作者：Marcelo Raimbault

过去三个月里我们一直在GILP致力于两款不同的无尽奔跑游戏，《Upside Down》和《Zoic Adventures》（并且这两款游戏都还处于开发阶段）。尽管它们拥有不同机制，但却共享着同一原则：尽可能地往前奔跑去避免障碍。

因为这是我第一次去设计跑酷游戏，所以我对这种大受欢迎的游戏类型做了些研究。

以下便是我的研究结论：

1.热身

玩家需要一些时间去了解发生了什么。他们需要一些时间让大脑适应移动的速度，让眼睛适应图像和色板，让耳朵适应音乐的节奏。他们同时还需要时间去尝试自己能够做些什么，并在真正沉浸于游戏挑战前尝试着玩会游戏。换句话说，热身是游戏的一个安全区域，在这里玩家不会遭遇失败，只会去发现，适应与娱乐。

这一部分通常持续7至12秒（游戏邦注：如果延长这一时间可能会让玩家感到厌烦，而缩短又可能让游戏太早开始）。你可以让玩家在这期间自由地奔跑，使用计时器或其它适合你们游戏的内容，并确保玩家拥有足够的时间为即将开始的一切做好准备！

以下是在这期间开发者可能/应该做的一些内容：

强调游戏核心机制

介绍可收集内容

呈现次要任务

2.调整

现在玩家清楚将会发生什么，所以是时候调整他们的反应时间了。通常情况下这将变成一个非常基本的挑战，所以玩家几乎不会在这里遭遇失败。当玩家死去或重新开始游戏时，他们将适应不同游戏速度以及不同的反应时间。游戏必须让玩家能够重新适应全新的速度。

同时这也是玩家第一次面对障碍，所以开发者必须清楚地告诉玩家他们将面对的种种东西（洞，石头，激光，汽车等等）便是障碍。可能的话，第一个障碍最好不要出现在玩家所预料的路径，因为这会让玩家保持警惕从而导致障碍不能威胁到他们。

需要考虑的是，就像大多数跑酷游戏那样，游戏速度将随着时间的发展而不断提高。

Zoic_screenshoot(from gamasutra)

3.奖励

到目前为止玩家都从所有疯狂且复杂的挑战中生存下来了，所以是时候去奖励他们一些很酷的东西了！尽管这听起来有点荒谬，并且有可能玩家在20秒前刚在你的游戏中遭遇失败，所以你可以在他们面对真正的挑战前给予奖励去鼓励他们再次尝试。

基于不同游戏，你可以在这时候尝试着这么做：

引进玩家能够收集的特殊道具

改变图像（颜色或背景）

呈现一些随机且让人惊叹的时刻

在这部分你应该去呈现你的游戏到底有多酷，如此为什么你不以特别的形式去展示一些可收集内容呢？即一些与游戏核心机制相符的内容。去推动玩家移动，让他们可以无需遭遇失败而有趣地收集东西。如果你能够将这里变成一个安全区域的话就更好了。

4.挑战

既然介绍部分已经结束了，现在让玩家开始进行挑战吧。你可以根据自己的游戏机制基于不同方式带给玩家挑战。

不管是《Upside Down》还是《Zoic Adventures》，我们都想使用不断提升难度的组块并将其分布在不同游戏时间里。但后来我们还是决定提高游戏速度便够了。所以我们只是随机选择了一些挑战组块以避免重复。如果你的游戏并未随着时间的发展去提升速度，或者这种提升并不重要，我便会建议你使用以难度为单位的挑战（即始终考虑游戏流）。

5.休息

这很难吧！现在我们真正需要做的便是给予玩家时间去休息并庆祝自己所走过的这些路。这部分是介于挑战部分之间的安全区域。

而为了避免不可预测的随机数字，我们使用了伪随机分布。如此我们便能够保证玩家可以在面对最大挑战数量前进入休息区。

休息区与奖励区非常相似，即玩家将因为自己到目前为止的努力获得奖励。游戏将在此使用收集品，道具，让人惊喜的时刻，特殊汽车或其它能够让玩家放松的内容。而这里与奖励区最大的不同便在于时长。休息区的持续时间是奖励区的2至3倍，因为比起玩家进入奖励区的时候，这时候玩家承受的压力会更大。

福利

特殊挑战

在经历了休息区后，游戏最好能够提供给玩家不同于一般挑战的特殊内容，即一些更难克服或更有趣的挑战。例如在《Zoic Adventures》中，当玩家经历了休息区时便会遇到一个特殊“敌人”。

我们需要谨慎设置这一特殊的挑战难度进程。当玩家休息完时，你最好在呈现给他们真正精彩的内容前先通过一个基本障碍让他们热热身。

加一条命

加一条命在现代无尽跑酷手机游戏中非常受欢迎。当玩家使用加一条命功能（游戏邦注：如观看一条广告，使用自己辛苦挣得的货币等等）时，游戏最好能够提供给他们这样做的奖励。所以游戏最好能让玩家从奖励区重新开始游戏然后再移向游戏的核心循环中。

你不要忘记在使用加一条命机制前游戏是处于中断状态，所以即使你不想奖励玩家，你也必须提供给他们重新适应游戏速度的时间，然后才引进新挑战。

结论

本文只是关于这一内容的基本分析，所以只能说是一个起点。而对于我们的每一款游戏我们将添加一些不同环节去更好地完善游戏核心机制，当然我们也会坚守这里所提到的内容。

（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）

Studying gameplay progression on runners

by Marcelo Raimbault

During the past 3 months we worked on two different endless runners games at GILP, Upside Down and Zoic Adventures -provisory title- (both are still under development). Although they have different mechanics, both share the same principle: run as far as you can avoiding obstacles.

As this was my first time designing a runner, I’ve made some research on popular runner games and created a basic chart on their gameplay progression. Here is how the chart looks like:

Now, let’s talk about each block:

1. Warm up

Players need some time to process what’s going on. They need time to adapt their brain to the movement speed, their eyes to the art and color palette, their ears to the music beat. They also need some time to experiment what they can do; time to play around before engaging with any real challenge. In other words, the warm up block is a safe zone, no way to fail, just discovery, adaptation and enjoyment.

This part usually lasts around 7-12 seconds (increasing this time frame can make players bored, shortening it may make the game start too promptly). You can let the player run freely this entire time, use a counter plus some running time, whatever fits your game better, just make sure players have some time to prepare for what is coming!

A short list of things that can/should be done during this block:

Emphasize game core mechanic

Introduce collectibles

Show secondary missions

2. Calibrate

Now that players know what is going on, it’s time to “calibrate” their reaction times. Usually this translates into a very basic challenge, one that is almost impossible to fail at. When players die and restart the game, they are used to a different play speed*, implying in different reaction times. It’s necessary to let players readapt to the new speed.

Also, this is the first time players face an obstacle, so it’s important to make clear that what is coming to them (holes, rocks, lasers, saws, cars, etc.) are actually obstacles. If possible, the first obstacle should not be in the player expected path, this way it will only alert players about obstacles and not kill them.

*Considering that the game’s speed increases with time as most runners do.

3. Reward

C’mon, the player survived all this crazy and hard challenges so far, it’s time to reward them with some cool stuff! Although this sounds a bit ridiculous, it is likely that players had failed 20 seconds ago in your game, so it’s nice to reward them for trying it again before giving a real challenge.

Depending on the game, this is a good time to do things like:

Introduce special items players can collect

Change art (colors, background…)

Some random Wow moment

This block should emphasize how cool the game is, so why not present collectables in a cool pattern? Something that fits with the game’s core mechanic. Make the player move. Make the player have fun collecting stuff without failing. Actually, this just reminded me, it is a good idea to make this a safe zone as well.

4. Challenges

Now that the introduction is over, let’s get to the real business! There is nothing much to talk here, this is the time to challenge players in different ways according to your game mechanic.

For both Upside Down and Zoic Adventures we wanted to use blocks with incremental difficulty and spawn them according to the playtime. But later we decided that increasing the game speed was already enough. So we just randomly selected challenge blocks in a list avoiding repetition. If your game doesn’t increase speed over time, or if this increment is not considerable, I would recommend working with challenges organized by difficulty (always think about the flow).

5. Rest

Wow, that was hard! Now we really need to give players some time to rest and celebrate how far they have come. Rest blocks are safe zones (again, no failing allowed) between chunks of challenges blocks.

To avoid the unpredictable randomness of random numbers, we used a pseudo-random distribution (more info on the matter here). This way we guaranteed that the player would randomly get a rest block before a maximum number of challenges.

Rest blocks are very similar to reward blocks, where players should be rewarded by how far they have come.Use collectibles, items, wow moments, special vehicles, or anything that makes this relaxing moment more outstanding and creates a bit of anxiety. The major difference compared to a reward block, would be their length. Rest blocks could probably be 2-3 times longer than a reward block, as players are under heavier stress levels compared to when they entered a reward block.

Bonus

Unique challenges

After a rest block, it’s cool to give players a challenge different than the usual ones, something harder or just funnier to overcome. As an example, at Zoic Adventures there is a unique kind of “enemy” that only appears after rest blocks.

We just need to be careful on this unique challenge difficulty progression. As players will be rested, it is a good idea to warm them up with something like a basic obstacle before the big show.

Extra life

Extra life are pretty popular in modern mobile endless runners as they present a good way to monetize. When players use an extra-life (watching an ad, using their hard earned coins, etc.), it is a nice idea to reward them for doing that. So it’s a nice idea to restart the game with a reward block and then move to the game core loop again.

Don’t forget that the game was interrupted before using an extra life, so even if you don’t want to reward the player, it is essential to give them some time to readapt to the game speed before introducing challenges.

Conclusion

This is only a basic analysis on the matter, something to use as a starting point. For each one of our games, we ended up adding some different blocks to better satisfy the game’s core mechanic, but always trying to stay true to the facts presented here.(source:gamasutra)