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如何设计一款真正优秀的电子游戏

发布时间:2014-01-29 11:30:31 Tags:,,,,

作者:James Marsden

我们经常被问到的一个问题是:

“对于《Velocity》的成功你们是否感到惊讶?”

而我们的回答则是:

“一点都不惊讶,反倒是觉得安心。”

换句话说也就是我们知道《Velocity》是一款很棒的游戏,并且我们这么努力工作便是希望人们能够注意到它。所以当它吸引了巨大的关注后我们便觉得安心,因为我们知道这是它应得的。你可能会问我们怎么会如此自信?这是因为我们专注于所有对成功来说必不可少的游戏设计元素,并投入了大量时间去做好它们,同时还避免将时间浪费在那些不是很重要的事情上。总而言之,我们始终都坚持着一个重要的清单。

重要的清单

可以说这一清单是我们的“调料”,我们使用它去设计所有的游戏,并且每一款游戏都能取得较好的收益。之所以要创造出这样的清单是因为我们是基于有限资源的小型工作室。每一步行动都非常重要。

所以今天就让我们与全世界分享这一秘密吧。

共享能让世界变得更加美好。我们希望看到更多独立开发者能够创造出更多更棒的游戏,从而转变公众认为“独立游戏”就是次等,不吸引人且不完善的内容的看法。这股浪潮正在驶来,而我们希望去加速它的到来。

本质是没有细微差别的

比起过去,如今的游戏更加多样化,所以我们是不可能在一篇文章中总结出创造一款出色游戏的所有细微差别。但我们能做的便是理解创造出伟大内容的基本要素,并能够去利用这样的理解。所以本文主要是关于组成一款出色游戏的基本要素。

cs04_art(from gamasutra)

cs04_art(from gamasutra)

优秀游戏的重要清单

这是一份重要的清单。这里所列出的每一点都很简洁,但我会在之后做详细分析。

1.响应控制—-如果不能达到完美,控制也必须接近完美。

2.水密概念—-自始自终游戏都必须具有意义。

3.适当的学习曲线—-自始自终游戏都必须基于有趣的方式带给玩家挑战。

4.正面反馈和奖励—-优秀的游戏总是能够带给玩家完整的积极反馈。

5.无摩擦的用户界面—-UI必须是流线型的,以确保玩家沉浸于其中。

6.一致的音频和视觉风格—-游戏的视听风格应该自始自终保持一致。

第1,2,3点构成了游戏玩法,而第4,5,6点构成了游戏展示。

优秀的游戏

一件产品的每一方面都是相互依赖的,为了让一件产品能够站得住脚,每一方面都必须保持在同样的质量或优化水平上。

不怎么样的游戏

如果某一方面不如其它方面,这便会降低整体的体验。对于一件产品的整体看法也会被降低到最糟糕的哪方面的水平上,也就是说如果你的图像和理念非常出色,但是控制却很糟糕,那么在玩家心中你的游戏便是很糟糕。

我们假设读者至少在潜意识中了解这点,但你该如何保证所有的这些方面都足够强大了?让我们详细说明:

1.响应控制

1.1.无需动脑筋的事物?

这是再明显不过的了,但许多游戏却不能有效地处理控制。优秀的控制需要花费较多的时间与努力,而很多时候优化控制则是取决于个人的品味—-所以这要求投入共感。

1.2.控制是一半的乐趣(游戏邦注:规则是另一半)

你必须处理好控制,因为它是一半的乐趣来源。如果控制并不有趣,你便有可能让玩家感到沮丧,甚至更糟糕的是可能会让他们觉得无聊。所以你该如何确保控制足够有趣呢?

1.3.寻找玩具

寻找玩具是一个短语,指的是设置一个行动和反应让玩家感到力量,而不管遇到任何规则或挑战。就像在《割绳子》中,割绳子便是一个玩具。猛击去割断它,并看着某些东西掉落是很有趣的。使用弹弓抛掷小鸟也是一种有意思的玩具。带有玩具并且是作为核心内容的游戏是非常有趣的,而不管摆在玩家面前的是怎样的挑战。

当我第一次阅读有关玩具的理念时,我的想法是:游戏已经存在很长一段时间了,如果我们开始寻找全新的游戏玩具,我们便需要着眼于全新的输入系统。我想象通过倾斜,碰触,猛击或动作控制等等方法去玩游戏。

如果你带有一个强大的理念,你便可以将最简单的行动整合到一个优秀的新玩具中。《Velocity》便是一个典型的例子—-没有什么比按压一个按键并左右移动更简单了,简单但却能够提供给玩家传输能力便是一个非常酷的玩具。

1.4.围绕着玩具进行设计

一旦你拥有一个够酷的玩具,你便可以创造一些关卡去探索玩具的每个可能局限,从而明确怎样才是有趣的。就拿《Velocity》来说吧,花太长时间去优化传输感便意味着除了特定的宽度和高度,我们在游戏中便不能留出其它空间,或者传输指标对于玩家来说要求太高而难以进行尝试或放置,如此便会减少乐趣。所以《Velocity》的每个关卡设计都是围绕着这一点。

1.5.玩家就是上帝

你必须让玩家始终都能感受到自己在控制游戏。如果玩家因为控制太过复杂而很难再继续游戏,那么他们便不再能够感受到乐趣。做好这点需要投入较多的努力,这也是许多游戏频繁地遭到复制的主要原因。我们可以轻松地利用现有的控制系统并改变图像而创造出自己的游戏。但是如果你花时间去想出一个新玩具,你便能够有效地突显自己的游戏。

1.6.承认惯例

如果可能的话,你的游戏应该遵循同种类型中所建立起来的惯例。改变玩家期待做的事是不具有创造性的,这是让人厌烦的。

Transition(from gamasutra)

Transition(from gamasutra)

2.水密概念

2.1.概念实际上是一种环境

玩家正在做什么,他们在哪里做这件事,他们是如何做以及为什么这么做?这也是为何游戏概念经常受到控制启发的原因,所以如果你想要创造一个真正具有初创性的概念,那就花时间去试验正在使用或并未使用的控制系统。

2.2.强大的概念==衣架

强大的概念让你能够更轻松地充实游戏。如果概念足够强大的话,你便能够轻松地挂上游戏玩法,关卡设计,美术风格,音乐,故事和角色等内容。

2.3.简单很好

做到简单很难,但对于传达游戏理念给潜在的团队成员,发行商,游戏媒体以及最终的玩家却是非常必要的。如果你或者你的游戏预告片不能快速解释清楚概念,你便有可能遭遇玩家丧失兴趣的下场。

2.4.优雅点更好

如果能够做到简单化就说明你做得不错,因为人们将能够立马理解游戏的吸引力。但它同时也需要一定的深度,否则人们在一开始游戏时便会感到厌倦。你必须尝试着添加一些深度层次,让玩家可以在与游戏互动时慢慢进行挖掘。

关于添加深度层次的问题在于,这很容易造成概念的矛盾,并破坏所有内容。当你添加深度层次到概念中时,你必须从每个角度去看待问题,因为一个优雅的概念将不具有任何重要的漏洞。为此我推荐你们去看看《The Art Of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses》这本书。这是个非常有帮助的资源,能够引导你通过一百种不同的方式去着眼于游戏概念。

2.5.聪明最好了

如果你成功做到了优雅与简单化,你便比大多数游戏设计师更胜一筹了。但你还可以将游戏概念带到更高的一层,也就是聪明。在FuturLab中我们所做的一切都存在一个目标,即获得以下来自玩家的回应:

1.“太酷了!!!”

2.“啊,我就知道!”

3.“这也太聪明了吧!”

这是我们做任何事都想听到的反应,但前提是我们能够达到这三个概念水平。如果你的概念并未简化,你便不可能从别人口中听到“酷”这一次。他们希望能够一看到你的游戏便立刻觉得备受奖励。

“酷”的这种反应同时也是吸引人们进入游戏,开始游戏并想要游戏的重要元素。而当人们开始深入挖掘游戏时便能够感受到深度层次,而如果概念是优雅的,所有的一切便能够有效地联系在一起,你便会听到“啊,我就知道!”这样的反应。而如果你的整体概念是聪明的,人们便会忍不住说道:“这也太聪明了吧—-我希望我做到了”,或者“我想马上给好友看看。”

如果你可以在设计中整合这三个体验水平,那么你的游戏便能够朝着成功走去。如果你是从无力的概念开始,你的游戏便有可能也会变得无力,而不管你的游戏玩法设置得多巧妙。如果你不能吸引任何人,他们便不会对游戏感兴趣。我们是在《Coconut Dodge》身上发现这一理念。其游戏玩法非常出色,但却因为概念很无力而很少人愿意费心去玩游戏。

同样地,如果你拥有一个出色的概念,你便会发现它能够帮助你轻松地吸引别人加入项目中。如果我们只是在创造一款再普通不过的射击游戏,Joris de Man也就不会愿意为我们的游戏创造音乐了。传输概念帮助我们实现了这三个目标,所以当Joris坐下玩我们的原型时,他便决定加入我们的队伍。

2.7.还很兴奋?(如果并不,那就再次尝试)

这时候,如果你拥有一个强大的概念,并想出如何让控制变得更有趣,那么你便会因为自己的游戏而感到兴奋。但如果你并未感到兴奋,那么就说明你的游戏还不是很优秀。这时候你就需要回头重新进行前两个步骤。一旦你为这两个主要部分分类时,你就需要控制自己的兴奋感并严肃起来,因为这是较为简单的一部分。实际上,你只是体验到爱迪生所说的“1%的灵感”。而接下来几个月的努力才是关键。

3.适当的学习曲线

如果人们并不喜欢,那么你那惊人的理念便不再具有任何价值,所以平衡学习曲线要求与最初概念同样多的关注。你该如何做到这点呢?

3.1.明确目标用户

你必须为自己的目标用户定制学习曲线。在《Velocity》中,我们希望不管是休闲玩家还是具有较高技能的玩家都能喜欢游戏。为此我们需要付出更多努力,不仅需要让新玩家能快速进入游戏,同时还能支持并奖励那些想要马上面对挑战的玩家。

3.2.整合游戏说明

现代游戏并不具有说明,或者教程。所以关卡的设计必须具有教导性,哲理也不应该只是覆盖一些关卡。

3.3.平衡学习与挑战

只有玩家能够学习的游戏才是有趣的游戏。如果他们在某个点上停止学习,那么游戏便会开始趋于重复,所以理想的学习曲线应该是基于直线。换句话说,你总是需要给予玩家学习某些新内容的机会—-不管是新机制,或提供给玩家某些范围让他们基于某种新方式去整合机制。然而,如果难度曲线与学习曲线是相同的,那么玩家便会觉得游戏太费劲且太过乏味。

为此技巧便是设置一条阶梯式的挑战曲线去紧密追踪着学习曲线,如此玩家便能够始终保持学习,但同时还会遇到一些较短的弧线让玩家可以利用游戏知识并在再次遇到挑战前变得更加强大。在《Velocity》中,我们便是慢慢地引进机制。直到第16个关卡玩家才能使用Long Form Teleport,即游戏的主要USP。从那时起我们使用关卡设计去教授玩家如何基于不同方法使用机制,并整合它们去解决谜题。玩家只有到倒数第二个关卡才能使用游戏中一个最酷的理念。

3.4.提供明确的成功标记

记录玩家分数能够提供给他们一种动机,所以让玩家知道如何获胜,如何并且为何失败都是很重要的。自从奖杯和成就出现后便对游戏社区产生了很大的影响。越年轻的玩家越是会受到奖杯的影响去玩游戏。这也是源于人类强大的自尊的推动,所以基于创造性方法使用这些奖励将对游戏起到推动作用。在《Velocity》中我们设置了3种不同的分数标准并以此创造最完美的奖励。这便意味着即使玩家不能到达最高目标也能获得奖励。同时这也让那些硬核玩家能够去挑战最高的分数。

3.5.让玩家觉得自己很聪明

设计游戏是一种具有奖励性的体验。我们精通于自己所创造的世界,而这种能量很容易让人产生自我意识。所以为别人设计关卡需要很强的自我抑制和共感;即使不是太困难的关卡也具有挑战性。我便曾经与一个每天都能想出新游戏理念的家伙共事,但是几乎他的所有理念都是基于如何刁难玩家,所以都未取得成功。设计一款游戏是一种利他实践,如果你可以让玩家感觉良好,并擅长于游戏,他们便会喜欢你的游戏。这是再简单不过了。

4.正面反馈和奖励

4.1.反馈增强体验

反馈是源自玩家表现或互动的直接结果,这对于增强游戏体验是非常必要的。让人惊讶的是有许多不同的正面反馈影响着游戏。你可以创造出优秀的游戏机制,但如果缺少反馈,游戏也就不再优秀了。同时,你可以拥有中核机制,并通过优化过的动画与音效更好地完善它。

4.2.负面反馈也能够带来帮助

《Coconut Dodge》之所以如此让人上瘾的一大元素便是玩家在死亡时所承受的可怕声音。同时还伴随着戛然而止的音乐。游戏并不是在冒犯玩家,只是基于较小的方式在触发他们,这也能够推动着他们回头去纠正错误。

5.无缝的用户界面

cs06_art(fromgamasutra)

cs06_art(fromgamasutra)

5.1.快速动画

我关于UI动画的基本规则是,它必须在玩家知道发生什么前结束。如果你的UI长于这种情况,它最好具有其它亮点。提供动画UI的游戏可能会影响玩家的控制感,这并不适合。就像最近我最喜欢的一款游戏《争分夺秒》便具有一些糟糕的UI。

5.2.较短的加载时间

加载时间很重要,但却处于列表的下位。因为即使游戏拥有较长的加载时间,玩家也仍会喜欢游戏。《反重力赛车》便是最近的一个例子。

5.3.立即重启

这点非常重要。如果你的游戏很棒,你的玩家将处于流动状态,即完全沉浸于你的游戏中。如果他们犯了错或死掉,他们便会希望能够立刻重新开始。而如果你不能如他们所愿,这将会成为游戏UI中最让人受挫的情况。

5.4.可略过的过场动画

本来不该包含这点的,但这却是不容忽视的情况。更糟糕的是在伴随着过场动画开始的关卡中,玩家每次重新开始一个关卡都要再次看一次过场动画。这太折磨人了。

6.不同的视听风格

音频和视觉风格是所有的这些必要元素中最不重要的,这是因为图像不再像过去那样重要了。如果你的游戏与同样类型的其它游戏很形似,但却具有新颖的游戏玩法,它便有可能突显于众多游戏中。也就是说,你仍然能够创造出真正优秀的游戏。

6.1.明确目标用户

就像之前提到的,如果你具有一个出色的概念,你便能够轻松地想出一个美术风格。为了能够轻松地找到用户,概念,游戏玩法和美术风格都必须基于同样的方向。对于《Coconut Dodge》,我们犯了一个打错,即游戏看起来和听起来就像一款休闲游戏,但却具有硬核游戏机制。我们本应该选择一些更凶残的图像去匹配游戏玩法。

6.2.找到节俭的风格

一款优秀的游戏需要进行大量的优化。所以不管对于游戏你拥有多少预算,你永远都不会对游戏的优化感到满意—-所以请快速决定你能够创造出的该标准美术风格。这也是为何最近许多优秀的独立游戏都是2D的主要原因。优化2D更加简单,相比较而言3D更费时也更费钱。

6.3.首先支持核心机制

确保你的游戏玩法的核心看起来并听起来足够优秀,然后从该核心去反射资源。如果你花了许多时间让一个按键翻转看起来更棒,你便是在浪费时间,除非你的核心机制是受到这一效果的支持。

6.4.需要优秀的音乐

音乐不能拯救一款糟糕的游戏,但却能够将一款普通的游戏带向优秀的行列。《Coconut Dodge》便是一个典例。如果你的游戏音乐是重复且让人郁闷的,那么你花了大量时间进行完善的出色机制也将受到影响。

6.5.声音理应获得50%的分量,但却只占5%

对于玩家反馈来说生意很重要。但是因为即使没有声音游戏的每个部分也能够组合在一起,所以它往往被搁在一旁,直至最后一刻。这是我们在《Velocity》中需要完善的另一个领域。幸运的是我们的关键音效能够发挥作用,但我们却耗尽了大量时间去提升游戏的关卡质量。

将设计质量从不错提升到优秀

如果你努力做到上述的所有要点,你的游戏便有可能具有不错或较高的质量。但你该如何做才能让游戏到达优秀的水平呢?这主要取决于创新和天赋。

创新

着眼于游戏在游戏玩法中的表现(即上述1,2,3点),确保你所采取的方法具有创造性;不管是否处于控制中,你所呈现给玩家的概念和旅程都必须具有创造性。

天赋

然后着眼于游戏中展示方面的表现(即上述4,5,6点),并确保它们都是伴随着一些艺术天赋。

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

Designing An Awesome Video Game

by James Marsden

One of the most common questions we’re asked is:

“How surprised were you at Velocity’s success?”

And the answer is:

“Not surprised at all, but relieved.”

That is to say that we knew Velocity was an awesome game, and we worked hard to get it noticed. Subsequently we were relieved when it received the attention we knew it deserved. You might ask how could we be so confident? It’s because we focused on all the aspects of game design that are essential to success, putting time in to make them as good as possible whilst spending little time on the aspects that don’t matter so much. In short, we stuck to an essential checklist.

Essential Checklist

This checklist is our special sauce. We use it to design all of our games, and each has benefited greatly. Our checklist has developed out of necessity because we’re a small studio with very limited resources. Every action counts.

So why share our secrets with the world?

We believe in sharing knowledge to make the world a better place. We want to see more independent developers make stunning games to help shift the mainstream public perception of ‘indie’ as being somehow inferior, less engaging, less polished. The tide is turning, and we’d like to help accelerate it. Yes there has been a democratisation of game development with free tools and new platforms with lower barriers to entry, but what is the use of having all the gear and no idea?

Egg Suck Alert

No doubt there are people reading this who are either already making games as a career, or have studied games and want to learn everything they can about the medium. It’s therefore pretty likely that some of the things contained in this article will already be known and understood. So apologies if that is the case, hopefully we can share some nods of agreement, rather than you folks falling asleep. Having said that, there are some original ideas here, which is why we’re publishing it :)

Essence Not Nuance

Games are more diverse now than they have ever been, so to claim that we can summarise all the nuances of what makes an awesome game in a single article would be a gross mistake. However, if there’s one thing we’re truly good at, it’s understanding the essence of what makes things great, and being able to apply that understanding. So, this is an article about the essential things that comprise an awesome game. First of all though, we have to establish what makes a good game.

Good Game Essential Checklist

This list is in order of importance. Each aspect is listed here briefly, and discussed in detail afterward.

1.Responsive Controls Controls have to be close to perfect, if not perfect.

2.Watertight Concept The game has to make sense throughout.

3.Appropriate Learning Curve The game has to challenge players in a way that’s fun throughout.

4.Positive Feedback & Reward Good games are full of positive feedback for the player.

5.Frictionless User Interface The UI has to be streamlined to keep the player engaged.

6.Consistent Audio & Visual Style The audiovisual style of the game should be consistent throughout.

1, 2 and 3 loosely comprise the gameplay.

4, 5 and 6 loosely comprise the presentation.

Good Game

All aspects of a production rely on each other to create the whole, and for that production to hold water, all aspects need to be at the same level of quality or polish.

Not So Good Game

If one aspect isn’t as polished as the others, it lets the entire experience down. The overall perception of the production is brought down to the level of the weakest part, which means if your graphics and concept are great, but your controls suck, your game sucks.

We’re assuming that readers know this at least on a subconscious level, but how do you ensure all of these aspects are strong? Well, here goes:

1. Responsive Controls

1.1. No Brainer?

Such an obvious one this, but so many games get the controls wrong. Either too fiddly, or not fiddly enough. Great controls can take a lot of time and effort to get right, and most of the time tuning the controls is a matter of personal taste – so it requires empathy to get right.

1.2. Controls Are Half The Fun (Rules Are The Other Half)

And it’s essential that you do get them right, because controls are half the fun. If the controls aren’t fun, then you risk frustrating your players, or worse still, boring them. So how do you guarantee your controls are fun to use?

1.3. Find The Toy

Finding The Toy is a phrase that refers to setting up an action and reaction that makes the player feel powerful, regardless of any rules or challenge being imposed. Cutting the rope in CutTheRope is a toy. It’s fun to swipe and cut, and watch something fall. Flinging a bird with a catapult has proven to be quite a good toy too. Games with toys at their core are fun to play around on regardless of any challenge the player is being tasked with.

When I first read about the concept of the toy, I thought to myself: games have been around for a long time now, so if we’re going to find a hit new gameplay toy, we’re going to have to look at new input systems. I imagined having to play around with Tilt, Touch and Swipe, or Motion Control. Which is wrong, fortunately.

You can make the simplest of actions into a great new toy if you have a strong concept. Taking Velocity as an example – you can’t get much simpler than pressing a button and moving left and right, but giving the player the ability to teleport is a really cool toy. It’s satisfying to do regardless of anything else going on in the game.

1.4. Design Around The Toy

Once you have a cool toy, it’s worth building some levels that explore every possible limit of the toy to work out what is fun. Quite often you will be limited in your scope for level design by the mechanics of the toy. In the case of Velocity, it took a long time to tune the feel of the teleport, and what felt right in the toy – nice and quick – meant that we couldn’t have any spaces in the game less than a certain width or height, or the teleport cursor would be too fiddly for the player to try and place, reducing the level of fun. So, every level in Velocity was designed with this in mind.

1.5. Player Is King

The player should always feel in control of the game. They are allowed to feel like they’re crap at it, that’s fine, but the moment the game feels like it’s too hard to play as a result of the controls being too difficult, it stops being fun. Just getting this bit right takes a lot of effort, and is probably the main reason why games are cloned so often. It’s far easier to take an existing control system and change the graphics and call it your game. But if you spend the time coming up with a new toy, you’re setting a trajectory for a game to stand out.

1.6. Acknowledge Conventions

If possible, your game should also follow the conventions established within a genre. Changing things that players expect to be able to do is not creative or innovative, it’s annoying.

2. Watertight Concept

2.1. Concept Is Actually Context

What is the player doing, where are they doing it, how and why are they doing it? This is why game concepts are quite often inspired by the controls, so if you want to create a really original concept, spend time experimenting with control systems that are under used, or not used at all.

2.2. Strong Concept == Coat Hanger

A strong concept makes it easy to flesh out the game with little effort. Gameplay, level design, art style, music, story, characters – all will hang pretty easily if the concept is strong. So what makes a strong concept?

2.3. Simplicity Is Good

It’s tricky to achieve simplicity, but it’s essential for communicating your game idea to potential team members, publishers, games press and ultimately gamers. If you or your game trailer can’t get across the concept quickly, you risk losing people’s interest.

2.4. Elegance Is Better

You’re doing well if you can achieve simplicity, because people will understand the hook of your game immediately. But it needs to have depth as well, otherwise people will get bored as they start playing. You have to try and add layers of depth that a player can slowly discover as they interact with the game.

The problem with adding layers of depth is that it’s easy to introduce inconsistencies in the concept, which spoils everything. When you’re adding layers of depth to a concept, you have to look at the ideas from every angle you can imagine, because an elegant concept is one that has no significant holes. I can really recommend a book for this called The Art Of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses, and its accompanying Deck Of Lenses. It’s an amazingly useful resource for looking at your game concept in literally a hundred different ways.

2.5. Clever Is Best

If you’ve managed elegance and simplicity with your game, you’ve done better than most game designers out there. But there’s one more level you can get your game concept to, and that’s clever. There’s a goal that I try and achieve with everything we do at FuturLab, which is to get the following response from people that see our work:

1.“Cool!!”

2.”Ah, I see!”

3.”Damn, That’s Really Clever Actually…”

It’s something I strive to achieve on everything I do, and it requires that all three of these conceptual levels are hit properly. You can’t get the ‘Cool!’ reaction from someone if your concept isn’t simple. They need to be able to see your game and immediately feel rewarded, just for seeing it.

That ‘Cool!’ reaction is also the hook that pulls people in, getting them to start playing, or want to play. Then the layers of depth are discovered as someone digs a little deeper, and if the concept is elegant, everything fits together nicely, and you get that: ‘Ah, I see!’ reaction. If your whole concept is clever, then people can’t help but sit back in awe and think: “Damn, That’s Really Clever Actually – I Wish I’d Made It”, or “I have to show this to my friends.”

If you can get these three levels of experience into your design, the game’s trajectory is set up for greatness. If you start with a weak concept, your game runs the risk of being weak, no matter how cunning the gameplay is. If you can’t hook someone in, they won’t be interested. We found this with Coconut Dodge. The gameplay is superb, but few people bothered with it because the concept is weak.

Also, if you have a great concept, you’ll find it really easy to get other people involved in your project. There’s absolutely no way Joris de Man would have signed up to produce music for our game if it was a regular shoot ‘em-up that’s been done a thousand times. The teleportation concept hits all three of these targets, so when he sat down and played our prototype, that’s the experience he had – and he was sold on it and wanted to be involved.

2.7. Excited Yet? (If Not, Try Again)

At this point, if you’ve got a strong concept and you’ve worked out how to make the controls fun, you should be incredibly excited about your game. If you’re not excited by it, then you don’t have a game destined for greatness yet. You need to go back and redo those first two steps. Once you have got those two key aspects sorted, you have to bottle your excitement and get serious, because that was the easy part. In fact, you just experienced what Thomas Edison called the 1% inspiration of genius. The following months will be 99% perspiration trying to get the damn thing made. And the first thing to look at with your sensible hat on, is…

3. Appropriate Learning Curve

Your amazing idea isn’t worth anything if other people can’t enjoy it, so balancing the learning curve requires just as much attention as the initial concept. So how do you get it right?

3.1. Identify Target Audience

It’s essential to tailor the learning curve for your target audience. In the case of Velocity, we wanted everyone from casual players right up to the most skilful gamers to enjoy it. So it was a lot of work for us, the game had to be very accessible for newcomers, whilst also supporting and rewarding an incredible amount of skill for those that want the challenge straight away.

3.2. Integrate Instructions

Modern games don’t have instructions, or even tutorials. The levels should be designed to teach, and actually that philosophy shouldn’t just cover the first few levels either.

3.3. Balance Learning & Challenge

A game is only fun when a player is learning. If they stop learning at any point, the game starts to get repetitive, so the learning curve should ideally just be a straight line. In other words, you are always giving the player an opportunity to learn something new – whether it’s introducing a new mechanic, or providing scope for the player to combine mechanics in new ways. However, if the difficulty curve is the same as the learning curve, the game can feel too laborious and tedious.

The trick is to have a stepped challenge curve that tracks closely to the learning curve, so the player is always learning, but there are short plateaus where a player can flex their knowledge of the game and feel powerful for a while before being challenged again. In the case of Velocity we introduce the mechanics slowly. It’s not until level 16 that you get to use the Long Form Teleport, which is the main USP of the game. From then on we use level design to teach players how to use the mechanics in different ways, combining them together to solve puzzles. The player doesn’t actually get to use one of the coolest ideas in the game until the penultimate level.

3.4. Provide Clear Success Markers

Scoring a player provides them with incentive, so it’s really important that a player knows how to win, and therefore knows how and why they failed. Trophies & Achievements have had a huge impact on gaming communities since they were introduced. The younger generation of gamers won’t even bother playing some games unless they have trophies to add to their collection. That’s how powerful the human ego is, so use that in innovative ways to the advantage of your game. In the case of Velocity we have three different scoring criteria that are combined together to create a perfect reward. This means a player can feel rewarded even when they’re failing to reach the higher goals. This leaves scope for the ultra hardcore to get their completionist fix.

3.5. Make The Player Feel Clever

Designing a game is an incredibly rewarding experience. We are the masters of the worlds we create, and that power can very easily appeal to one’s ego. So it takes a lot of self restraint and empathy to be able to design levels for someone else to play; levels that can challenge without being difficult. I once worked with a chap who had a new game idea every day, and nearly all of his ideas were based on tricking the player in some way, which is never going to fly. Designing a game is a very altruistic exercise, and if you can make a player feel good, and look good at the same time, they will love your game. It’s as simple as that.

4. Positive Feedback & Reward

4.1. Feedback Heightens The Experience

Feedback is any event or action that is a direct result of a player’s performance or interaction, and it’s essential for heightening the experience. It’s amazing how much of a difference positive feedback makes to a game. You can have great gameplay mechanics, but if there’s little to no feedback, the game doesn’t feel great. Likewise you can have a mediocre mechanic and make it feel great by dousing it in nicely polished animation and sound effects.

4.2. Negative Feedback Can Help Too

One of the things that helped to make Coconut Dodge so addictive was the horribly abrasive sound that a player is subjected to when they die. It’s also accompanied by the music cutting off abruptly. The game isn’t insulting them, but it is punishing them in a subtle way, and it serves to make them want to jump back in and correct their mistake.

5. Frictionless User Interface

5.1. Fast Animation

My basic rule for UI animation is that it should be over well before a player knows what’s happening. If your UI is any longer than that, it had better be bloody fantastic. Games that provide animated UI break the player’s sense of control, and that’s not good. Split/Second, one of my favourite games of recent times also has some of the worst UI.

5.2. Short Loading Times

Loading times are important, but it is pretty low on the list. Even if a game does have poor loading times, people will still play it and love it. WipEout 2048 being a good recent example.

5.3. Instant Restart

This is so much more important. If your game is good, your player is going to be in a flow state, fully engaged with your game. If they make a mistake or die, they are going to want to restart as soon as possible, to get back into the flow. Not being able to instantly restart is one of the most frustrating things you can do in a game UI.

5.4. Skippable Cut Scenes

I shouldn’t even have to include this, but it still happens. Even worse is when levels that start with a cut scene play the cut scene every time you restart that level. It’s punishing.

6. Distinct Audio & Visual Style

The audio and visual style is the least important of all these essentials, and that’s because graphics just aren’t as important as they used to be. If your game looks like every other game in the genre, but has very innovative gameplay, then it will rise above the noise. That said, you’ve still got to do a great job, or your game will suffer, so…

6.1. Identify Target Audience

As mentioned above, if you have a great concept, your art style should come pretty easily. Concept, gameplay and art style all have to be pointing in the same direction in order to find an audience easily. We made a big mistake with Coconut Dodge, as the game looks and sounds like a casual game, but it’s got hardcore gameplay mechanics. We should have chosen something more fiendish looking to suit the gameplay better.

6.2. Find An Economical Style

A good game requires a ton of polish. It’s almost guaranteed that no matter how much budget you have for a game, you’ll never be happy with the amount of polish your game has – so decide on an art style that you can produce to a high standard very quickly. This is why so many of the recent great indie games are 2D. It’s so much easier to polish a 2D game. 3D is expensive and time consuming in comparison.

6.3. Support Core Mechanics First

Make the core aspects of your gameplay look and sound great, and then radiate your resources outward from that core focus. If you’re spending time making button rollovers look and feel great you’re wasting time unless your core mechanics are supported by absolutely beautiful effects.

6.4. Demand Great Music

Music can’t save a poor game, but it can certainly elevate a good game into great territory. Coconut Dodge is an example of this. If your game music is repetitive or irritating, the awesome mechanics you’ve spent ages refining will suffer.

6.5. Sound Deserves 50%, Gets 5%

Sound is so important for player feedback. But because every aspect of a game can come together without sound, it usually gets left until the last minute. This is another area we could have improved upon for Velocity. Fortunately we got the key sound effects to work well, but we ran out of time to extend that level of quality throughout the game.

Elevating Your Design From Good To Awesome

If you’ve managed to achieve all of the points above, then it’s likely that your game will be considered good or high quality. But how do you reach a level where people are celebrating your game as being awesome? It all comes down to innovation and flair.

Innovation

Look at what your game is doing across the game play aspects (1, 2 and 3 above), and make sure you’re doing something that’s innovative; whether it’s in the controls, the concept or the journey you’re taking the player on.

Flair

Then look at what your game is doing across the presentation aspects (4, 5 and 6 above), and ensure they’re being done with some artistic flair.(source:gamasutra)


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