虚拟世界是个同朋友一起玩的地方。听起来好像很简单，但为何虚拟世界会那么好玩呢？当然不只有房屋和小游戏，正如给汽车装上翅膀也无法飞行，在世界中添加小游戏同样无法自动让它有趣起来！飞行和趣味是两个需要设计出来的想法。

那么我们从何处开始呢？幸亏某些聪明人已经开发出我们能够使用的框架，这些规则并不能保证获得成功，人性并不像物理那样可进行预测。在此我们将分享游戏的三种沉浸类型：叙事、策略和战术。

three_types_of_immersion

叙事沉浸发生于玩家投入故事之时，那种体验类似于读书或看电影。

策略沉浸与精神挑战有联系，通常需要从系列挑战中选择解决方案。在《辐射》之类的游戏中，玩家掌控角色数据，平衡他们的技能。

战术沉浸是指需要技术的游戏玩法给玩家带来的体验，人们恍如置身其中。像《光晕》或《FIFA》之类的游戏会让玩家全神贯注。

最好的虚拟世界会用到三种沉浸，但比重各不相同。听起来像在调制鸡尾酒，我们根据不同用户将沉浸类型以不同比例结合起来。在本文假定我们是在为休闲玩家设计游戏，而不是硬核玩家。

与硬核玩家不同的是，休闲玩家通常不具有在《光晕》之类的战术游戏中取得成功的技术。听到这些你可能会觉得好笑，但技术问题确实存在，要在《光晕》之类的游戏中驰骋确实需要有更多的技能。想想那些运动类游戏，玩家都可以沉浸其中但只有最具天分的网球玩家才会获得联赛冠军。你需要与游戏设计师对抗来赢得游戏，他控制着节奏和难度。如果你不够有天分（游戏邦注：没玩过很多游戏或者手眼不协调），由于能力有限跟不上游戏进展速度，那就有可能会失败！

虚拟世界通过Flash小游戏来创造此类战术沉浸，你知道这种游戏需要优良的手眼协调性和快速的反应。游戏结束后通常将玩家的分数转化为某种虚拟货币，入驻排行榜还能获得更大的奖励。然而，多数玩家并不会如此精通游戏，他们会觉得赚取货币很难，更不用说登上排行榜了！小游戏不会给虚拟世界增添趣味性，休闲玩家需要不同的娱乐方式。

或许你不同意这个观点，无视你将面对的数百万计免费Flash游戏！你做不出最棒的小游戏，无法打败《MiniClip》，所有应该为玩家提供非同寻常的体验。需要说清楚的是，我并非主张完全去除虚拟世界中的小游戏。事实上，我觉得这些小游戏在经济中扮演着重要的角色。但它们不能成为虚拟世界娱乐性的基础。

尽管如此，叙事沉浸对虚拟世界来说甚为完美。好的故事无需玩家学习游戏机制、规则或掌握某种技术，吸引玩家的方式很简单。然而多数虚拟世界不含叙事沉浸，或许它们有个主题，但并不像书籍的首页那样吸引我。确实，我在读书的时候感觉更像置身于“虚拟世界”中！

失去这种机会很可惜，每个人都喜欢精美的故事，而且虚拟世界为你提供将故事转化为冒险的机会。这种可能性很大，因为我认为现代儿童的冒险经历过少。我去亲戚家时发现没有孩子在户外玩，通向后院森林的道路长满野草，户外活动场所也已经变成停车场。

孩子们想要探索，编写自己的故事，拥有冒险经历。那么他们将走向何处呢？可能就是你的虚拟世界。《Poptropica》便属于此类世界，游戏似乎表现很不错，有将近800万月独立玩家。（游戏邦注：这个数量是《Club Penguin》的将近两倍。）

我们认为叙事沉浸很重要，那么策略沉浸又如何呢。像《辐射》和《魔兽世界》之类的策略游戏长久以来被当成是“极客的硬核游戏”。但如果深入探索你会发现，这些并非“硬核”游戏，他们只是设置在“极客”的环境中，比如《辐射》中灾难发生后的美国。

与《FIFA》或《极品飞车》不同，策略游戏无需良好的手眼协调性，事实上你并不需要提升技能便可以获得胜利。我放弃了《FIFA》，因为我不够有天分。在《辐射》中，我所要做的只是花时间来玩游戏，我的角色会升级而无需提高自己的技术。这便是前一篇文章中提到的虚拟成就。

将灾难后的美国替换成更融洽的事物，我们就可以得到适宜休闲玩家的游戏机制。游戏不需要他们拥有高超的技术，只要投入时间而已。任何人都可以取得胜利，每个人都在享受胜利！Zynga在《Farmville》和《FrontierVille》等游戏中成功实现了上述目标。

你的虚拟世界需要包含三种沉浸类型——用大量的叙事将玩家带入策略玩法中，添加少部分战术小游戏，让玩家赚取虚拟货币。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Game Design Part 2: Whatever happened to our sense of adventure?

A virtual world is a place to have fun with friends. Sounds so simple, but what makes a world fun? It’s certainly more than rooms and mini games; like bolting wings onto a car won’t make it fly, adding mini games into a world doesn’t automatically make it fun! Flight and fun are two concepts that really ought to be designed in from the start.

So where do we start? Thankfully some very smart people have developed frameworks that we can use – these aren’t rules that guarantee success, human nature just isn’t as predictable as physics. As the second post in this series on game design we’re sharing one of our favourite frameworks: the three types of immersion. Lets begin. Ernest Adams separated immersion into three categories: narrative, strategic, and tactical.

* Narrative immersion occurs when players become invested in a story, and is similar to what is experienced while reading a book or watching a movie.

* Strategic immersion is associated with a mental challenge, often choosing a solution among a broad array of challenges; these are the games like Fallout where the player is managing their avatar statistics and balancing their skills.

* Tactical immersion is experienced when playing games involve skill where players feel “in the zone”; these are games like Halo or Fifa where the player is absorbed in the moment.

The best worlds use all three types of immersion, but rarely in equal measures. A bit like mixing cocktails, we combine the types of immersion in varying strengths for different audiences. In this post I’m going to assume we’re designing for casual players – not the gamers.

Unlike gamers, casual players often won’t have the skills to succeed at tactical games like Halo. You may laugh, but it really is skill – to beat a game like Halo you actually have to become more talented. Think of these games like sports – players are immersed in the moment but only most talented tennis player wins the tournament. To win the game you’re playing against the game designer – he controls the pace and difficulty. So if you’re not talented enough, you’ve not played enough games, or don’t have the hand eye coordination, and the game progresses faster than your abilities, then you’re out of luck!

Virtual worlds create this type of tactical immersion through Flash mini games – you know the kind of game, skill based requiring good hand eye coordination and fast reactions. At the end of the game the player’s score is usually translated into some kind of virtual currency, while breaking into the leader board unlocks the bigger prizes. Yet most of your players will never be that good at the game and they’ll find it hard to earn currency, let alone getting close to the leader board! Mini games are not the answer to making your world fun, instead your casual players need a different type of entertainment.

Maybe you don’t buy that argument, so instead consider the millions of free Flash games you’re up against! You can’t make the best mini games, and you can’t beat MiniClip on that front. So offer a different experience. To be clear, I’m not advocating a world without mini games. In fact I think these mini games play an important function in the economy. But they’re not the foundation for your worlds entertainment.

Narrative, however, is perfect for virtual worlds. There’s no learning game mechanics, rules, or skill required to be drawn in by a good story – such an easy way to engage players. Yet most virtual worlds have no narrative, maybe they have a theme, but they don’t hook me in like the first page a book. Indeed, I feel more like I’m in a ‘virtual world’ when I’m reading a book than actually in a virtual world!

What a missed opportunity. Everyone loves a good story, and in a virtual world you’ve got the chance to turn a story into an adventure. This is huge, because I don’t think kids have adventures any more. When I go back to my folks house there are no kids playing outside, the paths through forest behind their yard are overgrown, and the playing fields have been turned into parking lots.

Kids want to explore, make up stories, and go on adventures. But where do they go? It could be your world. One such world is Poptropica, they seem to be doing quite well with around 8 million monthly unique players. In perspective, that’s nearly twice Club Penguin!

So we think narrative is important, what about strategic immersion. For a long time the strategic games, like Fallout and World of Warcraft, have been considered the “hardcore games for geeks” (I can say that as a huge fan of the Fallout series). But, peel back the layers, and you see that these are not ‘hardcore’ games, they’re just set in ‘geeky’ environments like Fallout’s post apocalyptic America.

Unlike Fifa or Need for Speed, strategic games don’t need great hand eye coordination, and you don’t actually have to become better at the game to win. I gave up at Fifa, I’m just not good talented enough. With Fallout all I really had to do was spend the time playing the game – my character levelled up so I didn’t have to get any better! This is the false achievement we explored in the last post.

Take away the post apocalyptic America and replace with something more friendly, and we have a game mechanic that’s accessible to your casual audience. They don’t need skill, just time. Anyone can win, and everyone loves to win! Zynga figured this out with games like Farmville and now FrontierVille.

Your world is going to include all three types of immersion – a big dollop of narrative that pulls the players into the strategic gameplay, and just a few tactical mini games for earning virtual currency. The graphic below (hopefully) summarises how these three fit together. (Source: Dubit Platform)