作者：Simon Newstead

我们很少听闻像Raymond Holmes这种涉猎如此广泛的游戏设计师，他曾参与开发《FarmVille》那样热门的社交游戏、《My Horse》等面向女生的iPad游戏等多种类型的项目。

MunkyFun的Raymond Holmes在YetiZen Innovation Lab上阐述了他所设计过的不同类型游戏，以及自己从中学到了什么：

Raymond Holmes（from iteratingfun）

1.在早期阶段可以以最少的投入创造出最简可行产品（MVP）

《FarmVille》便是由一个非常小的团队在非常短的时间内所创造出来的作品。它的成功说明了一件MVP可以小而成功，特别是在免费游戏领域，即游戏作为一种可以经过快速迭代而发行的服务。他同时也提醒道，只有当市场还是新的，这种方法才可行，但是考虑到当前游戏平台的快速发展，仍有可能落实这种方法的情况则是——出现许多并非面向游戏领域的新市场。

2.学习如何从用户的角度进行思考

Raymond早前的设计经验在他设计《Barbie Team Gymnastics》时提供了很大的帮助。而这款游戏不仅取得了很棒的成绩，同时也让他学会了“从玩家的视角去设计游戏这一重要能力”。这是一款他自己并不喜欢玩的游戏，但是他却掌握了休闲玩家可能喜欢这种游戏类型以及玩家们是如何游戏并互动。这与我在设计《Style Me Girl》的个人经历产生了共鸣。

3.利用过去所学到的知识

他从《Barbie Team Gymnastics》中学到了许多有关体育运动的内容——动画和理论等。而之后当他参与《Aeon Flux》的创造时，团队决定主角是个擅长特技的人，如此他之前的经验便能在这款新游戏中派上用场了。Raymond认为开发者必须利用自己所学到的任何内容并以开放的态度去接受各种新理念——这也将有利于他们未来的创作。

4.创造适合用户的盈利机制

他曾参与过《My Horse》的制作，这是一款在iPad上获得了超过1000万下载量的游戏，但相对而言它的盈利成绩却不怎样。为什么？因为游戏中的许多刷任务机制并不符合年少的女生和男生等玩家的需求。他们并未意识到这一点。而作为后见之明，Raymond认为如果游戏中添加了更多宠物模拟/装扮类体验则能更有效地迎合玩家的需求。也就是说我们很难去辨别一款吸引了无数用户并获得大量利益的游戏是否真的算成功。

5.最后，任何游戏都需要设置能让玩家激动的时刻

Raymond发现玩家真正沉浸在《My Horse》的时刻是当他们第一次看到马，并与之进行互动的时候——这能真正从情感上带动玩家。他建议所有的游戏应该在早期阶段创造出这种时刻，即尽早让玩家沉浸于游戏中。

（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）

5 lessons from the designer of Farmville

By Simon Newstead

June 27, 2012

It’s not often you get to hear from a game designer whose work spans multiple genres, from blockbuster social games like Farmville while at Zynga through to girl games hits like My Horse for the iPad and many more.

Raymond Holmes of MunkyFun gave a talk at the YetiZen Innovation Lab last night on the different games he has designed and what he learned from them:

1/ Minimum viable product can be very “minimum” if you’re early

Farmville was pulled together in an incredibly short amount of time and with a very small team.  It went to show that a MVP can be very “minimum” and still succeed, particularly in the era of freemium and games as a service with fast iteration post launch.  He cautioned that it only works if the market is new, but given all the rapid evolution in gaming platforms these days there are likely to be plenty of situations where that remains the case – there are plenty of new markets that don’t even exist yet in gaming.

2/ Learn to think from a user point of view

One of his early gigs was helping design Barbie Team Gymnastics.  The game did well and taught him “the important ability to design from a player point of view”.  It was a game that clearly he wouldn’t enjoy playing himself, but he learned a lot about the actual players who enjoy that type of game and how they play and interact.  That resonated with my own personal experience in designing Style Me Girl.

3/ Leverage what you learned from the past

At Barbie Team Gymnastics, he learned a lot about gymnastics – animation, theory etc.  And later when he was on the team creating Aeon Flux, it was decided the lead protagonist would be much more acrobatic, and his past experience led perfectly to the new game.  His lesson?  Leverage what you have learned and have an open mind to new topics – they could be useful in the future too.

4/ Monetization has to be appropriate to the audience

It was interesting hearing about his experience with My Horse – on one hand an extremely popular game with over 10 million downloads for iPad but relatively speaking, low monetization. Why?  Because a lot of the level grind mechanics in the game didn’t match the audience – young girls and boys. They simply didn’t “get it”. In hindsight, his opinion was that it could have been better to have designed more of a pet simulator/dress up style of experience to match those who love the game.  That said, it’s hard to argue with the success of a product that has driven that much traffic and surely a good amount of revenue.

5/ And finally… every game needs a WOW moment

Raymond made the observation that the moment players fell in love with My Horse was when they first saw the horse in the field, animating and interacting with the player – truly a wow moment that emotionally hooked them (we see that when players first see their stylist interact to their touch).  He recommends all games try to establish a WOW moment early on in the experience to get them engaged.

All up, some excellent tips from a very experienced and creative talent. (source:iteratingfun)