作者：Stanislav Costiuc

UI在游戏中拥有许多功能和目的。因为这通常都是玩家第一眼会看到的，所以它也将成为吸引玩家的主要元素，同时它也能够提供玩家最自在的行动方式。而UI的最大作用之一便是用户留存。在此我将以《坠楼惊魂》为例和你们分享这一作用的重要性。

AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!! for the Awesome(from mobile9)

我真的很喜欢《坠楼惊魂》。这真的带给了我犹如跳伞一般的刺激体验，并且如果我想获得最初星星以及游戏中最多点数我还需要拥有一定的技能。但尽管游戏很有趣，它在UI方面的表现却不是很好。

着眼于这款游戏的关卡选择菜单，你是否能够回答以下问题：

1.我完成了哪个关卡？

2.我在每个关卡中获得了多少星星？

你并不能回答这些问题，因为这里根本没有任何与之相关的信息。我需要指出的是在一开始所有关卡都被锁定了，即显示为灰色。当玩家开启每个关卡时选项则会变成其它颜色。但是游戏中却不存在任何有关关卡状态的视觉指示。所以如果要回答上面的问题你就只能亲自去选择关卡。

当有一天我完成了游戏关卡时，我突然发现自己其实漏掉了其中的一些关卡，因为我在那些关卡中的星星数为0。实际上，你之所以不能回答上述两个问题主要有两个原因：

1.让玩家觉得自己完成整款游戏的原因便是他打开了所有关卡。当然不是完成它们，而只是打开，这在选择页面上清楚地呈现了出来。

2.重玩价值受到了影响。通常情况下在这种技能游戏中：玩家往往都没什么经验，它们将随着游戏的体验而不断累积经验。当他们通过所有关卡时，他们也将看到自己之前表现不好的地方并让他们希望去提高分数从而在游戏中表现得更好。

而《坠楼惊魂》并未提供给玩家怀有这种希望的理由。当然也有玩家会怀有这样的希望，但如果游戏呈现出这样的激励因素便会有更多玩家去重玩游戏关卡。

同样地，这里还存在的一个问题是每个关卡只会呈现出最高分数的玩家。而因为大多数玩家都不可能到达那个阶段，所以他们通常也不会对这样的信息感兴趣。他们真正感兴趣的是和自己的朋友比较分数，但这款游戏却并未提供给他们做的空间。所以《坠楼惊魂》未能有效利用朋友间的竞争去推动游戏的重玩价值和用户留存。

除此之外，在《坠楼惊魂》中，完成一个关卡后游戏所呈现的结果也很有问题。即那只是一份无聊的数据列表。它并不能提供给玩家去争取更高分数的动力。这是在游戏UI中看不到的信息。而当玩家获得1颗星星或2颗星星时，游戏也并未提供给他们重新游戏去争取更好分数的理由。所有这些数据的动画都非常平淡，一点都不能鼓舞人心，所以玩家很难因为成功而感到兴奋或因为失败而感到难过。

虽然我所列出的这些内容看似普通，但其实它们真的都很重要。因为在某些情况下人们便会因此不再留意这一页面。我便是如此。当你不再关心屏幕上呈现什么内容时，你便只是麻木地继续游戏，而不会再去重新体验之前的关卡或努力提高自己的游戏分数。

让我们着眼于《雷曼传奇》关卡的最后部分。这是一款特别的游戏，从游戏最终分数来看我们唯一需要担心的参数只有lum的数量。

而玩家是否能够获得下一个分数标准影响着他们的感受。所有的这些也将把lum变成真正有趣的体验，这也是玩家愿意一而再再而三挑战游戏的原因。即使过了一段时间他们可能会快进动画，但他们也仍然能够获得成就感并继续回到游戏中。

当然现在的《坠楼惊魂》并不需要完全复制这样的风格。我想要强调的是这款游戏的结束页面并未提供给玩家足够的奖励感，并且也未曾鼓励玩家去争取更棒的奖励。虽然这是一款有趣的游戏，但其实它可以散发更多魅力去吸引更多玩家。

（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）

Importance of UI for player retention on example of AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!!

by Stanislav Costiuc

UI in games has many functions and purposes. From just being something that draws players in because it’s usually the first thing they see, to providing the most comfortable means to do a particular action. One of pretty big functions UI can perform is retention. And I’m going to talk about why this is important on the example of the game AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!! for the Awesome.

I really like AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!! It may not look like much, but it’s a very thrilling skydiving experience, and it’s skill-based – mastery is needed to acquire the most stars and the most points in the game. But despite the game being fun, it fails at a number of points that relate to UI and that would actually drive players to keep playing the game more. Let’s take a look at this screen:

This is the level selection menu. Can you look at it and answer the following questions:

1. Which levels have I completed?
2. How many stars I’ve got on each level?

You can’t, because there’s absolutely no information regarding that. I need to point out that all levels are locked at the beginning and greyed out. Unlocking gives color to the selection. But after that there’s no visual indication of the level’s state. Because to answer the two questions above, you need to select the level itself.

Importance of UI for player retention on example of AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!!

One day as I was finishing up with levels from the game, I accidentally found out that there were levels I haven’t actually completed because I had 0 stars in them. The fact that you can’t answer the two above questions unless selecting a level is problematic for two reasons:

1. What gives the player the impression that he has completed the whole game is the fact of unlocking all levels. Not even completing them, just unlocking, as that’s what is easily visible on the selection screen.
2. Replayability suffers a lot. What usually happens in this kind of skill games is: player’s aren’t experienced, they get more skillful as they complete the game once, they pass through all levels, they see all places where they’ve performed badly previously and it gives the desire to improve the score now that they’re better at the game. AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!! doesn’t give a reason for that desire to appear. Mind you that there will still be players who have it, but a lot more people would start replaying levels if there had been this little nudge.

Also, very problematic is the fact that you see only top player scores for each level. Most players won’t ever reach it, so they have absolutely no interest in that information. They would have really big interest in comparing scores to their friends, but the game doesn’t provide any ability to do so. So the game doesn’t take advantages of competition between friends, which is another thing that can drive replayability and retention.

Now, let’s take a look at another important screen: the results after completing a level. In AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!! It’s also quite problematic. It’s just a boring list of stats. This screen doesn’t provide excitement for achieving a new record. It doesn’t provide excitement for achieving 4 stars. It’s actually quite hard to quickly see that information. And when there’s 1 star or 2 stars, it doesn’t provide reason to try and replay for a better score. And the animation of all these stats appearing is uninspiring as well, it’s just one line after another line in a quick succession, there’s no punch to successes and no sadness to possible failures.

All those things that I’ve listed might not seem like much, but they’re very important. Because at a certain point, people stop caring about this screen. I did. After a while it stops mattering to you what kind of information is shown there, you’re just gonna keep going to complete the game, not to replay or better your score or anything.

Look at the ending of a level in Rayman Legends (6:58 of the video) which is a very different kind of game and has only one parameter to worry about in terms of final score – the amount of lums, so scoring is very simplistic in comparison, but that is not the point.

Look at the animation, the sounds, that suspenseful feeling regarding will your points reach the next threshold or not, the party at the end due to a perfect score. All this transforms the fact of getting all lums into an enjoyable experience, which is why players would want to do this again and again. Even if after a while they usually speed up the animation, there’s still this sense of enjoying a little achievement that later is part of the reason that you get back to replay something.

Now, AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!! doesn’t need to replicate that exact style, of course. The point I’m trying to make is that its result screen is not providing enough sense of reward, and doesn’t encourage to get better results. While AaaaAAAaaaAAA!!! is still a fun game, it could be even more appealing for a bigger amount of people.

I hope these examples show how UI is important at providing more reasons to play and replay a game, and maybe even give some food for thought regarding improving that part of the experience in one of your projects.（source：gamasutra）