What issues should I pay attention to during game development and design?

What issues should I pay attention to during game development and design?

What are the precautions for game development and design? The prime rule for game development and design! The future is a game era, so many people are now engaged in game development, but new games are constantly developed in the current era, but how many games can really attract players? What are the problems? Let's take a look at the experiences accumulated by our predecessors.

　1. Avoid frequent clicks during game Login

In the new game, many players want to see the game's playability. Before logging on, you need to click a lot of clicks, everyone's passion has been wiped out by your frequent clicks. When you go in and play a game, it is not ideal. Basically, passion is almost wiped out. Generally, it is best to click a button no more than three times.

　2. Hide complexity.

This is the role of the "advanced" label. When a player is introduced into the gameplay experience, all irrelevant content needs to be hidden in other dialogs. This idea does not mean removing the complexity of the game (which is also an appropriate practice), but does not need to present the complex content immediately. Of course, you can allow players to change parameters, but you don't have to force them to view which parameters can be changed. Those who want to do this will naturally find options that can help them achieve their goals, but remember that the number of players trying to change parameters is less than 50%. For more than 50% of gamers, you only need to present options and functions that do not need to be changed, because too many choices will only confuse them.

　3. Present all information to players in the same region.

Maintain the consistency of information presentation positions. You need to guide players to view a certain place and you only need to view this place to get all game information. Of course, there is a skill in information presentation, that is, filtering information, so that players do not need to pay too much attention to information from the game or other players, A large amount of information may cause gamers to lose key information. However, this is the information filtering level, which will be further discussed later. Note that this rule is not followed if you only highlight incorrect or missing input content. This method is often used when you fill out forms on the web page. However, if you want to do this, do not just use the text color to imply errors, which will cause inconvenience to users who are blind. What you need to do is to reverse highlight the text content, so do not only display inappropriate text in red, but also display the background in red. In this way, even blind users can understand input errors.

　4. filter information and present the meaning.

It is good to present information, but the more information you share, the better? To some extent, this is true. However, if a large amount of information is sent to users, they will feel disgusted. "Are you sure you want to do this ?" Such repetitive information will become junk information, which will be ignored or directly clicked by users. Excessive junk information will cause important information to be ignored by users. Setting the cool-down time for the presentation of a recurring dialog box is a good practice. For example, after three times of rendering a dialog box, the dialog box is no longer displayed within the preset time, you can set the preset time to within 5 minutes of the last conversation box. In this way, users do not need to constantly click the same dialog box, so they will not be bothered by this information. It is also a good practice to allow users to filter certain information types. For example, you can ignore warnings or information from the script system. This requires proper information classification so that the system can identify which category it belongs. Although troublesome, it is a feasible practice. In addition, the list of saved information in a certain place refers to all the information that has not been filtered, and the user must know the information. In this way, if they need such information, they can view it at any time. It is also worth mentioning that it is important to inform users of the meaning of their changes, especially tools. If you click the "use dynamic illumination for all content" button in the phantom editor, you need to inform them of the effect of these practices on the frame rate. The traditional method of interpreting the function of each button by displaying text on the screen is often not enough, because the impact of a certain control is often changed due to different content or other settings. If it is only a single object in the 2000 poly scenario, setting "use dynamic illumination for all content" will not have a negative impact, only when rendering 10000 objects in the 400 poly world, the negative effect is obvious. So basically, my point is to conduct an internal analysis of other changes that may be caused by control changes, and compare them with other methods that may significantly affect the user. Again, it is necessary to pay attention to the display times of the dialog box and information, because there are always some special cases that make the application think that the user puts forward the non-willingness behavior requirements, so it keeps issuing warnings.

　　5. It is critical to maintain consistency of all UI rendering content.

Some methods are obvious. For example, you can use single-choice buttons or check boxes in an application, but the two cannot be used in combination. In all dialogs, ensure that the text type, Font, and size used are consistent. However, there are still some more exquisite things. For example, if you need to provide a path in the tool and use the browser button, do not expect the user to enter the path directly. XCode is an excellent counterexample. Another good practice is to use a scroll bar instead of asking users to enter a value. However, you can still use the value input method. One of the most important parts of data input is to avoid bad or conflicting data input from the very beginning. There is a lot of code in the application to process bad data, but it is better to put an end to bad data input from the very beginning. This is the reason for using the default drop-down menu, because you can ensure that the program does not get misspelled words and bad data.

　　6. If user input is not required, this method is used. This is an extension of 5th points.Default drop-down menu label or provide default text where user input is required. If you do not want to, you do not need to enter any text by yourself. All items should have default options.

　　7. You can set up to view the same dialog box through multiple channels. Windows XP is doing well in this regard and allows users to open the same control dialog box through multiple channels. This is acceptable.Note that consistency of the dialog box itself should be ensured when this method is used. No matter which channel you open the dialog box, they are all identical, including the appearance, performance, and functions.

　8. The control is set to the same and unique place, which is an extension of 6th points.The same type of control should only exist in a single dialog box, and it is not allowed to set the control that looks like the same but has different functions. This will make users encounter difficulties in understanding. Similarly, XCode is not doing well in this aspect.

　　9. the dialog box depth cannot exceed three layers.

If you create an RPG Game, you can set Layer 4. The bottom line of dialog box depth settings is that users cannot be confused about their location, what they are doing, and why. You also need to display their location in the dialog box tree. It is good to add the back key, but a small dialog box tree indicator will display better. You can refer to the Windows system resource manager practice.

　　10. Dialog Box switch.

It is recommended that the dialog box be switched over within 150 milliseconds, which can be up to 200 milliseconds. It doesn't matter how you switch and how beautifully you switch. Users want a short response time, especially when they navigate through the UI dialog tree. Gorgeous but long switching is like joking with users. Users may feel that the design is cool at the beginning, but they will get bored after a while. All you have to do is make the whole process faster.

　　11. Make all content configurable and saved.

You can modify the size and position of each window and save it. Setting the default options is easy, but make sure that the application can save the changes made by all users. Remember, the dialog box layout can save a lot of time for users.

12. Anything that can visually affect other content should be changed in real time.

If you do not know the effect of lighting or clothing changes on roles and other content, you should immediately present the content so that users can see the effect after they change their settings. Sometimes, this may not be implemented, because changes to individual settings will affect other content (game state Note: for example, in the modification of the script value, it will only take effect after the modification of the other one ). But you 'd better do this in terms of content that can be instantly presented.

13. differentiate presentation information and changeable data.

Information that cannot be changed by the user should be presented in a specific way, so that the user can understand that such information is static information. Changeable information should be presented in slightly different fonts, colors, or sizes, or in a way that a user can clearly feel that these are changeable content. This aspect is closely related to. If users realize that some data can be changed, they will find a way to change and start exploring the UI structure of your dialog box.

　　14. for PC developers, you need to check whether the content is actually displayed on the screen when the dialog box is opened.

In many cases, users change their display settings and then suddenly discover that their saved dialog box disappears from the screen. You need to check whether this is the case. I encountered this problem more than once.

　　15. In the end, this may be the most controversial rule:

Are you designed to meet the needs of data change flows or data aggregation? Briefly introduce background knowledge. The design of data change flow means that you will aggregate a lot of similar data on a single screen, dialog box, and UI forum, sort by the process you want to expand, so that you can select the steps they need to go to, such as entering the name, selecting the text type, selecting the game type, selecting the server, and entering the game. These elements are data of different "types. Most games separate them into multiple screens and add many additional buttons and information for users to modify the experience, but most users do not actually use them. The other is the "similar data" grouping method. Each screen is designed around a specific function, from which you can make a choice. The data flow screen places all the specific functions that the user must select or change in one screen so that they can see the requirements at the same time, make the selection and proceed. One focuses on rendering options, and the other focuses on simplifying the process so that users can quickly arrive at the desired place. In my opinion, both methods are reasonable. I prefer to present the data flow method as the default mode, because most people use this method, especially for users who use the application for the first time. After users get familiar with the application, they can use another method because they need to find what they want faster. This is closely related to the 2nd point. complexity can exist, but it is not a necessary factor.