作者：James Marsden

我们常被问到的一个普遍问题是：

“你们对《Velocity》的成功感到意外吗？”

答案就是：

“一点也不意外，但很放松。”

也就是说，我们之前知道《Velocity》是一款很棒的游戏，我们努力让它获得曝光度。后来它获得关注时我们就释然了，我们知道这一切都是它应得的。你可能会问我们为何如此自信？那是因为我们专注于游戏设计与成功有关的所有层面，不惜投入时间令它们更完美，在其他不那么关键的环节中就没有投入多少时间。简而言之，我们坚持按照一份关键元素行事。

关键清单

这个清单就是我们的秘方。我们用它来设计一切游戏，每款游戏都从中受益匪浅。我们的清单是根据必要性发展而来的，因为我们是一家资源有限的小型工作室，每步行动都要精打细算。

那么我们为什么要与大家分享自己的秘诀呢？

我们相信分享知识会让世界更美好。我们想看到更多独立开发者制作出惊人的游戏，以便扭转大众对“独立游戏”是低劣、没有魅力、制作粗糙的代名词这一看法。现在风水轮流转，我们希望以自己的行动加快这一思潮的转变。尽管现在市场上已经有许多免费的工具以及更低的准入门槛的平台，但如果空有这些工具而没有想法又会有何出路？

声明：

毫无疑问，有些读者可能已经在制作游戏为生了，或者正在研究游戏，并希望掌握这种媒体的功能。因此很有可能本文所包含的一些内容是大家已知的常识。

关键并非细微差别

游戏现在比以往更加多样化了，所以如果说用一篇文章就能总结出制作出色游戏的所有细节那就真是瞎扯了。但是，如果我们对某事有所擅长，那就不难理解令其完美的关键，并且能够运用这种理解来指导实践。所以，本文主要内容是构成一款出色游戏的关键元素。首先，我们得先定义什么是优秀的游戏。

优秀游戏的关键清单

这一清单的项目是根据重要性来排序。每个层面都会在此简要列出，并在之后进行详细讨论。

1.响应性控制：控制如果不完美，那也应该接近于完美。

2.无懈可击的理念：游戏始终要合情合理。

3.合适的学习曲线：游戏应该以始终有趣的方式挑战玩家。

4.积极反馈&奖励：优秀游戏应该为玩家提供大量积极反馈。

5.无缝隙的用户界面：UI应该流线化以便玩家融入游戏。

6.一致的音频&视频风格：游戏的视听风格应该始终保持一致性。

其中的1、2、3项松散地构成了玩法。

4、5、6项松散地构成了游戏外观。

优秀的游戏

一个产品所有层面都是相互依存的，这样才能创造出整体，为了让该产品无懈可击，所有层面都要处于同一个质量或优化水准。

并不良好的游戏

如果某一层面并不像其他层面那样优化，就会拉低整个体验的水准。人们对产品的整体看法取决于其最薄弱的环节，这意味着如果你的图像和理念很棒，但控制却很糟糕，那么你的游戏就会很差。

1.响应性控制

1.1不用想都知道？

这是个显而易见的命题，但还是有许多游戏的控制方式很糟糕。不是过于高精度，就是不够高精度。出色的控制设计可能需要开发者投入大量时间和精力，多数时候调整控制只是个人品味的问题——所以这里就需要开发者设身处地站在玩家角度来考虑。

1.2控制方式是一半的乐趣（另一半乐趣来自规则）

关键是你得让它们设置妥当，因为控制也是一半的乐趣。如果控制没有趣味，那么玩家就可能很抓狂，更糟糕的是可能会让他们觉得无聊。所以你该如何保证自己的控制用起来很有趣呢？

1.3找到核心机制

这涉及设置一项操作和反应，让玩家觉得自己很强大，无论其中施行的是什么规则或挑战。例如在《割绳子》中割绳子就是其中的核心机制。划动手指割绳子，看到物体下坠是个有趣的过程。在弹弓上射出一只小鸟也是一种很棒的机制。拥有核心机制的游戏玩起来很有趣味，无论玩家所面临的是什么挑战。

当我首次看到关于核心机制的概念时，我自己寻思：游戏问世已有相当久的历史，如果我们要找到能够走红的新玩法机制，我们就得从新输入系统下手。我曾想象要用倾斜、触摸和划动，或者体感控制的玩法方式。但结果证明这一想法是错误的。

如果你有一个强大的理念，你可以向一个很棒的新核心机制植入最简单的操作。以《Velocity》为例——玩家可以摁压按钮并左右移动，但赋予玩家瞬间移动的能力却真是一个很酷的机制。无论游戏中发生了其他什么情况，这都是一件令人愉悦的事情。

1.4围绕核心机制进行设计

当你拥有一个很棒的核心机制时，就该创建一些能够探索该机制每种极限的关卡，以便查看其中的趣味元素。通常情况下，你的关卡设计范围会因核心机制而受限。例如在《Velocity》中，我们就花了很长时间调整瞬间传送的感觉，以及核心机制的合理体验——优美而迅速，这意味着我们无法在游戏中设置少于特定宽度或高度的空间，否则传送光标对玩家的手巧要求就会非常高，从而减少关卡趣味性。所以，《Velocity》中的每个关卡设计都是由此出发的。

1.5玩家就是上帝

应该让玩家觉得游戏总在自己的掌控之中。游戏可以让玩家觉得自己很差劲，这没有关系，但如果游戏让玩家觉得其控制方式太困难了，那么游戏也就会丧失趣味。仅仅是让这一点正常表现就需要投入大量精力，这也可能是游戏克隆现象如此盛行的主要原因。取出现成的控制系统，更改一下图像就可以称为一款新游戏了。但如果你花时间设计新核心机制，那么你就是在设置一条让游戏脱颖而出的轨道。

1.6遵守惯例

如果有可能的话，应该让你的游戏遵循特定题材的惯例。更改玩家所期望执行的操作并非创意或创新，而是令人讨厌的行为。

2.无懈可击的理念

2.1理念实际上就是情境

玩家在做什么事情，玩家在哪做事，他们如何及为何做事？这正是游戏理念为何通常是受控制所启发的原因，所以如果你想创造真正新颖的理念，可以花点时间体验一下那些尚未被使用过的控制系统。

2.2强大的理念=衣架

强大的理念可以让游戏省时省力地绽放异彩。玩法、关卡设计、美术风格、音乐、故事、角色——如果理念够强大，这一切就很容易到位。所以强大理念的来源是什么呢？

2.3简单即是美

要实现简洁性有点棘手，但这却是向潜在团队成员、发行商、游戏媒体和最终玩家传递游戏理念的关键。如果你和游戏预告片无法快速传达理念，你就有可能让玩家丧失兴趣。

2.4优雅更好

如果你能够实现简洁性那就是走对路了，因为人们会迅速理解你的游戏魅力所在。但这同时也需要一些深度，否则人们一开始玩游戏就会开始生厌。你得开始尝试加深度层次，以便玩家在同游戏互动过程中逐渐发现深度。

添加深度层次的问题在于，它很容易给游戏理念带来矛盾因素，而这会摧毁游戏中的一切。当你给理念添加深度层次时，你就得从每个角度查看理念，因为优雅的理念不会有明显的漏洞。在此我向各位推荐《The Art Of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses》这本书，它为你提供了几乎可从数百个不同方式查看游戏理念的有用资源。

2.5聪明最棒

如果你能够让自己的游戏实现优雅与简洁性，那你就胜过多数游戏设计师了。但你还可以进一步升华自己的游戏理念，那就是聪明。这是我们在FuturLab做一切事情时努力实现的目标，它可以让人们在看到我们的作品时发出

以下三种感叹：

1）“很酷！”

2）“啊，我知道了！”

3）“啊，这真是太高明了……”

这正是我做一切事情所努力达到的目标，它要求达到所有的三个概念层次。如果你的理念并不简洁，那就无法得到人们“很酷！”的回答，应该让人们看到游戏就立即获得回报。

那种“很酷！”的反应也是吸引人们进入游戏，让他们开始玩游戏，或者想玩游戏的魅力所在。之后随着人们深入挖掘，就可以发现游戏的深度层次，如果游戏有优雅的理念，其中的一切都紧凑地融合在一起，你就会得到“啊，我知道了！”的反应。如果你整个理念都很聪明，那么人们就会情不自禁地静静坐在那里并思索：“这真是太高明了——要是我也能做就好了”或者“我得把这个给朋友看看”。

如果你的设计中能够实现这三种体验层次，游戏轨道就会趋于杰出。如果你一开始只有个糟糕的理念，你的游戏就很有可能面临糟糕的处境，无论它的玩法有多精妙。如果你无法吸引任何人，他们也就不会对游戏感兴趣。我们在《Coconut Dodge》中就发现这一点了。游戏玩法很棒，但如果理念很差，就没有什么人愿意体验玩法。

所以如果你有个出色的理念，你就会发现很容易将其他人引进自己的项目。如果我们的游戏只是一款常规的射击游戏，那么也不可能找到Joris de Man来帮我们制作游戏的音乐。瞬间传送概念达到了这三个目标，所以当他坐下来玩我们的原型时，他就获得了这一体验——他为之所迷并愿意融入其中。

2.7兴奋了吗？（如果没有，再试一次）

在这一点上，如果你已经有了一个强大的理念，你已经想出如何让控制变得有趣，你就应该因你的游戏而兴奋。如果你并不为之兴奋，那么你就还没有设计出一款出色的游戏。你应该回头重做前两个步骤。当你将这两个关键层次挑出来后，你就得控制自己的兴奋并严肃对待，因为这是个简单的环节。事实上，你才经历了爱迪生所谓的天才1%的灵感这个部分，接下来的数月才是99%的汗水。而你首先要注意的就是……

3.合适的学习曲线

如果没人欣赏，那么再出色的理念也是一文不值的，所以平衡学习曲线需要与初始概念一样的注意力。那么如何实现这一点呢？

3.1确定目标用户

根据目标用户来定制学习曲线是关键。在《Velocity》中，我们的目标用户包括休闲玩家至技能型的玩家。所以我们要做的工作很多，既要让游戏对新人来说容易上手，又能够为那些喜欢挑战的玩家提出大量技能要求。

3.2整合指导

现代游戏并不需要指导，甚至是教程。关卡设计应该具有指导性，实际上这一原则并不仅仅适用于头几个关卡。

3.3平衡学习&挑战

游戏只有让玩家获得学习才具有乐趣。如果他们无法学到新东西时，游戏就会变得重复性，所以学习曲线也会变成直线。换句话说，你总是给予玩家学习新内容的挑战——无论是引进新机制，还是提供让玩家以新方式整合机制的范围。但是，如果难度曲线同学习曲线一样，游戏就会让人觉得太费劲和无趣。

其技巧在于拥有一个紧跟学习曲线的阶梯式挑战曲线，所以玩家总是在学习，但也会有一些短暂的停滞时期，以便玩家运用自己在游戏中所学的内容，并在再次接受挑战之前感受自己的强大之处。在《Velocity》中，我们缓慢引进了机制。直到第16关，你才会习惯Long Form Teleport，这正是游戏的主要卖点。之后我们使用关卡设计教玩家如何以不同方式使用机制，将它们结合起来解决谜题。玩家并不需要使用游戏中最酷的理念，直到进入倒数第二个关卡。

3.4提供清晰的成功标志

为玩家打分为其提供动机，所以让玩家知道如何获胜，并因此知道自己为何失败这一点相当重要。奖杯&成就自引进以来就对游戏社区产生了极大的影响。游戏玩家越年轻，就越不可能玩一些游戏，除非它们有一些可添加到自己的收藏中的奖杯。这正是人为类自我意识的强大之处，所以要以创新方式使用这一点为游戏加分。在《Velocity》中，我们有三个不同的评分标准整合在一起创造一个完美的奖励。这意味着玩家即使在自己未能达到某个更高的目标时也能觉得有所收获。这可以为那些追求更高挑战的玩家留下更多的追求空间。

3.5让玩家觉得自己很聪明

设计游戏是一个极具回报性的体验。我们就是自己所创造世界的主人，这个力量可以轻易吸引大家的内心。所以我们需要大量的自我抑制和同理心为其他将玩游戏的人设计关卡。关卡可以在没有难度的情况下充满挑战。我曾与一个伙伴合作开发一个新游戏理念，他几乎所有的理念都是基于如何以某种方式戏弄玩家，这一点从未管用。设计游戏是一项非常利他主义的行为，如果你能让玩家感觉娘胎好，并同时看起来不错，他们就会喜欢上你的游戏。就这么简单。

4.积极的反馈&奖励

4.1反馈加强体验

反馈就是玩家表现或互动的任何操作结果，它是增强体验的关键。积极反馈给游戏带来的影响不容忽视。你可以制作出色的玩法机制，但如果没有任何反馈，游戏就不会令人感觉很棒。如果你有一个平庸的机制，但却用精美的动画和音效来反馈，却可能让游戏产生很棒的感觉。

4.2消极反馈也有用处

《Coconut Dodge》如此令人上瘾的原因之一就是玩家遭遇不测时所响起的极为伤感的声音。它还伴随着戛然而止的音乐。游戏并不是在侮辱玩家，而是在以一种微妙的方式惩罚玩家，它会让玩家产生重新开始，更正自己错误的念头。

5.无缝隙的用户界面

5.1快速的动画

我对UI动画的基本原则就是它应该在玩家知道发生什么情况之前就结束。如果你的UI时间太久，那它最好是非常棒的效果。提供动画UI的游戏会破坏玩家的控制感，这一点并不妥当。我最近所喜欢的游戏之一《Split/Second》也有一些很糟糕的UI。

5.2短暂的载入时间

载入时间很重要，但它在列表上排名相当靠后。如果游戏的载入时间很糟糕，人们还是会玩并喜欢上游戏。《WipEout 2048》就是最近的一个绝佳典型。

5.3即时重新开始

这一点太重要了。如果你的游戏很好，你的玩家就会进入心流状态，完全沉浸于游戏中。如果他们不慎出错或死亡，他们就会想立即重新开始，以便重返心流状态。无法立即重新开始是最令人抓狂的游戏UI设计之一。

5.4.可跳跃的过场动画

我甚至没必要将此项列入其中，但这种情况仍然时有发生。更糟糕的是关卡以一个过场动画开始，你每次重玩关卡都会遇到过场动画，这真是太折磨人了。

6.独特的音频&视觉风格

音频和视频风格是所有这些元素中最不重要的东西，因为图像并不像过去那样重要了。如果你的游戏看起来与同一题材的其他游戏并没有什么不同，但却拥有极为创新的玩法，那么它就有可能脱颖而出。也就是说，你仍然得卖力工作，否则游戏就会遭殃……

6.1确定目标用户

正如上文所言，如果你有一个很棒的理念，你的美术风格就很容易实现。理念、玩法和美术风格都必须保持统一方向以便快速找到用户。如果游戏看起来和听起来像休闲游戏，但却采用了硬核玩法，那就犯了大错了。我们应该选择更为邪恶的元素来搭配游戏玩法。

6.2找到一种经济的风格

优秀的游戏需要大量优化。这几乎可以肯定无论你有多少游戏预算，你都不会满足游戏所采取的优化数量——所以要确定一种你可以快速制作高水准产品的美术风格。这正是为何最近出色的独立游戏都是2D产品的原因。相比之下，3D太昂贵了和耗时间了。

6.3首先支持核心机制

为你的玩法核心制作很棒的听觉和视觉效果，然后将你的资源根据这一核心向外辐射。如果你花时间让按钮翻转的效果更棒，那就是在浪费时间，除非这种美观的效果支持你的核心机制。

6.4需要很棒的音乐

音乐并不能拯救一款劣质的游戏，但它却可以将一款不错的游戏提升到很棒的水平。《Coconut Dodge》就是这方面的例子。如果你的游戏音乐是重复性或刺激性的，那么你投入大量时间炮制的强大机制就会遭殃了。

6.5音频不可忽视

音频对玩家反馈来说甚为重要。但由于游戏中的每个层面可都可以在无音频的情况下合为一体，所以大家通常在最后时刻才会想起音频。这是我们能够提升《Velocity》的另一个领域。所幸我们获得了不错的关键音效，但我们没有时间在整款游戏中延伸这一高质量的音频。

将你的设计从优秀提升到出色的水准

如果你已经实现了上述所有要点，那么你的游戏很可能就是优秀或高质量的。但如何让人们称赞你的游戏很棒呢？这就要取结于创新和天分了。

创新

查看游戏玩法层面（1、2、3点），确保你制作的是富有创新的东西，无论是在控制、理念还是玩家体验方面。

天分

再看看你游戏在外观层面（4、5、6点）上的表现，并确保它们确实具有一些艺术天分。

总之，出色的游戏就是具有创新和天分的好游戏。这一点再简单不过了。（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）

Designing An Awesome Video Game

by James Marsden

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.

The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

One of the most common questions we’re asked is:

“How surprised were you at Velocity’s success?”

And the answer is:

“Not surprised at all, but relieved.”

That is to say that we knew Velocity was an awesome game, and we worked hard to get it noticed. Subsequently we were relieved when it received the attention we knew it deserved. You might ask how could we be so confident? It’s because we focused on all the aspects of game design that are essential to success, putting time in to make them as good as possible whilst spending little time on the aspects that don’t matter so much. In short, we stuck to an essential checklist.

Essential Checklist

This checklist is our special sauce. We use it to design all of our games, and each has benefited greatly. Our checklist has developed out of necessity because we’re a small studio with very limited resources. Every action counts.

So why share our secrets with the world?

We believe in sharing knowledge to make the world a better place. We want to see more independent developers make stunning games to help shift the mainstream public perception of ‘indie’ as being somehow inferior, less engaging, less polished. The tide is turning, and we’d like to help accelerate it. Yes there has been a democratisation of game development with free tools and new platforms with lower barriers to entry, but what is the use of having all the gear and no idea?

Egg Suck Alert

No doubt there are people reading this who are either already making games as a career, or have studied games and want to learn everything they can about the medium. It’s therefore pretty likely that some of the things contained in this article will already be known and understood. So apologies if that is the case, hopefully we can share some nods of agreement, rather than you folks falling asleep. Having said that, there are some original ideas here, which is why we’re publishing it

Essence Not Nuance

Games are more diverse now than they have ever been, so to claim that we can summarise all the nuances of what makes an awesome game in a single article would be a gross mistake. However, if there’s one thing we’re truly good at, it’s understanding the essence of what makes things great, and being able to apply that understanding. So, this is an article about the essential things that comprise an awesome game. First of all though, we have to establish what makes a good game.

Good Game Essential Checklist

This list is in order of importance. Each aspect is listed here briefly, and discussed in detail afterward.

Responsive Controls Controls have to be close to perfect, if not perfect.

Watertight Concept The game has to make sense throughout.

Appropriate Learning Curve The game has to challenge players in a way that’s fun throughout.

Positive Feedback & Reward Good games are full of positive feedback for the player.

Frictionless User Interface The UI has to be streamlined to keep the player engaged.

Consistent Audio & Visual Style The audiovisual style of the game should be consistent throughout.

1, 2 and 3 loosely comprise the gameplay.

4, 5 and 6 loosely comprise the presentation.

Good Game

All aspects of a production rely on each other to create the whole, and for that production to hold water, all aspects need to be at the same level of quality or polish.

Not So Good Game

If one aspect isn’t as polished as the others, it lets the entire experience down. The overall perception of the production is brought down to the level of the weakest part, which means if your graphics and concept are great, but your controls suck, your game sucks.

We’re assuming that readers know this at least on a subconscious level, but how do you ensure all of these aspects are strong? Well, here goes:

1. Responsive Controls

1.1. No Brainer?

Such an obvious one this, but so many games get the controls wrong. Either too fiddly, or not fiddly enough. Great controls can take a lot of time and effort to get right, and most of the time tuning the controls is a matter of personal taste – so it requires empathy to get right.

1.2. Controls Are Half The Fun (Rules Are The Other Half)

And it’s essential that you do get them right, because controls are half the fun. If the controls aren’t fun, then you risk frustrating your players, or worse still, boring them. So how do you guarantee your controls are fun to use?

1.3. Find The Toy

Finding The Toy is a phrase that refers to setting up an action and reaction that makes the player feel powerful, regardless of any rules or challenge being imposed. Cutting the rope in CutTheRope is a toy. It’s fun to swipe and cut, and watch something fall. Flinging a bird with a catapult has proven to be quite a good toy too. Games with toys at their core are fun to play around on regardless of any challenge the player is being tasked with.

When I first read about the concept of the toy, I thought to myself: games have been around for a long time now, so if we’re going to find a hit new gameplay toy, we’re going to have to look at new input systems. I imagined having to play around with Tilt, Touch and Swipe, or Motion Control. Which is wrong, fortunately.

You can make the simplest of actions into a great new toy if you have a strong concept. Taking Velocity as an example – you can’t get much simpler than pressing a button and moving left and right, but giving the player the ability to teleport is a really cool toy. It’s satisfying to do regardless of anything else going on in the game.

1.4. Design Around The Toy

Once you have a cool toy, it’s worth building some levels that explore every possible limit of the toy to work out what is fun. Quite often you will be limited in your scope for level design by the mechanics of the toy. In the case of Velocity, it took a long time to tune the feel of the teleport, and what felt right in the toy – nice and quick – meant that we couldn’t have any spaces in the game less than a certain width or height, or the teleport cursor would be too fiddly for the player to try and place, reducing the level of fun. So, every level in Velocity was designed with this in mind.

1.5. Player Is King

The player should always feel in control of the game. They are allowed to feel like they’re crap at it, that’s fine, but the moment the game feels like it’s too hard to play as a result of the controls being too difficult, it stops being fun. Just getting this bit right takes a lot of effort, and is probably the main reason why games are cloned so often. It’s far easier to take an existing control system and change the graphics and call it your game. But if you spend the time coming up with a new toy, you’re setting a trajectory for a game to stand out.

1.6. Acknowledge Conventions

If possible, your game should also follow the conventions established within a genre. Changing things that players expect to be able to do is not creative or innovative, it’s annoying.

2. Watertight Concept

Transition

2.1. Concept Is Actually Context

What is the player doing, where are they doing it, how and why are they doing it? This is why game concepts are quite often inspired by the controls, so if you want to create a really original concept, spend time experimenting with control systems that are under used, or not used at all.

2.2. Strong Concept == Coat Hanger

A strong concept makes it easy to flesh out the game with little effort. Gameplay, level design, art style, music, story, characters – all will hang pretty easily if the concept is strong. So what makes a strong concept?

2.3. Simplicity Is Good

It’s tricky to achieve simplicity, but it’s essential for communicating your game idea to potential team members, publishers, games press and ultimately gamers. If you or your game trailer can’t get across the concept quickly, you risk losing people’s interest.

2.4. Elegance Is Better

You’re doing well if you can achieve simplicity, because people will understand the hook of your game immediately. But it needs to have depth as well, otherwise people will get bored as they start playing. You have to try and add layers of depth that a player can slowly discover as they interact with the game.

The problem with adding layers of depth is that it’s easy to introduce inconsistencies in the concept, which spoils everything. When you’re adding layers of depth to a concept, you have to look at the ideas from every angle you can imagine, because an elegant concept is one that has no significant holes. I can really recommend a book for this called The Art Of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses, and its accompanying Deck Of Lenses. It’s an amazingly useful resource for looking at your game concept in literally a hundred different ways.

2.5. Clever Is Best

If you’ve managed elegance and simplicity with your game, you’ve done better than most game designers out there. But there’s one more level you can get your game concept to, and that’s clever.

There’s a goal that I try and achieve with everything we do at FuturLab, which is to get the following response from people that see our work:

“Cool!!”

“Ah, I see!”

“Damn, That’s Really Clever Actually…”

It’s something I strive to achieve on everything I do, and it requires that all three of these conceptual levels are hit properly. You can’t get the ‘Cool!’ reaction from someone if your concept isn’t simple. They need to be able to see your game and immediately feel rewarded, just for seeing it.

That ‘Cool!’ reaction is also the hook that pulls people in, getting them to start playing, or want to play. Then the layers of depth are discovered as someone digs a little deeper, and if the concept is elegant, everything fits together nicely, and you get that: ‘Ah, I see!’ reaction. If your whole concept is clever, then people can’t help but sit back in awe and think: “Damn, That’s Really Clever Actually – I Wish I’d Made It”, or “I have to show this to my friends.”

If you can get these three levels of experience into your design, the game’s trajectory is set up for greatness. If you start with a weak concept, your game runs the risk of being weak, no matter how cunning the gameplay is. If you can’t hook someone in, they won’t be interested. We found this with Coconut Dodge. The gameplay is superb, but few people bothered with it because the concept is weak.

Also, if you have a great concept, you’ll find it really easy to get other people involved in your project. There’s absolutely no way Joris de Man would have signed up to produce music for our game if it was a regular shoot ‘em-up that’s been done a thousand times. The teleportation concept hits all three of these targets, so when he sat down and played our prototype, that’s the experience he had – and he was sold on it and wanted to be involved.

2.7. Excited Yet? (If Not, Try Again)

At this point, if you’ve got a strong concept and you’ve worked out how to make the controls fun, you should be incredibly excited about your game. If you’re not excited by it, then you don’t have a game destined for greatness yet. You need to go back and redo those first two steps. Once you have got those two key aspects sorted, you have to bottle your excitement and get serious, because that was the easy part. In fact, you just experienced what Thomas Edison called the 1% inspiration of genius. The following months will be 99% perspiration trying to get the damn thing made. And the first thing to look at with your sensible hat on, is…

3. Appropriate Learning Curve

Your amazing idea isn’t worth anything if other people can’t enjoy it, so balancing the learning curve requires just as much attention as the initial concept. So how do you get it right?

3.1. Identify Target Audience

It’s essential to tailor the learning curve for your target audience. In the case of Velocity, we wanted everyone from casual players right up to the most skilful gamers to enjoy it. So it was a lot of work for us, the game had to be very accessible for newcomers, whilst also supporting and rewarding an incredible amount of skill for those that want the challenge straight away.

3.2. Integrate Instructions

Modern games don’t have instructions, or even tutorials. The levels should be designed to teach, and actually that philosophy shouldn’t just cover the first few levels either.

3.3. Balance Learning & Challenge

A game is only fun when a player is learning. If they stop learning at any point, the game starts to get repetitive, so the learning curve should ideally just be a straight line. In other words, you are always giving the player an opportunity to learn something new – whether it’s introducing a new mechanic, or providing scope for the player to combine mechanics in new ways. However, if the difficulty curve is the same as the learning curve, the game can feel too laborious and tedious.

The trick is to have a stepped challenge curve that tracks closely to the learning curve, so the player is always learning, but there are short plateaus where a player can flex their knowledge of the game and feel powerful for a while before being challenged again. In the case of Velocity we introduce the mechanics slowly. It’s not until level 16 that you get to use the Long Form Teleport, which is the main USP of the game. From then on we use level design to teach players how to use the mechanics in different ways, combining them together to solve puzzles. The player doesn’t actually get to use one of the coolest ideas in the game until the penultimate level.

3.4. Provide Clear Success Markers

Scoring a player provides them with incentive, so it’s really important that a player knows how to win, and therefore knows how and why they failed. Trophies & Achievements have had a huge impact on gaming communities since they were introduced. The younger generation of gamers won’t even bother playing some games unless they have trophies to add to their collection. That’s how powerful the human ego is, so use that in innovative ways to the advantage of your game. In the case of Velocity we have three different scoring criteria that are combined together to create a perfect reward. This means a player can feel rewarded even when they’re failing to reach the higher goals. This leaves scope for the ultra hardcore to get their completionist fix.

3.5. Make The Player Feel Clever

Designing a game is an incredibly rewarding experience. We are the masters of the worlds we create, and that power can very easily appeal to one’s ego. So it takes a lot of self restraint and empathy to be able to design levels for someone else to play; levels that can challenge without being difficult. I once worked with a chap who had a new game idea every day, and nearly all of his ideas were based on tricking the player in some way, which is never going to fly. Designing a game is a very altruistic exercise, and if you can make a player feel good, and look good at the same time, they will love your game. It’s as simple as that.

4. Positive Feedback & Reward

4.1. Feedback Heightens The Experience

Feedback is any event or action that is a direct result of a player’s performance or interaction, and it’s essential for heightening the experience. It’s amazing how much of a difference positive feedback makes to a game. You can have great gameplay mechanics, but if there’s little to no feedback, the game doesn’t feel great. Likewise you can have a mediocre mechanic and make it feel great by dousing it in nicely polished animation and sound effects.

4.2. Negative Feedback Can Help Too

One of the things that helped to make Coconut Dodge so addictive was the horribly abrasive sound that a player is subjected to when they die. It’s also accompanied by the music cutting off abruptly. The game isn’t insulting them, but it is punishing them in a subtle way, and it serves to make them want to jump back in and correct their mistake.

5. Frictionless User Interface

5.1. Fast Animation

My basic rule for UI animation is that it should be over well before a player knows what’s happening. If your UI is any longer than that, it had better be bloody fantastic. Games that provide animated UI break the player’s sense of control, and that’s not good. Split/Second, one of my favourite games of recent times also has some of the worst UI.

5.2. Short Loading Times

Loading times are important, but it is pretty low on the list. Even if a game does have poor loading times, people will still play it and love it. WipEout 2048 being a good recent example.

5.3. Instant Restart

This is so much more important. If your game is good, your player is going to be in a flow state, fully engaged with your game. If they make a mistake or die, they are going to want to restart as soon as possible, to get back into the flow. Not being able to instantly restart is one of the most frustrating things you can do in a game UI.

5.4. Skippable Cut Scenes

I shouldn’t even have to include this, but it still happens. Even worse is when levels that start with a cut scene play the cut scene every time you restart that level. It’s punishing

6. Distinct Audio & Visual Style

The audio and visual style is the least important of all these essentials, and that’s because graphics just aren’t as important as they used to be. If your game looks like every other game in the genre, but has very innovative gameplay, then it will rise above the noise. That said, you’ve still got to do a great job, or your game will suffer, so…

6.1. Identify Target Audience

As mentioned above, if you have a great concept, your art style should come pretty easily. Concept, gameplay and art style all have to be pointing in the same direction in order to find an audience easily. We made a big mistake with Coconut Dodge, as the game looks and sounds like a casual game, but it’s got hardcore gameplay mechanics. We should have chosen something more fiendish looking to suit the gameplay better.

6.2. Find An Economical Style

A good game requires a ton of polish. It’s almost guaranteed that no matter how much budget you have for a game, you’ll never be happy with the amount of polish your game has – so decide on an art style that you can produce to a high standard very quickly. This is why so many of the recent great indie games are 2D. It’s so much easier to polish a 2D game. 3D is expensive and time consuming in comparison.

6.3. Support Core Mechanics First

Make the core aspects of your gameplay look and sound great, and then radiate your resources outward from that core focus. If you’re spending time making button rollovers look and feel great you’re wasting time unless your core mechanics are supported by absolutely beautiful effects.

6.4. Demand Great Music

Music can’t save a poor game, but it can certainly elevate a good game into great territory. Coconut Dodge is an example of this. If your game music is repetitive or irritating, the awesome mechanics you’ve spent ages refining will suffer.

6.5. Sound Deserves 50%, Gets 5%

Sound is so important for player feedback. But because every aspect of a game can come together without sound, it usually gets left until the last minute. This is another area we could have improved upon for Velocity. Fortunately we got the key sound effects to work well, but we ran out of time to extend that level of quality throughout the game.

Elevating Your Design From Good To Awesome

If you’ve managed to achieve all of the points above, then it’s likely that your game will be considered good or high quality. But how do you reach a level where people are celebrating your game as being awesome? It all comes down to innovation and flair.

Innovation

Look at what your game is doing across the game play aspects (1, 2 and 3 above), and make sure you’re doing something that’s innovative; whether it’s in the controls, the concept or the journey you’re taking the player on.

Flair

Then look at what your game is doing across the presentation aspects (4, 5 and 6 above), and ensure they’re being done with some artistic flair.

In essence then, an awesome game is a good game with innovation and flair. Quite simple really.（source：gamasutra）