游戏UX (GAMES UX)

During a time when the time spent on video games has reached record breaking heights, due to excessive time indoors, gamification has more of a place now than ever before.

d uring的时候花在视频游戏的时间已经达到了 破纪录的高度 ，由于过多的时间在室内，游戏化有更多的地方，现在比以往任何时候。

Gamification is a process originally derived from video games, where reward systems are built into software, with a sole purpose of ensuring player retention and engagement by rewarding players with micro-interactions and gold stars. If we use a project management platform as an example, upon selecting the ‘completed task button’ a purpose built, short interaction/animation is triggered — scientifically designed to release a micro dose of endorphins.

游戏化是一个最初源自视频游戏的过程，该游戏将奖励系统内置到软件中，其唯一目的是通过向玩家提供微互动和金星来确保玩家的保留和参与。 如果我们以项目管理平台为例，则在选择“完成的任务按钮”时建立特定用途，就会触发短时间的交互/动画-科学地设计为释放微剂量的内啡肽。

But how do video games specifically utilise UX techniques which can be used as inspiration?

但是，视频游戏如何专门利用可用作灵感的UX技术呢？

Well, upon recent completion of the main campaign in Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4, I took note of how a well developed AAA video game demonstrates good UX driven practices/models, which allows a seamless focus on the gameplay itself. Great job Guerrilla Games!

好吧，最近在PS4上完成了《 地平线零黎明》中的主要战役后，我注意到了精心开发的AAA电子游戏如何展示出良好的UX驱动的做法/模型，从而可以无缝地专注于游戏本身。 伟大的游击游戏 ！

I made note of key features that successfully tap into the heuristics and principles of UX and UI.

我记下了成功利用UX和UI的启发式和原理的关键功能。

通过识别而不是召回来实现可用性 (Usability via Recognition over recall)

Early on, the player is taught that botany plays a huge role in the game. The player is encouraged to collect flowers via in game tutorials, whilst roaming the open world. Flowers are used for crafting provisions. However, the red flowers are consumed by protagonist, Aloy, upon collection. The red flowers help the player to regain health. An obvious colour choice, but why is it obvious? It is obvious because humans are conditioned from a young age to memorise red, the universal colour for health.

早期，玩家被告知植物学在游戏中扮演着重要角色。 在漫游开放世界的同时，鼓励玩家通过游戏教程收集花朵。 花是用来制作食物的。 但是，红色花朵被主人公阿洛伊(Aloy)采收。 红色花朵可以帮助玩家恢复健康。 一个明显的颜色选择，但是为什么它很明显？ 显而易见，因为人类从小就适应记忆健康的通用颜色红色。

The use of colour is pervasive in video games.

在视频游戏中普遍使用颜色。

Apart from dressing characters in darker tones to indicate evil, in Horizon Zero Dawn, the player is also taught to instinctively look for contrasting colours during an initial tutorial process. A dash of yellow on a grey wall indicates an interactive element. It’s subtle enough to blend into the 3D Decor, yet noticeable enough to draw player attention. The recognition of colour ensures good usability. The balance of colour to indicator, succeeds in forcing the player to memorise a pattern of colours, allowing fluid gameplay through usability of interactive elements within the open world.

除了以深色调装饰角色以表明邪恶之外，在《 地平线零黎明》中 ，还指导玩家在最初的教程过程中本能地寻找对比色。 灰色墙上的黄色虚线表示互动元素。 足以融入3D Decor，但足以引起玩家注意。 颜色的识别确保了良好的可用性。 颜色与指示器之间的平衡，成功地迫使玩家记住颜色的图案，通过开放世界中交互元素的可用性实现流畅的游戏玩法。

通过帮助和文档可访问性 (Accessibility via Help and Documentation)

Accessibility is clearly at the forefront of navigating the UI/ menu. Players can easily access resources by pressing their controller’s touchpad. On press, a full screen menu is activated. Within it, there are horizontal categories — skills/ inventory/ crafting/ map/ quests, and notebook. Each category is paired with vertical sub categories. The purpose of the menu is to allow modification to suit the players style of play.

可访问性显然是导航UI /菜单的最前沿。 玩家可以通过按下控制器的触摸板轻松访问资源。 按下时，将激活全屏菜单。 其中有横向类别-技能/库存/制作/地图/任务和笔记本。 每个类别与垂直子类别配对。 菜单的目的是允许修改以适合玩家的游戏风格。

Is the player a prowler, a brave, or a forager? To ensure one’s understanding of each weapon/ skill upgrade, there is a space within the UI (usually on the right hand side of screen) dedicated to video snippets, documenting an in-game scenario of how each item performs. This is a perfect solution to the problem of educating players to the plethora of accessible modifications. The video placement ensures the player attention is always on the form (skill/ weapon) followed by the function (snippet preview).

玩家是徘徊者，勇敢者还是觅食者？ 为了确保您了解每种武器/技能的提升，UI内(通常在屏幕的右侧)有一个专用于视频片段的空间，用于记录游戏中每种物品的表现情况。 这是对玩家进行大量可访问修改的教育的完美解决方案。 视频位置确保玩家始终将注意力放在表单(技能/武器)上，然后是功能(片段预览) 。

通过玩家控制和自由实现价值 (Value via Player Control and Freedom)

Horizon Zero Dawn is an open world style game. The freedom in roaming the open world is a bi-product of the stories key objective — to save the world from evil takeover by Ancient Machines. Quest progress, runs the setting gamut, ranging — snow, desert to jungle. Aloy endures battles with majestic machines of prey, fighting them off using trip casters, traps, bows, arrows and primary weapon of choice — the staff. The player makes full use of the free-roam aspect climbing cliff drop offs with parkour-esque agility. Visual cues help the freedom of play by navigating direction through — For example — deliberately designed, eroded paths. Adding value as Aloy uncovers hidden ruins circa 2060.

Horizo​​n Zero Dawn是一款开放式世界风格的游戏。 在开放世界中漫游的自由是故事关键目标的双重产物-拯救世界，使其免受远古机器的邪恶接管。 追求进度，运行设置范围，范围从雪，沙漠到丛林。 阿洛伊(Aloy)可以与雄伟的捕食机器进行战斗，并使用旅行脚轮，陷阱，弓箭，箭和主要的选择武器-参谋部将它们击退。 玩家充分利用自由漫游的方式，以跑酷般的敏捷性攀登悬崖。 视觉提示可以通过引导方向(例如，故意设计的腐蚀路径)来帮助游戏的自由。 随着Aloy发现大约2060年的隐藏遗迹而增加价值。

Underneath the hood of the beautifully designed game are game mechanics. Game mechanics drive player actions. Each battle connection, each player movement while climbing a cliff face is individually produced, to enhance the player’s overall freedom of movement — driving home the open world style. Each player movement is communicated to the controller with dynamic vibrations, executed so well in Horizon Zero Dawn, that the player falls victim to exploring the beautiful open world, instead of focusing on the target objective. This win-win scenario adds value to the player experience, as the more playtime the player has, the more the player can memorise in-game controls.

设计精美的游戏引擎背后是游戏机制。 游戏机制推动玩家行动。 每个战斗环节，每位攀登悬崖面Kong的球员动作都是独立制作的，从而增强了玩家的整体行动自由-带回家开放的世界风格。 玩家的每一次动作都通过动态振动传达给控制器，在Horizo​​n Zero Dawn中如此出色地执行，以至于玩家成为探索美丽的开放世界的受害者，而不是专注于目标目标。 这种双赢的局面为玩家的体验增添了价值，因为玩家拥有的游戏时间越长，他们越能记住游戏中的控件。

通过诊断和从错误中恢复的可信度 (Credibility via Diagnosing and Recovering from Errors)

Games are one big problem just waiting to be solved.

游戏是一个亟待解决的大问题。

The core problem is split into hundreds of mini-problems (a la kanban methodology). The game is littered with collectibles and rare items hidden at various points throughout the open-world. To access one of the seldom seen objects, the player is forced to decode a set of 4, wall mounted, digital combination locks, situated next to a door. Graffiti’d on the door face is a list of 4 numbers.

核心问题分为数百个小问题(看板方法)。 游戏中散落着收藏品和稀有物品，这些物品藏在整个开放世界的各个位置。 为了访问很少见到的物体之一，播放器被迫解码位于门旁的一组4个，壁挂式数字密码锁。 门面上的涂鸦是4个数字的列表。

The onus is on the player, to utilise their critical thinking and diagnose the problem into 2 parts: 1) solving what sequence actually means and, 2) how to implement the sequence to obtain a reward. For example how would the player interpret a pattern of 1200, 1500, 1600, 2200? It is 24 hour time. This forces the player to tap into one of their brain’s cognitive motor skills — procedural knowledge — the recognition of patterns vs recalling specific data. The player would sequentially marry the rotating locks up, with the angle resembling each timestamp. Credible due to it’s value of social impact, forcing players to learn something they may not already know.

玩家有责任利用他们的批判性思维并将问题诊断为两个部分：1)解决顺序实际上意味着什么，以及2)如何实施顺序以获得奖励。 例如，玩家将如何解释1200、1500、1600、2200的模式？ 现在是24小时。 这迫使玩家利用大脑的认知运动技能之一( 程序知识 )来识别模式，而不是回忆特定数据。 玩家将依次旋转旋转的锁，与每个时间戳类似的角度。 由于具有社会影响力的价值而令人信服，迫使玩家学习他们可能还不知道的东西。

通过一致性和标准的可发现性 (Findability via Consistency and Standards)

Within the weapons inventory is a 1/4 split circle, split into top/ bottom/ left/ right segments. Each segment is a weapon slot. The positioning of each slot in the full screen menu, directly correlates to the player’s in game weapon dial. The action of assigning a weapon to each slot, forms a mental model, which the player subconsciously memorises.

武器清单中有一个1/4分割圆，分为上/下/左/右部分。 每个段都是一个武器插槽。 全屏菜单中每个插槽的位置都与玩家在游戏中的武器拨盘直接相关。 为每个插槽分配武器的行为形成了一个心理模型，玩家在潜意识中记忆了这一模型。

Due to consistency between the resources and in-game menus, the player’s experience is enhanced. On-the-fly weapon changes can be made in-battle. This is because our brains require less cognitive load when ‘mental mapping’ through consistent models. As a use case example, maybe Player X has an affinity for left positioning over the ‘top/ bottom/ right positioned slots’ therefore they would assign their main weapon to the ‘left slot’. As we go deeper into a world where tech is further becoming an extension of our body, the degree to which we can personalise our tech, is paramount.

由于资源和游戏菜单之​​间的一致性，因此可以增强玩家的体验。 飞行中的武器变更可以在战斗中进行。 这是因为通过一致的模型进行 “ 心理映射 ”时，我们的大脑需要较少的认知负荷。 作为一个用例，玩家X可能对“顶部/底部/右侧位置”上方的左侧位置具有亲和力，因此他们会将主要武器分配给“左侧位置”。 随着我们进入一个世界，技术正在进一步成为我们身体的延伸，我们能够个性化我们的技术的程度至关重要。

这就引出了一个问题…… (This begs the question…)

Other than a reward system, what else can the software/tech/design industry learn from immersive video games like Horizon Zero Dawn? On the surface it appears that our/next generation are wasting away their brains by playing video games; this is definitely not the case. We have learned the future of UX is in the hands of a generation that is subconsciously studying neurological thought process through critical thinking; building mental models and procedural knowledge. Players continuously draw upon cognitive function to navigate through games, developing familiar feel for good UX practices. Practices that will be relevant more than ever, when we are faced with finely tuned virtual/augmented reality norms in the years to come.

除了奖励系统之外，软件/技术/设计行业还能从诸如Horizo​​n Zero Dawn之类的沉浸式视频游戏中学到什么？ 从表面上看，我们/下一代正在通过玩视频游戏浪费他们的大脑。 绝对不是这样。 我们已经知道，UX的未来掌握在通过批判性思维潜意识地研究神经学思维过程的一代人手中。 建立心理模型和程序知识。 玩家不断利用认知功能在游戏中导航，从而为良好的UX习惯培养熟悉的感觉。 当我们面对未来几年中经过微调的虚拟/增强现实规范时，比以往任何时候都重要的实践。