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开发者应利用人类玩乐的天性设计游戏机制

发布时间:2011-05-31 16:28:17 Tags:,

作者:Michael Fergusson

所有社交游戏开发商都希望制作出吸引玩家的游戏,我们想让大家踊跃参与到游戏体验中。那么玩乐的意义是什么?你如何使用富有吸引力的游戏机制来构建出更好的社交游戏呢?

玩乐的意义

宾夕法尼亚州大学心理学名誉教授Brian Sutton-Smith博士将玩乐定义为“一种本质上的自发行为”。也就是说,玩乐(游戏邦注:如同艺术和音乐)是自发产生的行为。我们可能会觉得玩乐是寻找乐趣的方式。那么,什么才是真正的乐趣呢?

girl-playing-computer-game(from sheknows.com)

girl-playing-computer-game(from sheknows.com)

在线应用和游戏设计师会加入玩乐和游戏般的内容,因为他们知道这些会促使人们使用应用,用户喜欢那种感觉。他们知道人们想要玩,而且发现玩是种可以理解并谨慎地设计进系统中的东西。人们通常认为,玩乐是部分天生部分习得的行为。进化心理学提出,生存和繁衍压力铸就意识,其中玩乐为技能提供实践机会,确保产生上述结果。那么当我们已经获得足够的实践机会,玩乐与生活间又是何种关联呢?

宾夕法尼亚州立大学人类学家Garry Chick博士解释道,自然本就有可能进化出玩乐,因为它能保护我们。Chick解释道,男性本是危险的,所以自然通过性选择进化出玩乐,也就是女性选择能为她们和后代提供保护的男性同伴。无论出于何种进化原因,我们可以看到的是实践产生行为,玩乐是身为人类的本性。

吸引人的游戏机制类型

游戏设计师利用人类天性,旨在吸引并让我们为之疯狂。每个人的偏好和口味都有所不同,但至少在精神层面上我们享受游戏的感觉是相同的。

游戏利用人类生物学特性最明显的方式是将游戏内行为与奖惩联系起来,听起来很像“斯金纳箱”(游戏邦注:此名源于行为主义学代表人物B.F.斯金纳,是他为研究操作性条件反射而设计的实验设备)。简单地说,想法就是如果某种行为能够获得奖赏,那么就有更大的可能性得到重复。如果行为结果是被惩罚,继续发生的可能性便会减小。

使用奖励来鼓励玩家点击,从本质上来说,是游戏设计师在“训练”玩家不断点击按键和玩他们的游戏。玩家下次点击仍会获得奖励,游戏就像在不断给你喂食数字化多巴胺,发出继续玩下去的信号。人类学家Helen Fisher解释称,与脑系统有关的多巴胺神经细胞通过给予关注和奖励来刺激。它们不断催促你尝试这些美好的事物,让玩家预见到游戏中下次行为的结果。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

The Secrets of Engaging Game Design

Michael Fergusson

What we love to do – and it’s probably fair to assume that this could be true for other social game developers – is build games that motivate people to action. We want you to be an active participant in the gaming experience. So what’s the significance of play and how can you use engaging game mechanics to build better social games (or to make your application more engaging, motivating, and social)?

What’s the significance of play?

Brian Sutton-Smith, PhD., Professor Emeritus of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania defines play as “an autonomous intrinsically motivated activity”. In other words, something we do (like art and music) for its own sake. We may even say that play is something we do for fun. But really, what is fun, anyway?

Designers of online applications and games incorporate playful, game-like qualities, because they know it’s valuable to have people use your application because they like how it makes them feel.

They know that people want to play and have found that play is something that can be understood and deliberately designed into a system. It’s believed play is part innate and part learned behaviour. Evolutionary psychology poses that the mind is shaped by pressure to survive and reproduce and it’s believed that play affords the practice of skills that’ll ensure that outcome. So how is play relevant later in life, once we’ve had enough practice?

As Garry Chick, Ph.D., an anthropologist at Penn State University explains, nature could’ve evolved play because it protects us. Chick explains that males can be dangerous. So it’s possible that nature evolved play through sexual selection: females seek out male partners who are playful for their protection and for protecting their offspring (males can also view playfullness in females as an indication of youthfullness). Whatever the evolutionary reason, we can see the practical result in our behavior: play is fundamental to being human.

Type of Engaging Game Mechanics

A game designer draws from a rich palette of primal human instincts in order to engage us, to push our buttons. Everybody’s preferences and tastes are unique, but our enjoyment of games, at least at the neurological level, is just the same.

One of most obvious ways games invoke our biology is in the simple linkage of in-game behavior with either rewards or punishment, much like a “Skinner Box” (named after B. F. Skinner who is a leading figure in behaviourism). Simply put, the idea is that if a behavior is rewarded, it is more likely to be repeated. If it is punished, it becomes suppressed. By using rewards to entice the players to click, game designers essentially “train” their players to keep clicking buttons and continue to play their games. By providing the possibility of a reward the next time you click, the game is feeding you a steady drip of digital dopamine that fires off signals for you to keep playing.

As anthropologist Helen Fisher explains, dopamine neurons are associated with brain systems that are activated by paying attention and rewards. They play the role of trying to predict the rush from nice things, and they keep you anticipating the result of your next action in the game. (Source: Gamasutra)


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