Sharing Experience: Expression, Feedback and Stimulation in Game Design

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It is a difficult process from the birth of an idea to the realization of a product and then to gaining the favor of players, because there are many problems involved.

After determining a good idea, you start thinking about how to combine it with your own gameplay (or this idea is a gameplay), your own game platform, development time, and capabilities, to develop a most suitable way of expression.

A few simple verbs can describe this process:

Starting from expressing our idea, the completeness must be presented to the players. Players can experience this expression in the game and participate in it. After experiencing this expression, players can get a certain emotional experience from the expression of our idea (more of a comfortable experience, such as satisfaction, accomplishment, and vanity). This is the embodiment of a good idea.

Express:

To do a good job of "expression", you should often ask the following questions during the production process.

What do you want to express? How do you express it? Is it meaningful? Do the players accept this expression? What happens when the information is delivered to the players?

It is easy to answer the first three questions, but it is difficult to answer the last two questions.

This feeling is actually like some people talking, they think one way in their heart, but the words that come out of their mouths are not like that. The same is true for the expression of game production.

Whether the player accepts this expression or not depends on whether it is logical and whether it satisfies the current worldview of your game. You cannot allow logical conflicts to occur in your game world.

For example:

• Racing Games:

You are running at a normal speed, and the AI ​​uses props to catch up with you. (The player feels normal and logical, he uses props, if I use props I can also surpass him)

You are chasing someone, and you have a prop. The player in front of you is moving at a constant speed. You use the acceleration prop, but the AI ​​also uses props, and you can't catch up. (The player feels futile, the operation is meaningless, and I can't catch up even with the props)

• CS:

Players can hit enemies but not their teammates. (Players feel this is reasonable, and the player's game goal at this time will be to focus on hitting the enemy)

Players can hit teammates and cause damage. (Players feel it is reasonable and the simulation is high. Players now have one more goal in the game: hit the enemy and don't hit teammates.)

Players can only hit teammates, not opponents. (Players feel this is unreasonable, this is not the way to play, this is illogical.)

***The game chose the method 1. Let the players focus more on "how to attack the enemy" and don't let the players deal with too many problems. CS itself is difficult to play well!

feedback:

Similarly, when we are doing the feedback process, we should often ask ourselves these questions.

How do players deal with our expression? Will players have operational requirements for the content of our expression? What are the psychological differences between players who can give feedback and those who cannot? Do players expect feedback? How can we provide effective feedback?

Any player will enjoy the rich game interactions. With snowflakes flying all over the sky, players will feel that this is a pure place, where they will feel safe and enjoy the peace outside of war. The lava crater is bright red and extremely hot, just like hell, a place of right and wrong, a place that endangers life, and you can't stay here for long.

How players respond to designers' expressions is based on the real world. Before we give a clear worldview, the logic that conforms to the real world is the correct logic, and the players' subconscious experience is also based on this. Designers are here to help players quickly integrate into the game world.

After the player accepts the expression, he/she tries to integrate into the designer's world. At this time, the player needs to give feedback to the game. For example, several holes appear in the game interface, and several bald mice will keep popping out of the holes, disappearing after a while, and making mocking sounds when they disappear. Carefully observe the actions of other players, and you will find that when dynamic objects appear in the static scene, players will try to touch them. In touch-screen games, players will click on the mice that pop up, and in game consoles, players will press them down with a hammer. The player participates in the game settings! If the mouse is repelled on the screen at this time, the player will know that my operation is effective! This is how the game is played! If the mouse still laughs at the player after being beaten at this time. The player will feel that his/her operation is wrong, or that this is not the way to play. At this time, the feedback is cut off.

The principle of effective feedback is consistency. For example, my skills can be used in this scene, but not in other scenes. The designer did not make reasonable arrangements, and the players could not adapt to this feedback and did not know how to find the rules of the game. This feedback is a failure.

Stimulate:

After players are able to interact with the characters and scenes in the game, that is, after everything from expression to feedback goes smoothly, how can players get a sense of excitement, satisfaction, and accomplishment?

In fact, it is not an exaggeration to define games as a consumer product. Players want to experience a new feeling. We provide services for them, and they pay for the emotions we have worked hard to create. This is a very correct idea.

There are many references to this point. The closest thing to games is movies.

Movies provide audiences with a perspective to experience other people's lives. As audiences, we expect to see others make fools of themselves, sexy beauties, touching stories, gorgeous pictures, twists and turns in the plot, and unexpected endings. The general audience has different preferences for movies and popular movies, but there are still rules.

By age group and gender:

Young children evaluate the quality of a movie based on whether it satisfies their curiosity and whether there are many strange people and things.

Teenagers evaluate the quality of movies by saying: Do you treat me like an adult? I want to see your adult world. Do you want to satisfy my illusions about love, sex, and the future?

Adults evaluate the quality of a movie by asking: Does it reflect my life? No, what about the graphics? No, is it funny? No, but does it reflect the stars?

Many successful movies satisfy the above emotional needs. How can games satisfy these needs?

I won't go into detail about the satisfaction methods developed in the journey, as everyone knows them. Let's follow the classification method used in the movie.

By age group and gender:

Young children evaluate the quality of a game based on: Does it satisfy curiosity? Are there many strange people and things? (Basically the same)

Male teenagers evaluate the quality of games in the following ways: Do you treat me like an adult? I can show off my superiority in the game. I shoot more accurately than others, run faster than others, know the map better than anyone else, and understand skills better than anyone else. Do you think I am handsome?

Female teenagers evaluate the quality of games based on: how is the graphics? How easy is it to get started? (Similar to the current mainstream match-3 games.)

It is more complicated for male adults to evaluate the quality of games. There are big differences in age and game exposure. It can be concluded that as male players grow older and enter society, the time they spend playing games will be greatly reduced, while the money they invest in games will increase. At this time, male players are concerned about finding the emotions that are missing in reality in the virtual world. Those who lack a sense of accomplishment will look for a sense of accomplishment in the game (especially in competitive games), those who lack social interaction will look for social interaction in the game (especially in MMORPGs), and those who lack a way to relax will look for a pure land in the game (mostly casual game players). If the players' dissatisfaction with reality is satisfied, they will have a good impression of such games. The stimulation is satisfied.

There is not much difference between female adults and adolescents. It is because they are not addicted to games. Instead, they are born to be addicted to beauty. Everything is related to beauty.

This is the extent of my current understanding. As I learn more, I hope to be able to supplement this article with as much content as possible.

The purpose of the game is to make players feel happy. We should constantly create happy things in the game, not to embarrass players, but to serve them. The most subtle way to set the game difficulty curve is "victory is within reach but difficult to reach."