作者：Junxue Li

我的上一篇文章是关于东西方三消游戏间的区别，即讨论为什么西方开发者使用了奢华的世界地图，而东方游戏则使用较简单的地图。有许多朋友贡献了一些很不错的观点，于是我便将这些要点整合在一起写下了这篇文章。

首先让我们看看为何西方游戏使用的是更奢华的地图。

根深蒂固

在西方文化中，人们对于地图具有很深厚的情感。从《指环王》书籍到《夺宝奇兵》电影，地图始终是帮助西方用户了解故事内容的简单途径。

map(from gamasutra)

而使用地图在游戏中添加维度更是具有很长的一段历史。早在20世纪80年代，即当我还是个孩子时，我在首次看到在地图上移动的马里奥时便立刻被迷住了。

丰富

当我着眼于苹果App Store上无数益智游戏时，我发现每一款游戏都包含有地图截图。让我们看看其中两款游戏的截图：

map(from gamasutra)

map(from gamasutra)

玩家将能看到哪张地图更丰富并更值得自己花钱。所以优秀的地图设计将具有积极的市场营销效果，这也是益智游戏开发者所应该重视的竞争优势。

探索

西方游戏玩家喜欢探索开放世界，这将在许多类型的游戏中反映出来。通过着眼于地图，我们可以发现在玩家开始探索前地图上有许许多多不同的区域，而定位尺则是一个全新区域的全新游戏机制。地图本身也能够告诉玩家游戏中存在多少内容。

东方游戏的地图

现在让我们看看东方游戏。我已经在中国的App Store中下载了许多游戏。总结起来的话这里主要存在两种类型的地图。

第一种地图会使用重复的图像。例如排行第一的三消游戏《天天爱消除》。你可以发现第16级和第26级的区域便带有相同的图像。

第二种地图则是使用“窃取”来的图像。看看下图，这是排行在第4或第5位置上的三消游戏，有没有觉得很眼熟？没错，这张地图便是使用了来自《泡泡女巫2》，《Cookie Jam》等游戏的图像。

map(from gamasutra)

其实在中国也有许多优秀的图像制作工作室和美术师，并且他们也为许多西方游戏创造了许多出色的地图（例如我们的工作室便为西方市场中最畅销的10款三消游戏中的3款游戏创造了地图）。但为什么中国开发者对于创造游戏地图毫不重视呢？

让我们着眼于一些中国的三消游戏，即比起西方游戏它们提供了更多社交功能。中国玩家的一个特征便是他们对玩家对抗玩家模式以及竞争类游戏最感兴趣，即比起西方玩家他们对于单人游戏和离线游戏体验的兴趣较低。所以你可以发现有许多MMO游戏面向中国市场进行本土化（游戏邦注：如英雄联盟》），但却没有一款西方玩家为之疯狂的开放世界游戏出现在这里（如《天际》）。所以我认为西方游戏主要是使用地图细节去创造游戏所缺少的探索感和故事感。而东方市市场对于探索体验的需求并不高，所以东方游戏主要使用流线型地图去维持对于分数和竞争的重视。

作为一个参与地图创造工作的人，我还拥有一个较为个人的看法。我清楚从创造理念，设计并完成地图图像这整个过程的每一步都是非常困难的。对于只使用全新地图的西方游戏来说，地图图像便代表着努力与收获。而在一个快速生产且注重短期收益的市场中，更多地投资于设计工作是不合理的。

（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）

Why East/West Mobile Game Map Screens Are So Different

by Junxue Li

My last article about differences between East/West Match 3 games started a hot discussion why West developers use luxurious world map, while the map is very simple in East games. Many friends contributed great points, that I think those points deserve to be put together to made another article. So here it is. And a big thanks to my friends who generously offer their opinions!

First, let’s see why western games use rich maps.

Deep Root

In the western culture, there’s an obsession for maps. From the Lord of the Rings books, to the Indian Jones movies, the map is a simple key to get western audiences to instantly grasp the narrative.

And using maps to add dimension in games have a long history. Back to 1980s, I was a kid. When I first time saw Mario moving on the map, I was instantly mesmerized.

Richness

I looked into dozens of puzzle games in Apple Store, everyone of them includes a screenshot of the map. Let us see the screenshots of two games in the store:

The players would see which one is richer and worth my money. So good map art have positive marketing effects, and it’s the point of competition among puzzle game developers.

Exploration

Western gamers love open world exploration, it reflects in many genres of games. By looking into the map, there are so many areas before the players to explore, and a set rule is a new gaming mechanism for a new area. That the map itself tells how much contents are there in the game.

Maps in East Games

Now look into East games. I have downloaded many games in Chinese App Store. To sum up, there are two types of map art.

The first type is using repetitive graphics. For example, No.1 Match 3 game 天天爱消除(Craz3 Match). You can see Level 16 and 226 areas are of the same graphics.

The second type is using stolen art works. See this map, of the Match 3 game ranking 4~5th place, something familiar? Right, it uses art works stolen from Bubble Witch 2 Saga, Cookie Jam, etc.

Well, there are many good art studios and artists here in China, they make excellent maps for major western games (for example our studio has delivered maps for 3 out of 10 top grossing Match 3 games in the west). But why Chinese developers are not serious about doing map art?

Looking into those Chinese Match 3 games, they offer more social features than western games. And a nature of Chinese gamers is that they are primarily interested in PvP and competitive gaming, and have considerably less interest in single player and offline gaming experiences than Western gamers. So, you see lots of MMOs being localized for and coming out of the Chinese market (e.g. LoL), but none of the open world games that Western gamers are crazy for (e.g. Skyrim). So, I’d weigh in on the side of saying that the Western games use map detail to create a sense of exploration or story that is absent from the game play. Eastern markets don’t have as much demand for an exploration experience, so Eastern games streamline the map to maintain laser-sharp focus on score and competition.

And as a person involved in the business of making map art, I have a quite personal opinion. From our procedure, I know that sourcing ideas, design and finish up map art, each step is painstaking work. And considering western games use endless never repetitive maps, map art only means sheer efforts and money. And in a market which is after quick production and short term profits, big investment into design work is not encouraged.

I really don’t have the full picture of why in China the map art is so, for I’m not close enough to the players and developers. If you know the answer, please kindly leave your comments, thank you!（source：Gamasutra）