作者：Alice Rendell

我在Facebook游戏领域担任游戏设计师，这也是我在这一行谋的第一份差事，也并不讳言自己进入这一行主要就是为了积累经验，以便今后在此站稳脚跟，而非纯粹出于为这个领域奉献力量的热情。

我认为这类游戏在关卡设计上仍存在不少瑕疵，还有许多游戏几乎就是只想向玩家伸手要钱，要求他们贡献出自己的好友、时间和精力。我一直就是个不折不扣的玩家，打小就是在昏暗的房间中（那时候室内的唯一光源几乎就是电视屏幕）玩游戏长大，所以我偏爱的游戏类型和Facebook游戏真有点大相庭径。

但是经过一年多的工作，我还是发现了一些值得我重新审视、拷问我个人成见的社交游戏设计优点，也开始相信社交游戏确实不少值得其他游戏借鉴的地方。

game's tutorial(from moneysavingmichele.com)

1.新手教程——不可低估玩家的智商。

优秀的游戏新手教程并不多见，不但社交游戏如此，AAA游戏领域也不例外。我确实不希望花10到15分钟时间看完冗长的新手教程。但这里有个问题，为了不让自己买游戏的钱白白打水漂，我不得不提起耐心，等待枯燥乏味的新手教程彻底结束，以便一探游戏内容的真面目。

Facebook游戏都是免费产品，所以开发者在将玩家转变为付费用户之前，就得确保他们可以跳过新手教程，直奔主题地开始玩游戏。

Facebook游戏玩家都有点浅薄和空虚，这就决定了社交游戏的成功须建立于快速判断的基础之上，也就是说你得在前2分钟就虏获玩家的心，以防他们离开游戏另寻他所。这就是一个如此冷酷，浮躁，但却完全公平的市场。

何必强迫玩家学习所有复杂的策略游戏规则的详细条目呢？这是他们的游戏，他们也只想玩游戏而已。Facebook游戏对新手教程的设计提出了特殊要求，这一点值得所有类型的游戏借鉴和采纳。首先，你得确保新手教程极为简明扼要。但这并不意味着为了简要介绍游戏，我们就得开发一款简单的游戏。

假如我赘述“这是我的游戏，你得在平地上建设一家餐厅，如果你喜欢的话，还可以购买一些特殊道具装饰餐厅，然后就可以向好友展示自己的杰作等等”之类的话，我可能就会听到用户抱怨“好哆嗦啊，我只有午餐时间可以花5分钟玩游戏，我可不想把时间都花在阅读这些文字对话框上面”。但假如我简单地描述，“这是一款以经营餐厅为主题的游戏，赶快建造最棒的餐厅吧！”这看起来可能还更有吸引力。

其次，新手教程不可充斥连篇累牍的文字内容。如果玩家在游戏中还得看完史诗般的英雄救世经历，那倒不如直接去阅读小说。

但这也并不是说，游戏就不可以提供出色且完整的故事，而是要指出你不必在头5分钟就把所有内容托盘而出。你得在短暂时间内迅速吸引用户眼球，让他们由衷产生“终于找到我想玩的游戏了，这款游戏适合我，也是我下半生想玩的游戏，或者至少是我这周想玩的游戏”这种感觉。如果你的游戏不能安然度过头5分钟考验，那就没有人会关心它在5个小时之后会有什么出彩之处。

2.传达信息：不可采用冗长的对话框内容。

Facebook游戏需擅长向玩家传达信息。许多人都是在午餐时间玩Facebook游戏，或者在百无聊赖的情况下会玩5分钟游戏（游戏邦注：当然硬核玩家通常可以一整天都在玩游戏）普通玩家可没有这么多功夫每天都在游戏中逗留数个小时。

从总体上来看，社交游戏玩家每天都会重访游戏，但多数人只是想从中消遣片刻而已。所以游戏向玩家传达的内容就必须切入重点，仅向他们展示与玩游戏有关的必要信息。开发者无需切入10分钟的过场动画解释绿宝石是怎样从Mordor的深处挖掘出来，怎样被无手无趾的小矮人锻造成器，它何时会发挥强大功能并且重塑你的思想、增加你威力……以便延长你的游戏体验时间。

实际上你只需简单告诉玩家，这个绿宝石可以增加健康值，延长玩家在游戏中的寿命。这里并不是说不可展示内容详尽的故事情节，而是得让它发挥线性的粘性，即让所有游戏元素彼此环环相扣，而不是同时搅和在一起。所以游戏向玩家传达的指导内容和信息必须简短、直接而非模棱两可。不得不承认，AAA级游戏并不总是遵循这一原则。

3.了解游戏用户需求

Facebook游戏玩家都是哪些人？答案是大众用户。我刚在公司入职时，就有人告诉我公司的大部分游戏玩家是年龄在30岁以上的女性用户，而且其中多为家庭主妇。而我却是一个20多岁，并且自诩为女游戏迷的英国人，我真不知道一般美国家庭主妇喜欢的是什么游戏。

但在论坛逛了数个月，与玩家打交道，倾听用户反馈意义和批评之后，我终于知道这些玩家一般会喜欢哪种Facebook游戏。他们偏好的是那些可在数分钟内轻易上手，能提供许多实现自我成就的机会，考验脑力又不具有极大难度的游戏。

这就是Facebook游戏玩家中的一类群体，之前从未有哪些游戏可以像这样在各种类型用户面前获得如此高的曝光率，吸收他们对“好玩”的看法，接纳他们对娱乐的定义。这对游戏行业来说是一件极大的幸事，它让开发者了解不同类型玩家的需求，这也是社交游戏的一种值得借鉴的优势。

总结

Facebook游戏真的是对传统游戏的一种颠覆吗？这要取决于每个人的不同看法。这个领域与其他游戏行业一样都存在自身问题和缺陷。

这个市场有许多毫不关心用户需求，一心只想盈利的游戏，其他游戏行业也同样不例外。但这个领域也同样有许多愿意接受挑战和平台局限性，并且充分利用一切机会创造出好东西的开发者。

至少我们可以利用这个机会学习不同的游戏设计方法，针对不同年龄段、背景和信仰的玩家开发游戏，这总是一件好事，不是吗？（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

What Social Games Can Teach Us

by Alice Rendell

I work in Facebook games as a Game Designer. It is my starter job in the industry and if I am absolutely honest it was more about gaining experience and getting ‘my foot in the door’ than having a burning desire to work on these types of games.

I think that many of the games out there are ultimately flawed on a game design level and there are an awful lot which are very shamefully obvious about wanting players’ money, friends, time and souls. I have always been a gamer, spending my childhood in a darkened room where the only light I was exposed to was the dim glow of my television screen, so my personal preference for games is quite removed from the mass that appear on Facebook.

However, after over a year of working in this section of the industry there are some interesting game design issues that I have had to rethink and have tested my knowledge somewhat and I truly believe that there are things to learn from the way social games are made, if not always by the games themselves

1. Tutorials – Don’t judge me!

Good tutorials in games are like Nicolas Cage turning down a movie, a rare thing. Not just in social games but with AAA as well. I really don’t want to have to wait 10-15 minutes for the intro of the game to finish falutning its shiny light effects and fancy animated water, I want to actually play the game I’ve just bought. But that’s the thing, I’ve already bought it, so I will persevere out of principal to get to the end of the incredibly elaborate and somewhat tedious intro and to start actually playing the game, just to get my money’s worth.

Facebook games are free, so before you even think about introducing any type of encouragement to convert players into payers, you have to ensure that they have got past the intro and have actually started playing your game.

The players of FB games are a shallow and vain lot and the success of your game depends on snap judgements, so if you don’t hook a player in the first 2 minutes of game-play then they will leave to go and play something else. This is harsh, impatient and entirely fair.

Why should we force players to learn all those complicated strategic game rules with all their fancy nuts and bolts? It’s their game and they just want to play it. FB games require special thought as to how the tutorial works, which in turn can benefit all types of games. Firstly you have to be incredibly clear and simple. This doesn’t mean having to have a simple game just simple enough to introduce.

If I say “Here is my game which requires you to build a restaurant from the ground up which you can completely customize if you want but really you only need some essential items and then you can show it to your friends and blah blah blah” I would be hearing a lot of “Woah now Mr Wordy pants, I have 5 mins to play this game in my lunch break, I am not going to sit around just reading message boxes”. But if I say, “This is a game about owning a restaurant, make sure yours is the best!” then that is a much easier hook.

Secondly, they have to be non-text heavy, If these players wanted to read about some bad-ass gun-wielding hero who is the only hope to save the post apocalyptic world of Mundaneia then they would be reading a book.

This doesn’t mean the game can’t have a great integral story, it just means you don’t have to tell everyone about it in the first 5 minutes. You have to grip a player in that first instant and make them say “Yep I have finally found you. You are the one for me, the game I will commit myself to for the rest of my life…or at least the rest of the week”. No matter how good your game is after 5 hours, no-one is ever going to know if they don’t get past the first 5 minutes.

2. Communications: The unjustified manner in which verbose boxes of an instructional nature are unnecessarily thrust upon the unwilling spectator!
FB game have to be great at communicating with the player. Mostly people play FB games in their lunch breaks, or when they have a cheeky 5 mins with nothing to do Yes there are hardcores who are playing all day long but generally players don’t have hours to invest in these games on a daily basis.

Overall they may return each day to play but the majority of people just want a fun distraction. Therefore the communication from game to player has to be spot on. Only say the relevant information that the player needs to play the game. You don’t need a 10 minute cut-scene explaining how this emerald was dug up from the depths of Mordor, crafted by a dwarf with no fingers and toes and when the power is harnessed for the greater good it can transform your mind and increase your ability to…play the game a bit longer.

You just need to tell the player that this emerald will increase your health and let you play more. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have an elaborate story but it has to be there as a sticky thread which all the other game elements are attached to rather than a big mass of glue which all the game elements get stuck in. So your instructions and communications to the player have to be short, simple, direct with absolutely no room for ambiguity. Let’s face it, this is not what always happens in AAA games either.

3. The Players: Who are we?

Who are playing FB games? The simple answer is everyone. When I first joined my company, I was told that the majority of our players were female, American and 35+ and most likely homemakers. I’m a 20+ British, self confessed gamer-girl geek I have no idea what the average American housewife wants from a game.

But after spending months in the forums, listening to players’ comments, feedback and criticism, I learnt much more about what our players wanted from their average Facebook game. In this case, it was a game which could be accessed easily for a few minutes at a time, with lots of opportunity for self achievement and something that tested the mind but was not too challenging.

This was fairly removed from what I would want myself from the games I play. But that didn’t matter, their wants and needs were perfectly justified and they had the right to a game system that worked for them as well.

This is one group of FB gamers, but never before have games had the opportunity for such exposure to lots of different types of people from all different walks of life, with different views on what they deem as ‘fun’ and what they would consider as entertainment. This a great opportunity for the game industry to really understand what the different types of people want from games and that is well worth taking advantage of.

In Conclusion

So are FB games really a blasphemy to all gaming that has begone before it? Not necessarily in every case depending on how you choose to look at it (nicely avoided don’t you think?). There are issues and flaws…like all sections of the games industry.

There are corporately pressed suits who don’t care about the players wants and needs and are only out to fill their nicely lined pockets…like all sections of the games industry. But there are also people who have accepted the challenge and the restrictions of the platform and want to use it to create something interesting.

We can use this opportunity to learn about different ways to design games and for the first time connect to a variety of people from different ages, background and beliefs. That’s a good thing, right?（source:gamasutra）