作者：Sharon Bollergame

在上一篇文章中，我概述了学习游戏设计的整个过程。本文将重点解释第一步，即玩和评估游戏。如果你不喜欢玩游戏，那你就不要尝试设计游戏了，因为你会很痛恨这一步的。游戏设计有点像写书；如果你没有首先花时间阅读和评价几本书，你就永远不可能写出一本书。那些想写书又没读过书的人，不可能创作出任何伟大的文学作品。（请点击此处阅读本系列第二、第三、第四篇）

第一步：玩和评估

所以，第一步就是玩游戏，玩大量不同类型的游戏。如果你只玩一种类型的游戏（电子游戏、桌面游戏等），那么你应该拓宽眼界，探索不同类型的游戏和访问不同的游戏论坛。在你玩不同类型的游戏时，你要思考是什么让这种游戏“有趣”，以及游戏的机制和元素如何让游戏变得“有趣”。（如果你觉得某游戏对你来说无趣，那么是什么让别人觉得有趣？你不可能是所有你玩到的游戏的目标受众。）

本文将解释以下三点：

1、“乐趣”为什么重要？

2、如何通过评估你所玩的游戏来学习更多关于游戏设计的知识，以及为你自己的游戏设计提供灵感？

3、玩并评估6款游戏作为学习游戏设计的起点

“乐趣”为什么重要？

为什么强调“乐趣”？因为游戏中的乐趣可以刺激学习——或者说就是学习。乐趣是成功的游戏的必要成分。Kevin Werback在他的关于“游戏化”的在线课程中，定义了8种类型的游戏乐趣。这8种类型的乐趣都恰好与学习行为或人们必须学习的东西大有关系。

1、竞争（你认为这与工作无关？我们都喜欢获胜——例如，克服挑战、打败对手、超越自我等）。

2、达到目标（人类是目标导向型动物。目标对于我们大部分来说都是强大的激励因素，达到目标能让我们产生满足感。与现实学习有关的游戏中的目标是非常强大和有效的。目标在商业中无处不在：减少报废率、减少安全故事、增加多少的销售量、开发多少的客户……达到大部分目标都要求改变行为；往往要求学习以不同的方式做某事或做得比你现在能达到的程度更好。）

3、战胜——可以是战胜对手或游戏本身，或游戏中的个人挑战。我们享受胜利的感觉，尤其是我们通过解决某个难题或克服某种挑战而取得的胜利。我们在工作中也会感受到胜利：完成一个困难的项目、挫败严峻的商业挑战等。

4、合作——非常可贵的商业技能，这也是许多游戏中的乐趣元素。人们从与他人的合作中获得社交和情绪上的满足感。相比于竞争，人们通常更喜欢合作。任何公司或机构都希望员工通过工作上的合作达到商业目标。

5、探索和建设——像《模拟人生》、《我的世界》和《文明》都与创造某物有关。许多人把探索和建设作为强大而有趣的激励因素，所以他们可以在游戏中长时间做这些事。这些也是工作的关键技能。探索是一种被低估的商业技能，与另一种人们更理解的东西—-研究紧密相关。

6、收集——大量游戏都有收集系统，即以收集某物作为玩家的目标。扑克本质上也是一种收集游戏—-收集到最好的牌你就赢了。几年以前在玩家中非常流行收集《口袋妖怪》卡片。桌面游戏《冒险》与包含收集玩法——通过策略开拓领土。如何开拓领土？收集玩法能吸引很多人，可以轻易地与学习游戏相结合。在商业中，在做出下一步决策前，我们通常需要收集信息。

7、解决问题或制定策略——这些是更高级的思考技能，很多人都喜欢的活动。所以，具有这些元素的游戏通常有很多粉丝。象棋是策略游戏的古典例子。《魔兽世界》也可以当作是一款现代策略游戏。冒险类游戏都解决问题的玩法更有关系——想出如何从A点到达B点。解决问题和制定策略是商业发展和管理以及商业中的大多数工作的重要部分。

8、角色扮演或想象——许多游戏都允许玩家进行这两种活动中的一种或全部，而人们也喜欢做这些事。《第二人生》这款一度风靡的游戏通过允许人们创建代表自己的角色，来激发人们角色扮演的渴望。GameOn网站上有两款学习游戏，让学习者一边想像自己处于不同的时空中，一边学习时间管理和协商技能。幻想让人们得以放心大胆、不惧失败地尝试新活动和学习新技能。

好了，你们已经知道那8种乐趣是什么了。现在，为了培养你的技能，你应该玩多少款游戏？我的答案？很多——永远尝试新游戏！我的iPad上有三个文件夹是放游戏的。以下是部分游戏图标的截图：

这个文件夹里有传统游戏（如拼字游戏）、热门游戏（《Words with Friends》、《切绳子》）、益智游戏、冒险游戏、街机风格的游戏等。类型广泛。有些游戏我只玩了一次；有些我玩了非常多次（即使我并没有很喜欢它们）。我仍然希望知道是什么让我不太喜欢的游戏流行起来，为什么有些人认为它们有趣，我可以借鉴其中的什么机制。

如何评估

为了娱乐而玩游戏不同于为了评估其品质和设计而玩游戏。在我玩游戏时，我总是会在心里面评估我所玩的游戏。以下我想到的几个问题：

1、游戏目标是什么？是否明确？是否吸引我？为什么吸引或为什么不吸引我？

2、游戏的核心机制是什么？是探索、收集、竞赛、解决问题或者两种不同机制的混合如收集与竞赛？

3、规则是否清楚？如何学习？

4、游戏的什么机制（也就是规则）对游戏的乐趣贡献最大？我可以改变哪一条（几条）？如果我改变了，会发生什么事？（提示：尝试改变其中一个机制，然后重玩游戏，看看它如何影响游戏体验和“有趣”的感觉。）

5、游戏的美术设计是否吸引我？让我产生什么样的审美反应？

6、在调节不同玩家的等级方面，游戏是否“平衡”？如何“平衡”？

7、游戏是否符合它的目标受众的期待？（我们玩的游戏有时候是以学龄儿童为受众的。所以，我必须评估游戏的目标受众是谁。）

8、游戏中是否存在与游戏有关的剧情？剧情如何强化游戏体验？设计师如何把剧情穿插在游戏中？如果没有，为什么没有？如果有，是画蛇添足还是锦上添花？

9、策略与运气之间如何实现平衡？我是否可以通过偶然的选择而掌控结果，或者结果基本上是随机的？（游戏邦注：如，卡片游戏《战争》就完全是看运气的；而象棋是策略性的。）“运气”因素如何影响我对游戏的看法？

10、游戏是合作的、竞争的或二者兼有？当我玩游戏时，这让我产生什么感觉？这增加或减少了我玩游戏的动机吗？

11、如果游戏是竞争的，且我输了，我会有什么感觉？是刺激我再玩一次还是退出游戏以避免失败？

12、如果游戏数字的，导航是否容易？是否明确？是否可以通过探索快速学习？

13、最后，作为学习型游戏设计师，我可以借鉴什么元素用于自己的游戏？

下面我推荐读者玩6款游戏并做出评估。其中之一是桌面游戏，其他五款是电子游戏。在我的建议里，我添加了我评估游戏设计和玩法的评估，作为参考（我不是说我的方法就是唯一正确的）。记住，我列出的游戏中也有我不觉得有趣的游戏。好游戏和坏游戏你都要玩，这有助于对比。

《卡坦岛拓荒者》（桌面游戏）：这是我玩过的最优秀的游戏之一，我确实喜欢它。以下是我的笔记和评估评论：

1、这款游戏是合作玩法和竞争玩法的混合体。是我喜欢的类型。我参与合作的动机取决于我自己以及其他玩家的执行程度。我注意到，如果四个人玩游戏，其中二人可能联合起来阻碍第三个玩家。我还发现，如果不与他人合作将很难取胜。游戏的策略是，想出何时合作，何时拒绝合作。

2、玩家在这款游戏中可以使用各种策略。我认为这对游戏起正影响。我可以经营港口。我可以专注于获取发展卡而不是以建设城市和殖民地的形式打造可以看得见的帝国。我可以专注于收集能够帮助我胜利的成就（最长的路或早多的军队）。或者如果我想，我还可以混用这些策略。

3、阅读规则不容易学会游戏——如果我们所谓的“容易”是指花5分钟的话。我认为这种复杂程度的规则不成问题，因为游戏的体验很丰富。我认为规则的复杂度通常与游戏体验的丰富度相当。简短的游戏的规则也简单。而可能性和策略性强的游戏需要的规则和说明也更复杂。然而，我确实认为在有了一两次游戏经验后，我应该能够掌握基本的规则。如果还是不行，那么我就会失去兴趣。

4、我喜欢游戏调整不同难度的方式。你可以调节面板的布局来提高或降低游戏难度。

5、游戏中加入运气成分，使玩家不能单纯地靠运气取胜。这是通过NPC实现，也就是让强盗牵制较强一方的实力，以帮助占下风的一方。

6、当有四名或以上玩家时，强盗的制衡作用就更好了。但在只有两名玩家的情况下就不太管用了。许多玩家发现调整强盗的规则可以弥补这一点，这让我觉得有趣。

7、骰子数是游戏的一部分，我觉得有趣。当我考虑在哪里开拓殖民地和建设城市时，我可以把概率考虑进去。这使得策略中具有机遇的成分。另外，这是我自己也想在我的游戏中使用的一种设计。

8、如果我想制作一款学习型游戏，其中结果是由运气和策略共同决定的，那么我可以从这款游戏中借鉴什么？将运气与策略相结合的情况有很多。任何一款游戏的发布本身就包含运气和策略元素。当我们设计、开发和发布产品时，有很多东西是超出我们控制的。我如何确保游戏基本上是策略的，但包含能反映现实的运气元素？

现在，以下有5款游戏让你玩和评估。我已经给出一两点笔记了，但你还可以提出更多你自己的看法。

《机械迷城》（iPad和PC）：这是一款复古风冒险游戏。注意，游戏中缺少奖励和成就。为什么没有？不需要吗？（不，任务本身就是奖励。解决迷题的过程很有趣。奖励就是来自克服挑战的满足感。）可以评估的其他方面：

1、美学

2、对比在不同平台PC和iPad上玩这款游戏

《Rise of the Blob》（Facebook、Android、iPad）：这是一款恐怖游戏。与《机械迷城》完全相反，游戏中有大量奖励和成就，因为它是靠IAP获得收益的。思考一下你对这么多奖励和成就的看法，以及你对这款游戏的兴趣能维持多久。

《The Grading Game》：我喜欢这款游戏的设计，我认为非常巧妙。思考一下你对其美学、游戏目标、消极反馈的运用（在学习型游戏中一般不使用消极反馈）、以及以时间作为严格的约束。消极方面，你认为把“教学”信息放进规则中如何？是否可以改进？如果可以，你会怎么改？

《Mystery Math Mansion》（iPad）：这款游戏针对的是学生。注意游戏的美学、奖励系统和选择数字还是符号的策略。也有必要注意一下，它们如何把游戏活动与成就等级相结合。问你自己，游戏的目标（解放萤火虫）是不是符合目标受众的期待。你认为目标受众会重复玩这款游戏几次？

《Dragonbox》：这款可爱的小游戏是用来教五岁小孩子学习代数的。想一想：这款游戏应该当成纯粹的教学工具还是将其他形式的教导结合进来？游戏的美学是否具有广泛的吸引力？你认为作为玩家完成和取得成就的奖励的三星系统如何？（如果你得到至少一颗星，那么你可以继续游戏；如果你拿到三颗星，那说明你找到了解决问题的最佳方案）。我的观点？我自己也会使用三星系统；我喜欢这种系统，因为它一方面允许玩家进展，另一方面玩家能通过获得的星星数得知自己的表现如何。我认为游戏的美术设计很简单但很聪明。只靠这款游戏，我是不可能学会代数的，但如果能加上一位好老师的正规解释，我认为会是一种很棒的学习方法。（顺便一提，我讨厌代数。这款游戏确实给力。）（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）

Learning Game Design Series, Part 1: Play and Evaluate Games

by Sharon Bollergame

Last week’s post gave an overview of the entire process for getting started in learning game design or creating game-based learning. This post focuses on Step 1, which is to play and evaluate games. If you don’t like playing games, don’t try to design a game because you’re going to hate this step. Game design is a bit like writing a book; you’d never attempt to write a book if you first hadn’t spent time reading and evaluating several books. Those who would attempt to write a book without having ever read one probably wouldn’t create any great work of literature.

So step 1 is to play a lot of games—and play a lot of different types of games. If you focus on one particular genre (video games, board games, etc.), then you should expand your horizons and explore different genres and game forms. As you play all these different kinds of games, think about what makes them “fun” to play and how the game’s mechanics and elements make them fun. (If they aren’t fun for you, what makes them fun for others? You’re not the target audience for every game you play.)

Read on to discover three things:

Why FUN matters

How to evaluate games you play to learn more about game design and get ideas for designing your own games
Six games to play and evaluate to help you get started

Why FUN matters

Why the focus on fun? Because the fun in a game helps learning happen—or IS the learning. Fun is not frivolous; it’s integral to a successful game.  Kevin Werback, in his Coursera MOOC on gamification, identifies eight types of fun in games. These eight types of fun all happen to integrate nicely with learning, or are things people need to learn to do.

Winning (You think this doesn’t link to the workplace? We all like to achieve a win state – over a challenge, over a competitor, over ourselves – beating a previous personal best, for example.)

Achieving goals (Humans are goal-driven creatures. Goals are highly motivating to most of us and achieving them is very satisfying. Goals in games that link to the real-life learning we want a target group to do can be powerful and effective. Goals are everywhere in business: reducing percentage of scrap, reducing number of safety incidents, increasing sales by X, adding X customers.  There’s behavior change required to achieve most goals; that frequently requires learning how to do something differently or better than you currently do it.)

Triumphing – this can be triumphing over a competitor, or the game itself, or over individual challenges within the game. Many of us enjoy feeling victorious, particularly if we gained victory by mastering a difficult problem or challenge. We have feelings of triumph in the workplace as well: vanquishing a difficult project, prevailing against difficult business odds or challenges, etc.

Collaborating – a highly valuable business skill, this is a fun element of many games, too. People get social and emotional satisfaction out of collaborating with others. Often people enjoy collaboration much more than they enjoy competing. And organizations WANT people to collaborate in the workplace to achieve business results.
Exploring and building – Games like Sims, Minecraft, and Civilization are about doing these things – and many people find exploration and building powerfully motivating and “fun” to do – so fun, in fact, that they can spend literally hours of time doing these things within a game. These are key skills inside the workplace. Exploration is an under-rated business skill that closely links to something more people understand within business: research.

Collecting – lots of games feature a collection “dynamic” where players’ goal is to collect certain things. Poker is essentially a collection game – collect the best cards and you win.  The Pokemon card craze of a few years ago is about collection. The board game Risk combines collection – acquiring territories – with strategizing. HOW will you gain those territories? Collection appeals to many people’s sense of fun and can be incorporated easily into learning games. In the business world, we often have to collect information before we can move forward with decisions.

Problem-solving or strategizing – these are higher-order thinking skills that lots of people enjoy doing. Consequently games that feature these elements have lots of fans. Chess is a classic example of a strategy game. World of Warcraft is a modern-day example. Games in the adventure genre are all about problem-solving – figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B. Problem-solving and strategizing are part of growing and managing any business – and most jobs within a business.

Role playing or imagining – many games allow us to do one or both of these things and people love doing them. Second Life, a once-popular virtual environment, leveraged people’s desire to role play by allowing people to create avatars to represent themselves. GameOn Learning has two learning games that both have the learner imagine themselves in a different place and time – while learning time management and negotiation skills. Fantasy can provide a powerful means of letting people feel free to try new behaviors and acquire new skills while feeling safe and minimizing fear of failure.

Okay, so you have a list of fun. Now, how many games should you play to help build your skill set? My answer? A lot—and never stop playing new ones! I have three folders on my iPad labeled Games, Games 1, Games 2. Here’s a view of one of these folders:

This folder contains a mixture of traditional games (Scrabble), popular games (Words with Friends, Cut the Rope), puzzle-type games, adventure games, arcade style games, etc. It’s highly eclectic. Some of these games I may only play once; others I will play multiple times (even if I don’t like them very much). I still want to understand what makes them popular, why some people thing they are fun, and what mechanics within them might trigger an idea I could use in a game I create.

Evaluating what you play

Playing games for enjoyment is different than playing games to evaluate the quality and efficacy of the game design. Here’s a laundry list of questions that go through my mind as I play games with evaluation of them on my mind:

What’s the game goal? Is it clear? Is it compelling to me? Why or why not?

What’s the game’s core dynamic? Is it exploration, collection, “race to the finish,” solve—or a blend of two different dynamics such as collection AND race to the finish?

Are the rules clear? How do I learn them?

What game mechanics (aka rules) make the game most fun? Which one(s) would I change? What would happen if I did? (Suggestion: Try changing one of the mechanics and re-playing the game to see how it alters the play experience and the sense of “fun.”)

Do the aesthetics of the game draw me in? What emotional reaction do the aesthetics elicit in me?
Is the game “balanced” in the sense that it accommodates different player levels? How?

Do I feel like the game is a good match for its target audience? (We play games intended for school-aged kids at times. I have to evaluate the game’s play in the context of who it is intended for, which isn’t me.)

Is there a story associated with this game? How does it enhance the game play experience? How did the designers weave the story throughout the game? If they didn’t, why not? Would it add/detract from the game if they did?

What’s the balance between strategy and chance? Do I feel like I have control over the outcome by the choices I make in the game or do I feel the outcome is almost all chance? (e.g. the card game War is all chance. Chess is strategy.) How does the “chance” factor affect how I feel about the game?

Is the game cooperative, competitive, or a blend of both? How does this make me feel as I play the game? Does it increase or decrease my motivation to play?

If the game is competitive and I lose, how does this make me feel? Does it motivate me to play again or do I want to avoid playing again so I can avoid losing?

If it’s a digital game, how easy is it to navigate? How clear is the navigation? Can I quickly learn by exploring?

Finally, as a learning game designer, what elements from this game could I use in a game I design?

Here’s a starter list of 6 games to play and evaluate.  One of them is a board game, the other five are digital games. In my suggestions I’ve included some notes of my evaluation of the game design and game play to show you how I do it. (I’m not saying this is the only right way – just my way). Keep in mind I am including games in this list that I do NOT consider to be fun. You have to play some bad with the good. It helps you contrast and compare.

Settlers of Catan board game. This is one of the best games I’ve played and I admit to loving it. Here’s some of my notes and evaluative comments:

This game leverages both cooperation and competition. I like that. My motivation to cooperate depends on how well I’m doing and how well others in the game are doing. I notice that if four people are playing, two people may cooperate to hinder a third player. I also notice that it is pretty difficult to win this game without cooperating with others. The strategy is figuring out when to cooperate and when to refuse to cooperate.

This game offers a lot of possible ways to win/strategies to employ. I consider this to be a plus. I can leverage ports. I can focus on acquiring Development Cards instead of building a visible empire in the form of cities and settlements. I can focus on earning achievements that can help me toward victory (longest road or largest army). Or if I want, I can blend a variety of these strategies.

The game isn’t easy to learn from reading the rules—if we translate “easy” as taking 5 minutes to learn (aka Apples to Apples). I don’t take this as a negative because the game offers a rich playing experience. I think the complexity of the rules often equates to the richness of the game play. Simple, short games should have simple rules. Games that offer more possibilities and strategies may require more complex rules and explanations of game play. However, I do think I should be able to master the basics with one or two game play experiences. If I need more than that, I’m going to lose interest.

I like the way the game accommodates different skill levels. You can adjust the board’s layout to make it easier or harder to play.

The game incorporates chances to even out the odds and allows players to trip each other up. It does so via a nonplaying character – the Robber – who can mitigate the power of any one player or to help a player who is losing shift his/her fortunes.

The Robber works best when there’s four or more players. It doesn’t work as well with only two players. Many players have figured out how to adjust the rules for the Robber to offset this, which is interesting to me.

The game communicates the odds of any dice role as part of the playing board, which is interesting. I can factor those odds into my decisions on where to place my settlements and cities. This gives an element of strategy to something typically thought of as only chance. Again, a very interesting and useful game design technique that I might want to use myself.

If I needed to create a learning game where chance and strategy combine to produce a result, what ideas could I glean from Settlers? There are a lot of work situations where chance and strategy combine. Any product launch has elements of chance as well as strategy. There are a lot of things we don’t get to control as we design, develop, and launch a product. How could I make sure the game is MOSTLY strategy but includes the chance elements that reflect reality?

Now, here’s five other games for you to play and evaluate. I’ve given you one or two things I’ve noted, but you can come up with plenty more on your own.

Machinarium (iPad and desktop). This is an old-style adventure game. Pay attention to the complete lack of rewards and achievements in this game. Why aren’t there any? Does it need them? (No, the task is the reward. It’s interesting to solve the challenges. The reward is the satisfaction from solving the challenges.) Other things to evaluate:

The aesthetics.

The contrast between game play on the desktop and the iPad.

Rise of the Blob (Facebook, Android, iPad). This is a horrible game that is the complete opposite of Machinarium. It’s FULL of rewards and achievements because it makes money from in-app purchases. See what you think about the sheer volume of the awards and achievements and how long the game holds your interest.

The Grading Game. I loved this game design. I thought it was very clever. See what you think about the aesthetics, the game goal, the use of negative, almost mean, feedback (traditionally a no-no in learning games), and the very punitive use of time as a constraint. On the negative side, what do you think of the placement of the “teach” info on grammar rules? Could that be improved? If so, how would you do it?

Mystery Math Mansion (available for iPad). This game is targeted toward grade schoolers. Pay attention to the aesthetics, the reward system, and the strategy choice of selecting numbers versus symbols. It’s also useful to notice how they incorporate levels of play and achievements. Ask yourself whether you think the game goal (releasing fire flies) is appropriate for the game’s target audience. How much repeat play do you think the target audience would do?

Dragonbox. This nifty little game is supposed to teach algebra—even to five-year olds. See what you think. Does it stand alone as a teaching tool or should it be combined with some other form of instruction? Do the aesthetics have broad appeal? How do you feel about the 3-star system for letting users track both completion and achievement? (You can progress if you get at least a single star but 3 stars indicate you’ve solved the problem in as few moves as possible) My opinions? I would use the 3-star system myself; I liked that it allowed for players to progress while also giving evaluative info about how well they performed. I thought the aesthetics were simple but clever. I would NOT have learned algebra with this app alone but it would have been great combined with formal explanations offered by a competent teacher. (I hated algebra, by the way. This game would have really helped.)(source:theknowledgeguru)