The core idea and idea of iterative product development

Article Description: on the iterative method of product development.

The perfection and prototyping of the basic idea

A game from creativity to development, the abstraction can be divided into two major stages: the basic concept of the stage, and iterative development stage. Any game at the earliest time is just one or a group of scattered and uncertain ideas, the planners of this set of ideas, extract the interrelated rules to form a core set of rules, this is the original framework of the product. For example, the original rules of Tetris may include: squares are eliminated and added in one line, the top randomly drops new squares, squares can rotate, and so on.

In general, at this stage, the game developer will seek to use this set of core rules to create a simple demo, to verify the game itself can play. This demo is often a lack of artistic effect and friendly UI, but the main game cycle followed is not much different from the later commercial version.

For example, if you're in a pinball hall, you might start with a demo version of only one shell, one weird map, although the content is simple, but the round rule and the trajectory formula are basically consistent with the later version.

For a preliminary product concept, how much time and energy to do demo? How long will it take to test this demo? Different companies and teams often respond differently to this question.

Here is a very controversial question: the careful idea plus the perfect planning document, can replace for demo development and evaluation? The answer is in the negative.

Why do you want to be a prototype? Since the prototype code is basically impossible to use in the commercial finished product, since this is only for a small number of people to see the demo, skip the past why not?

The core reason is that, as human beings, our abilities and experiences are, in essence, limited and incomplete. And the game is a kind of experiential products, a game of the play, can not be verified by logical and mathematical way, and must pass through the actual game process, subjective to feel and judge. And that's why game design is an art reason.

Many game planners are in the heart of the market and operations are hostile attitude, they said, the game is an art, game is my pursuit of the soul, which is more important than the vulgar recharge. They are right in the design and evaluation stages of prototypes.

The evaluation of the prototype, in general, is to see whether the core rules of the game is clear and easy to grasp, at the same time, according to the user's operation can get a variety of different selection results, there are technical aspects of the basic verification. For example, a game may be a complex and changing unpredictable, but it takes one months to get started, or a game can be mastered in 3 minutes, but the process of playing it every time is similar. These are the problems that need to be analyzed and judged in the process of prototyping.

If a prototype is done and people don't think it's funny, what do we do next?

Very simple, give up. Throw everything away and start the design again. There's a big misunderstanding here, on the one hand, the game is due to the lack of the content of the demo, counting on the content to increase the ability to play after a good, on the other hand, the demo will give up sooner or later should not put too high cost as an excuse, that "such a small demo can achieve such a standard, if , the game must be good. "In fact, this is the thought and behavior of their own digging pits."

A game, small to Tetris Bubble Dragon, big to the World of Warcraft Tianlong Eight, in essence, have their own core play, the core of large-scale products can be more complex, or even by a group of interrelated child playing together with each other, but regardless of the big game of small works, are by a separate way to build the module , a large MMO, many of which may not be particularly good or successful, but a lot of play modules, but each one is not a good product, it is impossible to rely solely on the function of more than others to win the player.

That is, the success of the game is not necessarily every play is wonderful, but there is not at least a more exciting game play, will fail, no matter how long, regardless of the cost of high, regardless of the process of art planning more efforts. In fact, this is the 1 and 1 after the 0 relationship, No 1, then more 0 Plus is 0.

I have said a simple theory: The core of the game is a game of the longitudinal axis, the increase in content is a game of the horizontal axis, a good longitudinal shaft, can support a wide horizontal axis, like pinball hall or crazy birds, based on their own core play, you can continue to design new maps, and if the longitudinal axis is not strong enough, The more horizontal the extension, the faster the product will die. It's like building a house without putting a beam on it and putting bricks on it, the quicker it collapses.

So, at the beginning of the game, for the core play and demo repeated changes constantly tempered, is to determine how far the product can go the Foundation and foundation, for example, you can design crazy birds or plants vs zombies core rules of play, then the next thing to do is to find a pile of art and level outsourcing work. This is also true of web games and social products, like the world's push-and-fight systems, which should have been sketched and run through the whole product development in the early days.

The core idea and idea of iterative development

All right, next, let's get the art out of the loop, and we're going to go to the stage of iterative development.

What is an iteration? Grand before there is a very image of the description, called Small steps run.

The following text comes from Baidu: iterative development. It is almost impossible to capture the user's needs completely and accurately at the early stages of software development. In fact, the problem we often encounter is that demand is often changed throughout software development projects. Iterative development allows for changes in requirements during each iteration, deepening the understanding of the problem through refinement. Iterative development can not only reduce the risk of the project, but each iteration process can be implemented to end the release, can inspire the developers.

In fact, China also has an old saying, called take a step to see. In essence, iterative development acknowledges that developers ' current understanding and mastery of user needs is incomplete, developers do not pursue the product requirements of a one-time, global understanding and grasp, but for each product details, collect user behavior and feedback, propose possible solutions to implement and verify that the problem is resolved, And then move on to the next loop.

So to speak, the starting point for iterative development, is to start with a release: release, through data statistics and analysis, as well as direct user surveys and inquiries, to obtain user behavior direct feedback; Based on the feedback analysis reason and propose the possible solution and the verification method, the development completes this solution, Observe whether the user's behavior has improved. If there is no improvement, try another solution, repeat the cycle, and if proven to be improved, continue with the next development process.

In a typical iterative development process, there are three key principles: the shortest iteration cycle, the explicit validation method, and the low cost correction scheme.

The shorter the iteration cycle, the better, without having to worry about the user and the operation too much. This requires a larger version of the plan to be cut into several iterations, respectively, for a specific problem. In essence, each iteration cycle is equivalent to a conversation cycle between the developer and the user/market, and the more frequent the conversation, the deeper the understanding and grasp of the market. A pair of friends who only talk once a year will not be as intimate as the friends who eat together every week, and the more alienated the relationship between the developer and the market, the farther away the road to success is not visible.

Clear method of effect validation. This is the vast majority of product development process will make mistakes, is intentionally or unintentionally omitted the validation of the effect. Found a problem in the product, such as a high loss rate link, discussed, proposed an improvement program, production completed on-line. And then...... No more.

In fact, I've been stressing that the subtext of iterative development is to acknowledge our ignorance of users and markets. Only a validated method can be called "experience", and this accumulation of experience represents the improvement of the level and competitiveness of the game team. It has no particular significance in itself to be satisfied with the proposal or completion of some kind of improvement program. Because you have no idea whether the improvement plan is right or wrong?

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