作者：Igor Matrofailo

在in4ray，每一款全新手机游戏的开发都是从市场调查和竞争者比较分析开始的。通常情况下这种活动都是非常集中且需要消耗大量时间。在开始的时候，这种研究可能会带给我们一些缺乏结构性的报告，从而让我们很难做出有效的决定。而缺少逻辑标准以及统一的方法更是我们保持审核过程一致性的主要障碍。

手机游戏审核框架

这也是我为何决定基于经过证明的最佳电子游戏收集并划分这些标准去比较不同手机游戏并作出最有效决定的原因。今天我想要与你们分享手机游戏审计框架的概念，这能够帮助你更好地评估竞争者以及自己的手机游戏。

目标

游戏类型—-基于游戏玩法互动和挑战去组织游戏。到目前为止休闲游戏和社交游戏是最受欢迎的。接下来便是关于文字，谜题和三消主题的游戏。

技能和核心层面—-基于游戏的基本机制以及它所传达给玩家的内容而决定游戏在两个范围间的位置。这两个范围分别是：

感觉运动的的—-认知的（快速做某事vs缓慢做某事）

单维的—-多维的（单核层面vs多维层面）

目标用户—-通过年龄和性别去定位游戏类型。

游戏玩法

活动陈述和有意义的技能—-通过陈述玩家为了实现目标必须使用的挑战和有意义的技能去描述一种挑战的简单句子。举个例子来说吧，在活动陈述中，《两点之间》的主要挑战可以被描述为：“我希望玩家能够将点连成方形，如此去清除面板上所显示的颜色的点。”在这种情况下“连接方形”便是一种有意义的技能，而“点”则是目标。

核心循环—-决定主要游戏流的一组行动（玩家反复做的事）。例如：“杀死怪物–>赢得金币–>购买东西”。

强制循环—-这是一种基于习惯的活动链，玩家将重复它去获得可能影响神经系统的奖励：喜悦感或对于痛苦的缓解。让我们以《Candy Crush Saga》为例：“游戏（能量满满）–>匹配糖果–>随机奖励（最后一轮，漏掉了面板上出现的能够帮助玩家完成任务的糖果）–>完成任务–>等待（恢复能量）”。

动态游戏玩法难度进程—-基于玩家能力，并且为了避免他们感到无聊（如果游戏太过简单）或太让人受挫（太过复杂）而自动且实时改变参数，情节和电子游戏行为的过程。

用户留存

故事线/情节—-表示游戏背景并能提供给玩家游戏环境的事件序列。例如在《愤怒的小鸟》中你便是小鸟，而因为小猪偷了你的鸡蛋，所以你将通过摧毁它们的建筑以及它们所创造的所有东西对其实施报复。

享乐适应—-这是关于人类不管最近的积极（或消极）活动或生活改变而想要快速回到相对稳定的幸福状态中的倾向。而生命系统便是对于这一理论的可能执行之一。例如在《两点之间》或其它基于生命系统的游戏中，游戏提供给玩家暂时的游戏空间反而能让玩家更迫切地想要游戏。尽管这好像是反直觉的设定，即会限制玩家一天的游戏时间，但这却让玩家能够养成检查自己的生命并每天坚持游戏的习惯，从而确保玩家不会轻易停止游戏。

TwoDots(from gamelook)

目标导向型游戏玩法—-在关卡，任务，挑战中提供给玩家稳定且可实现的目标。这里存在两种类型这样的游戏玩法，即非线性型和线性型。非线性型游戏玩法将呈献给玩家他们能在不同序列中完成的挑战。每个玩家将只能看到一些挑战，并基于不同顺序去面对同样的挑战。相反地，带有线性型游戏玩法的电子游戏将呈献给玩家固定的挑战序列：每个玩家将基于同样的顺序看到每一个挑战。例如《小鸟快逃》中的挑战。

进程—-能够提供给玩家有趣体验的朝着最终目标（在游戏中的）前进并移动的模式。在关卡地图，任务列表和进程条中清楚呈现出游戏进程非常重要。例如《两点之间》中的关卡地图。

容易学习与游戏—-提供给玩家简单且具有直觉性的学习曲线并清楚地将其转变成游戏体验。

病毒性

这指的是通过复制病毒传播过程去使用现有的社交网络服务和其它技术尝试着提高品牌意识或实现其它市场营销目标（游戏邦注：如产品促销或下载）的市场营销技巧。这里还存在一些病毒传播技巧：

通过社交媒体去分享分数

排行榜，成就和挑战

Game Center或Google Play Game服务

通过社交网站邀请朋友加入

与朋友竞争

盈利

这是电子游戏产品返还给那些参与它的创造或版权所有者利益的过程。不同游戏间的盈利方法也不同，即在不同游戏类型和平台上会使用一些不同的方法。让我们看看一些盈利技巧：

没有广告（以一定价格让玩家可以无需看广告）

应用内部商品或货币

结论

多谢你们阅读这些内容。我也将通过收集更多收集游戏设计领域的信息而进一步更新并拓展这一内容。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

5 Criteria of a Successful Mobile Game

by Igor Matrofailo

Here at in4ray each new mobile game development starts from market research and competitors comparative analysis. Usually this exercise is intensive and time-consuming. At the very beginning, poorly structured report that was result of such research, didn’t allow us to make valid decisions. Lack of logical criteria and unified methodology were main bottlenecks to make audit process more consistent.

Mobile Game Audit Framework

That’s why I’ve decided collect and categorize such criteria based on proven best video game practices to easily compare different mobile games and make valid decisions. Today I’d like to share with you concept of mobile game audit framework that you can use to assess competitors or your own mobile games. The picture below indicates major elements of the framework:

Targeting

Game Type – used to organize games based on gameplay interaction and set of challenges [1]. Casual and social games are by far the most popular. Next in line are games like Word, Puzzle and Match 3.

Skills and Core Layers – locating of game along two spectrums based on the fundamental mechanics of your game and what it “teaches” to players [2]. The spectrums are:

Sensomotoric – Cognitive (doing things fast vs. doing things slowly)

Single-dimensional – Multi-dimensional (one core layer vs. many core layers)

Target Audience – locating game types by age and gender [3]. From left to right, chart below shows what percent of the game audience is female, with the far right equaling 100% female. The opposite is true for males. From bottom to top, it shows the average age of the game type’s user base, between 20 to 50 years old.

Gameplay

Activity Statement and Meaningful Skills – a simple sentence that describes a challenge by stating both the objective of a challenge and the meaningful skills that the player must use to obtain his objective [4]. For example, a major challenge of Two Dots game could be described in an Activity Statement as: “I want the player to connect square of dots, in order to clear our dots of that color from the board”. In this case “connect square” is the meaningful skill and “dots” is the objective.

Core Loop – a set of actions (the player doing over and over) that determine how the primary game flows [5, 6]. Here is example: “Kill Monsters -> Win Gold -> Buy stuff”.

Compulsion Loop – a habitual, designed chain of activities that will be repeated to gain a neurochemical reward: a feeling of pleasure and/or a relief from pain. [7]. Here is example (from Candy Crush Saga): “Play (full energy) -> Match Candies -> Random reward (on the last turn, missing candies of required color appear on the board what allow player complete mission) -> Complete Mission -> Wait (recharge energy)”.

Dynamic Gameplay Difficulty Progression – the process of automatically changing parameters, scenarios, and behaviors in a video game in real-time, based on the player’s ability, in order to avoid them becoming bored (if the game is too easy) or frustrated (if it is too hard) [8, 9].

Retention

Storyline/Plot – refers to the sequence of events that represent game background and provide game context for player. For example, in Angry Birds game you are the birds and the pigs stole your eggs, so you get revenge on the pigs by breaking all their buildings and all the stuff they built out of glass and wood and stones.

Hedonic Adaptation – is human’s tendency [10] to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite recent positive (or negative) events or life changes. Lives system is one of possible implementation of this theory. For example with Two Dots and other games that depend on a “lives” system, taking a break from the game actually makes you want to play it more. Although it may seem counter-intuitive to limit how much you can play in a day, this actually creates a habit of checking your lives and playing the game daily…which makes it nearly impossible to stop playing [11].

Goal-oriented Gameplay – gives players solid attainable goals structured in format of levels, missions, challenges. There are two types of such gameplays, namely nonlinear and linear. Nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences. Each player sees only some of the challenges possible, and the same challenges may be played in a different order. Conversely, a video game with linear gameplay will confront a player with a fixed sequence of challenges: every player sees every challenge and sees them in the same order [12]. Here is example of challenges in Run Bird Run game.

Progression – pattern of advance and the act of movement towards the ultimate goal (winning the game) that are essential to an enjoyable experience for the player. It is very important to visualize game progression through levels map, list of missions, progress bar, etc [11]. Here is example of levels map in Two Dots game.

Easy to Learn and Play – gives player simple and intuitive learning curve that transparently transforms into game experience [13].

Virality

Refers to marketing techniques [14] that use pre-existing social networking services and other technologies to try to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales or downloads) through self-replicating viral processes. There are couple of viral techniques:

Share your score via social media

Leaderboard, Achievements and Challenges using Apple Game

Center and/or Google Play Game services

Invite friends via social network

Compete with your friends

Here is example of Facebook friends progression on levels map in Two Dots game:

Two Dots Compete with Friends

Monetization

The process [15] by which a video game product returns money for those involved in its creation or copyright ownership. Methods of monetization may vary between games, with noticeable differences in methodology occurring between games of different genres and platforms. The are couple of monetization techniques:

No Ads (ability to disable in-game ads for symbolic price)

In-app goods or currency

Here is example of shop in Angry Birds Epic game:

Conclusion

Thank you for taking a peek on mobile game audit framework. Further, by gathering new information in the field of mobile games design, I’m going to update and extend framework with new criteria. I hope this framework will help you to assess and as a result to better structure your mobile game. Will be glad to hear your feedback. Post your comments below.

And finally, propose take a look on TwoDots Game Audit that was made using described above framework.（source：Gamasutra）