Principles to be followed in the design phase of social games

Author: Raul Aliaga Diaz

Social games operate in environments such as social networks, and people often think that the biggest advantage of social game development is that you can measure all the elements you want to set up in the game. As a result, design does not face any challenges, as it is possible to keep the elements in effect as long as you try various choices and measure them. This approach sounds like "there is no need to consider the results of the basic biochemical analysis, just a clinical trial of a variety of drugs, and then see which drugs can produce curative effect."

In fact, to do this kind of testing, you need to have a reasonable infrastructure and be prepared to lose some players because of elements that are not very certain at first. This is especially true when you're developing a new game because you don't have any metrics at the moment. Investigating the player experience is not about letting you learn how to design a game, but about how to make a well-designed game more pleasing to the user.

So the design of social games before release requires a good balance of game design practice, given that you will then get real game metrics and online feedback. Guidelines to keep in mind when discussing game features and design-related issues include:

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A variety of gameplay design. The user base of your game is large and small, but for a particular scene and the game's core mechanism and the experience of the work, as well as the existing social network, the smartphone platform of different game play, you do not know which is the most suitable for your game. For example, some players are committed to optimizing the use of resources in the game, some people may prefer to enjoy the fun of the game alone, some people will be very important to show their achievements to friends and so on. Try to take a variety of players into the game design and don't ignore them when design changes may affect the balance between these players. You don't need to always meet the needs of all types of players, but you have to weigh the needs of various players and grasp the balance.

Social design. Instead of launching a big discussion about "which games aren't really social games," It's just a reminder that you better design social games that you can play with friends. This involves not only game mechanisms that support players helping each other, compete and collaborate, but often deeper content. Consider the question that the player will ask himself: What if my best friend knows what I'm going to say about playing this game? Usually the sibling of a player is not necessarily a game developer or player, so your artistic style, character character, the Laugh in the game, and all the details that you have designed to amuse or surprise your players, May become the most powerful viral communication tool. It all depends on how your players define their social experience rather than limiting the social experience to the game.

Scale design. There are times when the game is designed so well that they are tightly linked with many rewards that make players feel special. But have you ever thought that if there are 10,000 players in the game, these benefits will vanish, or the features still exist, but your brewing content or technology is no longer supporting your idea (game State note: The game in the number of thousands or tens of thousands of players). Your game features and design decisions should be independent of the number of players who experience the game, and it's even better to be independent of the time the player spends in the game.

Extended design. You have great ideas that you can constantly improve and deepen. Conversely, if you have a unique game mechanism that may break the balance with other mechanisms in some situations, you may not find a way to extend it. When players come into your game, they bring a lot of expectations that they haven't seen in other social games, traditional games, or other apps, and want to see your settings more natural, and you have to meet those expectations through core mechanisms. But once they understand the game mechanism, if you want to keep them in the game, you need something that surprises them, challenges what they already know, and adds more subtle complexity to the game mechanism. So don't provide all the content at the beginning, you will make the player feel overwhelmed. They are surprised to leave some content to be released later.

Measurable design. This may seem simple, but that is not the case. You want to get the most out of the game's limited data stream, and you need to take that goal into account in your game design. If something is popular with users, build it into a game in a measurable and special way, expecting to be able to provide data. Don't be a supervisor, because it's not a data, you can't measure the player's participation in the game through executive thinking.

Asynchronous gameplay design. The key feature of a social game is that it fits into the player's life, rather than wandering away from life. This is why farm games are so popular that players make a pact that allows them to plan when they will return to the game and not get bored with it. Multiplayer games often need to be synchronized, but it may be difficult to do this in a game where asynchronous play is deeply rooted in social game design. Take a closer look at the synchronicity needed to experience multiple people in your thoughts and find a way to make it asynchronous. If this seems "unnatural" it doesn't matter, because players don't have any doubts about these practices.

Long-term design. Your single game background and experience on a controller or PC makes it easy to realize where the advantages of those games are, but it doesn't work in social games. For example, set up the story pattern in the game, let all players participate in exploring the secret of the game. When the secret is known by all, it can only be a story that has happened. What do players play then? Will they play the game like the secret before the publicity? It's not that you can't add something like that in a game, it just needs to be designed to please your current player in a small area, and don't let future players feel like they've missed out on all the wonderful stories.

In a way, these are just some of the effective ways that I think you can use to plan and design decisions before they are released, and you can use the flexibility to adjust the game to the user's needs. (This article for the game state/gamerboom.com compilation, if need reprint please contact: Game state)