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分析《Blood War》未成为《宝石迷阵》的原因

发布时间:2011-07-23 15:37:49 Tags:,,,,

《宝石迷阵》或许是目前市场上最受欢迎的休闲游戏,那么它的成功究竟有何秘决?有人认为《宝石迷阵》背后的创意是其受到青睐的原因,PopCap十分“走运”地成为第一个推出该创意的公司。但PopCap创意总监及联合创始人Jason Kapalka却曾在一个大会上指出,创意并非该游戏成功的唯一要素。

Jason在该大会上通过展示与《宝石迷阵》创意相似的一款游戏进行了说明,该游戏中的物品也分布在8*8的格子中,玩家也同样需要连线消除相同的物品。但这款游戏与《宝石迷阵》仍有一些相异之处,在介绍该游戏特点之前,各位需要注意的是,这是一款面向门户网站玩家的游戏。

Blood War(from casualgamedesign)

Blood War(from casualgamedesign)

从上图中可以看出,这款游戏名称是《Blood War》,采用了与电影《Chronicles of Riddick》相同的背景。

game modes(from casualgamedesign)

game modes(from casualgamedesign)

它采用了多种不同模式以及难度设置,以便玩家根据自己的水平体验游戏玩法。

the tutorial(from casualgamedesign)

the tutorial(from casualgamedesign)

上图是指导玩家如何玩游戏的新手教程。

time to play(from  casualgamedesign)

time to play(from casualgamedesign)

开始游戏后,玩家可点击鼠标左键选中相同的骷髅,然后点击右键消除这些骷髅。

Try harder next time(from casualgamedesign)

Try harder next time(from casualgamedesign)

过关后就可以挑战下一个更难的环节。

Jason随后分点归纳了《Blood War》成为失败休闲游戏的原因(游戏邦注:以下加粗字体为Jason观点,其后文字为本文作者补充的个人看法):

·游戏名称不对。标题中结合血腥和战争元素的游戏,并不能吸引休闲游戏玩家,因为这类群体只想获得一些童趣。

·游戏基调过于阴暗。黑色和血红的风格并不十分招人待见,而金属骷髅看起来也并无多大吸引力。休闲玩家喜欢的是可爱的动物和明亮的色彩。

·侵犯版权。该游戏使用了电影《Chronicles of Riddick》中的部分元素,这不仅是老套的做法,而且是违法行为。

·令人费解的标识。杀手模式?这到底是什么意思?它究竟是比杀戮模式更难还是更容易?

·选项过多。在游戏模式和难度设置选项中,玩家可选择16种体验方式,但却无从知晓这些选项有何不同。正确的做法是限制游戏模式数量,移除难度设置。

·文本内容过多。玩家一般不会阅读文字信息。屏幕上的文本内容越多,玩家阅读的可能性越低。最理想的状态应该是不添加任何文本内容。

·新手教程设置有问题。它的文字内容过于繁杂,迫使玩家一次性记忆大量内容。但优秀的新手教程应该具有互动性,可以为玩家提供有趣体验。

·游戏难度太大。它采用的计时器增加了不必要的游戏难度,休闲玩家并不乐意寻找挑战,他们只想通过游戏放松消遣。

·使用了鼠标右键。最好不要使用这一功能,否则会造成许多休闲玩家的困惑,使他们对游戏玩法不知所措。《Blood War》的玩法设置正是犯了这一大忌。

·骷髅相似度太高,无法辨识。虽然每个骷髅都有彩色的轮廓线,但它们的主要颜色并无区别,另外形状也如出一辙,这就容易给色盲和眼力不好的玩家造成不便。

·奖励分值太低。玩家每完成一次消除,才能得到一个积分。过去的经验表明,游戏玩家希望获得大量积分,因此不妨在每个积分后多加几个零。

·错误的反馈机制。惩罚玩家所犯的过失其实是一个不智的做法,最好是采用正强化方式,奖励他们每次的正确做法,而非在他们因犯错而懊恼不已的时候,往他们伤口上撒把盐。

游戏邦注:原文发表于2006年2月,所述事件以当时为背景。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Bejeweled gone bad

Bejeweled is perhaps the most popular casual game on the market. What makes it such a successful game? Some might argue that the idea behind Bejeweled is what makes it so popular, and that PopCap ‘got lucky’ for being the first ones to use the idea. At Casuality Europe, Jason Kapalka, creative director and co-founder of PopCap Games, showed us that it takes more than just a good idea to create a successful game.

Jason presented a game that has the exact same idea behind it as Bejeweled: several items on an 8 x 8 grid, that you have to swap around to make matches of three. There are some, uhm, subtle (ahum) differences, though. In part 1 of this article, I’ll show you the game that Jason came up with. I invite you to list all the things that are bad about this game, keeping in mind that its intended audience is the portal gamer. In part 2, I’ll reveal what Jason had to say about it.

(Click on any of the pictures for a larger version.)

This is the title screen of the game Blood War. Notice the cool backdrop taken from the movie Chronicles of Riddick.

Different game modes add to the longevity of the game. The difficulty settings make sure that everyone can enjoy Blood War on his own level.

The tutorial tells you exactly how to play Blood War.

Time to play. You select a skull by left-clicking it. You can then swap the skull by right-clicking any adjacent skull.

Try harder next time.

If, for some you reason, you don’t believe this ultra-cool game can make it big on the portals, please leave a comment explaining your misconception. (source:casualgamedesign

In part 1 of this article, I showed you Jason’s game Blood War. In this part, I’ll tell you why Blood War would fail as a casual game. All of these points are taken directly from Jason’s talk at Casuality. Please note that I’m shuffling Jason’s talk around quite a bit. The points raised in the following discussion are Jason’s, but the write-up is mine. If something seems wrong, it’s probably my fault, not Jason’s.

The name is quite bad. A game with both blood and war in the title is unlikely to appeal to someone who is just looking for some innocent fun.

The theme is too dark. Black and dark red just don’t spell enjoyable, and metal skulls aren’t all that inviting, either. Casual gamers like cute creatures and bright colours.
Copyright infringment. Blood War’s use of material from Chronicles of Riddick isn’t just uncool, it’s against the law.

Incomprehensible labels. Slayer mode? What does that mean? And is Horror harder than Slaughter or easier?

Too many choices. Between the game modes and the difficulty settings, players have 16 ways to play the game and no clue what the difference between all those options is. Limit the number of game modes and get rid of the difficulty settings.

Too much text. Players don’t read. The more text you put on the screen, the less likely it is the player will read it. Ideally you should have no text at all in your game.

Bad tutorial. The tutorial has way too much text and it leaves the player with a lot to remember at once. A tutorial should be interactive and it should be fun to play through.

The game is too hard. The inclusion of a timer bar makes the game harder than necessary. Casual gamers aren’t looking for a challenge, they are looking for relaxation.

Don’t use the right mouse button. You can’t rely on the use of the right mouse button or lots of casual gamers will never figure out the game. In Blood War, it’s completely unnecessary, too (as we know from Bejeweled).

The skulls aren’t distinct enough. Every skull has a coloured outline, but the larger part is still coloured the same for all skulls, which makes them hard to distinguish. Also, all the skulls have the same shape, which makes it impossible for colour blind people to play.

The scores are too low. Blood War gives you only one point for every match. Experience shows that players enjoy the game a great deal more if you add some zeroes behind the score.

Wrong kind of feedback. Swearing at the player for failing is unwise, to say the least. Positive reinforcement is good: reward the player for every good action she takes. Don’t use negative reinforcement, though, the player probably feels bad enough already for making a mistake. (source:casualgamedesign


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