作者：Mark Wilson

《FarmVille 2》的开发团队将在此与我们分享他们在创造具有留存性的游戏体验所掌握的诀窍。

尽管Zynga因为知识产权缺少足够的创造性以及上市后的股票价格等因素备受瞩目，但是可以确定的是：在逐渐崛起的社交电子游戏领域中，他们的确已经成为了全球范围内最具影响力的公司之一。因为在游戏中添加了大量成瘾元素，所以Zynga已经吸引了大量的用户基础。他们不仅精通游戏设计的心理原理，界面设计的基本元素，社交设计的必要性，同时还清楚数据在验证设计假设的重要性。他们之所以如此了解软件正是因为他们了解人类。

我们与《FarmVille 2》（Zynga之前发行的大热游戏的后续作品，吸引了6千多万名玩家，如今成为了该平台上排行第一的游戏）的幕后人员，即设计总监Wright Bagwell，创意总监Mike McCarthy以及总经理Maureen Fan展开了交谈。

FarmVille 2（from ff3300）

界面必须具有“活跃性”

最初的《FarmVille》看上去就像一款典型的数字化桌面游戏。而《FarmVille 2》则具有华丽的动画式3D空间，并且这种转变显然是故意的。关于新界面的设计核心便是，它必须具有“活跃性”——能够给予用户碰触灵活的反馈。也就是该团队口中的“电动化”。

Bagwell解释道：“人们了解碰触的感受。我们一辈子都在碰触各种事物。而在模拟世界中，这种感受却是瞬间的。而当我们面向的是电脑时，也会希望能够得到同样的回应。”

在这种效果中，原始速度非常重要，而潜意识的流动性也必不可缺。Zynga的工程师便进行了大量的测试去明确用户对于特定的游戏行动的帧率的反应。并因此获得了用户最敏感且最能感到满足的数字——在一些重要事件中这一数字也能够发生改变。他们便是围绕着这一数字进行设计。

Zynga始终强调不能忽视UI的重要性。这是一种现代主义理念（即媒体就是一种信息），特别适用于软件设计。Bagwell解释道：“就像你可以同时拥有一辆丰田佳美和宝马M3，它们都拥有方向盘和刹车。但是当你驾驶着宝马加速前行时，你便会被它深深吸引住。同样道理，你可以同时拥有两款基本相同的游戏，但是当你碰触到其中一款时，它便会变成赛车；而另外一款就是外婆的古董车。”

平衡休闲用户与超级粉丝的奖励

从本质上来看，游戏总是基于“劳有所得”结构。当你付出时，你便能够获得金钱，道具或新技能等奖励。这些新的奖励将能完善你的工作技能，然后帮助你争取更大的奖励。这种循环将在游戏中一直持续下去。Bagwell说道：“当你真心希望为一件物品花钱时，你便更有动力为之努力。这便是游戏的一大组成部分。而如果游戏让你感觉有钱没处花，你便会很快对此感到厌烦。游戏设计师所面临的一大挑战便是挽回疲倦的玩家的注意力——让他们能在休息5分钟后继续游戏，并进一步吸引那些不断思考着如何获取更多奖励的玩家。”

《FarmVille》是遵循单向货币交易，也就是如果你种植了西红柿，你便可以卖掉它们而购买新产品。《FarmVille 2》则提高了这种交易形式的复杂性，即围绕着农场而创建起一个完整的生态圈。比起只是种植庄稼换取收益，玩家还可以种植庄稼去喂养动物，进而从动物身上获取肥料，鸡蛋和牛奶等。而鸡蛋又是食物制作的原料之一，肥料也能够滋养庄稼等等。也就是将其分解开来便会发现，这是一个完整且有点混杂的生命圈。

Bagwell说道：“我们发现玩家的游戏方式主要有2种。有些玩家进入游戏后只喜欢移动鼠标去观看动物四处走动。也有些玩家是真正在运行策略。就像在游戏发行2周后，我们注意到有个玩家将电子数据表放在一起问道‘我可以创造出的最佳食谱是怎样的？’”

开发者应该仔细思考如何设置游戏经济以确保休闲玩家与忠实玩家在游戏中的平衡。提供给最基本的游戏体验足够的奖励，而给予数据表制作者的奖励则必须有所收敛，从而避免他们在获得更多成功后对这种体验感到麻木。

FarmVille 2（from ff3300）

创造一种“安宁的”游戏体验

电子游戏是以爆炸性场面，夸张的色彩以及突发的攻击而著称。但是Zynga却看重了另一面。Zynga在咨询玩家为何会喜欢第一款《FarmVille》时一直听到一个相同的答案：这是帮助玩家逃离现实生活折磨的唯一方法。McCarthy解释道：“经常有玩家将玩我们的游戏当成是寻求安宁的方法。《FarmVille》能让他们暂时卸下生活的重担。”

所以Zynga便进一步扩展了游戏中的“安宁”元素。游戏的主基调效仿了Norman Rockwell（游戏邦注：美国在20世纪早期的重要画家及插画家）的绘画作品，呈现出20世纪50年代的理想主义画面。而玩家的任务便是再次创造家庭农场之风。从设计角度来看游戏是没有音乐的。玩家只能听到刮风和鸟叫声。但是游戏环境的设置却非常出色，即让玩家可以基于一个单独的选项卡而离开游戏，并感受到游戏音景。

McCarthy说道：“我认为谷歌是最棒的搜索引擎。因为当我打开google.com时呈现在我眼前的只是一个再简单不过的画面，没有其它多余的内容。所以如果我们也能够呈献给玩家这种安宁的感觉，这对于我们游戏的发展将非常有帮助。”

FarmVille 2（from ff3300）

基于长远角度去回应用户反馈

在这次交谈中最让我惊讶的还是《FarmVille 2》团队的背景。尽管我并未玩过《FarmVille》，但是我却非常欣赏他们的团队成员在来到Zynga前的创造性“血统”：即许多人都参与过像《辐射2》，《死亡空间2》以及《吸血鬼之避世》等经典游戏的创作。我能够清楚地描绘出玩每款游戏的感受是因为它们都具有非常棒的基调，外观以及故事（尽管许多都属于游戏续集）。

但是这些设计师过去都将游戏创作当成是一种为期2年的赌注——如反复思考着玩家是否会喜欢延续最初《辐射》的游戏？而Zynga则让这些设计师可以使用定性和定量数据而不断发展游戏。开发者可以通过分析用户反馈，游戏内部使用数据，销售数据等去判断每一个决策的对错。Fan解释道：“对于《FarmVille》，玩家都很喜欢一些奇幻的事物，如独角兽。但是在《FarmVille 2》中，当我们推出神奇的万圣节主题包时，玩家却表示他们希望《FarmVille 2》能够更加现实。所以现在的我们在创造动物时都会先想想这种动物是否具有现实性。”

通过社区留言板以及相关数据显示，玩家并不喜欢Zynga的万圣节主题包。很少有玩家购买该主题包，并且即使购买了该主题包的玩家也很少使用它。而正是集合了这两种类型的数据，Zynga才真正明确了万圣节主题包并不是《FarmVille 2》的发展方向。

Fan说道：“当我们致力于研究有多少玩家在使用某些内容，即不只是购买了该内容，还会去装饰它时，我们便能判断抱怨声是来自于小部分玩家还是大多数玩家。”

McCarthy随即补充道：“我们想要创造一个让玩家真心想要进入的游戏世界。即使我们所获得的数据告诉我们玩家对游戏非常感兴趣，但是这种兴趣也有可能只是出于对于新鲜事物的好奇。因为玩家总是喜欢按压一些新按键。”

“所以你必须基于产品的长远发展角度去审视所有数据。”

（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）

The 4 Secrets Behind Zynga’s Narcotically Addictive Games

By Mark Wilson

The team that made Farmville 2 sat down with us to share their secrets to building social gaming experiences that keep players coming back.

Zynga’s gotten a lot of flack for everything from a lack of originality in their intellectual property to their post-IPO stock price. But one thing’s for sure: They’ve been one of the world’s most influential companies in the rise of social video games. In imbuing their games with an almost narcotically addictive quality, Zynga has tapped into something very human going on behind the pixels. They understand the psychology of game design, the fundamentals of interface design, the necessities of social design, and the importance of big data verifying every design hypothesis along the way. They know software because they know people.

We talked to Wright Bagwell, Director of Design, Mike McCarthy, Creative Director, and Maureen Fan, General Manager, who all worked on Zynga’s mega-hit FarmVille 2, a recently released sequel to the game that changed Facebook forever, and the current number-one game on the platform with almost 60 million players. We wanted to know their secrets. And they obliged.

Interfaces Should “Spring To Life”

The original Farmville had the look of a typical digitized board game. Farmville 2 is a beautifully animated 3-D space, and the change was obviously intentional. One of the design pillars of the new interface is that it must “spring to life”–to beautifully react to a user’s touch. It should feel “electric,” the team tells me.

“People know what it means to touch something,” Bagwell explains. “They’ve touched things their whole lives. In the analog world, it’s instantaneous. When we come to the computer we expect that same interaction.”

Raw speed is a big component of this effect, but a more subconscious sense of fluidity is equally important. Zynga engineers did an incredible amount of testing to find out how users reacted to the framerates of certain actions in the game. They came up with a magic number (that they won’t divulge, but you might be able to reverse engineer) that felt the most responsive and satisfying to users–a number that can change during more or less important events, too. This is a threshold they design around.

Zynga feels that the importance of UI cannot possibly be underplayed. It’s a modernist idea, really–the medium is the message–that applies particularly well to software design.
“You can get in a Toyota Camry, then drive a BMW M3. Both have steering wheels and brakes, but when you accelerate in a BMW, you’re hooked,” Bagwell explains. “You can have two games that are basically the same game. But when you touch one, it’s a race car. The other is grandma’s grocery getter.”

Balance Rewards For Casual Users and Superfans Alike

Games are inherently based on a work-reward structure. You work a bit, and you’re compensated in money, items, or new abilities. These new rewards improve your working skills, allowing you to reap even bigger rewards. And the cycle continues. “The thing that you want costs money, so it feels interesting to work for it. That’s a big part of the health of the game,” Bagwell explains. “If you get to the point when you have so much money you don’t know how to spend it, you get too bored to play. “One of the best challenges of a game designer is how to make this challenging to a broad audience–for someone to kick back for a five minute break, but appealing to someone who wants to think deeply about how to get the most out of the game.”

In Farmville, the economy was based on simple one-way monetary transactions. If you grew tomatoes, you sold them, and bought new things with the profits. Farmville 2 upped the ante with deeper complexity, building a whole ecosystem around the farm. Instead of just growing crops for money, you might grow crops to feed animals, which produce fertilizer, eggs, and milk. The eggs might be part of a recipe to craft pie, the fertilizer supports the crops, and so on. It’s an entire, somewhat confounding circle of life when you really break it down.

“We found that players do play both ways. Some players come into the game and they just like moving their cursor around and seeing their animal dance around. But some players get really into the strategy,” Bagwell explains. “Two weeks after the game launched, we saw people putting spreadsheets together, [asking] ‘what’s the best recipe I could craft?’”

Balancing the economy to keep both casual and dedicated players moving through the game smoothly required careful consideration. The most basic experience needed to be rewarding enough to ensure progress, but the reward for the spreadsheet-makers couldn’t be too huge, lest the experience break down from too much success.

Make Your Experience A “Place Of Peace”

Video games are known for explosions, hyperbolic colors, and the occasional turtle murder. Zynga sees value in the opposite approach. After interviewing players as to why they loved the first Farmville, Zynga heard the same theme over and over: The game was just a way to get away from the grind of life. “One thing we heard constantly was they looked at our game as a place of peace,” McCarthy explains. “What they were responding to was their cellphone going off all the time or being stuck in traffic. Farmville was a place where people could relax their shoulders for a moment.”

So Zynga doubled down on the game’s most peaceful aspects. The game is modeled after a Norman Rockwell painting, full of 1950s idealism. Your quest? To bring a family farm back to its glory days. From a design perspective, the game has no music. All you can hear is the wind blowing and the birds chirping. The ambience is so effective that many players leave the game running in a separate tab, just to hear the soundscape.

“I think Google is the best search engine. Why? Because I go to google.com and it’s just a white board. Nothing’s screaming at me,” McCarthy says. “That peaceful feeling someone has when they come to use your product is really critical.”

Respond To User Feedback In The Context Of Long-Term Vision

The most surprising point the Farmville 2 team divulged to me was their background. While I don’t play Farmville, I love their creative lineage before arriving at Zynga: various members of the team have worked on iconic games like Fallout 2, Deadspace 2, and Vampire: The Masquerade. I can tell you just how it felt to play each because, despite the fact that many were sequels, they each contained a whole universe crafted from tone, aesthetics and storytelling.

But whereas these designers used to approach each game like a two-year gamble–would the players really like where Fallout 2 took the Fallout franchise?–Zynga empowers them to use a balance of qualitative and quantitative data to evolve the game continuously. Developers analyze user feedback, in-game usage data, and sales figures to know when decisions are right and wrong for a franchise. “In Farmville, people really liked fantastical things, like unicorns,” Fan explains. “But in Farmville 2, when we released Halloween stuff that was more fantastical, our players told us that they liked how Farmville 2 was more realistic, and they wanted us to be more realistic. So when we’re creating animals now, we make sure we’re creating more realistic animals!”

Fans told Zynga they didn’t like the Halloween pack publicly–on message boards curated by community managers–and in the data. People weren’t buying the pack, and the few who did weren’t playing with it much. It was only with these two types of data combined that Zynga could know that the Halloween pack really was the wrong direction for Farmville 2.

“If you look at how many people are actually using something, not just purchasing it but decorating with it, we know if complaints are from a small vocal community, or a large set of players,” Fan says.

“[But] we need to create a world that people want to be in,” McCarthy adds quickly. “Even if we get data that says something might have been exciting to players, it might be exciting just because it’s new. People might click on a button just because it’s new.

“You have to temper some of the data you get with the long term vision of where to take the product.”(source:ff3300)