发生了什么事,他们就不可能从体验中学习到任何东西。

2、禁止不清楚的指导或要求做不可能的事

在《玩家的<权利法案>》的原文中,有两条原则:一是禁止给予不明确的提示,二是禁止要求做不可能的事。Graham在这里预测到了未来:他写下这些原则时,“猫毛之谜”还没出来呢。我个人在这款基于物品目录的冒险游戏中的极限是《Kyrandia 3》中的鱼肥料谜题(如果你不希望看到我的剧透,你可以跳过下面一段。)

—-剧透开始—-

我在一个房间里,它的出口是由砖块砌成的。我的物品栏里有许多东西,比如芝麻籽和鳗鱼。我必须把鳗鱼作为芝麻籽的肥料。然后我再把芝麻籽放在门前的小洞里,之后把烧瓶里的水倒进去。生根发芽的芝麻会把砖块移开。如果你觉得太复杂了,你可以自己在网上找通关指南。

—-剧透结束—-

大多数现代游戏都有提示,但很少是关于解决谜题的线索,更多地是关于如何操作的一般指导。一些游戏采用“发现”作为游戏的核心机制,但甚至在这类游戏中,许多玩家也要靠维基和数据库网站寻找答案,而不是自己探索或实验。

所以,多少程度的清晰度才算清晰?这个问题的最佳答案要通过用户测试才知道。你极少能对你自己的游戏做出正确的清晰度判断,这是因为你太接近你的游戏了,你的技能(心理和生理)已经被好几个小时的测试打磨得非常熟练了。除了做测试,你还可以制作一个系统,让清晰度调整作为带简要说明的加载页面出现(这个可以通过小补丁或实时数据升级)。

3、允许不回顾过去或不经历未来事件而获胜

在这里,我将Graham的两条原则合二为一,因为它们有些类似。我们都经历过这种情况:你打开一个小房间,一个怪物出现在你面前,准备杀你(你猜应该是要杀你)。这个有一个现代游戏的对应版本:BOSS的唯一弱点就是火系攻击?你是不是恰好带着一种火属性武器?

在以时间为顺序的游戏中,我经常遇到这个问题。使玩家在感到压力的情况下利用他们之前学习到的技能,这是设计师非常希望达到的效果。但是,在增加使用技能的压力和预设要求(你在游戏中有很少的时间或没时间执行)之间,是存在区别的。你试图把顺序(“好吧,通过这个通道,就会有一只大蠕虫从左边爬出来”)背下来,设计师预想中的结局包含大量动作,但玩家的做法似乎与设计师的意图有所脱节。

在QTE(快速反应事件)顺序中也存在这个问题。有些游戏允许玩家按下某些按钮重放过去的体验,但这并没有改变这种局面:玩家回放顺序事件才能知道发生什么事,只能从失败中学习,这种要求使大多数QTE顺序侵犯了玩家的这条权利。

4、未经提示不允许封闭游戏

我在2012年的假期时开始写这篇文章,现在才腾出时间写完它。我原本打算写道,我还没有遇到侵犯这条权利的游戏,但在玩了《9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors》之后,我改变主意了。

999-ds-text-adventure-game(from rackcdn.com)

999-ds-text-adventure-game(from rackcdn.com)

《999》是一款冒险游戏,有点像文字冒险小说和“逃出密室”游戏的混合体。在一开始的3个小时,我确实很喜欢这款游戏;在之后的2个小时,我觉得它还凑合;最后,我恨透了这款游戏,几乎想劝告所有人不要买它的续作。这款游戏的设计前提是,如果你想做出不同的选择,以得到不同的结局,你可以按下“replay”。

当你replay时,游戏允许你跳过所有对话;玩家显然会选择这么做,因为游戏中的对话实在是太多了。另一方面,你不可以跳过或缩短逃生顺序,所以你其实是在一遍又一遍地replay相同的谜题。第一次replay时,我觉得蛮好的,因为我可以通过不同的选择玩到其他谜题。

第三次replay时,尽管我意识到我第一次选择的道路不会通向“好”结局:这需要选择的特定组合,明显地不同于你做出的任何其他选择。这款游戏有6种结局。只有一种是“好”结局。游戏没有暗示你某一种选择会导向某一种结局。在你第一次(或甚至第二次)玩游戏时,你当然没有办法确定结局。

这意味着在玩游戏时,你做的任何选择都有很大概率错过“好”结局,但是你却没有办法知道,除非你结束游戏,看到结局,然后回头把整个游戏再过一遍。

5、不必为了做某事而做某事

有些人认为游戏中的“刷”任务破坏了这一条,但并非所有“刷”任务都是很糟糕的。有些重复性任务能让玩家放松,或者蕴涵着某些“禅意”,如玩《宝石迷阵》或在《我的世界》中挖通道。在这些例子中,活动本身是有奖励的,也很简单:你点击鼠标,游戏就做出一些看似或听似有意思的反应,从而改变游戏空间。

这条原则要求游戏的重复性任务以创意、目标和环境作为基础,且不让玩家感到无聊。虽然不容易做好,但许多游戏并没有知难而退,反而肆意添加“刷”任务,并且没有执行任何弥补策略或甚至增加有趣的方面。

当你决定在游戏中添加重复性的内容时,你应该问你自己:

*是否有助于玩家达成目标?

*活动本身提供奖励吗?

*是否改变游戏空间?

如果以上问题中有任何一个的回答是NO,那么你就应该重新考虑这个机制。

6、不必思考未指明或不清楚的交互作用

在Graham版的《权利法案》中,他提出独立的两条原则:“不必拼写完全正确的动词”和“允许使用说得通的同义词。”我将这两条合并为一条。在文字冒险游戏和现代游戏中,动词之间存在直接的关系。

游戏机制的作用就是为玩家创造一个游戏的盒子,然后给玩家在盒子中演练的工具——有时候用于逃出盒子。这些工具可以是真实世界中的工具(游戏邦注:如《我的世界》中的斧子),也可以是更抽象的东西如玩家的活动模式(冲刺或格斗)。

当你给玩家一样工具时,你就做出了承诺。你,作为游戏开发者,保证这样工具能以可预见的方式发挥作用,通常与冒险和奖励有关。你还保证,在游戏的某些事件中,这个工具会非常清楚地显示出它的价值。

在好游戏中,你的目标和说明是很清楚的,并且为给定的挑战或关卡提供工具。在优秀的游戏中,整个游戏世界都在与你交流。它告诉你必须做什么(你的目标),怎么做(有清楚或模糊的路径和阻碍)以及在给定的场景中什么工具最实用。

在这方面,《塞尔达传说》就是一个典范。游戏给你的任何工具都会用于解决游戏中的某个类型难题。你可以很清楚地知道你想走哪一条路,游戏叫你做什么。甚至当很难想出正确的交互作用的顺序或组合来实现理想的结果时,交互作用本身也是很清晰的。

7、清楚得体的操作和UI

在Graham的版本中,他是这么说的:“有得体的解析器”。文字冒险小说中的文本解析器的作用,和现代游戏中的操作和UI的作用之间,存在直接的关系。

自《网络奇兵》后,我们经历了很长一段时间的发展。这款游戏是我一直很喜欢的,但它的操作和UI也是前所未见的复杂。我们现在有了更高的标准,例如当游戏的镜头不达标时,绝对会成为评论家和玩家炮轰的地方。看看《传奇米老鼠》的评价,你就知道我的意思了。

随着玩家人数增多,这个话题变得愈发有意思了。《Momentum》曾是一款常见的平台游戏,你可以松开控制器,但你的角色会继续向前移动一点儿,直到动画“停止”播放。是的,看起来是更流畅了,但也使游戏更难操作了。

与此类似,UI的开发也绕了个圈。从《网络奇兵》的复杂开始,到极简单的相位同步(《逃离现场》让我们可以数子弹》,正是兜了个圈回到原点。如Scaleform等开发工具的进步使我们更容易制作精细而生动的UI元素。因为我们可以让HUD弹跳和显示出生动的细节,并不意味着我们就应该这么做。

8、不要太依靠运气

这条原则在游戏设计师之间存在争议。例如,当我们玩儿童卡牌游戏《自由国度》时,当我们玩《口袋妖怪》时,在很大程度上是靠运气。有些设计师认为那没什么问题,甚至很适合儿童游戏(所以你可以跟更老的玩家争辩,且仍然有可能驳倒他);但也有设计师就是讨厌运气这种游戏概念。

在免费游戏如《Candy Crush Saga》中,运气是一个惯用的元素,可以用作入口;当然,在许多RPG中,随机掉落物品也算是运气的一种表现形式。

candy-crush-saga(from mmohunter)

candy-crush-saga(from mmohunter)

我认为运气是否是一种正当的玩家工具取决于游戏类型,以及玩家技能对元素的影响。如果该元素与玩家的技能密切相关,那么摇到一个糟糕的骰子点数就不会让人觉得不公平。在许多根据传统服务器端的逻辑判定伤害的FPS MMO中,你可以清楚地看到这一点。枪是否命中敌人的头部并不重要,因为命中敌人的肘部造成的伤害是一样的。作为玩家,你觉得你做了正确的事——你以游戏暗示你应该采用的方式使用了你的工具,你被自己所期望的结果欺骗了。

另一方面,如果随机性与玩家的技能无关,也可能会有趣。例如,掉落物品机制的执行就严重依赖运气成分,因为击杀怪物之后的奖励与玩家的技能无关。技能只是杀死怪物,并不能决定掉落什么。

9、一旦问题解决,就应该理解问题

假设玩家的体验是这样的:

你做了一件事。这件事似乎很了不起。你觉得自己聪明。

几乎所有游戏都有一些需要玩家思考的事,一些策略元素;例如作为一种提高操作灵活度的策略,或甚至购买一个更灵敏的鼠标,但它仍然是一种“如何在游戏空间中表现得更好”的策略。

在策略中,玩家满足感的关键循环就是,从问题解决到玩家理解问题;从解决失败到玩家理解失败原因。当你创造游戏的盒子并给玩家工具时,你必须保证闭合你所承诺的循环。

10、不要有太多死路

Graham提出的是“不要有太多不相干的结论”。我们玩过许多游戏看似有多条路径,实际上只有一条可行,其他的要么通向有怪物的小房间,要么是死路。

我一直记在心里的一件事是,你绝对无法使玩家不产生失败的感觉,即使玩家其实没有失败;即使这是一款通道射击游戏,如果玩家觉得还有未探索的选项或可以走的边道——如果他觉得失败,那么这个效果就正像是你创造了一个被多条路径复杂化、搞混乱的关卡。

11、必须知道游戏如何进展

可能直到有人问:“这游戏你快玩完吗?”你才意识到你自己也不知道。知道你在游戏的哪个阶段,对于让玩家产生沉浸感和完成游戏的动力是非常重要的。这个要求尽管复杂,但有时候会对游戏的推广产生深刻的影响。

这个要求的表现形式有多种。第一,你对技术掌握程度:我玩得有多好?我是否做出正确的选择?我是不是在这方面有进步了?这正是我玩《999》时遇到的难题——我觉得我做了正确的选择,但我没有客观的方式来评估它,所以当我得到“坏”结局时,我感到我被骗了。

第三,你在游戏中的进程:我玩到一半了还是快完了?剧情要收尾了吗?我现在的得分有没有可能冲到排行榜?例如,在大多数多人竞技游戏中,在比赛中,因为没有任何提示告诉我在排行榜上的名次,所以我马上就迷失自己的进度了。

无论你是否讨厌成就和得分,玩家已经越来越习惯于这些系统了。当你的游戏没有这两种中的任何一种,你的玩家就很难感知自己的技能水平和进度。为了让你的玩家产生进步感,你可以考虑把你的游戏分成章节,即使玩家并不知道游戏中到底有多少章节。与此类似,试试把武器选择排列成树状(以便玩家根据自己解锁的武器知道自己的当前进度)。

12、花钱花得值当

这是玩家的《权利法案》的附加条款,我认为现在的免费模式和免费游戏都忽略这一条了。

对于一款打上固定售价的游戏,它的价值归根结底体现在它提供的体验上。有些玩家认为它的价值就是有多少小时的游戏玩法,但其实是体验的质量(和可重复游戏性)。总的来说,开发者已经有足够的商业经验了,知道该给游戏标多少价。

不过在免费模式或免费游戏中,我们仍然在琢磨这个问题。在价值的频谱中,社交游戏处于一个极端。花50美元买相当于15分钟的游戏时间,这是简单的——甚至一程度上是普遍的。没有多少玩家愿意花这种钱,甚至不会有人觉得这么定期地花钱就很值得。

我打算在下一篇文章中谈谈社交游戏的赢利策略,所以我在这里就不详细展开了。无论你是计划赢利策略还是免费模式或免费游戏,问问你自己:花钱的玩家是否能立即知道他们的钱换来的价值,觉得这钱花得值。价格与价值不成正比的游戏会很难在这个竞争越来越激烈的领域中找到立足点。

结尾

Graham提出的原则中有一条我是反对的,那就是“不一定是美国的。”一开始,我将它拓展成“不一定要是美国白种直男。”之后我考虑了他的原始意图,即关于针对某个地区的特定元素和词汇选择可能对另一个地区的玩家不公平。也就是,不要将“boot”作为“trunk”的同义词,不要用“lift”替代“elevator”。

虽然你可以反驳这种排他性设计会使游戏的玩家减少,特别是不属于游戏核心受众群体中的玩家。因为这是一个值得展开长篇探讨的主题,而不是靠我这一两个段落就能解决的问题;因为玩家工作箱中的工具和排他性设计之间的关系并不明确,所以我很难决定要不要放弃这一条原则。(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

The Player’s Bill of Rights

by Laralyn McWilliams

Years ago, when I used to play with interactive fiction languages, I happened upon The Player’s Bill of Rights by Graham Nelson. It was a part of his Craft of Adventure essay and it was mostly lost to the archaeological strata of the Internet. Despite its age and obscurity, the Player’s Bill of Rights is still an elegant, relevant view of game design and the player’s experience. Many of its core messages hold up well in today’s game design environment.

There are parts of the Bill of Rights, though, that are pretty specific to text adventure games. Here’s my version of the Player’s Bill of Rights, based on the original with some topics updated to be more generally applicable. If you want to see more of Graham’s original Bill of Rights, please check it out. It’s a great read!

As a player, I have a right:

1. Not to be killed without warning.

In the original, Army training version of Full Spectrum Warrior, any one of your soldiers could get shot at any time without notice–even from behind cover (provided the enemy had a narrow angle on the soldier, such as when the soldier peeked around a corner). As we created an entertainment experience out of that training tool, it became very clear that insta-death wasn’t fun, even if that death was the result of a bad decision from the player.

We made a set of changes to help give players a second to assess the situation and react. For example, we guaranteed for the lowest two difficulties that an enemy’s first shot would never kill a soldier on your squads. You always had at least a few seconds to process the fact that an enemy was firing on you, and react to it. This choice made the game feel more fair and thus more fun. A strategy game is all about learning how to think, and if players don’t understand what just happened to them, they are unable to learn from the experience.

2. Not to be given horribly unclear direction or asked to do unlikely things.
In the original Bill of Rights, these were two rules: one about unclear hints, and a second about needing to do unlikely things. Graham was was predicting the future here: he wrote these rules before the advent of the cat-hair mustache. My personal breaking point with inventory-based adventure games was the fish fertilizer puzzle from Kyrandia 3 (so skip the next paragraph if you don’t want a spoiler).

–SPOILER START–

I’m in a room with bricked-up exit. My inventory includes many items along with sesame seeds and an eel. I have to use the eel on the seeds to create fertilized seeds. Then I have to place the eel-fertilized seeds in a small hole in front of the door, water them  from a flask, then watch them grow into a plant that breaks the bricks open. If you think that sounds tricky now, imagine it back in the days before Internet walk-throughs.

Really?

–SPOILER END–

Most modern games have hints, but they’re less about clues to solve a mystery and more about general direction for how to proceed and how to succeed in the game space. A few games use discovery as a core game mechanic, but even in these cases many players rely on wiki and database websites for answers rather than their own explorations and experiments.

So how clear is clear enough? The best way to answer that question is user testing. It’s rare that you can make those decisions about your own game because you’re too close to it, and your skills (mental and manual) are too honed by hours of testing it. Beyond testing, you can build in systems that let you adjust for clarity in the future like loading screens with tip text (which can be updated with a small patch or, better yet, live data).

3. To be able to win without experience of past lives or future events.
I’ve combined two of Graham’s rules here, since they’re similar. We’ve all been there: you open the monster closet and–you guessed it–the monster pops out and kills you. This has a modern equivalent: is the boss only vulnerable to fire attacks? Did you, by chance, happen to bring a fire weapon into the battle? Oops.

Monster closet? Yes, I’m looking at you, Doom 3.

I used to encounter this problem most frequently in timed sequences. There’s a certain appeal for designers in taking a skill players have learned over time in the game and requiring them to perform that skill under pressure. There’s a difference, though, between adding pressure to the skill and having preset requirements that you have little or no time to anticipate during gameplay. You end up trying to memorize the sequence (“OK, so after this tunnel is the bit where the giant underground worm comes out on the left”) which feels unfair and distracts from the action-packed finale the designers probably envisioned.

This also rears its ugly head during QTE (quick time event) sequences. Some games try to discount past life experiences by changing the exact button press required, but it doesn’t change the situation. The requirement to replay sequences to learn what happens–and only learning by failure–makes most QTE sequences break this rule.

4. Not to have the game closed off without warning.

I first started this post before the 2012 holidays, and just now found time to finish it. I’d originally typed that I hadn’t encountered games that break this rule in a while, but over the break I played 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors.

Nine paths to frustration

999 is an adventure game that feels like a mix of interactive fiction and “escape the room” puzzles. I really liked it for the first 3 hours, then liked it OK for the next 2 hours, then ended up deciding I disliked it enough to debate buying the sequel. The underlying design premise of the game is that you can replay to make different choices and get a different ending.

The game lets you skip all the conversations when you replay to find a different ending, which must have been an easy choice because the game has a lot of talking in it. On the other hand, you can’t skip or shorten the escape sequences, so you’re replaying the same puzzles over and over again. I was willing to do that for the first replay, where I made some choices that led to a few different puzzles.

On the third replay, though, I realized getting the “good” ending wasn’t about a path I hadn’t chosen the first time: it was about a specific combination of choices that are not obviously different from any other choices you make. There are six endings to the game. Only one is the “good”ending. There is no indication as you play that any particular choice leads to any particular ending. There’s certainly no way to determine that while playing the game the first (or even second) time.

This means there are strong odds while playing that any decision you make in the game–including some of the earliest–will close off the “good”ending, and you have no way to know it just happened until you finish the game, see the ending, the play the whole game again.

5. Not to need to do boring things for the sake of it.

Some people would put game grind in this category, but not all grinds are bad. Some repetitive tasks are relaxing and have a certain zen to them, like playing Bejeweled or digging out corridors in Minecraft. Jeff Vogel calls it whittling. In these instances, the activity itself is rewarding and simple: you click, and there’s a response that looks and sounds interesting as it changes the gameplay space.

Whittling changes the game space

Whittling is the edge case though. It requires a surrounding support structure of creativity, goals and environment to work without feeling boring. It’s hard to get right, but that doesn’t stop a lot of games from adding relentless grind without rewarding metagame structures or even entertaining aspects to the interactions.

When you add something repetitive to a game, ask yourself:

Does this help the player build toward a goal?

Is the act itself rewarding?

Does it change the gameplay space?

If the answer to all three questions isn’t yes, then you should probably reconsider the mechanic.

6. Not to have to figure out an unspecified or unclear interaction.

In Graham’s original Bill of Rights, he had two separate rules: “Not to have to type exactly the right verb” and “To be allowed reasonable synonyms.” I’ve combined the two into one rule. There’s a direct correlation between verbs in IF and game actions in modern games.

Game mechanics are all about creating a box for the player, then giving him tools to maneuver within–and sometimes escape from–that box. These tools can be actual tools (like an ax in Minecraft), or they can be more abstract like player movement modes (sprint or grapple).

When you give a player a tool, you’re making a promise. You, the developer, promise the tool will work in a predictable way, usually with an associated risk and reward. You’re also promising there are instances in the game where that tool will be clearly valuable.

In a good game, your goals and instructions are clear and provide the set-up to a given challenge or level. In a great game, the entire game world communicates to you. It broadcasts what you need to do (your goal), how you might get there (clear or subtle paths and obstacles) and which tools will be most useful in this specific scenario.

The Zelda games are fantastic examples of getting this right. Every tool you’re given solves a specific type of problem in the game world. You can look down the path you’re expected to travel and understand what the game is asking you to do. Even when it’s tricky to figure out the right order or combination of interactions to achieve the desired result, the interactions themselves are clear.

7. To have decent, clear controls and UI.

Graham’s original rule was: “To have a decent parser.” There’s a direct correlation between the role of the text parser in interactive fiction and the role of the controls and UI in modern games.

I love you, System Shock… but holy crap

We’ve come a long way since System Shock, which is one of my all-time favorite games but also has some of the most complex controls and UI I’ve ever seen. We have higher standards now, so when a game comes out with below-par camera, for example, it’s all reviewers and players can talk about. Scan some reviews of Epic Mickey and you’ll see what I mean.

The topic gets more interesting as our audience broadens. Momentum used to be more common in platformers–you would release the controller, but your character would continue to move forward a bit as the “stop” animation played. Yes, it looks more fluid, but it also adds a level of complexity that makes the game more difficult to play.

Similarly, we’ve seen UI come full circle. We started with the complexity of System Shock, went through our minimalist phase (where The Getaway made us count bullets), and now have come full circle. The advent of development tools like Scaleform makes it easier to have detailed, animated UI elements. Just because we can have the HUD bounce and pulse and show an immense of detail, it doesn’t mean we should.

8. Not to depend much on luck.

This rule is a source of debate among game designers. For example, when we were looking at kid’s TCGs for Free Realms, we spent time with Pokemon, a game that relies quite a bit on luck. Some designers thought that was fine or even preferable for kids (so you could battle an older player and still have a chance to win. Other designers hated it.

You can see the concept of luck as a prevailing factor in free-to-play games like Candy Crush Saga, where it’s used as a gate, and of course in many RPGs in the form of random loot drops.

If you don’t monetize in Candy Crush Saga, your fate is 1/3 skill and 2/3 luck

I believe the question of whether luck is a valid player tool depends on the game style, and the impact of player skill on the element in question. If the element is closely tied to player skill, then having a bad roll of the dice feels unfair. You can see this very clearly in many FPS MMOs that use traditional server-side logic for damage. It doesn’t matter if the shot visibly hits the enemy in the head: it does the same damage as hitting him in the elbow. As a player, you feel like you did the right thing–you used your tools in the way the game implied you should–and you were cheated out of the result you expected.

On the other hand, if the game element is not tied to player skill, randomness can be fun. For example, loot drops work fine with a heavy luck component because the reward after a kill isn’t tied to player skill. The skill is in killing the enemy, not in looting it.

9. To be able to understand a problem once it is solved.

I wrote this on the whiteboard in the team area for Full Spectrum Warrior as our touchstone for the player experience:

You DO something. It looks COOL. You feel SMART.

Almost every game has something for players to figure out, some element of strategy. It can be in the meta-space, like a strategy to improve your manual dexterity or even to buy a better mouse to improve your aim, but it’s still a strategy for how to do better in the game space.

The key loop for player satisfaction in terms of strategy is ensuring players understand a problem once it’s solved, and on the flip side that they understand what led to any failures. This is essentially closing the loop on the promises you make when you create the player’s box and give him tools.

10. Not to have too many dead ends.

In the original Bill of Rights, this rule was “Not to be given too many red herrings.” We’ve all played those levels that seem to have multiple paths but only one valid one. The rest is a spaghetti ball of monster closets, loops and dead ends.

One thing I always keep in mind is that you can never erase the feeling of being lost even when the player wasn’t actually lost. Even if the game is a corridor shooter, if the player feels like there are unexplored options or side paths that he could have taken–if he feels lost–then the effect is exactly the same as if you created a complicated, confusing level with multiple paths.

11. To know how the game is getting on.

It might not occur to you until someone asks: “Are you close to the end of the game?” You realize you have no idea. Understanding where you are in a game is important to your sense of attachment, and your drive to finish. It has an intangible but sometimes profound affect on whether you’ll recommend a game to your friends.

This comes in several forms. First, you want a sense of your own skill. How well am I playing? Am I making the right choices? Am I getting better at this? This was one of my problems with 999–I felt like I was making the right choices but I had no objective way to evaluate that, so when I got a “bad” ending, I felt cheated.

Second, you want a sense of progress. Am I halfway through, or almost done? Is the story going to wrap up? Is there a chance, with a little effort, my score this match will move me up the leaderboard? In most competitive multiplayer games, for example, there’s no reminder of my leaderboard status during a match so I momentarily lose sight of that progress.

Achievements can give a sense of progress

Whether you love or hate achievements and scoring, players have become accustomed to them. When your game doesn’t feature either one, keep in mind that you won’t have the easy sense of skill and progress that come with them. Consider whether your story could be broken into chapters, which give a sense of progress even when players don’t know how many chapters are in the game. Similarly, try to can arrange weapon choices into some sense of a tree (which implies how far players have progressed based on which weapons they have unlocked).

12. To receive good value for money spent.

This is an addition to the Bill of Rights because I think it gets overlooked in today’s world of freemium and free games.

For games that come with a fixed price tag, it comes down to the perceived value of the experience provided. Some players translate this into hours of gameplay but it’s really about the quality of the experience (along with replayability). As a whole, developers have been in the business long enough that we have a sense for how we should price our games.

In freemium and free games, though, we’re still figuring it out. Social games are at the far end of the spectrum. It’s easy–and somewhat common–to spend $50 to buy about 15 minutes worth of game time. Not many players are willing to spend that kind of money, and even fewer will consider it money well spent that they’d be happy to spend on a regular basis.

The now-closed Adventure World provided about 15 minutes of play time for a $50 spend

I’m planning to talk about monetization in social games in my next post, so I won’t go into too much detail here. As you plan monetization for either freemium or free games, ask yourself whether players who spend money will immediately understand the value they received for that money, and feel that it was money well spent. An offer that’s weak from either perspective will struggle to find a foothold in a space that’s getting more competitive every week.

There’s one rule from Graham that I debated in writing this blog post: “Not to need to be American.” At first, I extended that to “Not to need to be a straight, white American male.” Then I thought about the original intent of the rule, which is about setting-specific elements and word choices that were specific to one region and unfair to another. It was about not having “boot” as a synonym for “trunk,” or “lift” as a synonym for “elevator.”

While you can argue that exclusionary design makes games less appealing to groups not in the game’s core intended audience, it’s not like getting stuck in an IF game because it won’t accept the word “loo.” Because it’s a huge subject worthy of a longer conversation than a two paragraph rule, and because there’s not as clear a relationship between tools in a player’s toolbox and exclusionary design, I made the difficult decision to eliminate that rule.(source:gamasutra


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