作者：Steve Bromley

敏捷软件开发提供了将用户洞察力融入游戏开发过程中的绝妙机会，从而产生更棒的游戏。在这篇博文中，我们将探讨将用户洞察力融入Agile游戏开发中的主要方法，并阐述为何这种做法极其重要。

敏捷软件开发方法中包含着大量的想法，最有趣的是通过大量的文件记录和计划来制作出有效的软件。其核心本质是，将项目开发分割成各个小部分（游戏邦注：为期两周）。在这些分割成的时间里，构建、测试和得出优先需要完成的软件。

game development circle(from stevebromley)

由敏捷开发方法强调在尽量短的时间内得到有效的关键，因而可以有大量机会将用户洞察融入这个过程中，而用户洞察力反过来让软件开发收益。在游戏中，令人上瘾的游戏可玩性和沉闷的体验之间的区别就来源于此。

那么，要如何融合用户洞察力以制作出成功的游戏呢？

1、在项目开始前收集用户反馈

在项目开始之前，通常会花时间来对将要开展的问题进行必要的准备和评估。这是个开展用户调查的理想时机，因为融合任何调查结果的成本都是很小的。

在项目开始前，可以使用各种技术来理解用户。纸上原型或评估竞争者的产品可以洞察到游戏哪个部分是值得拥有的，哪些是不必要的内容。评估竞争者的游戏几乎无需花费任何成本，而且能够让你避开他们犯下的错误。

2、每个阶段进行测试

敏捷开发方法会在分割成的每个阶段结束后产生可用的软件。这使得你有机会用真正的玩家来测试最终产品元素。撇开美工、图像和游戏中的漏洞，你可以对核心游戏机制进行测试，然后在早期便可以对其进行润色。

一种实现这个目标的常用技术称为“交叉阶段”。在这种想法中，用户测试和开发同期进行，测试上个阶段制造的东西，然后根据用户测试反馈深化下个开发阶段。这使得团队可以实时融入用户反馈，团队内部还可以就功能展开辩论！

3、先期发布然后不断迭代

iOS Appstore或Xbox Live等自动更新平台使现在的游戏更新比以前更容易。这意味着，现在可以在开发很早的阶段就发布游戏，然后不断迭代进行更新。

这项技术已经使某些Facebook游戏获得了巨大的成功，比如《CityVille》。通过这种向测试玩家或普通大众先期发布游戏然后根据玩家反馈进行改善的形式，你可以直接洞察到玩家想要和不想要的内容，可以避免将时间浪费在某些不热门或不必要的功能上。

而且，你可以从非常早期的阶段就开始获得盈利，就像《挖矿争霸》那样。

4、优先完成

敏捷开发的关键层面便是将全部工作量集中优先完成某些事项。在每个阶段之前，最重要的事情是决定要完成哪些事情，然后这个阶段便将注意力集中在这些事情上。这意味着，每个阶段都可以创造出最佳的部分游戏内容，仅有游戏的仅要内容会受到延期的影响。

正如上面说过的那样，将用户洞察力融入到游戏开发过程，可以确保那些投入精力开发的功能确实是对玩家至关重要的内容。

5、评估

到目前为止，游戏开发最重要的层面是理解哪些部分朝正确的方向发展，哪些部分需要改革。通过这种将游戏开发过程分割成各个阶段的方法，可以轻易地解决上述问题。

与那些封闭式开发过程相比，因为玩家只能等到游戏完成后才能看到游戏，所以开发者无法得知玩家对游戏功能的接受程度，或者游戏是否让玩家感到“有趣”。等发觉其中存在的问题后，已是为时过晚。想让这种情况有所改变吗？在两周结束后发现问题并解决问题的成本要比在游戏开发结束后进行挽救要低得多，这也能使你的返工大大减少。

总而言之，使用敏捷方法开发游戏能够产生出更高质量的产品，而且开发时间也更短。将用户洞察力融入游戏开发不仅能提高项目开发的灵活性，还能够极大地提升最终产品的质量。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年6月23日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The 5 secrets to happy players with Agile Games Development

Steve Bromley

Agile software development offers a fantastic opportunity to integrate user insight into the game development process, leading to better games. In this post, I’ll cover the main methods that can be used to integrate user insight into agile games development, and why this is important.

Agile is a software development philosophy which encompasses a number of ideals, most interestingly the idea of delivering working software over excessive documentation and planning. Distilled to it’s core essence, it divides project development into short (bi-weekly) ‘sprints’, where an agreed amount of prioritised software is constructed, tested and delivered.

Because of Agile’s emphasis on delivering working software as soon as possible, it gives plenty of opportunities to integrate user insight into the process, and user insight in turn gives a wide range of benefits to software development. In games, it can mean the difference between addictive game-play, or a dull experience.

So, how should user insight be integrated in order to create a successful game?

1. Gather user insight before you start.

Before the project begins, it is typical to have a ‘sprint zero’, to allow necessary preparation/evaluation of the problem to be performed. This is an ideal time to start on user research, since the cost of integrating any findings would be minimal

A variety of techniques could be used to understand users before production has begun. Paper prototypes, or evaluating competitors products will give insight into what aspects of the game would be desirable, and which are unnecessary. Evaluating competitor’s games is practically free, and will prevent you from making the mistakes that they made!

2. Test at each sprint

Agile delivers working software at the end of each sprint. This gives an opportunity not possible in traditional (waterfall) software delivery – to test an element of your final product with real players. Ignoring the programmer-art graphics, or game-stopping bugs, the core game mechanics can be tested, and refined from a very early stage.

A technique often used to achieve this is ‘staggered sprints’. This is the idea of running user testing in parallel with development, testing what was created in the last sprint, and feeding back refinements based on user testing during the next development sprint. This will give the team the ability to integrate the feedback from users consistently, and improve the next iteration. It will also settle arguments about features!

3. Release early and iterate

Starting with the proliferation of ‘patches’ for games, updating games is now easier than ever due to automated updating platforms such as the iOS App-store, or Xbox Live. This means it is now possible to release a game at the earliest possible stage, and then iterate upon it to update it.

This technique has been used to enormous success with facebook games such as CityVille. By releasing a game early, either to beta testers, or the general public, and improving it based on player feedback, it allows you direct insight into what players want, what they don’t want, and prevents you wasting time on unpopular or unnecessary features.

Plus you start getting revenue from a very early stage – just look at Minecraft’s millions!

4. Prioritise

A key aspect of Agile is the idea of prioritising the workload. Before each sprint, the most important features are decided upon, and only these are worked on. This means that each iteration will produce the ‘best’ version of the game possible at that stage, and any delays/cuts will only affect the least important aspects of the game.

The advantage of integrating user insight into the game development process, as outlined above, is that it can help inform this prioritisation, and ensure that the features being developed are the ones most critical to the players.

5. Evaluate

By far the most important aspect of developing games with agile is understanding what aspects are going well, and what needs revision. By working in short sprints with user insight as a ‘review process’, it is easy to judge what areas of the game are working, and which are not.

If this is contrasted to a closed development process, where the players do not see the game until it’s complete, it is often not possible to understand how features will be received, or whether the game is ‘fun’ until much too late! And if you do decide to make changes? It’ll be a lot more expensive at the end than if you’d caught it at the end of a two week sprint – this limits the rework you’d have to do.

In summary, developing games with an agile methodology produces better quality products, and at a faster pace. Integrating user insight into games development is not only possible with agile, but brings massive boosts to the quality of the final game. (Source: Steve Bromley’s UX Blog)