作者：Brandon Sheffield

不久前我刚在东京游戏展上首次展示了我们即将发行的游戏《Gunsport》。这是一次与西方消费者面对面进行的商展截然不同的体验，但是在这里与其他开发者进行交谈却是最有趣的体验。在这里我与那些经过我们展台并想要尝试游戏的人进行了多次长短不一的交谈。

以下便是我从东京游戏展上获取的5大经验教训。

（让我们先快速认识下《Gunsport》这款游戏。这是一款2对2的电子竞技般的行动游戏，就像是带着枪在打排球一样。在每一支团队中，有一个角色不能移动，但是每次攻击能够射击两次（即Keeper），另一个角色能够移动并跳跃，但是每次攻击却只能射击一次（即Striker）。不管何时当球在任何方向穿过网，玩家便能获得分数。除此之外我们的控制方案也很特别—-左右触发器能够控制抢向上和向下移动以及发射次数。）

1.交流是关键。

日语并不是我的母语，所以自然的语言交流对我来说是个问题—-但是在游戏中更多的是视觉和主题交流。有个玩家并不喜欢他在游戏中所使用的角色跳跃。就像他说道：“她在空中待的时间太长了。她只是漂浮在空中而已。”对此我的回应是：“在最终游戏中我们会呈现出更棒的重力感，但我们还是希望她维持较长的悬空时间，如此她便能够以更好的角度瞄准并射击球。”玩家只是耸耸肩说道：“我只是不喜欢如此长时间的跳跃。我更习惯于行动游戏中较快速的行动。”

之后我意识到，自己只是一直在想办法跟他解释为什么角色应该进行长时间的跳跃。所以我将另一支团队所创造的其他角色呈现给他看，这个角色拥有非常快速的跳跃。结果他说道：“哇！原来每个角色都是不同的！我知道了！”如此问题辫解决了。

但最终它还是突出了一个现有的问题—-我们该如何让人们在一开始便意识到每个角色都是不同的，而无需尝试每一个角色也无需与我进行交谈。《街头霸王》的角色设计便很好地解决了这一问题，但是这时候我们却并未拥有足够的视觉交流。我们需要进一步完善视觉语言，同时也要教授玩家有关游戏中的一些动词。

2.做好测试的准备。

当我们在游戏中设置两支新团队时，我们便需要去测试它们，因为在展会前我们只有一个晚上的时间去执行它们。我不知道这两支团队是否准备好了，这是我们从程序员所给我们的惊喜！所以在经过一些快速的平衡调整后，我们尝试着去测试它们。

我能做的便是记录下不同队伍间的对抗，但其实这是毫无价值的。当一组人玩了很长时间的游戏时，我便会力劝他们尝试全新团队，如此我便可以在各种层面测试游戏。

如此我获得了很棒的数据，但如果我们拥有一些能够获取参数的工具，我便可以获得更多硬数据，这也能够提高我们在展会上的竞争力。

3.不要被赞美蒙蔽了双眼。

在活动上不时会出现像Tak Fujii这样的人前来游戏并提供他们的反馈。在第一天的某一时刻，Koji Igarashi（游戏邦注：创造了《Castlevania）便来到了我们的展位。我留住了他并邀请他玩我们的游戏。他之前玩过我们的其它游戏（如《Oh，Deer！》），并给予了我们非常中立的回应，如“不错”，或者“这并不是我所擅长的游戏。”

而《Gunsport》却真正吸引了他的注意。他很快就玩得很好了，这让我们非常欣慰（因为大多数人至少要玩一两次游戏才能玩得好）。而他很快便摸清楚了游戏并能够独自将自己的团队带向胜利。在游戏过程中他不断说着：“这真的很有趣，”并且他能够不断了解到一个新规则。最终他指着我们的游戏说着：“这真的超级有趣啊！”

显然听到一个创造了我从高中起便一直玩的行动游戏的人如此评价我们的行动游戏会有多兴奋。但当他离开时，我意识到不能因为他的赞美而忘形。我们远未完成游戏，之所以会得到这样的赞美只是因为对方已经非常精通行动游戏，而这并不能代表别人都和他一样出色。这里所存在的经验教训是，我们可以接受赞美，但却不能被赞美冲昏了头。

iga(from gamasutra)

4.日本玩家很耐心。

这点很有趣。我们已经在美国，欧洲以及现在的亚洲展示过《Gunsport》，并且每个地方的用户都是不同的。年轻的美国人，即主要是青少年似乎能够较轻松地进入游戏中。而如果有你的推动，那些较年长的玩家的话他们也会如此。

在所有的美国玩家中最常见的一点便是，他们不会听取我的说明，他们总是认为自己知道该怎么做。这点有好有坏。首先这是测试你的游戏是否能够教授玩家如何游戏（就像我们的游戏就不能，这是个大问题）的一种好方法，但如果玩家未能识别出方法，他们便会因此受挫。这也是我经常注意到的情况—-当美国玩家不能马上精通游戏，或不能马上“理解”游戏，他们便会感到受挫与生气。

但是日本玩家却不同，如果他们不能马上精通游戏或理解游戏，他们便会求助于进一步的指示并更努力地去尝试。一般玩家会先尝试一件事，如果发现它不可行的话便会取尝试其它事并在此获得成功。从整体看来日本玩家更有耐心，并更谨慎地在玩游戏。他们很少会在游戏的时候大声尖叫欢呼，而是会更加专注于内容中。我注意到日本玩家按压按键的次数少于其他玩家，因为我曾告诉他们要节省射击机会，所以他们会更加谨慎地移动。

虽然我不知道这一信息是否有帮助，但在我看来这却是很有趣的区别。

5.一个硬币的体验。

在三天东京游戏展的最后，《罪恶装备》的战斗系统设计师与他的一些好友花了45分钟玩了我们的《Gunsport》。虽然那时候也有其他人想尝试游戏，我还是让他们先玩了，因为我认为这能为我们创造不错的数据—-就像之前我说过的，我一直在测试一些新团队的平衡，而这些人能够帮到我。

他所处的团队中拥有一个最难控制的角色，因为它能够通过第二次按压按键远程引爆子弹。在他玩完游戏后我们与其进行了交谈，并且我提到我们想要将这款游戏带向街机平台。

他说道：“如果你这么做，你便需要致力于100日元（即一枚硬币）体验中。”我表示认同，他也做出了更详细的解释：“你们已经创造出了一款有趣的游戏，特别是在玩了三次游戏后。但在那之前你们都不知道自己在做些什么。而在街机平台上，你便能从玩家的100日元中获得一次机会。即玩家需要先投入硬币，了解自己在做什么，然后游戏并从中获得乐趣。而所有的这一切都是发生在一个硬币内。如果你不能让他们这么做的话他们便会受挫并不再玩你的游戏。”

我知道我们需要致力于视觉反馈并让玩家自然地了解到自己在做什么，但这真的很难。我们拥有一个迟钝的控制方案，除非我们能将人们带到游戏中并马上让他们感受到乐趣，否则他们便会直接关掉游戏。为此我们还有很多工作要做，而能够听取一些已经在街机领域获得成功的人的观点确实对我们有很大帮助。

额外补充：

还有一个玩家在玩了45分钟的游戏后提供了许多反馈，但是因为他说得太快了我未能全部将其记下来。不过我记到的一点是他认为《Gunsport》是一款优秀的“waiwai游戏”。而这是我之前从未听过的词。“Wai”是表示幸福感的一种拟声词，不过我不确定它具体表示什么。他说道：“你知道吗，这真的是一款waiwai游戏！”说话的同时他还举起了双手。不过我仍然不能准确理解他的意思。他继续说道：“这就像是你在一天辛苦工作后能够和一群朋友一起喝啤酒并游戏。所以这是一款waiwai游戏！”

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

5 game design lessons from the Tokyo Game Show

by Brandon Sheffield

I recently got back from demoing our upcoming game Gunsport at the Tokyo Game Show. It was definitely a different experience from Western consumer-facing tradeshows, but talking to other developers was perhaps the most interesting part of the experience. I got to have a lot of conversations, some short, some long, with Japanese developers who wandered by to play the game.

Here are 5 takeaways, either on game design, or being a game designer, that I gleaned from being at the Tokyo Game Show.

(A quick primer on our game Gunsport for those who haven’t played it – it’s a 2v2 esports-ish action game, rather like volleyball with guns. On each team, one character doesn’t move, and can fire twice per volley (the Keeper), and one character does move and jump, but can only fire once per volley (the Striker). Whenever the ball crosses the net in either direction, it’s worth additional points. Also, our control scheme is rather different – left trigger and right trigger aim your gun up and down, and X fires. This is worth knowing as you read, because this is what we had to communicate to players as they went through the game – rather a lot. Now on to the lessons.)

1) Communication is everything.

Japanese is not my first language, so naturally verbal communication was at times an issue – but so too was visual and thematic communication within the game. One player in particular just didn’t like the jump of the character he was using. “She’s up in the air too long,” he said. “She’s just floating.” To which I replied, “Well, we’ll have a nicer feel to the gravity in the final game, but ultimately we want her to have serious hangtime, so she can aim and shoot to get a better angle on the ball.” “I just don’t like that long jump,” he shrugged, adding “I’m used to quicker ones in action games.”

Then I had the realization – I’d been trying to explain to him why this character should have a long jump, when instead I should’ve retargeted. I showed him another character from another team, who has a very quick and snappy jump. “Oh!” he said. “Every character is different! I get it!” And the problem was solved.

But ultimately it highlighted an existing problem – how can we get people to realize that every character will be different, right from the start, without having to try every character out, or have a conversation with me? Street Fighter does this with character design, and we’ve tried there, but it isn’t enough visual communication. We need to improve our visual language, but also our educate people about our verbs in general.

2) Be ready to test.

We had two new teams in the game, and we needed to test them, because they’d only been implemented the night before the show. I had no idea the teams would be ready, but our programmer surprised us and pulled through! So after some quick, blind balance attempts, we tried to test them out.

All I could really do was take notes about which team beat which, on a piece of paper, but this was ultimately invaluable. When one group played for a really long time, I’d urge them to try the new teams, so I could test this at a varied level of play.

So I got great data, but if we’d had some actual metrics-mining tools, I could’ve gotten a lot more hard data, and that would’ve been great to compare across shows.

3) Praise can fool you.

At various points during the event, pals like Tak Fujii came by to play the game and give their feedback. At one point during the first day, Koji Igarashi (of Castlevania fame) wandered by. I grabbed him and asked him to play. Now, he’s played games of ours before (like Oh, Deer! Alpha), and he gave a pretty neutral response. “It’s okay,” he’d say, or “It’s not really my kind of thing.”

Gunsport, on the other hand, actually engaged him. He was good at it right away, first of all, which is already nice to see (most people take a game or two to get decent). He got the nuance of the game very quickly, and was able to bring his team to victory almost singlehandedly. He kept saying “this is interesting,” as he was playing, or every time he learned a new rule. At the end, he pointed at the game and said “this is super fun.”

Obviously this felt great to hear about our action game, coming from someone whose action games I’ve been playing since highschool. But as soon as he left, I realized that I couldn’t let this praise make us complacent. We’re far from done, and just because someone who is already very good at action games can get good at it doesn’t mean others will figure out how to get there. The lesson here was, take the praise, but don’t let it get to your head, as I almost did.

4) Japanese players are patient.

This was an interesting one. We’ve demoed Gunsport all around the US, Europe, and now Asia, and each audience seems to be quite different. Younger Americans, mostly tweens, seem to really get into it. So do older folks once they’re forced to play it (and you do have to force them). Your 18-25 year old Call of Duty player has a lot more criticisms.

But one thing was common among all American players – they didn’t listen to my instructions, assumed they could figure it out, and just went for it. This is good and bad. It’s a great way to test out whether your game teaches people how to play (ours really doesn’t, which is a problem), but if they don’t figure it out, they can get really frustrated. And that’s something I noticed a lot – when American players weren’t good at the game right away, or didn’t “get” it right away, they got frustrated and mad at the game.

Japanese players, on the other and, if they weren’t good at it, or didn’t get it right away, they’d ask for further instructions and then try harder. The average player would try one thing, find it not working, then try something else and succeed. There was so much more patience on the whole, and much more measured play. Less screaming and yelling with excitement (though there was some of that), but much more precision. I noticed far fewer button presses than the average, because players were economizing their movements, the way I’d told them to economize their shots.

I don’t know of what use this information is just yet, but it certainly was interesting.

5) The 1 coin experience.

At the end of the third day of TGS, a Guilty Gear battle systems designer played Gunsport for about 45 minutes with some friends of his (I unfortunately neglected to find out whether they were in the industry as well). I let them play even as others wanted to get in, simply because this was good data – I was currently testing out the balance of some new teams, as mentioned before, and these folks were doing great work in that regard.

He was on the team which has the most difficult character to play, because it can detonate its bullets remotely with a second button press. After he played, we talked for a while, and I mentioned I’d like to bring the game to arcades some day.

He said, “If you do, you’re going to have to work on that 100 yen, one coin experience.” I agreed, and he elaborated. “You’ve got a fun game here, after you’ve played it about three times. But up until then you don’t know really what you’re doing. In the arcades, you’ve got one shot at that player’s 100 yen. The player has to be able to put the coin in, understand what they’re doing, play, and have fun, all within that one coin. If they don’t, they’ll be frustrated and they won’t play again.”

I knew we needed to work on visual feedback and letting players know what to do naturally, but this really hit it home for me. We have a rather obtuse control scheme, and unless we can get people in, playing, and having fun right away, they’re going to be turned off. There’s much more work to be done here, but hearing it from someone working on something that actually is successful in arcades made it all the more striking.

BONUS LESSON:

One of the other players of that 45 minute game had a whole lot of feedback, but he spoke a mile a minute so I couldn’t make it all out. (here’s a bit of video of them playing) One thing I did catch from his feedback was that Gunsport was a great “waiwai game.” I had never heard this term before. “Wai” is an onomatopoeia for an exclamation of happiness, but I wasn’t sure how it related. He said, “you know, a waiwai game!” and raised his hands up in the air. I still didn’t get it. He said, “Okay, it’s the kind of game where you get a bunch of friends around, get a few beers after work, and play over and over while screaming at each other. A waiwai game!”

So that’s a new term I’m putting it on the proverbial box. Gunsport: waiwai game.（source：Gamasutra）