作者：PJ Belcher

我们都玩《Candy Crush Saga》，我们都看到别人在Facebook上玩它，但你们有没有想过为什么它会那么热门？以下是我的分析。

总之，这款游戏制作精良、设计出彩、运营有方。我敢说网上的其他人可以从游戏设计方面、赢利策略方面向你解释它的卓越之处。但最让我感兴趣的游戏的声音设计。

《Candy Crush Saga》的声音内容非常多，并且设计和制作都很好。我为此感到欣慰——我觉得开发者们总是低估声音的价值。声音通常被留到开发周期的最后，要么随便做，要么完全不做！直到《Candy Crush Saga》的出现，我的焦虑才得以缓解。

Candy Crush Saga(from gamasutra)

这款游戏的人气爆棚，玩家留存率和开发率都持续走高。游戏的声音品质非常高，设计得很到位。这两点并非巧合。

所以我们有必要分析一下声音对这款游戏的作用。我总是说最好的声音设计不是让人立即感觉到它，也不是微弱得看不见，而是介于两者的完美平衡点上——强化游戏事件、增加主题深度和营造氛围，但并不会让玩家分心。

但在我玩游戏时，出于工作需要，我是刻意听了游戏的声音。阅读本文后读者大概也会有意识地去注意它的声音，但它做得确实不错。

那么，说它做得好，到底好在哪里呢？

音乐：

在玩家思考益智题时，游戏中始终循环播放着一段音乐。这段音乐非常应景。它包含了舒缓和激烈的节奏，还有吸引其他玩家注意力的声音特效。最后一部分很重要，通常被遗忘。如果你希望游戏从竞争中脱颖而出，那就给它声音吧！《Candy Crush Saga》就是这么做的。

不幸的是，音乐在游戏中是循环播放的。这是一个棘手的问题。对我而言，任何音乐，无论有多好，播放次数多了都难免令人生厌。游戏中有一个“静音”按钮，这倒做对了。不过我的建议是，能不能在新关卡开始时循环播放音乐一两次，然后停止？这样一来，一不会让玩家厌烦到主动关闭它，二仍然能体现音乐的价值。

语音：

语音是游戏的一大利器，但通常没有被充分利用。我想开发者是觉得添加语音太麻烦了，得编写和检查脚本、寻找声优、录音和剪辑等，总之技术含量太高。

在《Candy Crush Saga》中，不仅有语音，屏幕上还显示文本。游戏的语音太棒了，比大部分其他声音都特别。没什么语言障碍，容易理解和重复。当人一边走一边说“Divine”和“Sugar Crush”时，一方面可以宣传游戏，二来成为游戏的标志语。虽然马里奥跳起来时也发出声音，但我敢说你不能用自己的嘴发出同样的声音。

UI声音

开发者通常不会考虑加入UI声音，但它们是非常重要的。让玩家的输入产生直接反馈是吸引玩家的关键。如果玩家执行输入后并没有发生任何事（即使输入是错误的），那么玩家就会感到失望。玩家需要立即的反馈，无论他们的操作是对是错或是好是坏，为了强化反馈循环，最好的办法就是做好声音设计。对于手机游戏更是如此，因为手机通常是触屏的，联系性更弱，而对于鼠标键盘操作，至少还有按键和屏幕上的指针。

《Candy Crush Saga》的UI声音设计做得很好，切换菜单有声音，点击各项也有声音（在游戏中也是）。甚至当新菜单弹出，也有填补等待动画的空隙的声音，这样你就能够再次与菜单互动。这些都是很重要的！

声音设计

不幸的是，所有声音设计似乎都是低采样率，且其他片段听起来压缩得严重。我想这是为了提高加载速度（游戏邦注：游戏已经加载得很慢了），单纯地破坏声音文件的质量是最容易的解决办法。不过，我很高兴他们以额外内容弥补声音的品质，而不中简单地删除声音文件。

但这是耻辱，因为多花点心思是可以避免这种情况的。

我对声音的唯一的其他不满就是，过场动画没有一个有声音设计的（除了我注意到的一个漏洞——多个对话会同时播放。制作方你们在看吗？）。这让我觉得非常奇怪。当然有音乐，但游戏是卡通风格的，且游戏要发展情节，那就加入声音吧。

除此之外，声音内容很不错，考虑非常周到。声音设计几乎完全达到强化玩家体验的目的。声音就像在玩家做对某事时在他背上拍了一下，算是小小的鼓励。游戏中较少消极的声音，虽然有些奇怪，但对于一款休闲游戏，这是一个明智的设计决定，而非错误。声音效果就是证明。

在《Candy Crush Saga》中，我唯一能想到的消极声音就是错误噪音。当玩家要执行错误的活动时，游戏就会发出这种声音。因为这种声音并不动听，所以玩家会很快学会游戏的规则。另一种情况是当玩家通关失败时，游戏会发出强度下降的钢琴声，伴随着某人的叫喊声，但没关系，对吧？你可以重来！声音是轻松的，但仍然传达必须的信息。

现在再说说积极声音的设计。玩家每消除一行，游戏就会发出动听的提示声音。如果一次消除好几行呢？每一行都是同样的声音，但声调渐渐提高。这使玩家产生一种进步的感觉，好像受到的鼓励更大了。

这种声音设计贯穿于整款游戏，绝大部分是积极的，让人充分感受到玩《Candy Crush Saga》是一件多么快乐的事。所以玩家就会告诉朋友，自己一直在玩这款游戏。

我很高兴能在这么热门的游戏中看到这么精彩的声音设计，我希望更多人意识到声音在游戏中的价值，其中更重要的是，除了增加美感或“必要性”，声音对游戏还有什么作用。不要吝啬在游戏中加入声音，能加就加吧。你要做的只是寻找胜任的声音设计师。（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）

Why Candy Crush Saga is so Engaging – An Audio Breakdown

by PJ Belcher

We’ve all played it, we’ve all seen every other person on Facebook play it, but have you ever wondered why it’s so popular? Let’s take a look at Candy Crush Saga.

In short, it’s very well made, excellently designed and very cleverly implemented onto Facebook. And I’m sure there are many other people on the internets that can give you an run down about why it’s so good from a game design perspective, a monetisation perspective etc… but what pleases me so much about the game is the audio.

The game is very audio content rich, there’s plenty of it, it’s well designed and for the best part well made. And I’m happy about this – too often do I find developers underestimating the value of audio. It’s either left till last, done themselves, done as cheap as possible or worse not done at all! And this has been worrying me until Candy Crush Saga came along.

The game is massive, incredibly popular, has good customer retention and user acquisition is still on going. The audio is also very in depth, good quality and well designed. The 2 are not
coincidental.

So let’s look at what the audio in Candy Crush does, and what it adds to the game. I always say the best audio design is that, that isn’t so in-your-face that you’re constantly conscience of it,
and isn’t so subtle that it adds nothing to the game, but is a perfect middle ground. Where it can sit there doing it’s job perfectly, reiforcing game events, adding depth and building emotion
whilst not being a distraction.

I’m biased, I purposely listen out for the audio in games, that’s my job! And reading this article may also make you artificially aware of it, but from a blank slate Candy Crush is doing a pretty
good job of it.

So how about the specifics?

Music:

The game has one main piece of music that plays on loop while you attempt to solve the puzzle (There are also pieces for the cut scenes and the level menu, for which the following also applies).

The music is fitting and sets the scene well. It covers any silence that the player may otherwise be sitting in, compliments the sound effects well and draws the user’s and other player’s attention to the game. That last part is important, and often forgotten. If you want you game to stand out and shout louder than the rest then actually give it a voice! Candy Crush has that piece.

Unfortunately it plays on loop in game, which is a tricky subject. To me, any music, no matter how good, if played enough times will become boring. The game has an easy ‘music mute’ button which is good step in the right direction (a frustrated player is not a good one!). What I would suggest though, would be too have the piece play on loop once or twice each new level or game, then stop.

That way the player doesn’t become irritated to the point of switching it off and it continues to add worth to the game while it does play. King, if you’re reading this, you can have that one for
free.

Dialogue:

Spoken voice is a great tool for games and so often goes unused! I guess developers find the process daunting, you have to write and proof a script, find and audition a voice actor, get the lines
recorded, then edit, produce and master the audio which is a skill in itself.

Candy Crush has great use of spoken voice with single lines being voiced by a great, deep, sultry American tone, backed up by on screen text. Delicious! Spoken voice is great, it sounds unique, has far more depth, dynamics, nuances and timbre than most other sounds. Minus language barriers, it’s widely understood and can be easily repeated! You’ve got people walking around say ‘Divine’ and ‘Sugar Crush’ they’re promoting your game and you’ve just got yourself a catch phrase. Try doing that with the jump sound from Mario, we all know it, but I bet you can’t do it with your mouth!

User Interface:

UI sounds often go unconsidered in a game, but they are very important. Having a resultant to the user’s input is key to making any game feel visceral. If the user makes an input, and nothing
happens (even if their input is incorrect) then this is very frustrating to the user. The player needs constant feedback, whether what they’ve done is correct or wrong, good or bad, re-enforce this, and the best way is with sound design. This rings even more true on Mobile since there’s often a touch screen, the user is even more disconnected, at least with a mouse and keyboard you have a buttons (which move and make mechanical sounds) and a pointer on the screen.

Candy Crush’s UI sound design is well laid out, each menu advancement has a sound, each regression, each item clicked has a sound (This is true in game too). Even when a new menu swoops in, that has a sound to fill the gap while you wait for the animation to end and you can once again interact with the menu. All very important!

Sound Design:

Unfortunately all the sound design seems to be at a low sample rate and other pieces sound heavily compressed. I’m assuming this is due to trying to keep asset load down (the game already loads comparably slowly) and simply destroying the quality of audio files is the easiest way to do it. Although I am glad they’d rather keep extra content at the sacrifice of quality, instead of just omitting sound files.

This is a shame though, since, with some thought this doesn’t have to be the case.

The only other audio criticism (aside from a bug I noticed where multiple dialogue pieces can play at once, if you’re reading King?) I would have, is that none of the animated cut-scenes have sound design. This strikes me as very odd and a missed opportunity. Sure there’s music, but the game’s very cartoony and you’re developing a storyline, build this with sound.

This aside – the audio content is good, and very well thought out. The audio design is almost there entirely to reinforce the good things the player does. Think of each sound as a good pat on the back, a well done for doing that right, here’s a little audio gift. The game also has little or NO negative reinforcement, which is odd for a game, but a very clever design tactic, especially in a casual game like this. This is no mistake and it’s the audio’s job to back this up.

The only 2 negative sounds I can think of are the error noise, when you attempt to do a move that you can’t. It’s not nice, and you quickly learn the game rules. And the other is when you Fail a
level, there’s a downward scale on a piano there’s the sound of someone crying and a swoosh, but it doesn’t matter right? You can try again! It’s light hearted, and still conveys the message it
needs to.

Now for the positive sound design. You eliminate a row, cue nice sound. You eliminate several rows with one move? Each subsequent row has the same sound, but a semi-tone higher. This gives the feeling of elevation, building jubilance – an even bigger pat on the back. Then to really put the cherry on the cake you get told it’s ‘Delicious’.

Audio design like this is true throughout the whole game, majority positive and does a brilliant job of really bringing home just how much of a happy experience playing Candy Crush saga really is.

So you tell your friends, you play some more and the cycle continues.

Like I said,,,,,, very clever. And I’m very glad to see good use of audio design in such a popular game and I hope more people can now see the value of audio in a game and more importantly, what it can do for your game aside from just being an added aesthetic or ‘necessity’. Don’t begrudged the audio in your game, use it. You just need to find the right audio designer.

Thanks for reading!(source:gamasutra)