作者：Brice Morrison

illusion(from thegameprodigy)

你能不有说出上图画的是什么内容？如果还看不出来，那就点击这里看看答案吧。

虽然你需要一点时间去搞清楚所谓的幻觉，但是一旦你知道图上画的是什么，那么一切也就明了了。然而每个人的体验也有所差别。尽管你花了点时间去深入琢磨它，但是对于那些不愿意投入时间的人们来说，这幅图对他们来说也就是几个污点的存在了。

开发一款游戏也会形成这种挑战。当开发者在制作一款游戏时，他们很容易会深深地陷进自己的游戏中，而忘记其他玩家对于游戏的看法。这是个很自然的过程：你日日夜夜地致力于游戏开发中，进行编程，设计，图像等工作，当然也需要尝试游戏的每一个关卡，每一个部分等。你必须不时并深入思考游戏，确保每一个游戏角色是否合理，故事情节是否顺畅以及难度设置是否适当。比较来看，你是一名专家而你的玩家则是初入游戏的新手。

但是，致力于游戏开发，思考游戏，以及改变你对游戏的理解等都会让你的视角变得更加狭碍。你将不再能够像新手玩家那样思考问题，而是从专家的角度去开发游戏。既然你已经尝试了500次的游戏关卡，那么再添加第15个敌人角色到游戏中也不成问题了。或者另外一个例子是：如果你曾经白手起家建立起完整的菜单以及按键系统，那么所有的一切工作对于你来说都是再自然不过了。但是如果你只是个新手玩家，从未亲自建立系统，你肯定对这些工作没有任何概念，也很难理解自己到底该怎么做。

如果你是位聪明的开发者，即使已经深入探析了游戏的内在，你也会想办法让自己得以喘息，并让游戏始终保持一种新鲜感。幸运的是，现代游戏产业中有多种方法能够帮助开发者走出狭窄的视觉范围。

从玩家的视角看问题

很多经验丰富的开发者都会试着从玩家的视角去看待游戏，想象他们在首次接触游戏时对游戏的看法。但是因为这是一种很重要的技巧，需要开发者花费几年的时间进行琢磨，所以很多时候并不是很有效果。所以，从新手玩家的视角看待问题的最佳方法是什么？

观看其他玩家如何玩你的游戏

测试你的游戏，即让其他人玩你的游戏，而你在旁边观看并提问问题，这是一种非常有效的方法。为何？因为它能够帮你挣脱那个你自己设下的心灵陷阱。不论你对自己的游戏了解多少，或者你在制作游戏中投入了多少技巧，以及你认为游戏是否简单，这些都不再重要。当你在观看别人玩你的游戏时，你能够获得最原始的答案和真理。

你是否已经对漏洞感到麻木了？这些漏洞将会阻碍玩家的游戏体验，所以你必须将其记录下来并进行修复。不论是复杂的控制还是让人混淆的指令，你都必须知晓你的测试者在哪里被绊倒，而你也可以在此进行修改。你能够按照自己的想法去找出问题并调整游戏。

如果你从未进行游戏测试，那么你可要有被泼冷水的心理准备了。当你未准备妥当就让别人去玩游戏，你将会惊讶于玩家对你的游戏的看法，并且这种看法肯定是与你的预先期望截然相反的。如此说来，游戏测试对于开发者来说是一个无价的工具。让我们开始讨论这个重要的工具。

从游戏测试开始

我听说微软设立了一个完整的测试中心，并且在这个测试中心中有数十个甚至上百名测试者在帮助他们校准《光晕》游戏系列。不论这是不是事实，你都不需要进行如此浩大复杂的工程。一个简单的测试也能够帮助你达到测试游戏的效果，而这也是绝大多数开发者需要做到的。

以下是一些能够帮助你设立最简单的游戏测试的方法，能够帮助你以最少的付出获得最大的收益：

接触一名游戏测试者。是否有亲人与你同住？妈妈，爸爸，兄弟姐妹？你是否与同学一起住在大学的寝室里？或者你是否有同学还是朋友会前来探望你？主动开口：“嘿，你愿不愿意试玩玩我的游戏？”这时候你无需任何复杂的联网注册或搜索，只需要找到附近的一个人，让他花几分钟时间帮你玩玩游戏即可。

当然了，如果帮助你进行游戏测试的对象正是游戏的目标用户，那就再好不过了。所以如果你能够在Kongregate平台分享你的游戏，也就不需要去了解你那位从未接触过游戏的妈妈对于游戏的看法了。虽然你也可以进一步细分去选择测试对象（包括年龄，性别等），但是通常情况下这种细分是不需要的。更重要的是你找得到能够帮助测试游戏的人。

让测试者玩游戏，而你需要在旁边观察。你找到了测试者，就可以带着他们来到电脑或掌机前，坐下打开游戏，并让他们开始游戏。然后，你在旁边进行观看。如果他们犯了任何明显的错，或做出任何错误的决定，你也不要自欺欺人地认为“只是他们不够聪明罢了。”绝对不要这么想！你应该试着去找出游戏到底哪里出了错？以及如何做才能让游戏提供给玩家更好的体验？

如果测试者处在游戏的第一个关卡，而首轮挑战是收集100个硬币，但是他们总是在收满10个硬币之前就死去了，你就应该想想是不是这个挑战存在问题。或者，如果测试者反复按压“Esc”按钮希望能够弹出菜单页面，但是却发现他们只会因此退出游戏，而这时你就应该考虑告诉他们菜单按钮应该按“M”。

高度关注。人类是理性的。如果你在做一些奇怪的事，那也是因为游戏迫使你这么做的。所以你需要把测试者在游戏中的任何行动当成完善游戏的一种数据点，加以利用。

适时地提出问题。就像你第一次了解到游戏测试的价值所在时，你的所有洞察力都是来自于旁观，但是如果能够不时问些问题，将会对你更有帮助。最有益的问题之一是：“你现在想做什么？”

这个问题具有深刻的见解，因为它直击玩家的内心深处。当你看到玩家反复地却翻越一道墙时，你也许心里会想：“你们到底在做些什么？”然后你便能够问道：“你现在想做什么？”而他们也许会回应道：“在之前的关卡中有另外一个角色也花了点时间挑战一面墙，而最终越过去后找到一个洞坑。所以我认为自己也应该这么做。“

这的确是一个重要的信息。因为既然一个玩家会这么想，那么肯定会有其他玩家也会带着相同想法去做这些事。这时候问题便出现了，难道是你故意让他们有这种想法？如果是，你要如何做才能确保所有的玩家都会这么想？如果不是，你又要如何让他们改变这种想法？

决定如何利用反馈信息。当你获得所有所需的信息或者了解到测试者的做法后，你就必须好好利用这些所得信息了。你从中学习到了什么？这些信息告诉了你关于游戏中的何种内容？你的测试者在游戏中做出了哪种不一样的预想行动？

而最重要的问题还是：你要如何利用这些信息去改变游戏？

最终完善

让我们假设你在本篇文章的开头所提到的幻想目标其实并不是一种幻想，而是想让人们理解图中的内容。如果人们看不出图中到底是什么，你也许可以换种方法，即展示出图的轮廓。而这时所有人也就能够立刻看出个所以然来了。

Valve毫不懈怠于游戏测试。任天堂更是非常重视游戏测试。暴雪即使是让其他工作室占据了游戏发行先机，也仍然坚持于长期游戏测试。而这些公司正是因为对于游戏测试的执着，才为我们带来如此之多的优秀游戏。通过测试并完善游戏，能够为下一次的测试创造更有利的条件，从而提供让玩家满意的游戏体验。

游戏测试的目标是消除狭窄的视角并获得有益的反馈。你在游戏测试中发现的一些问题将能够帮助你更好地修改这些问题。并且在做出修改后，你将必须再次进行测试。也就是，你所测试的次数越多，你的游戏也就越优秀，在你能够为玩家提供最佳的游戏体验之前，你都需要持续测试游戏。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Game Playtesting: How to Avoid Deadly Tunnel Vision

by Brice Morrison

Can you tell what the above image is?  Take a few seconds to figure it out.  If you can’t, then take a look at the answer here.

This illusion takes a moment to solve.  But once you’ve seen what it is, then it’s obvious to you. However, your personal experience may be different from someone else’s.  Even though you’ve taken the time to understand it deeply, it’s still going to look like a bunch of splotches to someone who hasn’t spent time looking at it.

Developing a game can pose challenges like this as well.  When making a game, it’s often easy for a developer to get sucked into their own game so deeply that they forget how other players will see it.  It’s very natural: you are spending evenings or free time working on your own game project, doing programming, design, artwork, and of course playing through each level, stage, or section.  You are thinking about the game constantly and deeply, making sure that the characters are just right, the storyline is perfect, and the difficulty is just as it should be.  You are an expert, while your players may be novices at first.

However, the very act of working on the game, thinking about the game, changes how you perceive it, giving you tunnel vision.  You become incapable of thinking like a new player; you can only think like the expert who developed the game.  Since you have run through the level 500 times, adding a 15th enemy doesn’t seem like a big deal.  But to someone who has run through the level 0 times, a 15th enemy might be a nightmare.  Or as another example: to you, who built the entire menu and button system from scratch, it may be obvious what it does.  But to a new player who didn’t build the system themselves, it may make no sense at all and impossible to understand.

When diving deep into the bowels of a game project, a smart developer needs to remember to come up for air and keep a fresh perspective.  Luckily, the modern games industry has developed ways to keep developers from getting tunnel vision.

Seeing From the Players’ Perspective

Many veteran developers learn to think from the player’s perspective, to imagine a game they’ve been staring at for hours as though they’ve never seen it before.  However, while this is an important skill, it can take years to develop and even then isn’t always reliable.  So what is the best way to see from a new player’s perspective?

Watch another player play your game.

Playtesting your game, having someone else play it while you watch and ask questions, is almost always incredibly useful and informative.  Why?  Because it breaks you out of the deep mental hole that you’ve put yourself in.  It doesn’t matter how much you understand your  game, how skilled you are at your game, how simple you think your game is.  When you watch someone else play it, you’re going to get the raw truth.

Bugs that you have grown numb to?  They’re going to hold a playtester up, and you can make a note to fix them.  Complicated controls or confusing instructions?  You’ll get to watch as your playtester stumbles over them, and you can know that it’s important to fix them from there.  Too difficult and frustrating, or too easy and boring?  You’ll be able to find out and adjust the game according to how you want to make it.

If you’ve never done playtesting before, then get ready for a cold shower.  It’s shocking to see how other people can treat your game when you just let them play, and how that differs from what you’ve thought you’d see.  With that said, it’s an invaluable tool in any developer’s tool belt.  Let’s talk about how to get started.

Getting Started with Playtesting

I’ve heard that Microsoft set up an entire testing center with dozens or even hundreds of playtesters to help tune its Halo series.  While this may or may not be true, it doesn’t need to be this complicated for you.  A simple playtest is trivial to set up and will get you 90% of the way there, which is all most developers need anyway.

Here are the steps to setting up the simplest possible playtest that will give you the most benefit for the least amount of effort:

Get a playtester. Do you have family living in your home?  Mom, Dad, brother, sister?  Do you live in a college dorm with roommates?  Or do you have classmates or friends who come over?  Ask them, “Hey, would you mind testing out my game for me really quickly?”  You don’t need any complicated online signup form or survey.  Just grab someone who is nearby and get them to play your game for a few minutes.

Of course, ideally this will be someone in your target market, that is, someone similar to the people you imagine will be playing your game when it’s finished.  So if you’re making a platformer to share on Kongregate, you probably won’t get much useful information from your mom who has never played games.  You can break it down infinitely further (age, gender, etc), but it’s not necessary.  What’s important is that you get someone.

Get them playing and learn from them. Once you have your playtester, sit them down at the computer or console, load up your game, and ask them to play.  And then just…watch.  When they make obvious mistakes, “dumb decisions”, or run into problems, don’t think to yourself, “Well, they just aren’t very smart.”  No!  Instead, try and figure out what the game is doing wrong.  How could the game change to make their experience better?

If they are at the first level, and the first challenge is to collect 100 coins, but they keep dying before they’ve even collected 10, then perhaps there is something wrong with the challenge.  Or if they repeatedly press  the Esc button to pull up the menu, only to find that it quits the game, then maybe you should consider telling them that it quits the game and the menu is on the M button.

Pay close attention.  People are rational, just like you.  If they are doing something strange, then it is the game that is making them do it.  Take their actions as data points for improvement.

Everyone once in a while, ask questions. As you’re first learning the value of playtesting, most of your insights are going to come from just watching.  However, it’s also useful to sometimes ask simple questions.  One of the most useful questions can be “What are you trying to do right now?”

This is insightful because it gets into the player’s mind.  You might watch a player run into the same wall over and over again, thinking to yourself, “What in the world are they doing?”  Then you might ask, “What are you trying to do right now?”  To which they may reply, “Well, earlier in the level there was another character who ran into a wall a couple of times and found a hole.  So I thought that might be what I need to do.”

That’s a really useful piece of information.  If this player is thinking that, then it’s likely other players will think that too.  So then the question becomes, is that what you want them to think?  If so, how can you make sure they are thinking that?  If not, how can you steer them away from that thought?

Decide what to do with the feedback. After you’ve gotten all the information you need or your playtester is done, then it’s time to action on the information you’ve gotten.  What did you learn?  What did it tell you about your game?  How did your playtester act that was different from how you thought they’d act?

And the most important question of all: How are you going to change the game with this new information?

The Ultimate Polish

Lets say your goal with the illusion at the beginning of this article was not to be an illusion at all, but to get people to understand what the picture was.  If you show people the image at the beginning of this article and they don’t see it, then maybe you could change the image to show the outline.  Then everyone who saw the image would instantly understand what it was.

Valve is a company that playtests relentlessly.  Nintendo is a company that playtests their games to death.  Blizzard often playtests their games for years after many other studios would have shipped the game.  And you know what?  Their games are immaculate because of it.  By playtesting and tweaking the game to make the next playtest better, they can craft incredibly Satisfying experiences.

The goal of a playtest is to remove tunnel vision and have actionable feedback.  Things that you notice in the playtest that alerted you to problems then allows you to go and fix those problems.  And then later on, after the game is squeaky clean, you can playtest again.  The more you playtest, the more polished your game will be, until finally you will have a play experience that will delight your audience.（source:thegameprodigy）