在我努力成为最棒的游戏设计师这条路上，我读到了由Susan Weinschenk所著的《 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People》这本 书，它列出了关于人的视觉等身体特性，以及社交互动和情感状态的模式等许多事实。该书着眼于网站设计，但其中有许多事实也同游戏设计密切相关，所以我认为有必要与各位分享其中的心得。

100_things(from nothingsacredgames)

1）9%男性和5%女性是色盲

如果你和我一样，就会知道面向色盲用户做设计的重要性，但你永远无法确定要如何进行这种设计。Weinschenk指出：几乎所有色盲用户都是红绿色盲，这意味着他们难以辨别红色、绿色、黄色，但也有些人无法识别蓝色和黄色，或者根本就看不到任何颜色。

Weinschenk还提供了一些帮助设计师考虑色盲玩家（其人口比例将近5%！）需求的工具。Colorblind Web Page Filter可以你通过一个色盲用户的眼光查看网页（开发者可以将游戏中的图片输入该网页，并同时查看其色彩）。

color_blind(from nothingsacredgames)

你是能够聘请平面设计师来考虑游戏外观的成功游戏设计师吗？我还是建议你去了解与色盲相关的问题。这不但可让你更好地与平面设计师交流，让对方更了解你的计划，还可以让你确保自己的游戏也能被色盲群体所接受。

2）人们一次只会记得4件东西

事实证明人们一次所能记得的事情不超过4件，因此在设计游戏时要牢记这一点。为能够记得更多东西的玩家提供额外奖励当然是好事，但永远别要求玩家记住4件以上的事情。

有一个例外就是，人们可以将信息“组块”。使用这一策略，人们可以将多件东西整合了一件东西（游戏邦注：例如记住“两张蓝色卡片，三张红色卡片”而非逐个单独记忆）。最好能够让你的游戏元素具有可组块性，尽管玩家并不需要一次性记住4个以上的东西。

3）故事形式是人们处理信息的最佳方法，举例是让人们获得知识的最佳做法

我将这两者结合起来，是因为我认为它们存在紧密联系。故事是人们体验世界的原始方法之一，举例则可将规则和系统转变为更易于人们消化理解的故事。

我认为这可以用两种方式帮助游戏设计师。首先，它强调了游戏主题的重要性。最重要的是，游戏只是系统，但主题可以让人们理解系统，这部分是因为它们将游戏转变成了故事。

其次，你应该在自己的规则中融入例子。我个人非常不擅长此道，但我未来会在这个方面多下功夫。有些人可以处理一系列规则，但多数人不行，即使是那些能够消化存规则的人，可能也会受益于其中融入的例子。

4）持续注意力只有10分钟左右

事实证明互联网并非破坏人们注意广度的元凶……我们的注意广度本来就有点脆弱。即使是很有趣的事情，人们也只会对其投入7至10分钟，之后的思绪就会开始神游。好消息就是，让人们休息一下，就可以让他们再次投入10分钟的持续注意力。

对此我有两个建议。第一，确保你的玩家在游戏过程中能够得到休息，尤其是当游戏很冗长的时候。控制游戏长度，并允许玩家在一个晚上多次玩游戏可能会更好。
第二，要让你的规则简洁明了。游戏领袖可能需要10分钟以上的时间才能读完规则，但要确保游戏领袖能够以10分钟甚至更短的时间向新玩家解释这些规则，否则你就只能获得对游戏并不专注的玩家。

5）人们越接近目标时，就会越有动力

人们在越是接近完成目标时，就会越有动力，这意味着他们接近目标时会更兴奋和专注。如果你想制作一款含有理想戏剧弧的游戏，就需要注意两种情况：

goal_motivation_graph(from nothingsacredgames)

第一，确保玩家在整个游戏过程中拥有次级目标。如果你指望玩家只有一个大目标，那么游戏开始阶段就不会那么吸引人了，因为此时的玩家还无法达成任何目标。

第二，确保你的游戏能够在玩家完成大型目标时立即结束。虽然给玩家一些从兴奋的高潮降到平静状态的冷却时间并非不妥，但你肯定不希望游戏收尾时过于拖沓，因为玩家在游戏中的最后体验一般都应该是最具决定性的体验环节之一。

6）内在奖励远比外在奖励更能激发人的积极性

人们出于多种原因玩游戏，但积累胜利点数或虚拟货币并非其中之一。作为游戏设计师，你只能为玩家提供一些即时而无内在意义的奖励，但你所创造的游戏空间却可以为这些虚假的奖励灌输真正的意义。

在设计游戏时，要牢记人们玩游戏的真正意义。他们玩游戏是为了提升自尊（他们希望感觉自己很聪明，有创意和有趣）。他们玩游戏来进行社交并结识新友（他们喜欢与他人建立联系，并通过炫耀提升自己的社会地位）。他们为兴奋和自我感觉良好而玩游戏（他们喜欢大吃一惊或者产生悬念）。人报务为体验不同的人格以及获得归属感而玩游戏。无论你在游戏中提供的是哪种内在奖励，都要确保他们支持玩家体验游戏的真正原因。

7）发笑可以让人们的关系更为紧密

记住，你的游戏并非由机器人操纵的系统。你的游戏是人们在社交情境下所玩的活动。人们通过玩你的游戏而增进彼此了解，并一起度过宝贵的时间。

幽默是让人们通过游戏更加亲近的一个绝佳方法。不妨添加一些笑话，最好还可以让玩家自创一些笑话。

即使是严肃游戏也可以因植入愚蠢的互动或名称而让玩家欢乐地闲聊。无论如何，最好让你的玩家发笑……人们爱笑，所以你的游戏若能让他们大笑，就一定能讨他们开心。

8）人们喜欢意外

从几乎所有含纸牌或骰子的现代游戏中都可以看出这一点，但也可以在游戏中添加一些随机性，因为这可以让人们感觉良好。但除了随机性，还要考虑游戏之外的意外元素。例如，玩家在《Risk Legacy》中玩的次数越多，就越能发现新东西，而像《Dominion》这种含大量扩展内容的游戏则可让玩家去猜测下一步会出现什么情况。

9）人们在忙碌的时候更开心

事实证明人们并不喜欢无所事事地闲坐着。我曾经说过，让玩家持续投入其中是游戏设计师最重要的职责之一。你应该努力确保玩家在游戏中不会无所事事，给他们分配些事情打发时间。要提前计划好他们的下一步操作（但也别指望他们真的会去做这件事），但根据我个人经验，让玩家去做一些事情（游戏邦注：例如《Settlers of Catan》中的道路和殖民地）就是挺好的策略。

10）越难实现的事情，人们就越喜欢

当人们得费一番功夫才能得到某物时，他们就会更重视它的价值。我猜这正是为何人们喜欢使用自己需要花钱买的东西，而非免费产品的原因。

对游戏玩家来说，克服挑战能够带来满足感。设置一个杀手技能组合，或者费了九牛二虎之力才打败终极boss，可以让玩家更为得意。

这里的经验就在于，不要让你的游戏过于简单。行业中出现了一个让游戏简单化的设计倾向……向用户制造障碍或许是游戏设计在各个设计领域中如此独特的原因之一。即便如此，今天仍有许多游戏设计师仍愿意制作极简单的游戏以便获得广泛用户。最好牢记将游戏制作得更简单，就意味着牺牲玩家克服挑战的那种喜悦。

另外还要记住，人们会进入心流状态。虽然为玩家创造挑战很重要，但也不要让挑战过于困难，导致他们受挫。这对非数字游戏来说更为困难，但作为游戏设计师，你得尽量确保自己的游戏难度不与玩家的技能水平脱节。（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）

10 Things Every Game Designer Needs to Know about 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People

On my quest to become the best game designer I can possibly be, I recently read 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People, a quick but interesting book by Susan Weinschenk. The book is a list of facts about people, ranging from physical specifics about vision to patterns of social interaction and emotional states. The book is written with a focus on website design, but many of the facts are very relevant for game design, which is why I thought I’d share some of them with you today. And in keeping with the style of the book, I’ll just be going down the list.

1) 11. 9% of Men and .5% of Women are Color-Blind

Different colorings of a card from Corporate America made using Colorblind Web Page Filter. (Top: full color vision, middle: red-green color-blind, bottom: blue-yellow color-blind.)
If you’re like me, you’ve known that designing for color-blind people is important, but you’ve never been terribly sure how to do it. Weinschenk specifies how people are color-blind: almost all are red-green color blind, meaning they have trouble differentiating reds, greens, and yellows, though some have trouble with blues and yellows or seeing any color at all.

Weinschenk also provides a tool to assist designers interested in accommodating color blind players (almost 5% of the population!). The Colorblind Web Page Filter lets you view a web page through the eyes of a color-blind person (great if you want to throw a bunch of images from your game on a webpage and check them all at once).

So, you’re a successful game designer and can afford to pay an actual graphic designer to worry about the appearance of your game? I still recommend understanding issues such as color-blindness. This not only allows you to communicate better with your graphic designer and give him or her better instructions and plans, it lets you double check to make sure your game is as color-blind friendly as it needs to be.

2) 20. People Remember Only Four Items At Once

It turns out that people get much worse at recalling more than four things, so keep that limit in mind when you’re designing your game. It’s alright to reward players who can remember more than four things, but you should never require players to remember more than four things.

The one exception is that people can “chunk” information together. Using this strategy, people combine like items into a single item for the purposes of the memory limit (maybe remembering “two blue cards, three red cards” rather than each card individually). It’s always a good idea to make your game pieces chunkable, even if players won’t need to remember more than four.

3) 33. People Process Information Best in Story Form and 34. People Learn Best From Examples

I’m combining these two because I think they’re very closely related. Stories are one of the primordial ways people experience the world, and examples are a way to turn rules or systems into stories people can easily process.

I think these can help game designers in two ways. First, it emphasizes the importance of theme for games. At the end of the day, games are just systems, but themes help people understand the systems in part because they help turn games into stories.

Second, you should always include examples in your rules. I’m personally quite bad about this, but I’ll definitely be working on it in the future. Some people can handle lists of rules, but most people can’t, and even those who can digest pure rules would probably benefit from having examples thrown in.

4) 44. Sustained Attention Lasts About Ten Minutes

It turns out it’s not the internet ruining people’s attention spans… our attention spans are just inherently kind of weak. Even when something is interesting, people will only pay attention for seven to ten minutes before their minds start to wander. The good news is that giving people a break can recharge them for another ten minute burst.

Again, I have two pieces of advice based on this fact. First, make sure your players have breaks during the game, especially if the game is long. Keeping a game short and allowing players to play multiple times in an evening might be even better.

Second, keep your rules concise. Maybe it will take the game leader more than ten minutes to read the rules, but make sure the leader can explain them to new players in ten minutes or less, or you will get players who can’t pay attention to everything.

5) 50. People are More Motivated as They Get Closer to a Goal

People get more motivated as they get nearer to completing an objective, which means they get more excited and focused as they approach a goal. If you want a game with a nice dramatic arc, this means two things.

Provide sub-goals throughout the game to make sure players continue to be motivated.

First, make sure your players have sub-goals throughout the game. If you rely on players having one big goal, the beginning of the game will be less engaging, since players are so far away from accomplishing anything.

Second, make sure your game ends shortly after your players have accomplished their big goal. It’s probably ok to have a little bit of cool down time to let your players recover from their heightened state of excitement, but you definitely don’t want it to linger since the last experience they have with a game will often be one of the most defining parts of the experience.

6) 54. People are More Motivated by Intrinsic Rewards Than Extrinsic Rewards

People play games for many reasons, but accumulating victory points or pretend money generally isn’t one of them. As a game designer, you can only immediately offer your players rewards that have no inherent meaning, but the space you create with your game can imbue those fake rewards with real meaning.

As you design, remember the real reasons people play games. They play games to boost their self esteem (they like feeling smart, creative, and funny). They play games to socialize with and make new friends (they like to bond and scheme with other people and elevate their social status by showing off). They play for excitement and to feel good (people enjoy feeling surprised and in suspense). They play to experiment with different identities and feel like they’re a part of something big (stories speak to people). Whatever extrinsic rewards you’re offering in your game, make sure they support the real reasons your players are playing.

7) 70. Laughter Bonds People Together

Remember, your game isn’t just a system played by robots. Your game is played in social situations by people. People will play your game to get to know each other better and spend quality time together, even if it isn’t a party game like Apples to Apples.

Humor is a great way to enable people to bond through a game. Throw in some jokes. Better yet, set up your game so players can make their own jokes.

Even serious games can benefit from having silly interactions or names that lend themselves to playful trash talking. Whatever you do, get your players to laugh… people like to laugh, so people will like your game more if it gets them to laugh!

8) 76. People are Programmed to Enjoy Surprises

This may not come as a surprise given that almost all modern games feature cards or dice, but randomness is great to include in games because it makes people feel good (in addition to doing a bunch of other important stuff). But beyond randomness, consider surprises outside of individual games. Risk Legacy reveals new treats as players play more, and games with lots of expansions like Dominion keep players guessing what’s coming next.

9) 77. People are Happier When They’re Busy

It turns out that people don’t like to sit around doing nothing. If you keep up with my blog, you already know that I think that engaging players at all times is one of the most important things you can do as a game designer, and this fact just drives it home. You should strive to make sure your players never find themselves sitting around doing nothing, and if for some reason you can’t do that, give them something to occupy themselves. Planning their next turn generally works (though don’t rely on people actually doing it), but in my experience, including something physical for players to fiddle with (like roads and settlements in Settlers of Catan) does the trick.

10) 81. The More Difficult Something is to Achieve, the More People Like It

When people have to work to get something, they value it more. I’m guessing this is why people tend to use things more when they have to pay for them rather than when they’re given away for free.

For game players, satisfaction from overcoming a challenge is nothing new. Setting up that killer combo or struggling and finally beating the end boss leave players smiling like nothing else.

The biggest take-away from this is to not dumb your game down too much. There is a tendency in design to make things easy for your players… game design is perhaps unique among design disciplines to actively strive to throw obstacles in front of users. Even still, many game designers these days are willing to make games extremely easy to reach a larger audience. It’s always good to keep in mind that making your game easier means sacrificing these very pleasurable overcoming-a-challenge experiences.

That said, keep in mind lesson 38: People Can Be in a Flow State (definitely worth reading up on if you’re not familiar). It’s important to challenge your players, but making things too difficult will frustrate them. This is much more challenging for non-digital games, but as a game designer you should strive to make sure your game’s difficulty scales with your players’ skill levels.

90 More Things!

And there you have it. Ten (or so) things every game designer needs to know about people. I hope these are useful for you, but the book doesn’t stop there! 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People has a bunch more interesting and useful facts, and while I think I chose the most useful for game designers, I could easily be wrong. The book is a quick read and very user friendly (as if the author knows something about designing easy to use artifacts…). I highly recommend it.（source：nothingsacredgames）