作者：Paul Suddaby

你为自己的游戏花了很多时间，你以为它已经达到极致了。好吧，我得提醒你，没有最好只有更好，你的游戏永远不会完美，你的游戏总是有改进的余地。以下是5个努力方向……

声音

声音对游戏体验的贡献巨大，远超你的想象。显然，如果你的游戏是完整的，那它肯定有声音了，但我觉得你应该退一步看看是否还可以添加更多声音。

在现实生活中，任何活动都会发出声音，大部分游戏中的事件也应该如此。不要忘了加入那些简单到你几乎不会考虑到的声音。比如，角色走路？脚步声。游戏发生在丛林里？环境噪音。开枪？弹壳掉在地上的声音。

理想地说来，游戏中的实体之间的互动应该产生特定的声音。但现实地说来，如果没有制作多得不合理的声音，这显然是不可能实现的。但你添加的声音越多，你的游戏体验就越好。

加入这么多声音的做法却让某些开发者却很担心。也就是，他们通常认为过多的噪音会使游戏太臃肿，使玩家很难注意到和识别出更重要的声音和音乐。

这个考虑在逻辑上是完全正确的，但实际上却大错特错。只要你积极主动地听，人类大脑总是能把注意力放在重要的声音上，这是它令人吃惊的长项。以《超级马里奥银河2》（游戏邦注：这是一款以高品质音乐著称的游戏）为例，当你闭上眼睛听音乐，你会发现，没有视觉画面提供情境，光听游戏音乐绝对达不到理想的效果。特别是，你很难好好地欣赏音乐，因为声音特效会产生杂音。然而，当你睁开双眼，看着角色动作与声音特效一起产生，你会发现这些杂音并不影响你欣赏音乐，并且敌人的动作声音也很容易识别。

游戏中的声音总是被忽略。真是耻辱，因为电子游戏是一场视觉与听觉的盛宴，声音本不应该缺席。所以在你结束和发布游戏以前，请确保你已经添加了足够多的声音。

过渡动画

我刚提到电子游戏是视觉与听觉的盛宴，我们只谈了声音，所以接下来显然应该谈谈画面了。电子游戏中的视觉方面除了精细的纹理，更重要的是动画。

当制作游戏动画时，大多人倾向于为特定的动作制作一套特定的动画。这些动画可能是加载动画，也可能是跳跃动画，还可能是一系列舞刀弄枪的战斗动画。

但人们通常忘了，这些动作并不是凭空发生的。平台游戏的角色经常出现基本动画顺序的崩坏，比如，角色奔跑途中遇到障碍物，它应该先执行跳跃动画跳到半空中，然后双脚落地，最后再继续奔跑动画。

但你在高品质的游戏产品中其实看不到这样的动画效果——因为缺失了过渡动画：使一个动画向另一个动画平滑转变的简单的小动画。在上述的崩坏中，我们没有看到的是着陆动画，而是角色跳跃后一落到地面就继续奔跑。

过渡动画不只是二维动画片或平台游戏的专属。甚至在FPS中，也应该存在过渡动画。你是否注意过，当你在线玩《使命召唤》时，每个人看起来都有些呆头呆脑？他们总是猛地进入或离开某种状态，或者奔跑时的转身非常别扭——每一次跳跃都像发生在月球上。

Call_of_Duty_Black_Ops(from mhckr.wordpress)

产生这种怪异，部分是因为服务器延迟，但关键原因是因为缺少过渡动画。在《使命召唤》中，当你试图用小刀杀人时，无论当时你是正在通过狙击手的视野观察还是正在重装你的枪，都不重要；反正你总是直接挥出小刀，没有任何过渡。

注意，在此我并不认为这是开发者的失败，毕竟《使命召唤》的NPC动画做得非常棒。这显然是牺牲视觉逼真性换响应性而做出的决定。面临这一问题的第三人称游戏通常会加入可删除的过渡动画，以便在响应性和动画连贯性之间寻找平衡点。

这就引出了本文要提醒读者的一个道理：游戏开发无绝对，适用一款游戏的做法未必也适用于你的游戏。即使这些做法不能直接运用于你的项目，但理解如何以及为什么某些技术适用于某些游戏，有助于你找到适用自己产品的方案。

漏洞

你的游戏不能有漏洞。严格地说来，是一个也不能有。如果你的目标是创造一种完善的游戏体验，那么材质断裂、动画帧丢失和脚本错误等简单的漏洞就绝对不能出现在你的游戏中。

漏洞会对你的游戏产生各种消极影响。漏洞可能会干扰玩家的沉浸感、强迫玩家执行重复的玩法环节、严重损害整体视觉表现等。没人想购买不完美的产品，而漏洞正是不完美的第一迹象。

当然，我不是完美主义者；游戏史上还没有什么游戏是没有漏洞的。在早期，游戏中出现大漏洞是见怪不怪，甚至是今天的大预算游戏如《辐射3》和《刺客信条3》即使做了大量QA测试，发行后也是小漏洞不断。

漏洞的出现是多种原因导致的，但大公司的产品出现漏洞很大程度上是因为预算和时间限制的问题。作为业余爱好者，发现和修补复杂的漏洞可能是相当困难的，但起点低而争取达到高目标，总是比一开始就定位在平庸线上来得好。

意识到玩家并不关心你的游戏

在你的游戏中投入大量时间后，有时候你会很难意识到玩家并不会特别关心你在游戏中投入了多少精力。这并不是说玩家忘恩负义，或无视高品质游戏所需的工作量，而是，他们只是没有像你关心得那么多。

这一点是很重要的，因为它意味着玩家并不一定会按大多数开发者所设想的方式行动。他们只会按自己的方式玩你的游戏。卧室墙上贴满你的游戏海报，海报上机智的双关语让你颇为得意，然而玩家可能不会注意到，或花时间阅读这些双关语。

现在，玩家注意不到你的游戏中的东西，这是你无法改变的事实，当然也绝对不是不利于你的游戏的事。但你确实应该考虑一下你向玩家传达信息的方式。除非你的目的就是突出游戏的神秘感和探索性，如《暗黑之魂》，否则你必须保证玩家接受到你希望他们了解的信息。

你必须意识到，玩家可能会无视教程和主情节点，除非你强制他们注意。如果你要改变主情节的传达方式，最好不要使用声音日志。

反对使用声音日志的理由是很显而易见的，然而，不喜欢冗长的说明文字的玩家如果被迫看完，可能会非常不高兴（当说到更简单的事物如解释机制或介绍关键角色 或甚至只是看一个非常棒的爆炸效果，玩家的愤怒就不是什么大问题了）。

与其他建议相比，这一条应该非常谨慎地处理。直接强迫玩家阅读信息可能对你的游戏节奏有重大的或积极或消极的影响，取决于你的游戏类型。但最重要的是，如果开发者能考虑到玩家可能注意到或可能没意注到的信息，玩家对他做出的游戏就比较不会感到困惑和反感。

操作方案

现在的游戏一般是通过各种输入设备来实现操作的：传统的控制器、键盘和鼠标、运动控制器和甚至更常用的触屏等。触屏和运动控制器使人们更加意识到可靠的操作方案的重要性；几乎所有玩家都玩过受糟糕的操作设置破坏的游戏。

我建议你看看你的游戏的操作方案，确保一切合理。你玩你的游戏已经很久了，所以它的操作对你来说肯定是习惯成自然了。但玩家可不这么认为。

玩过很多游戏的玩家已经习惯了操作惯例。为什么大多数射击游戏都使用空格键（Xbox上的X键）作为重装子弹的按键？没有特别的原因，只是因为历史上几乎所有射击游戏都是这么规定的。这是一个鸡生蛋蛋生鸡的问题；我不知道哪款游戏首先使用空格键作为重装子弹的按键，但玩家已经习惯了。为什么你不能使用右边的触发器作为重装子弹的开关而使用空格键用于扔手榴弹？不是不行，但你会惹怒你的玩家，因为他们每一次用光子弹想重装时都会变成用手榴弹自杀，所以你最好遵守惯例吧。

darksiders-2(from mmosentinel.com)

另一个需要注意的东西是人体工学——总是让你的玩家对控制方式感到舒适。在这方面，《暗黑血统2》是个反面教材。这款游戏唯一的操作方案就是按住L2键用于锁定，按住L1键用于激活特殊技能。事实上，这相当于要求玩家用中指按L2，用食指按L1.

然而，对于许多玩家来说，这种姿势是很不舒服的。因为大多数游戏一次只使用一边的键，许多玩家习惯于按L2和L1时都使用食指，而当他们要同时按下这两个键时，就没有办法了。所以你应该记住上述提到的操作方案是怎么样的？是的，不要犯同样的错误。

包含多种默认的和可重置的操作设置是很简单的，并且不包含这种功能也说不过去，特别是在PC游戏中，因为玩家把手放在键盘上的习惯方式可能非常不同。正是因为这个功能很容易加入，所以如果你不加入，玩家就会非常生气。（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）

5 Important Ways to Add Polish to Your Game

by Paul Suddaby

You’ve poured hours of your life into your game, and it’s become everything you thought it could be. Well, I’m here to let you know that’s not true – there’s always more polish you can add to an experience. Let’s look at five ways to do that now…

Make More Noise

Audio contributes a lot to the video game experience, more so than you would think. Obviously if your game is complete you already have sound, but I urge you to take a step back and see where you could add more.

In real life, everything makes noise, and in most games this shouldn’t be any different. Don’t forget to include the simple sounds you wouldn’t be inclined to think about. Have a character that walks? Footsteps. The game takes place in a forest? Add some ambient noise. A minigun spits out bullet casings? Those should make sound when they hit the ground.

Ideally, every interaction between entities in your game should make a specific noise. Obviously this can’t actually be done in practice without making an unreasonable amount of sounds, but the closer you can get the better your game will feel.
It’s worth noting that there is one major worry that often holds back developers from following this type of all-in noise approach. Namely, developers often think they will over-saturate their game with noise, making the more important sounds and the music difficult to distinguish and appreciate.

This is a common thought that makes perfect logical sense, but is absolutely wrong. The human brain is surprisingly very good at highlighting sounds you are actively listening to. As an experiment, start the below gameplay video of Super Mario Galaxy 2 (a game widely known for its quality music), close your eyes, and just listen.

Your eyes should be closed right now.

You can hear that, without the context of the visuals, the game definitely doesn’t come off as particularly pleasant to listen to. In particular, it’s very difficult to appreciate the music, due to the cacophony created by the sound effects. However, as soon as you open your eyes and are capable of matching the various sound effects to their onscreen actions, you find that they don’t seem to be getting in the way of your appreciation of the music anymore, and audio tells for enemy actions are easily distinguished and heard.

Audio in games is far too often overlooked. It’s a real shame, because video games are at their core audio-visual experiences, and without a doubt the audio is integral to that. So before you tie the knot and release your project, make sure it’s making a lot of noise.

Related Posts

Take Your Game’s Immersion to the Next Level With Responsive Game Music

Animate Animations to Transition From Animation to Animation

I just mentioned that video games were an audio-visual experience, and we just covered audio, so obviously what follows next is visuals. Texture work is all nice and good, but the most important visual aspect in the vast majority of video games is the animation.

When creating animations for a game, most people tend to think of things in terms of singular unique animations for specific actions. These actions could be anything: a reload animation, a jumping animation, or a series of animations for a sword swinging combo.

But people often forget that these actions don’t take place in a vacuum. A typical breakdown of a basic animation sequence for a platformer game character might start with the character perform their running animation, then as they approach an obstacle they would jump into the air while performing their jumping animation, and then, once their feet again touch the ground, they would continue on with their running animation.

This is serviceable, but far from what you would actually see in a high quality gaming product. What’s missing is transitional animations: smaller, often simpler, animations used to smooth the transition between two other animations. In the breakdown above, for example, one would typically see some kind of short landing animation in between the character hitting the ground from their jump and continuing to run.

Notice that little animation every time Rayman lands from a jump.

Just to be clear, this isn’t restricted to two-dimensional animation or to platformers. Even in first person shooters, transitional animations can be seen. Have you ever noticed how when you play online in Call of Duty, everybody else looks kind of dumb? They always seem to be snapping in and out of prone mode, or turning uncomfortably while in full sprint – and every jump looks like it’s taking place on the moon.

Part of this weirdness can come from netcode lag, but the core of why this is happening is because players don’t have transitional animations. When you try and knife someone in Call of Duty it doesn’t matter whether you’re currently looking down the scope of a sniper or reloading your gun; you abandon the last animation you were performing and knife instantly, hence no transitional animation.

Now I want to note this isn’t a failure on the developers’ part; non-player characters are beautifully animated in Call of Duty. This was clearly a decision made in favor of responsiveness at the expense of visual fidelity. Third-person games facing this situation will often incorporate cancellable transitional animations, choosing a middle ground between responsiveness and animation cohesion.

This brings up something that affects this list in its entirety: there are no absolutes in game development. What worked for one game won’t necessarily work for yours. However, understanding how and why certain techniques worked for certain games goes a long way towards developing your own solutions, even if they aren’t directly applicable to your product.

Call the Exterminator

Your game can’t have bugs. Seriously, none. Clipping, freezing, texture pop-in, massive frame drops and scripting errors among other things simply cannot be a part of your game if you are aiming to create a polished experience.

Bugs can have a multitude of negative effects on the way people view your game. They can detract from player immersion, force players to repeat sections of gameplay, seriously hurt overall visual presentation and just be generally unpleasant. Nobody likes purchasing and using something that feels imperfect, and bugs are gaming’s number one sign of imperfection.

Here we can see what a game with an extreme level of polish looks like.

Of course I’m being an idealist and a hypocrite here; few games in the history of gaming have been released without any bugs whatsoever. Back during the infancy of games, crazy bugs were the norm rather than the exception, and even today games with huge budgets and massive QA teams, like Fallout 3 and Assassin’s Creed 3, can be released riddled with creepy crawlies.

This can happen for a multitude of reasons, but these types of situations arise in large companies mostly due to budgeting and time constraint issues. As a hobbyist, pinpointing and squashing tricky bugs can be incredibly difficult, but it’s better to strive for perfection and come up short than to settle for mediocrity.

Realize Players Don’t Care About You or Your Game

After spending a huge amount of time toiling away on your game, it can sometimes be difficult to grasp the idea that gamers don’t particularly care about it or how much work went into it. This isn’t to say players are necessarily ungrateful, or oblivious to the work it takes to make a quality video game, they just don’t really care all that much.

This is important, because it means players aren’t necessarily going to do things the way most developers think they will. They aren’t going to go out of their way to play your game right. You might be really proud of the witty puns you have on the posters covering the wall in the bedroom scene of your adventure game, but chances are people won’t notice, or won’t take the time to read them. Yeah, that is a really cool skybox, but nobody’s going to look at it.

Now, people not noticing things in your game isn’t something you can change, and it definitely isn’t a negative to count against your game, but it does need to be considered in the way you present information to the player. Unless you are specifically going for a feeling of mystery and player discovery, à la Dark Souls, you need to make sure the player will actually absorb the information you need them to.

You must realize that tutorials and major plot points can and will be ignored by certain players unless you force them to pay attention. If you spend hours building up to a major plot twist you may want to make sure it’s not delivered through an audio log.

The counter argument to this is clear, however; players who would not be inclined to pay attention to some long exposition probably won’t be very happy when they are forced to sit through it. (With that said, when it comes to simpler and quicker things like explaining mechanics or introducing a key character or even just looking at a really cool explosion, this type of player resentment isn’t really that big a deal.)

More than any of these tips, this particular suggestion must be taken with extreme discretion. Directly forcing players to absorb information can have tremendous positive or negative effects on the pacing of your game depending on the type of experience you are creating. Importantly, though, a game developer who is aware of what information the player may or may not pay attention to will end up with a less confusing game and a happier player.

Make the Player’s Fingers Happy

Games are controlled by all types of inputs nowadays: traditional controllers, keyboard and mouse, motion controls, touch screens and even more are commonly used. Touch screens and motion controls in particular have brought to light the importance of a solid control scheme, with almost everyone these days having played a game absolutely destroyed by poor controls.

I encourage you to take a look at your game’s control scheme and make sure everything makes sense. You’ve been no doubt playing your game for quite a while so the controls will feel natural to you, but take a moment to step back and think about the players.

Gamers play many games, and it feels when the controls line up between them. There’s a reason most shooters use the square (or X on Xbox) button for reloading, and that’s because it’s the reload button in almost every shooter ever. It’s a chicken and egg scenario; I don’t know which game used that button first, but it’s what people are used to and feel comfortable with. There isn’t really any reason why you can’t use the right trigger for reloading and use the square button to throw grenades, but it will annoy your players every time they kill themselves with a grenade when they run out of ammo, so you might as well stick with the norm.

Another thing that needs to be looked at is ergonomics – always try to make your controls as comfortable on the hands as possible. Darksiders 2 is a notable game that really fumbled in this regard. The only control scheme available requires holding the L2 button for locking on and the L1 button for activating special abilities (left trigger and bumper respectively on Xbox). This practically requires using the middle finger to hold down L2 while keeping the index finger on L1.

However, for many people this grip is not at all comfortable. Since most games only use one shoulder button per side at a time, many players are accustomed to using their index finger for both the L2 and L1 buttons, something that can’t be done when they are required to be pressed at the same time. This brings up the most important point of all about controls. Notice how I mentioned the only control scheme was configured a certain way? Yeah, don’t do that.

This. This is good.

It’s easy to include multiple default control schemes as well as fully remappable controls and there is little reason not to include this feature. This is especially true for PC games where the different ways players are accustomed to placing their hands on the keyboard can vary drastically. It’s so easy to include this feature, and so many people will be upset if you don’t.(source:gamedev.tutsplus)