作者：Alexander Jordan

最近我在PC上发行了《Cute Things Dying Violently》（以下简称CTDV），刚好是这款游戏在Xbox Live Indie Games初次亮相的1年后。我投入了大量时间去修改各种漏洞，调试新的图像并针对键盘和鼠标体验进行了游戏完善。除此之外我还特别留意了各种评价以及这款游戏Xbox版本的相关记录，并发现它出现了一个很严重的问题，即玩家并不能正确地玩游戏。

cute things dying violently(from marketplace.xbox.com)

从游戏核心来看，CTDV是一款物理类游戏：包含了投掷，弹跳，或将Critter从A点弹到B点等行动。就好比使用移动光标去玩《愤怒的小鸟》一样，只是CTDV更加复杂。

许多玩家只能快速领悟弹跳机制。所以我便困惑了。CTDV只能勉强称得上是拥有意外游戏玩法的游戏，但是玩家却很难真正理解它，并最终导致他们只能感受到一种糟糕且不愉快的游戏体验。而我应该如何解决这一问题呢？

以下将列出我所采取的一些集中玩家注意力的方法，以及它们屡遭失败的原因。

设置提示信息

在CTDV中除了“弹跳”机制以外最强大的功能要数控制机制了，即玩家可以通过按压一个按钮而保持高度活跃的Critter不动。这一机制将会在第二个关卡中出现，但是玩家却并未能阅读到相关的提示信息。

我发现许多玩家希望能够在“获得”核心的弹跳机制后再阅读可选择的提示信息（关于如何玩游戏）。所以我该怎么做？将有关“抓取机制”的解释移到了第一个关卡的首个提示信息中，并在“添加”生效前将其呈现在玩家面前？

不可行！许多玩家只会阅读首个提示信息中前三分之二的内容，并在提示信息开始解释抓取机制前停止阅读。

为玩家提供自助工具

许多玩家并不能从游戏中获得足够的提示。他们会以为弹跳目标将沿着直线前进。但是这些目标所撞击的最低点却会远远超出他们的预期，所以玩家只能无止尽地重复相同的过程。

考虑到这一点，我便添加了两个可选择的瞄准工具：预见弹跳目标的飞翔目的地的能力，以及清楚之前弹跳目标的飞行路线的能力。我在第四个关卡，也是迄今为止最困难的关卡的提示信息中解释了这些机制。

不可行！既然玩家可能不愿意阅读抓取机制的解释，他们也不会阅读这些解释。

通过游戏机制被动地指导玩家

因为发现玩家很少在游戏中学习如何更好地玩游戏，我便决定设置一些显而易见的技巧和指南去帮助他们。

对于PC版本的游戏，我将游戏的加载屏幕转变成一系列转动的“你知道吗？”提示，告诉玩家哪个按键能够触发哪些功能（游戏邦注：如抓取和预见等功能）。我同样也在Xbox和PC版本的暂停屏幕中添加了“显示控制”按钮，并在PC版本的选择屏幕中添加了重新映射按键。

不可行！根本无法对之前的问题做出任何改善。

添加需要玩家使用高级游戏机制的关卡

对于这一副标题我并不需要加以说明，我将直接跳到下一环节，也就是关于玩家只使用弹跳机制去穿越不同关卡但未能学到任何内容。

有些玩家更愿意反复尝试相同的内容，而不是分析并阅读游戏中的提示信息。因为CTDV是一款物理类游戏，所以玩家只能通过物理行动去完成任何关卡。玩家将在游戏中不断追踪各种可能但不确定的机遇，直到最终获得了成功或因为挫败而退出游戏。

不可行！结果表明在大多数关卡中，“必须使用”机制仍被不少玩家视为可有可无的选项。

总结

CTDV是一款带有适量意外玩法（玩家可以通过使用额外的帮助系统感受到这些内容）的物理类游戏。然而它却拥有非常强大且可行的游戏玩法，但我强迫或诱使玩家尝试更非凡游戏体验的做法均遭遇失败。

可能是我将结果夸张化了。事实上CTDV获得了很好的销量，而那些用“不正确”方法玩游戏的用户也只是少数。并且人们对游戏的反应也大多都是积极且礼貌的。所以此文绝非有意侮辱用户的智商。

但是当提到学习新游戏系统和机制时，我看到了许多既没有耐性且麻木的玩家。当然了我们也都难免如此——我们总是无视那些最新最棒的第一人称射击游戏的教程关卡，却选择直接经受战火的洗礼。拥有足够预算以及优化完善的AAA游戏总是不遗余力地将教程无缝地整合到游戏体验中，从而让玩家更轻松地学习新的游戏机制。

但是如果是缺少预算的开发者又该怎么做？资金不足也就意味着资源不足，所以我们很难在中等或底层独立游戏中看到基于声音或基于视频的教程。开发者只能通过文本和关卡设计去解释新的系统。我总是会在关卡设计方面出现差错，但是玩家似乎更容易忽视我们所提供的文本内容，这让我只能更加谨慎地进行关卡设置。

独立开发者是否最有可能引进新颖且令人兴奋的玩法机制？而我们又该如何将新功能传达给那些已习惯关闭这种沟通渠道的玩家？

关于其他解决方法的思考：

*彻底中止游戏，直到玩家阅读并消化教程为止？

*将教程融入游戏图像或叙事风格中？

*设计一种遇到不当玩法就会令玩家失败，并且无法再次尝试的关卡？

*或者你可以直接忽视本文，满足于游戏所取得的高销量？（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）

Is Our Players Learning?

by Alexander Jordan

I recently released Cute Things Dying Violently on PC, almost a year after it made its successful debut on Xbox Live Indie Games. I spent most of the intervening time fixing bugs, commissioning new art, and streamlining the experience for a keyboard and mouse. However, I also paid careful attention to the various reviews and Let’s Plays documenting the Xbox version and realized that I had a problem with my players: they weren’t playing the game properly.

CTDV is, at its core, a physics game: throw, bounce, or “flick” the Critters from Point A to Point B. Think “Angry Birds” with a moveable cursor and you’ve got the idea. Okay okay, the game’s far more complicated than that, but that should be your key takeaway for this post.

Many players were quick to grasp the flicking mechanic… and nothing else. I was stumped. CTDV barely qualifies as emergent gameplay, but the players weren’t “getting” it and as a result were having an inferior, more obnoxious experience. How was I supposed to turn this around?

What follows is a short list of the ways I attempted to instruct, hand-hold, or scold my players into paying attention, and the various ways they failed.

Fighting short attention spans

Aside from the “flick” mechanic, the most powerful feature in CTDV’s control scheme is the ability to hold the hyperactive, mobile Critters in place with the push of a button. That mechanic is introduced in just the second level, but players weren’t reading the tool tips.

I realized that many players’ willingness to read optional tooltips on how to play the game expired after they “got” the core flicking mechanic. So what’d I do? I moved the “grabbing” mechanic explanation into the first tooltip of the first level. Throw it at the players before ADD kicks in, right?

FAIL! Many players would read the first two thirds of the first tooltip and then stop reading before they got to the explanation of the grabbing mechanic.

Give the player tools to help themselves

Many players also weren’t getting the full implications of, um, gravity. They’d aim their shots assuming that flicked objects would travel in a straight line. Those objects would hit lower than they expected, and the player would repeat the process endlessly.

Seeing this, I added two optional aiming tools: the ability to preview where your flicked object would fly, and the ability to see your previous flick’s flight path. I explained these mechanics in a tooltip in the fourth and heretofore toughest level of the game.

FAIL! If they weren’t going to read about grabbing, they certainly weren’t going to read about this.

Passively instruct the players on game mechanics

Seeing as how players often weren’t taking the ingame steps to educate themselves on how to better play the game, I decided to help them with tips and instructions lying in plain sight.

For the PC version, I turned the game’s loading screen into a series of rotating “Did you know?” prompts, telling the players which keys triggered which crucial functions, e.g. grabbing and previewing. I also added a “View Controls” button to the Pause Screen on both the Xbox and PC version and added key remapping to the PC version’s options screens.

FAIL! No meaningful improvement on the previous problems.

Add levels where the player must use advanced game mechanics

The above subtitle is self-explanatory, so howsabout I skip to the part where players would just resort to using the flick mechanic – and only the flick mechanic – to brute force the level and avoid having to learn anything.

Some players seemed more willing to try the same thing over and over and over and over and over again rather than break down and read an ingame tooltip. And because CTDV is a physics game, the only thing required to beat a level is for something to be physically possible. Players would chace possible but improbable opportunities endlessly until they managed to succeed or quit in frustration.

FAIL! It turned out that in most of these levels, “must-use” mechanics were still optional.

Conclusion

CTDV is a physics game with a small-to-modest amount of emergent gameplay that is best enjoyed through the use of its additional helper systems. However, the core mechanic is powerful enough and reliable enough such that players can avoid or ignore the additional mechanics in order to have a gameplay experience reminiscent of hair removal via duct tape. Earnest attempts to coerce or cajole players into the more streamlined experience met with failure.

I may be overstating the results. CTDV has sold enough copies that I know it’s been a resounding commercial success, and those playing the game “improperly” are a minority. Also, the response to my game and to me has been overwhelmingly positive and polite. So I’m not dealing with cretins, and I certainly don’t mean this post as an insult to my user base.

Still, I’ve witnessed a stunning amount of impatience and indifference when it comes to learning new gameplay systems and mechanics. I know we’ve all been guilty of this – sleepwalking our way through the mandatory tutorial levels of the latest and greatest first person shooter and opting for baptism by fire. Inflated budgets and adamant polish of AAA games often seamlessly integrate tutorials into the gameplay experience so that new gameplay mechanics are learned as painlessly as possible.

But what’s an indie developer with a scant budget to do? Less money means less resources, and you tend to not see voice-based or video-based tutorials in middle or lower tier indie games. That leaves text and level design for developers to explain new systems. Although I was guilty of occasionally dropping the ball on the latter, players’ willigness to ignore the former leaves us with… what, exactly, in our arsenal?

Seeing as how indie developers are most likely to introduce new and exciting gameplay mechanics, how do we best communicate novel features to players who have been trained to tune out that communication?

Parting thoughts

Focus on games where brute force is a feature with optimal use, like in tower defense games?

Completely halt gameplay until tutorials are presented and absorbed?

Weave tutorials into game imagery or storytelling style?

Design levels so that improper playstyles are met with obvious failure rather than an invitation to try again?

Ignore this entire article and just be glad that your game sold some copies to appreciative customers? (source:GAMASUTRA)