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分析《崩溃季节》的关卡设计

发布时间:2016-06-01 11:34:20 Tags:,,,,

作者:Antti Kananen

《崩溃季节》是一款特殊的跑酷游戏。游戏关卡并不是无限的,但是奔跑却是无限的,所以关卡设计师需要采取一些特殊方法去保持游戏玩法始终都是有趣的。同时他们还需要确保游戏关卡足够简单不会影响游戏在手机上的性能,并确保关卡足够吸引人, 能够提供给玩家足够的惊喜。

如果不使用一般无限跑酷游戏常使用的传统随机地图生成机制,手机上的无限跑酷游戏玩法将遭遇一些常见的挑战。《崩溃季节》便使用了手作舞台风格布局,所以一些大型且不断延伸的地图将影响着游戏的表现。

伴随着无限跑酷的舞台风格布局意味着这里不会有任何死胡同,疯狂向前跑着的玩家不会遭遇任何阻碍。此外,舞台风格布局也意味着地图并不是线性的。玩家可以自己选择前往地图的不同部分。这意味着游戏中需要某些内容去鼓励玩家前往地图的不同位置以避免玩家只逗留于一个区域。这时候升级道具便派上用场了,即沿着地图分散的不同升级道具能让玩家的前进路线或基于环境的危险变得更有趣。在实验室阶段,当敌人暴露在辐射下时就会变成怪兽,而这时候玩家能够消灭它们的唯一方式便是将其带到每个比赛区域两端的自动激光炮。

arctic_lab_first_draft(from gamasutra)

arctic_lab_first_draft(from gamasutra)

在关卡布局开始发挥作用后,我们将基于设备性能的局限性而通过细节和额外内容对关卡布局进行优化。

我们的关卡设计师是基于对游戏玩法的发展的想象去致力于关卡创造,在Koukoi我们同时也使用了侧视和分析方式去优化关卡设计的特定部分以避免玩家因为在游戏前部分的反复失败而放弃游戏。就像在游戏的前几个关卡中,被陡峭悬崖所环绕的地图中央设有一个湖。所以在游戏中从任何一个悬崖坠落便代表着马上死亡,许多测试玩家都因为不小心掉进湖里而遭遇死亡。于是我们便决定在最初关卡中删除所有的湖泊。

分析

《崩溃季节》中的另一个重要的关卡设计改变是源自Unity Analytics,即告诉我们世界1中的关卡4拥有一个巨大的瓶颈,即很多玩家不能有效地通过这里。测试者告诉我们地图中心拥有一个死亡陷阱,即在下面的概念图“时钟的两个指针之间。

concept art(from gamasutra)

concept art(from gamasutra)

当Unity Analytics告诉我们许多测试玩家不能完成关卡目标,即包括玩家需要前往中心岛屿(甚至当指针所处的位置不会影响到玩家前进的时候)。对此的解决方法便是彻底删除另一个指针,以此降低目标的难度—-虽然我们最终修改了目标系统。

处理热图

对于受数据驱动的关卡设计师来说,热图(在我们的例子中便是通过Unity Analytics创造的内容)是一种非常有价值的工具,能够决定你的地图的热点以及为什么某些部分一点都未发生移动。如果关卡的某个部分没怎么移动,我们可能就要考虑删除它或重新进行设计。

优化地图尺寸

我们的开发团队一直致力于关卡的代码方面,他们也一直希望能够创造更大规格的地图去适应更多细节或功能从而为游戏玩法添加更多乐趣。但是经过测试我们发现更简洁的地图更适合《崩溃季节》的游戏玩法。而简洁(但也不会太小)的地图也意味着游戏玩法必须更加活跃,这也是我们希望带给玩家的体验。

总的来说

像流失率等分析能够帮助你明确游戏中需要投入更多工作的地方。

彻底测试你的关卡以确保即使是低端的设备(即你希望自己的游戏能够运行的设备)也能够顺畅地运行游戏关卡。

在很多游戏中大关卡会很有趣,但你也必须确保你的地图足够详细,并且留给玩家一些待发掘的细节去增添关卡的乐趣。在你的地图中添加一些动态元素(游戏邦注:如可摧毁或移动的对象)也能够增添乐趣并提供给玩家更多控制感。

现在《崩溃季节》已经面向iOS和Android设备发行了,希望你们都能在自己的设备上去尝试我们所设计的游戏关卡!

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

Designing Levels for Crashing

by Antti Kananen

Crashing Season is a unique kind of runner game. The levels are not infinite but the running is, so the level designers have had to take some unique approaches into keeping the gameplay interesting throughout the game. Other goals included keeping the levels simple enough to not affect the performance of the game on mobile device, while making sure the levels were exciting and still offering surprises to the player.

There are some general challenges brought on by the gameplay style of Non-stop running on mobile when not using the traditional randomized map generation as is popular with infinite runners. Crashing Season uses a hand crafted arena style layout so very large and sprawling maps would affect the performance too much.

Such an arena style layout combined with the non-stop running also means that there cannot be any dead ends, the player’s mad forward dash should not be impeded too much. Furthermore, the arena style layout means the maps are not linear. The player can go to the different parts of the map in the order that they themselves choose. This means there needs to be something to encourage the player’s movement all around the map to avoid the player just spinning around a single spot of the map. This can be done through power-ups, spreading around the enemy spawns around the map, making interesting paths or environmental dangers etc. In the laboratory stage the exploration was encouraged through having enemies grow to monster versions of themselves after being exposed to radiation, after which the only way to destroy them is to lead them to the automated laser cannons located in each end of the arena.

After the layout of the level seems to work, the map can be polished with details and extra content within the limits set by the performance of the devices.

While our level designers in the have worked on the levels based on their own mental images of how the gameplay would proceed, we here at Koukoi have also used testing and analytics to polish certain parts of the level design to avoid players putting the game down due to repeated failures early on in the game. The very first levels of the game had a lake in the middle of the map surrounded by steep cliffs. Now, going off any cliffs is instant death in the game and many testing players happened to run straight into the lakes and die way too often for our liking. So we removed all the lakes from beginning levels.

Analytics at play

Another important level design change made in Crashing Season was borne through Unity Analytics showing us that level 4 in world 1 has a serious choke point due to many players not continuing past that point. Testers had shown us that the map had a death trap in the middle, between the two hands of the “clock” in the concept art picture shown below.

We noticed the seriousness of the problem when Unity Analytics showed us that many testing players simply couldn’t get through the goal in the level which included the player having to go to the central island, even when they could have done so when the hands were not in the position to crush the player between them. The solution at that point was to remove the other hand altogether, thus making the goal much easier to complete, although we did end up revamping the goal system.

If you can’t handle the heatmaps, get out of the kitchen

For the data driven level designer, heat maps (in our case created through Unity Analytics) can be a valuable tool in determining the hotspots of your maps and whether some parts get no movement at all. If a part of a level gets little to no movement, maybe consider cutting it out or redesigning it.

Optimizing map size

As our dev team worked on the code side of the levels, they wished time and time again that they could make larger size maps to be able to fit even more cool details or features to spice up gameplay. However, through testing it was realized that more compact maps are just better for the type of gameplay Crashing Season has. Compact (but not too small) size means the gameplay can stay more hectic if that is the feeling we wish the player to experience.

So, to recap:

Analytics such as churn rate can help you identify chokepoints in the game that need extra work.

Test your levels thoroughly, make sure even lower end devices (ones that you intend the game to be run on) can run the levels without a performance drop.

Big levels can be fun in many games but make sure your maps are detailed enough, leaving little details for the player to discover can make a level great. Having some dynamic elements (e.g. destroyable or movable objects) in your maps can also add excitement and give the player more sense of power.

Crashing Season is out now for iOS and Android devices so I invite you to try out our level design yourself! We appreciate all feedback.(source:Gamasutra

 


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