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分析评估《Flappy Bird》和《Ironpants》的差异

发布时间:2014-06-23 11:23:14 Tags:,,,,

作者:Seb Long

无论你是否喜欢,都得承认《Flappy Bird》虏获了无数玩家,吸引了成百上千YouTube观众,开发者以及媒体记者的注意,令其开发者Dong Nguyen陷入不堪压力的境地,最终在全球应用商店移除了这款热门游戏。

早在《Flappy Bird》在App Store悄然下架之前,《Ironpants》这款几乎与其相同,但控制机制略有差别的游戏就已进入市场——尽管借鉴了该游戏机制,为何《Ironpants》还是没有实现像《Flappy Bird》一样辉煌的结果?克隆版本为何不敌原作,即使原作已经撤出了市场?

作为游戏易用性分析和玩家体验评估的一次实践,本文考虑了造成这两者如此差懪的相关因素,以便其他游戏从这两款简单而相似的游戏中汲取一些经验和教训。

press copy FBIP(from gamasutra)

press copy FBIP(from gamasutra)

关键设计的成功与差异

我们在Player Research经常执行的一个任务就是评估游戏的最佳做法:提取竞争对手游戏的最佳部分来指导新游戏设计,尤其是游戏内置商店,载出管理等复杂UI挑战,或者针对复杂/快节奏游戏的即时反馈等。

尽管《Flappy Bird》和《Ironpants》都是很简单的游戏,我们还是从中鉴别出了大量执行良好的UI设计和游戏设计选择,以及一些能够解释其成功差异的不当做法,以及我们认为其他开发者可以从中借鉴经验之处。

清晰,最小化的指导

让我们从基本元素开始。《Flappy Bird》的视觉指导也许游戏第二大标志性元素:它们刻板、有效而简化——已经足够玩家开始学习过程所需要的信息。

使用动画或静止的手指可能是一种传达复杂手势的最有效方法。展示这些手指动画与游戏UI本身的交互(游戏邦注:例如《Candy Crush Saga》教程)或者以一个专门的独立动画复制游戏内UI(例如《愤怒的小鸟》教程),可以让玩家通过无文本的说明理解游戏操作方法。

flappy-tutorial-loop(from gamasutra)

flappy-tutorial-loop(from gamasutra)

注意这里用黑白色来指示小鸟的未来状态——这可以更好地区分动画玩家角色以及辅助性的“未来小鸟”指示。单色小鸟在视觉上还与单色手指相关联,、箭头和小鸟位置辅助传达了“点触让小鸟向上飞”这一信息。“点触”指示是整个游戏UI中唯一使用到红色的元素——有利于吸引玩家注意力,并强化了这一引导的重要性。

再看看以下的《Ironpants》说明。虽然与前者具有相似性,但却缺乏引导性的“未来状态”角色,因此无助于玩家理解“hold”这一动作的作用——玩家也许要多试验几次这种控制方法才能抓住要领。

ironpants-instructions-looped(from gamasutra)

ironpants-instructions-looped(from gamasutra)

低压力的开端=可分享的玩法

每个《Flappy Bird》关卡一开始都是开放性和无障碍的,在玩家面临首个管道挑战前都会有7至10次的点解训练空间。玩家有机会在驾驭首个管道前以数秒时间“找感觉”——这有助于避免新手玩家遭遇过多障碍,削弱他们训练和掌握核心控制方法的能力。而《Ironpants》中却完全没有这种引导性的环节(详见下图),游戏很快就会出现首个障碍,所以我认为许多新手玩家一开始就会抓狂,因为他们的训练时间明显不足:

instadeath(from gamasutra)

instadeath(from gamasutra)

注意《Flappy Bird》中,两个教程图像和引导式开端在每次游戏都会重复——除了其他好处之外,这还有助于促进更良好地传递玩法体验:玩家可以将游戏拿给好友,他们可以自己参照并练习,无需新玩家每次都点击“重玩教程”按钮,或者忍受极为令人不快的学习曲线。

避开退出点

这两款游戏都不乏令人受挫与失败的元素,都很擅长最小化关卡之间的“冷却时间”。玩家很快就死,但两者的玩法回合之间都不会以冗长的死亡动画、游戏结束音乐,甚至是明显的玩家选择来延时——因为任何一个这种设置都可能给玩家创造退出游戏的机会。《Flappy Bird》中碰撞到管道以及显示重玩界面之间的时间约2.6秒——已经足够玩家承认自己死亡和再试一次了。与《Ironpants》不同的是《Flappy Bird》并没有返回主菜单的选择,其设计更简单更优化:一个按钮,一次点触,一个选择,“重玩游戏还是离开游戏?”

game over(from gamasutra)

game over(from gamasutra)

比较这两者重玩按钮的布局和设计(详见上图),很显然《Flappy Bird》的重玩键在其他按钮中间更为醒目,并且也更大(因此更易于点击,在小型设备上尤其如此)。而《Ironpants》的玩家则需挨个查看每个的选项的信息,直到发现“重新尝试”为止,这会增加玩家头几次体验游戏的时间和精力。这个按钮嵌在其他按键中间,还很容易导致玩家在慌乱中按错键。

鉴于《Ironpants》难以重试对其玩家体验的影响,加上由于缺乏训练时间而造成的死亡次数增加,以及更糟糕的控制指南,还有玩家死亡后出现的满屏广告,这些对于一款游戏来说真不是一个良好的开端。

令人难忘且有意义的高分

这两款游戏都有一个简单而数值化的积分系统。你很容易记住一个简单的高分数值——尤其当你每回玩游戏之后都能看到高分时。与《Candy Crush Saga》中的“你闯到了哪一关?”这个问题一样,“你在《Flappy Bird》的分数是多少?”也成了玩家之间分享游戏过程的一个主要话题。这在其他跑酷类游戏中并不常见——《Jetpack Joyride》在每个游戏回合开始之时都提供了一个“穿越距离”的参数,但像《Subway Surfers》和《Temple Run》等其他跑酷游戏则拥有大量的游戏进程衡量方法——这意味着玩家必须同时记住这些衡量方法。当这些游戏与极大数据相结合起来时(比如我在《Subway Surfers的高分就是378384),我们就很难记住和复述这些数据了——《Flaappy Bird》和《Ironpants》通常是用个位数而难以赢取的数值避开了这个错误做法。

这种没有“乘法器”的机制还记玩家之间的得分更具关联性和可比较性——在《Flappy Bird》中获得令人羡慕的90分对玩家来说意味着他已经穿过90个管道,而不是30个管道乘以3的障碍——高分可以反映玩家的真实表现,而不是操纵性的游戏机制,它更适用于休闲和社交玩家。

易于理解的奖励结构

《Flappy Bird》玩家在每个回合之后,如果分数够高,都可以得到一个奖牌,以分别是经典铜牌,银牌、金牌和白金牌。使用这种传统的奖牌机制对于非游戏玩家来说更易于理解。注意游戏并不会事先透露奖励结构,只会让玩家自己去探索。

medal-glint(from gamasutra)

medal-glint(from gamasutra)

反观《Ironpants》却根本就没有类似的奖励系统,仅依靠玩家自身的高分来获得重玩动机。我个人认为《Flappy Bird》的理念是正确的,我事先就知道了自己的表现水平——它的门槛限制相当低,你就算只得到10分也可以获得一个铜牌,我认为这比独自挑战自己的高分更具激励性。

没有干扰性广告

你玩任何一款《Flappy Bird》的克隆游戏时,都会迅速怀念原牌游戏无干扰性广告,无全屏广告或弹出广告,仅使用玩家手指触碰不到的顶部条幅广告这种设计。尽管它的广告较少,《Flappy Bird》在最高峰时期日常广告收益仍然超过了5万美元。

而《Ironpants》却会在玩家每次挂掉时出现全屏广告,甚至是在频繁出现重玩情况的早期体验中也不例外。在关键时刻出现全屏广告只会让玩家更快心生退意,并且永不回头。全屏广告会覆盖应用的按钮,更可能让玩家在无意中点触广告——这是一个必定会让玩家离开应用的做法。

清晰可见且可读的反馈

《Flappy Bird》的UI一贯清晰、可读并且数量精简——玩家经常使用的按钮较大,并且置于屏幕易于接触到的地方,且有明显标识,它们满足了按钮必须具备的一切要求。其UI的文本也很少,无非就是“点触”、“游戏结束”、“奖牌”、“分数”、“最佳”和“评分”——这再次为年幼儿童提升了易用性和适用性,并且降低了游戏的准入门槛。

flappy-numbers-white(from gamasutra)

flappy-numbers-(from gamasutra)

这两款游戏UI中的积分指示器都很大,可读而整齐,并且在每穿过一个管道时都提供了清晰而有区别的音频反馈。可以说《Flappy Bird》中所使用的四方字体比《Ironpants》中所用的字本较不具有可读性。《Flappy Bird》版本在数字的外形上差别较少——可能会让玩家在游戏紧张时刻看错数字。

注意《Flappy Bird》并没有在玩家游戏过程中挡住屏幕或令玩家分心,而最新版本的《Ironpants》却会在玩家解琐新定制内容时在积分上显示一个动画条幅。这会让玩家从任务中分心,玩家失败了就会将过错归咎于游戏设计(而不是自己技能不佳),这在我们看来是一个很可能让玩家脱离游戏的做法。

明确的音频反馈

《Ironpants》和《Flappy Bird》所采用的音频都很短小、清晰和欢乐——头几次的音频甚至还很逗。在穿过管道的过程中,玩家每次成功穿越都可以听到熟悉的“buh-ding”声,对于需要高度关注玩法的游戏来说,使用音频反馈可以让玩家暂时忽略得分。《Flappy Bird》中的这种“buh-ding”声可能类似于经典《马里奥》系列中搜集到硬币的奖励声,但对于新玩家来说,穿过管道则会同时强化成功的核心衡量标准和得分机制。

用户适配控制方法

现在我们就来讨论这两者之间的关键差异:控制方式。《Flappy Bird》的机制使用了一种普遍的“点触飞起”控制方法,而《Ironpants》则使用了持续点触屏幕任意点令角色持续向上移动的方法——这种微妙的差别却造就了截然不同的游戏。

如果你玩过两款游戏,就会立即注意到它们所呈现的不同感觉——《Flappy Bird》比较不剧烈,并且更具节奏感,而《Ironpants》则需要玩家更快、更精确的输入。实际上,查看以下的输入频率形象示意图时,我们就可以看到它们只是输入类型不同:《Ironpants》要同时管理点触和释放时机,才能在障碍之间进行导航,而《Flappy Bird》则只需要玩家执行点触操作。

FBIP_interaction(from gamasutra)

FBIP_interaction(from gamasutra)

这种关键差异为两款游戏划清了界线。在开发这种控制机制不同于原作的游戏时,《Ironpants》开发者是否抓住机会改进了《Flappy Bird》的机制?需要说明的是,这两种控制机制并不存在孰优孰劣的说法——它们只是适用于不同的群体。《Ironpants》的持续输入方法比《Flappy Bird》分离式点触向前移动操作更复杂,因此更适用于技术更高超的硬核群体。

正是这种对更复杂操作机制的选择,以及早期游戏体验、UI、玩家奖励、盈利方法等方面的失败,造成了《Ironpants》无法收获像《Flappy Bird》一样庞大的用户市场。

总结

《Ironpants》如果采用了《Flappy Bird》的默认控制方式就会更成功吗?我并不这么认为。因为它在复制《Flappy Bird》执行得当的UI设计和反馈环节方面并不成功,所以仍然只能沦为二流游戏。我发现最新版本的《Ironpants》采用了“点触飞跃”的这种控制机制选择——但提供这种选择很可能让玩家将失败归咎于自己选择不当,而不是自身技能水平有限,这就可能造成另一种粘性障碍。鉴于它没有准确理解、模拟和提升《Flappy Bird》在游戏设计和UI设计的成功之处,我认为《Ironpants》已经错失取得与前者同样成功的机会。

对游戏开发者来说,我们都知道将自己与竞争对手的作品进行比较并相互学习是一个普遍任务,但退一步考虑游戏流程、UI设计、早期体验和其他游戏如何解决UI挑战等问题,则是开发任何游戏的重要步骤——如果一款简单的克隆游戏都会犯这些错,那么你自己创意独特的项目又会出现哪些问题?(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

Press Copy: A Competitive Evaluation of Flappy Bird and Ironpants

by Seb Long

Sebastian Long is a Games User Researcher at Player Research in Brighton, UK. Through playtesting and player experience evaluation, Player Research work to ensure games meet their designers’ intent.

I’m sure ‘Flappy’ is not the most commonly-used F-word players use when describing Dong Nguyen’s brutally tough iOS title this year. Love it or loathe it, Flappy Bird caught the attention of many millions of players, hundreds of YouTube casters, developers and journalists alike, sending Nguyen deep into a media frenzy, resulting in the eventual removal of the popular game from app stores worldwide.

Even before Flappy Bird made its unceremonious departure from the App Store, Ironpants, an almost identical game to Flappy Bird but featuring a subtly differing control scheme, had hit the market – but even with a simple formula for success to copy from and improve on, why did Ironpants not reach the same lofty heights as Flappy Bird? How can a clone be less successful than the original, even when the original has been removed from the marketplace?

As an exercise in game usability analysis and player experience evaluation, this article considers some of the factors that might have contributed to this disparity, in order to uncover lessons other titles can learn from these two simple, similar games.

Key Design Successes and Differences

Evaluating games for best practices is a task we perform routinely here at Player Research: extracting the best parts of competitor titles to inform the design of new games – especially for complex UI challenges like in-game stores, loadout management, or real-time feedback for complex or fast-paced games.

Despite both Flappy Bird and Ironpants being such simple games, we’ve identified a number of well-executed UI designs and game design choices, as well as some faux pas, which contribute to explaining the disparity of success, and which we feel other developers could learn from. Lets take a look…

Clear, minimal instructions

Lets start with the basics. Flappy Bird’s visual instructions are perhaps the second-most iconic element of the game – and for good reason: they’re stark, effective and simplistic – exactly as much information as the player requires to start the learning process.

Using animations or stills of fingers can be the most effective way to communicate complex gestures. Showing these finger animations interacting with the game UI itself (e.g. Candy Crush Saga tutorial) or in a dedicated separate animation duplicating the in-game UI (e.g. Angry Birds tutorial) can lead to understandable and accessible text-free introductions to game controls.

Note the use of black and white in indicating a future state of the bird – this serves to better differentiate the animating player character and the assistive ‘future bird’ indicator. The monochrome bird also visually associates with the (similarly monochrome) hand, arrow and bird position, assisting to communicate its message: “your bird flies upwards on tap”. The ‘tap’ indicator is the only use of the colour red in the whole game UI – good for attracting players attention, and reinforcing the importance of the instruction.

Consider Ironpants’ interpretation below. While similar, it lacks the instructional ‘future state’ character, therefore not assisting players in understanding the action that ‘hold’ will have – perhaps increasing the amount of time needed to experiment with the controls – keep this in mind as we move through the rest of Ironpants’ early experience.

Low Pressure Start = Shareable Play

The start of every Flappy Bird level is open and obstacle-free, giving players room to practice tapping between seven and ten times before facing their first pipe obstacle. Players have an opportunity to ‘find the rhythm’ for several seconds before they’re required to navigate the first pipe – helping to avoid too many first-pipe faceplants that will grate on new players, and diminish their ability to practice and master the core controls. This introductory section is entirely missing from Ironpants (see below), where the first obstacle appears immediately – resultantly I’d expect many first-time players’ experience to be unduly frustrating as they’re provided only a fraction of the practice time:

Note that in Flappy Bird, both the tutorial image and the introductory open section are repeated for every game – among other benefits, this facilitates a better pass-and-play experience: give the game to a friend and they’re offered the full instructions and a decent practice time, every time – no need for new players to root out a ‘tutorial replay’ button, or suffer a disruptively-steep learning curve (à la Ironpants).

Avoid Exit Points

With both games rich in frustration and failure, they both do well to minimise the ‘down-time’ between levels. Players die fast and often, but neither game prolongs the periods between play sessions with death animations, game over music, or even a significant choice for the player to make – any of these would provide the player with an easy exit opportunity. There are ~2.6 seconds between hitting the pipe and being shown the replay button in Flappy Bird – just enough time for players to acknowledge their death and retry. Unlike Ironpants, Flappy Bird doesn’t have the option to return to the main menu; the design is simpler and better: one button, one tap, one choice, “play again or walk away?”.

Compare the placement and design of the replay button in Ironpants and Flappy Bird (see above) – it is clear that Flappy Bird’s replay button has better visibility among the other buttons, and is larger (and therefore easier to hit, especially on smaller devices). Players of Ironpants, by comparison, will need to read through each of the options until they find ‘retry’, increasing the time and effort required on the first few plays. Being nested among other buttons, it also risks being harder to hit in a hurry.

Consider the impact on Ironpants’ early player experience of making it harder to retry, in addition to the increased number of deaths due to the lack of practice time and worse control instructions, and the addition of full-screen adverts after death (discussed later) – not a good start.

Memorable, Meaningful Highscores

Both Flappy Bird and Ironpants benefit from a simple, numeric scoring system. It is easy to remember a simple highscore number – especially when you’re presented with it after every game (what a tease!). Just like Candy Crush Saga’s “Which level are you on?”, the question “What’s your Flappy Bird highscore?” becomes the dominant method of sharing progress. This isn’t common practice throughout other endless runner games – Jetpack Joyride offers a ‘distance travelled’ metric visible at the start of each game, but other endless runners like Subway Surfers and Temple Run have multiple measures of progress (multiplier and highscore, in Subway Surfers’ case) – meaning players have to remember both. When combined with the very large numbers often favoured by these games (my Subway Surfers highscore is 378384, for example), they’re hard to remember and hard to repeat – a mistake Flappy Bird and Ironpants avoid with often single-digit, hard-earned numbers.

The lack of a ‘multiplier’ mechanic also makes players scores more relatable and comparable between players – an admirable score of 90 in Flappy Bird means the player actually passed 90 pipes, not 30 pipes with a 3x multiplier – high scores reflect true performance, not manipulated game mechanics – better for both casual and social players.

Understandable Reward Structure

Flappy Bird players are offered a medal at the end of each session if their score is high enough, following the classic bronze, silver, gold, platinum structure. Using this traditional medal schema renders the reward system understandable to non-gamers. Note that the game doesn’t disclose the specifics of the structure either (it is 10, 20, 30, 40, if you’re interested) – leaving it for players to explore.

Ironpants, by comparison, offers no such reward system at all, relying instead on players’ own highscore as motivation to replay. While an entire article in itself could be written about these two differing approaches, personally I feel Flappy Bird has the right idea – the notion that I’m being graded against a predetermined performance scale – which in itself has the bar set moderately low, you get a bronze medal with a score of just 10 – I consider to be more motivating than trying to beat just my own high score in isolation.

No Intrusive Adverts

Playing any of Flappy Bird’s many clones will quickly expose the original game’s lack of obtrusive advertising, without full-screen ads or pop-ups, and utilising only top-mounted banners away from the players’ fingers. Despite offering fewer adverts, Flappy Bird was still rumoured to be making more than $50,000 per day from ad revenue alone at the height of its success.

Ironpants – by comparison – offers full-screen adverts after every few deaths, even during the potentially replay-rich early experience already discussed. Displaying full-screen adverts at time-critical moments will only contribute to players’ likelihood of exiting the app, and not coming back. Having full-screen adverts which cover buttons in the app also make it far more likely that players will accidentally tap on it – one sure-fire way to get players to quit your app prematurely is to simply do it for them by having them accidentally tap an advert and be whisked away to the App Store or browser.

Clear, Visible and Readable Feedback

Flappy Bird’s UI is consistently clean, readable and minimal – buttons are large when they’re commonly used, are placed in the easy-to-reach lower third of the screen, and have clear iconography – they’re everything a button should be. There is very little text at all: “Tap”, “Game Over”, “Medal”, “Score”, “Best” and “Rate” – again improving accessibility and suitability for young children, and lowering the barriers to entry.

The score indicator in both games is large, readable and uncluttered on the in-game UI – and supported by clear, discrete audio feedback in passing each pipe. It could be argued that the boxy font used in Flappy Bird is less readable than the one used in Ironpants. Flappy Bird’s version suffers less differentiation in the outer shape of the numbers – potentially making it less glance-able in the middle of a frantic session.

Note that Flappy Bird doesn’t take over the screen or distract the player in any way while playing – unlike the latest version of Ironpants, which displays an animated banner over the score when unlocking new costumes. Distracting the player from their task will result in players blaming the game for failure (rather than their own skill), which, in our experience, is a reliable way to have players disengage with your game – particularly with auto-runners.

Clear Audio Feedback

Ironpants and Flappy Bird’s faceplant sound is short, clean and delightfully slapstick – perhaps even funny the first few times. As for passing pipes, a clear (and familiar) ‘buh-ding’ sound is played every time a player successfully flaps through one – being able to ignore the score by utilising audio feedback is a valuable addition in a game that requires a high level of focus on the gameplay. In Flappy Bird’s case It may have helped that this ‘buh-ding’ sound might be similar to the rewarding noise of a coin being collected in the classic Mario series, but in either case, for new players, this reinforces both the core measure of success, and the scoring mechanic: pass between the pipes.

Audience Suitable Controls

And so we reach the critical difference between these games: the controls. Flappy Bird’s mechanic uses a ubiquitous upward ‘flap on tap’, while Ironpants favours a continuous upwards movement while a tap is held anywhere on the screen: a subtle disparity that makes all the difference.

If you’ve played both games (and now is the time to, if you haven’t already) you’ll immediately notice the difference in the way they feel – Flappy Bird is a much less frantic and more rhythmic experience than Ironpants, which requires what feels like a more rapid, nuanced and accurate input. In actual fact, it becomes clear when visualising screen interactions (see below) that the rate of input is broadly similar – only the type of input differs: in Ironpants, managing both the tap and release timing are required to navigate the obstacles, while Flappy Bird requires the player only to execute taps.

(Flappy Bird and Ironpants interactions over time (13s) – click for larger)

This critical difference is the dividing factor between these two titles. In developing an alternative control scheme to its predecessor, did the Ironpants’ developers capitalise on their opportunity to improve on the Flappy Bird formula? Unlike many of the designs with poor usability listed throughout this article, there isn’t a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ design for these control schemes – just suitability for differing audiences. Ironpants’ continuous input is a more complex motor-cognitive task than Flappy Bird’s discrete taps for upward movement, rendering it more suitable for a more game-savvy and skilled core audience.

It is this choice of a more complex control scheme, in combination with the failures in Ironpants’ early experience, UI design, player reward and monetisation practice that lies the heart of Ironpants’ failure to reach the mass market engagement that Flappy Bird so famously achieved.

In Summary

Would Ironpants have been more of a success simply by including Flappy Bird’s controls by default? I don’t think so. By failing to understand and (at the very least) copy the good practices in UI design and feedback that Flappy Bird got right, Ironpants would remain the inferior title. I note that the latest version of Ironpants includes a choice of control scheme – including the infamous ‘tap to flap’ – but offering choice will likely result in players blaming their choice of control scheme rather than their own skill or performance – turning the choice into another barrier to engagement. In failing to effectively understand, emulate and improve on the game design and UI design successes of Flappy Bird, I fear that Ironpants’ opportunity for equal success has probably passed.

For game developers, we know that comparing oneself to, and learning from competitor titles in terms of game design is a common task, but taking a step back and considering all aspects of the game – including the game flow, UI design, early experience and how other games have solved UI challenges, is an important and valuable step in developing a game of any kind – if so much can go wrong in a simple clone, then what issues lurk in your own creatively-unique projects?(source:gamasutra


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