转自：http://gamerboom.com/archives/35099
作者：Kristen Bornemann
目前有许多方法可以指导你做出高质量的产品。但今天，我将具体阐述电子游戏的开发，以及作为开发者如何轻松地遵循某些基本规则以迅速地做出高质量的游戏。
许多人会说，在这个Valve和暴雪产品统治游戏世界的时代里，游戏的大小和容量就代表着游戏的质量。这种说法既是正确的，也是错误的。对大型AAA公司而言，他们有着大量资金，增加游戏内容或许能够改善游戏质量。但对于独立开发者而言，这种做法并不合适。
游戏质量和趣味性的重要性并没有发生改变。但是，游戏行业的可接入性已经提高，现在开发者可以利用快速迭代方式在非常短的时间内制作出高质量游戏。这是我们能够比大型开发商做的更好的少数事情之一。
当然，关注快速迭代技术和将其融入到游戏开发过程中依然存在差异。每个游戏、每个团队都是不同的。所以，你应该根据自己团队的类型来整合这些技术，这样才能达到最佳效果。
高效工作
如果你每天花8个小时的时间坐下来设计游戏，却没有让游戏的可玩性得到改善，那么可能有如下两个原因：
1、你的工作有些拖沓。你花了过多的时间来给引擎添加某个动画，或者你花了整天的时间来重新构建图片的调用。
2、你的斗志有些减少。你意识到你将整周珍贵的工作时间（游戏邦注：许多独立游戏开发者耗费的是宝贵的业余时间）花在没有取得显著进展的游戏上。你已经计划要在接下来的三款游戏中设计出绝佳的动画，但现在还有98个关卡还未曾构建。
我不是说这些润色的工作不甚重要，而是你需要将精力投放到能取得显著进展的任务上，比如游戏中的艺术或可玩性。至少，你要在每天的重复工作中让游戏朝发布的方向有所发展。
保证游戏测试效果
只要你的游戏可以开始玩了，就应该让其他人进行测试。关于游戏测试的度量的重要性，已经有很多文章探讨过了。成功的Spry Fox团队（游戏邦注：《Steambirds》的开发者）将版本的迭代测试单位时间定为每天。这意味着设计师每天都要关注最新的构建，开发者要不断查看 当天的反馈。
Kids-Playing-Games(from pernchumchon)
无论是让拥有20多年从业经验的游戏设计师还是只有12岁的小弟弟来测试最新游戏设计，你总是需要反馈才能迭代改善游戏。这很可能是开发有趣且成功 游戏的关键性步骤，你不应该把游戏测试留到所有内容都已经确定的项目开发末期。而且，听取游戏反馈能够大大提升你的斗志。消极的反馈能够给你机会改变错误 的做法，以免其损害游戏品质。而更高的斗志无疑能够推动游戏更快发布。
及时发布游戏
你应该先发布游戏，随后再添加相关内容。作为独立开发者，我们需要打破游戏发布意味着游戏开发终结的思维方式。社交游戏让我们认识到，主要的开发工作是发布后的那些功能添加过程。因为这样你就可以明白玩家喜欢什么不喜欢什么，明白哪些内容和功能能够提高游戏质量。
即便你进行了大量的游戏测试，只有你发布之后才能明白游戏的成功性究竟如何。所以，别为用户界面花几秒钟才能呈现在屏幕上这类问题感到担心。你应该相信，如果之前的核心可玩性机制和游戏的艺术设计很棒，那就可以发布游戏了。
不惧失败
我要提的最后一个建议是，别畏惧失败。如果你经常失败并且能够挽回局面再次尝试，你就可以从中学到经验和教训。有个著名的研究，让CEO、营销专业学生和小孩在同一间屋子里比赛用冰棒棍搭建建筑物，越高越好。最终取得胜利的是小孩们。
研究人员发现，孩子们会尽他们所能来快速搭建建筑物，如果建筑倒下便马上重新开始搭建，而其他两类人花很长的时间来规划建筑物的搭建。所以，你应该像小孩子们一样迅速构建游戏。无论结果是成功还是失败，你的这种做法都是对的。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）
Opinion: The Elusive ‘Quick Iteration’ – Tips for Indie Devs
Kristen Bornemann
From agile and scrum to extreme programming, everyone’s trying to nail down what it takes to iterate on products quickly and efficiently. There are a lot of methodologies that you can employ to guide you through shipping products. But today, I’ll be talking specifically about video games and how, as a developer, you can use a loose process and follow some basic rules in order to get quality games quickly out the door.
You might argue that in today’s day and age, with the Valves and Blizzards of the world, taking your time speaks volumes for the quality of a game. Well, yes and no. For big AAA companies with a reserve of cash, that might make sense, but as an indie developer, you live and die off of shipping.
The importance of quality and fun has not changed. However, the games industry is much more accessible, and now developers utilizing fast iteration can make ridiculously high quality games in very short amounts of time. It’s one of the few things we can do better than big developers.
Now, there is a fine line between making quick iteration a focus and getting bogged down in process. Every game and every team is unique. So, take these and mold them according to you or your team’s style for the best results.
Make Measurable Steps Every Time You Sit Down To Work
Did your mom notice that something changed with that last check-in? If not, then you may be caught in a common trap. When you sit down for an 8 hour workday and you don’t make steps towards improving gameplay, some things can happen:
You stall. You get too caught up on adding an animation pipeline to your engine. You spend all day refactoring your draw calls. This doesn’t just eat up one day but multiple days spanning weeks of work. You’re so heads down that you haven’t come up for air and when you finally do…
Your morale drops. You realize that you just spent a week of valuable work time (or in many indie dev cases, valuable free time) working on something that made no noticeable improvements in your game. Sure, you’re set on glorious animations for the next three games, but in the meantime you’re stuck with 98 levels left to create.
I’m not saying that those refactors or pipelines aren’t important, or that you don’t enjoy getting in there and mucking around, but try to couple every systems task with a more visible task, usually art or gameplay. Take a break to put in some quick UI. Implement that restart button you’ve been putting off because you can just kill the process and rerun. At the very least, you have a new iteration of your game every day and you’re one step closer to getting it out the door.
Someone Should Always Be Playing Your Game
As soon as your game is playable, others should be playing it. There have been a lot of great articles on this blog recently about the merits of playtesting. The very successful Spry Fox team (Steambirds) tries to achieve its version of daily iteration. This means a designer is looking at the latest build and the developers are iterating on that feedback that day.
Whether it’s a game designer with 20+ years of experience or your 12-year-old brother taking a look at your latest build, you need feedback to iterate on. This is quite possibly the most critical step towards a fun and successful game and you shouldn’t leave it to the end of the project when everything is set in stone. Not to mention hearing feedback on your game boosts morale. Even negative feedback allows you the opportunity to change something before it tanks your game. And higher morale is definitely what you’ll need to push anything out the door quicker.
Ship It
No matter what you might think, that extra particle effect is not what will tip your game from the dumps to a hit. Ship it and add it later. As indie devs, we need to break ourselves out of the mentality that the ship date is an all or nothing push. One thing that social games have learned is that majority of your dev time is best spent on post launch work. This is where you boil down what users like/dislike and what works and what doesn’t.
Even with all the playtesting in the world, you’re never going to know how successful your game will be until you ship it. So, ignore the fact that your UI takes an extra split second to show on screen, and trust that if your core gameplay mechanics and game’s aesthetics did well in the previous step, than it’s enough to ship.
And Finally, Fail
The final piece of advice I leave with you is don’t be afraid to fail. As long as you’re failing quickly and often, switching things up and trying again, you can’t help but learn. There was a great case study done where CEOs, business students, and children were brought into a room. Each group was told to build a structure as high as they could out of popsicle sticks. Guess who got the highest? The children.
Examining what the children did differently they found that the children built up structures as quickly as they could, watched it fall, and then immediately started building again where as everyone else spent meticulous time planning and creating. So be like a child and build quickly. Whether it’s failing or succeeding, you’re moving in the right direction.
