作者：Thais Weiller

有时候我会梦到自己在做一些日常琐事，如煎蛋。但是有时候在这些梦中，当我像在现实生活中那样做着这些事时，却会出现意想不到的结果，而我也不知道是哪一环出现了问题。你是否也遇到过类似的情境？我敢肯定你们至少遇到过一次这种情况。就像对于我来说，本来在梦中好端端地煎着鸡蛋，但是突然鸡蛋就变成了一只多彩的小鸟，而我则是在虐待着这只可怜的小动物并因此遭到逮捕。

我怎么会知道鸡蛋是一只小鸟？它明明就与现实中的鸡蛋无异。结果便证明我们潜意识里其实是一个非常糟糕的游戏设计师，即不能在你做出任何决定前提供准确的信息。这会导致你被自己的想法所欺骗。当然了，这种情况出现在潜意识里并不成问题，因为那时候人们并不能购买新的东西，但是你不能在游戏中呈现出这种效果，因为这会让玩家感觉自己被欺骗了，并会因此转向其它游戏。

反馈是玩家收到有关游戏信息的最有效方法，所以它在游戏中才如此重要。主要存在两种反馈形式，即时反馈和长期反馈。即时反馈主要是受到游戏玩法的驱动，并将帮助玩家理解该执行怎样的行动（攻击或跳跃），不该做什么（掉入悬崖，撞上敌人），以及他自己在游戏中的总体状态。

mario（from gamasutra）

举个例子来说吧，当马里奥获得一分时，我们便会听到熟悉且欢快的音乐响起，数字也会开始上升，而当他碰到蘑菇一样的生物时（如Goomba），便会响起不是很愉快的声音，并且马里奥也会缩小。玩家便可以从中清楚滴看到自己该争取什么以及避免什么。

angry birds（from gamasutra）

《愤怒的小鸟》拥有多个阶段和不同的世界，提供给玩家有关他们游戏进程的反馈以及成就感。

与即时反馈一样重要的是，长期反馈会轻拍玩家的背部说道：“嘿，看看你走了多远！恭喜你！”。经典的游戏通常都会使用变化的环境（游戏邦注：如埃及和火山阶段会告诉玩家“这些阶段是不同的切具有挑战性，说明你在游戏中不断前进着”）以及引进新机制和敌人去“轻拍”玩家。尽管今天也有许多游戏在使用这种方法，但是还有其它更有效的方式能够推动着玩家前进。

candy crush（from gamasutra）

《Candy Crush Saga》拥有与《愤怒的小鸟》的阶段相同的功能，并且是基于更有趣的方式进行设计。

有时候你的玩家可能并未待在游戏中，所以我们便需要提供长期反馈。这在手机游戏中很常见，因为玩家在任何时候都可以收到电子邮件通知或任何来自游戏中的内容。在手机上，我们可以使用告示去提醒玩家“我需要回到这款出色的游戏中”，这也是这种方法重要性的体现。但是你并不能只是添加告示但却不去考虑怎样的告示类型最适合你所创造的游戏。

例如，像《迷你大楼》和《D.O.T》等基于现实世界的游戏便会在出现新更新内容的情况下准时通知玩家，但是在此之后便不会多通知其它事宜。《迷你大楼》总是会在玩家离开游戏后通知他们第一层楼需要补给，但却不传达有关之后楼层的内容，而《D.O.T》则会在玩家能量添满时通知他们。这种“只陈述首要事件”的方法真的非常重要，因为如果太频繁地使用通知，玩家便会感到厌烦并可能卸载游戏。

非实时游戏在选择适当的通知内容方面更加困难。如果通知太多错误的内容将会导致应用变成一个垃圾工厂，而过少的通知则会导致游戏被遗忘。在这种情况下我们需要做的便是创造一个能够定期改变游戏玩法或道具的事件安排。举个例子来说吧，每周你的无限奔跑者都拥有一套随机诞生于关卡设计的道具，玩家可以随机收集这些道具，而如果游戏能够在每次出现新道具时通知玩家的话，他们便会很乐意回到游戏中。

当然了，如果你的游戏一开始就非常无聊，那么即使是通知也不可能推动着玩家回到游戏中。所以通知只能说是重要的功能，但却不是万能的。基于准确的判断力并整合游戏环境，通知将能够有效地帮助游戏散发魅力。

（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）

Show and Tell – Feedback and Notifications for Mobile Games

by Thais Weiller

I sometimes have dreams in which I do every day stuff such as frying an egg. However, sometimes in these dreams I do these things exactly like real life and they turn out a complete failure out of nowhere so I have absolutely no idea what went wrong. Does that happens to you too? Pretty sure it happened at least once. So there is me, frying the above cited egg and then all of suddenly the egg is actually a tiny colorful bird and I’m a sadistic psycho torturing the poor animal and get arrested for this.

But how could I know? That egg was just like any other real life egg! Turns out that our subconscious is a really bad game designer which doesn’t give you the right info before you make decisions. This makes you feel that you were cheated by your own mind. That’s ok on a subconscious since people cannot purchase new ones, but you don’t want to recreate this effect on a game, otherwise player will feel cheated and will surely switch to another game.

Feedback is the most effective way player will receive information about the game and that’s why it is so important on a game. There are two main kinds of feedback, immediate and long-term feedback. Immediate is mostly gameplay oriented and helps player to understand what actions to perform [attacking, jumping], which not to [falling into a cliff, running into an enemy], and what his general status in the game.

Gimme!

For instance, when Mario get a coin we hear that well known pleasant sound and a small number starts to rise, when he touches that brown mushroom-like thing (a.k.a. Goomba) a not so pleasant sound rings and he shrinks. It’s pretty clear what player should try to achieve and what must be avoided.

Angry Birds has numbered stages and different worlds, which provide player feedback of her progress and gives a sense of accomplishment.

As important as immediate feedback, long-term feedback is that pat in the player’s back that says “Hey, look how far you got! Congrats, man”. Classic games generally used to “pat” by using environmental changes [such as Egypt and Lava stages which basically said “these stages are different and BADASS, great progress”] and by introducing new mechanics and enemies. Though this is still used nowadays, there are other more effective ways to make player’s progress more overt.

Candy Crush Saga map has the same function of Angry Birds’ stages but also is designed in a more playful way.

But sometimes, your player just won’t be in the game so that we can get feedback long-term. This is especially common on mobile since player can, at any given time, receive an email notification or something of the sort and deviate from the game, never to remember to get back. On mobile, we can use notifications for the “Oh right, I need to get back to this awesome game” effect and that’s why they are indispensable. But you can’t just add notifications and hope for the best without taking in consideration the notifications style best matches the kind of game you are doing.

For instance, games that are based on real world time, as Tiny Tower or D.O.T, generally notify player the exact moment we has something new in the game, but don’t notify anything else after. Tiny Tower always notifies the first floor that need to be restocked after player leaves, but not the subsequent ones, while D.O.T notifies when player’s energy is replenished. This “first event to happen and only” is important because if notification is used too frequently, player may get annoyed and uninstall the game.

Tiny Tower uses notifications elegantly

Not real time based games have a more difficult time in choosing the right cue to notify. Notifing too much for the wrong things will make the app look like a spam factory and notify too little may make it dive into the oblivium. One cool thing to do in this situation is to create an event agenda that periodically changes gameplay or items. For instance, each week your infinite runner has a set of different items that are randomly spawned in the level design and player can collect them, it’s cool to notify player every time a new collection is available.

Of course, notifications won’t drive your player back to the game if you don’t have such a good game to start with, they are important but not magical. Used with good sense and in the context of the game, notifications can help your game shine.(source:gamasutra)