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GameTube invited Maoli, a game interaction designer who worked at Ubisoft for 5 years and now works at Netease Games, to share his thoughts on game experience design_Talking about thinking about film and thinking about game experience design.

"When you see a really good game, you think,'This game is awesome, it's like a movie! "

The director of "Shell Attack Mobile Team", Mamoru Oshii, said when he saw Hideo Kojima's work "Death Stranding" that "the film has no chance of winning". However, from the perspective of historical development, film as a medium for games, movies also have a profound impact on games.

Introduction Film is a modern art which is passively received by both visual and auditory senses. It can accurately "restore" the real world,"display" the virtual world, and enrich the thinking angle of the viewer.

"Games are free activities within a relatively rigorous framework" -Rules of Play

The game also has visual and auditory expression content, and from the experience point of view, it is a comprehensive art that gives players interaction under the rules set by the designer. Movies are dreams that reflect reality, while games are dream-making machines in our hands. In the future development direction, players can even wear game equipment to interact with dreams in the "virtual world," alternating between virtual and display.

Since movies and games have the same composite elements, how can we, as game interaction designers, combine real life and use some movie techniques to enhance the experience of this "virtual world" in terms of interactive usability logic? Below we draw experience design from the trailer, storytelling, and emotional sublimation of the film.

I. Trailer trailer Each trailer previews the world and highlights in advance to achieve an engaging effect, as well as informing viewers what kind of movie it is.

Similarly, the game also displays a worldview that is consistent with the core idea for the first time, and the expression and interaction logic are defined around the worldview. (After creating a new character, you can directly tell the player "Who am I, where I come from, and where I want to go" to clearly understand the core world view). Let the player quickly understand the goal he wants to find the core gameplay.

The preview mind guides the introduction of the "I" world view, introducing the player's current situation and what to do. Under the foundation of the world view, the player will be introduced to a specific environment, not only to eliminate unnecessary interference information, but also to focus on the player's operation so that the player learned the basic core operation content. So as to achieve the effect of novice guidance. Often this part of the plot is also very compact, novice scenes are also created very exciting, just like the movie's promotional film tightly grasp the players, so that players want to continue to play interest.

We can see this in many games, such as Tomb Raider, which begins with a description of the closed tutorial, the story background of the entire scene.

The large scene introduces the current environment where novice guidance will take place. This environment serves as a relatively closed and simple action sample for players to operate.

Guided by the person who enters the tutorial, the person who guides can be arranged differently depending on the needs of the worldview

With the change of the world view plot, the ups and downs of the plot, under the stimulation of the rapid turn of the plot, the novice guidance begins, immediately putting the player into the game, and those who want to learn the skill to control "my" life and death. It's very close to the plot, and it's working right out of the sample. The interface also only has the current operation prompt that needs to be learned, so there is no need to distract the player's attention. This combination greatly reduces the probability of skipping the novice guide and enhances the fun.

At the same time, in the process of guiding, the person leading the player will also say some traction language (actually not to save you) but will make you feel that you are noticed or supported. Driving the plot.

The most difficult stage of novice guidance, increase the overall performance effect, the final plot reaches the climax to complete the novice guidance part, and achieve the expected effect on the later game.

It is worth mentioning that Tomb Raider video and game integration is very good, there is no black screen and other interruption effects, which is very good to let players feel like they are participating in the movie experience. Tomb Raider's game graphics and experience can be called movie level, Laura's image can be said to be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Of course, because of this strong audio-visual attribute, it was also adapted into a successful film. This approach is also seen in novice guides for excellent games such as The Division, Assassin's Creed Origins, and Far Cry.

Of course, different types of games have different ways of guiding novices, but I think it is necessary to show a template of core gameplay at the beginning.

II. Storytelling is the most convincing way of transmitting knowledge from ancient times to the present. And story happens to be the soul of a movie, a good movie, when the audience is fascinated, they forget the existence of the medium. A good movie should be prepared at these points.

What kind of story does the film tell, what is the attraction and where is the highlight?

What brilliant, vivid character, what typical role image has been created?

Narrative structure, what kind of "film language" does the film use to describe the plot, where is it good, and what organic integration with the story background?

Shooting pictures, photography skills, whether the pictures and film content of the film are appropriate, whether the skills are properly applied, and where is the beauty of the picture?

Musically speaking, is the music of the film helpful to character shaping, auxiliary plot, setting situation, etc., and is it properly used?

All kinds of details, including clothing, props, makeup, environment, language, etc., do not pay attention to details, no doubt seriously weaken the true beauty of the film, let the audience feel and their past life experience and understanding seriously disconnected. Therefore, attention to detail is also a good starting point.

Storytelling way to think about experience design is not to find these points We can also substitute thinking when doing experience, with these points, when we do player experience design, we can consider the following directions:

What kind of worldview does the game express as a whole, and what makes it different from other games on the market? What kind of experience will I bring to the players?

When creating each part of the experience, does that part fit into the overall game's worldview?

Consider what a layout, what is the mood of the function? Do I design as a whole with other designs and will it deviate?

Is the sound feedback of the function used properly?

Does the design of the function conform to the common sense of the world view, will the player deviate from the initial understanding when interacting with the game system, and there will be a feeling of too much separation, and how to deal with it when it does not conform but wants such a design?

In addition to considering the IA at the bottom, adding more emotional design enhances immersion, can actively discuss with the copywriter the world view of increasing functions, enhance the understanding and acceptance of functional background, and even can be derived into other functions, making all functions more logically rigorous and full.

When operating, it seems to forget the functionality, just feel natural and even can't see the UI interface. Enhance pleasure based on immersion (incentivize time commitment, emotional commitment, relationship chain commitment, and money commitment)

A practical example of thinking about such a requirement requires a daily reminder function. If we just want to design an interface, maybe it's a reminder of time or an alarm clock, here's an interactive design thought inspired by a video I saw.

Consider the following:

When discussing with copywriter classmates, he needed such a warm story. When the player first arrived at a place, a little girl who lived above him would drop a microphone on time every day. At first, the player was still in a very impatient state because he disturbed his sleep every day. As he slowly contacted the little girl upstairs, he became more familiar with the story of the new arrival point. As the story developed, he finally saw the little girl and discovered that the little girl was disabled.

Of course, this period can be interspersed with daily reminders, daily tasks, story background consolidation and other different functions. The world view of the story can also be enriched. The interactive design is realized in the way of microphone, so that players have different experience design. The interactive way is also very simple, but the overall experience will be more touching, so as to meet the above-mentioned goals and finally achieve a stronger sense of substitution experience.

Classic story experience design recommended here I recommend a very favorite emotional story game "Florence" Chinese name "Lost Love," although not a new game, but because of the overall story feeling of this game, just like watching a cartoon interactive, interactive experience design is also with a strong sense of substitution, has been saved in my mobile phone.

The mobile games launched on Valentine's Day in 2018 have only more than 30 minutes of flow with 20 BGM, written by the chief designer of Monument Valley, artworks in mobile games called the game version of "City of Love," Apple Best Game Design Award, TGA Best Mobile Game Award, Google Play Best Independent Game. With delicate experience operation mode tells an ordinary girl from love to transformation, strong emotional substitution feeling.

According to the story of different periods, with different rhythms of music background and interaction methods have different emotional experience, players in the process of playing the game is completely involved in a love movie, deeply experience the emotions. A few examples of emotional design are detailed in the next section.

Interaction, as "I" empathize with the world around us, with a constant flow of inspiration from our past experiences, present circumstances, and future goals.

III. Emotional sublimation The emotional fluctuation caused by design can enrich the audience's thinking angle, move people's hearts and trigger thinking. Emotional design in games is a possibility design that grabs users 'attention and elicits emotional responses to achieve specific behaviors on the basis of satisfying the functionality of the design. Familiar speakers use specific design methods to stimulate users and make them emotional.

In his book Emotional Design by Donald Norman, Norman expounds the importance and function of emotion in design from three levels of design instinct-behavior-reflection. Norman argues that "integrating emotion into product design will solve a long-standing dilemma for designers: the main contradiction between utility and visual quality." "

So when thinking about emotional design, we can get these goals by substituting the user's emotions into the design.

Design starts with my emotions.

"Emotional design" represents the expression scheme and emotional expression of design.

Emotional design is the opposite of rational thinking in a sense. Emotional design is often favored by users in situations that require patience and negative emotions (such as long waits, interface errors, long text readings, and battle failures). A good grasp of emotional design is often the highlight of a product, which can alleviate negative emotions and deepen the emotion of the product. It is of great help in purchasing, using, retaining and spreading.

In Norman's book Emotional Design, he explains three characteristic levels of human nature from the psychological point of view, namely instinctive, behavioral and reflective.

Namely:

It's instinct to see something good or bad, to want it or not.

Is this thing easy to use, is it simple to understand, simple to operate is action

The evaluation of this thing, but this part of everyone's experience is different, and the evaluation may be different.

Of course, emotional design is precisely because of his characteristics, so in the design, think about whether it will bring too much emotion, pay attention to control the rhythm and degree. It is also important to note that emotional design and rational features combine to highlight the parts that players need to interact with and avoid unclear identification.

Some great examples of emotional design take a look at this impressive design, not only to complete the donation of simple interaction, but also to allow users to get feedback on emotional results, but also to deepen interaction with users offline, enhancing the overall experience. Features can also be designed to add more emotional feedback, allowing players to have more emotional satisfaction after completing basic functionality.

The status of receiving a message is not only a prompt, but a dynamic 3D follow-up with perspective effect according to the characteristics of the game, forming a very casual experience of reading messages, just like we usually read messages on mobile phones on the street.

The interactive experience of expressing emotions in Florence (1) Goal-guided emotional design based on the plot

Daily boring days, scenes without color as the girl's boring mood. The phone is out of power and the headphones are removed to hear the music, lighting up the surrounding scene, and also making the girl's mood as colorful as the scene. The interaction here is very simple, and the overall emotional design performance atmosphere is very good. Yellow is used to represent the target (yellow is also the theme color of this game), mood and sound are all unified design.

(2) Design representing emotional chat

It represents normal communication, normal speed, normal color, no special emotion, and the number of puzzles represents strangeness.

As the two sides get to know each other, the puzzle color becomes pure blue, the puzzle becomes less and easier, and the communication is more and more common.

As the relationship gets better, there are fewer modules, and the experience becomes easier to operate.

Quarrel chat dialogue from sharp modules, to express direct words faster and faster, so that players fully feel the emotional design.

Using negativity techniques to enhance emotional design, which also makes it more difficult to enhance negativity, allows me to feel negative emotions deeply.

IV. Summing up thinking about future interaction Of course, movies have their own story line, which belongs to observation type. Although the game is experiential, most of them are controlled by the designer to specify the task route to contain the player, so the player cannot experience the game according to his own rhythm. How can the player tell his own story and how to satisfy the player's spiritual layer more? This may be the reason why open type games are popular with players in recent years. In The Legend of Zelda, In a world like "Moving Forest," players build their own stories, designers only set basic rules, players yearn to see their own figures in the game, yearn for and enjoy their own unique world, and players and designers communicate with each other instead of containing each other.

Finally, I would like to say that with the continuous improvement of 3D technology, the development of motion capture, face modeling, performance, ray tracing and other technologies, the quality of games is getting higher and higher. World view, lens and player interaction experience are becoming more and more important. The distance between movies and games is getting smaller and smaller. Maybe one day there will be no movies and no games, but it will be defined as interactive movies. We only need to design a mechanism player to create his own interactive movies. That sense of substitution must be stronger.

Interactive design has never been just about interface layout, but instead of substituting players 'ideas, standing in the player's perspective, no matter which stage of development is designed from the direction of moving the player experience, enriching the overall player experience.

This article is my own thinking into the film on some of the understanding of interactive design, temporarily write here, thank you for reading.

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: GameTube (ID: GameTube), author: Mao Li

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