儿童游戏设计十大原则编辑本段回目录
作者：Carla Engelbrecht Fisher, Ed.D
在于英国Sheffield举行的儿童媒体大会上，我做了题为“未来10年的游戏设计十原则”的主题演讲。
我并不喜欢预言未来。但我的主题演讲有一个优势，那就是，我可以依靠那些基本不变的东西——儿童的成长方式。确实，现在的儿童发育进程缩短了，因为他们越来越早地接触到能让他们掌握技能的新事物，特别是科技相关的。
但儿童发育中的许多特点仍然是一样的，那就是我的预言的基石——发育心理学和游戏技术趋势的交叉。以下是我的演讲的要点：
children-playing-video-games(from womansday)
1、他山之石可以攻玉。我在以前的文章中说得很清楚，我们应该到其他市场上寻找我们可以用于儿童的技术。让其他市场完善技术，然后等到成本大大降低时，我们再把那些技术挪用到新市场。这事要尽早开始做了！
2、促进对话性玩法。这有很多种说法如“合作游戏”、“共同沉浸”，但根本思想都是一起玩游戏。Jordan Shapiro在Forbes.com发表的文章《研究表明玩游戏有利于儿童》中谈到了这个话题。我们还在Fred Rogers早教和儿童媒体中心探讨了“通过应用促进家长与孩子之间的互动活动”。
3、双重受众的游戏设计思路。Sesame和Pixar是针对两种受众（家长与孩子）的创作领域的主导。在它们的作品中，有些笑话可能孩子会摸不着头脑，而家长却哈哈大笑。Sesame Street的《Upside Downton Abbey》和《Birdwalk Empire》都是经典案例。
同样地，儿童游戏也可能让家长感兴趣，可能是在剧情、幽默可关卡设计水平上受到吸引，例如《超级马里奥银河》和《超级马里奥赛车》。《超级马里奥银河》中其实有两重游戏——一是进展游戏，二是第二名玩家对着屏幕操作遥控器捡宝石（这个玩法更容易一些）。《超级马里奥赛车》会自动调整能量道具，以帮助处于下风的玩家，使比赛保持势均力敌的状态。
4、支援系统。《超级马里奥赛车》还使用这种工具帮助那些落后中的玩家。在课堂教学中，支援活动涉及多个步骤，如吸引学生的注意力、调整任务、模拟任务和提供沉浸感等。
传统的支援模式大多专注于通过暂停所有玩法的“学习时间”来修改错误的答案，而其他模式则让学习者有机会以更富探索性的方式体验内容。无论你采用更传统的方式还是更灵活的方式，基本上是为了呈现产品的目标。
5、拥抱数据。支援系统的一个重要部分是我们如何理解和使用数据来识别遇到困难的玩家（见下一点）。但数据提供的另一个机会是，使得帮助玩家在游戏中获悉他们的进步成为可能，以及为以后的玩法制定策略。许多游戏都已经以不同方式运用了数据，如《光晕3》、《QatQi》和《The Eyeballing Game》。
6、提供即时的、情境化的反馈。数据还使即时反馈，或者说是“提供关于玩家如何操作和使用即时信息来改进体验的想法”，成为可能。纸上测试也是一种反馈循环，但所需时间较长。而游戏却提供了快速评估学习和渐进改变的机会。
但这些数据必须情境化。现在，我为大多数追踪儿童进步的应用感到烦恼的是，它们提供信息的方式可能只能让家长感到不安，而不是让孩子知道怎么处理那些信息。这是一个艰难的任务，但我相信这种情况会一直改善的。
7、使用成就刺激新的游戏方式。进度追踪还体现为成就。许多设计良好的成就系统，如《植物大战僵尸》，其实要求玩家彻底地转换思路来达到目标。如果设计得好，成就也许可以引导玩家思考新的游戏策略，甚至促进学习。
8、与众不同仍是竞争力。有数据表明，苹果应用商店中有近10万的流行的教育类应用。但是，不要急着开发那些ABC应用，除非你有钱有精力有强大的设计跟迪士尼及其他巨头相抗衡。即使应用商店如此拥挤了，与众不同仍然能杀出一条血路。这个想法总是让我感到有点儿难过，所以我必须把这条列出来。我看到太多新成立的工作室把目标对准已经饱和的领域。
9、促进分散式学习。我们都知道临时抱佛脚的学习效果不如反复学习（游戏邦注：也叫作分散式学习）。在手机应用和游戏中加入插话式内容是很普遍的，也是很有意义的，这意味着我们有新的方式促进分散式学习。
10、尽早测试、经常测试、调整、重复。这一点不解释。因为我还想多奉上一个预言！
11、促进探索和好奇心。我喜欢字母和数字。但游戏的一个优点是鼓励学习和探索。随着我们更加理解如何促进学习，游戏将在这方面发挥前所未有的重要作用。
以上就是我对2013年游戏设计的预测。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）
10 Game Design Principles for the Next 10 Years
by Carla Engelbrecht Fisher, Ed.D
At Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield, England, I gave the presentation “10 Game Design Principles for the Next 10 Years.” (By the way, they smartly had bloggers summarize all the sessions. A great read!)
I don’t love predicting the future. But the good thing about this talk is that I could rely on things that are fairly constant. The way kids develop. Yes, sure there’s developmental compression, where kids are exposed to ideas earlier and earlier and where they’re mastering skills, especially around technology, at earlier ages.
But still, many things remain the same about childhood developmental milestones, and so that’s where I focused my talk — at the intersection of developmental psychology and gaming technology trends. You can flip through the slides and here’s a snapshot summary of the points as well.
1. Look for inspiration everywhere. I’ve made it pretty clear in past posts that we should look to other markets for technology that we can reappropriate for children. Let other markets perfect the tech, then swoop in and implement it for a new market when the cost is dramatically reduced. It’s only going to get easier to do!
2. Foster dialogic play. This increasingly goes by a variety of names – co-playing, joint media engagement, and dialogic play. But it’s the idea of engaging in play together. Jordan Shapiro at Forbes.com wrote a bit on the topic in “Research Says Screen Time Can Be Good For Your Kids.” We’ve also been talking about it with the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media in this post about parents and children interacting with apps.
3. Practice Dual-Premise Game Design. Sesame and Pixar are the kings at dual-premise writing, or the idea of writing to two audiences (e.g. parents and children). Some jokes will go right over kids’ heads but amuse the parents. Sesame Street’s Upside Downton Abbey and Birdwalk Empire segments are classic examples.
Games for kids have the same opportunities to engage parents on their level at the same time. It might be in the writing and humor of the game or it might be in the level design, as Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Kart. Super Mario Galaxy has two types of play – one that’s actually navigating the game and a second, easier, option where a second player points at the screen (with the remote) to pick up gems around the world. Super Mario Kart automatically adjusts power-ups to help players who have fallen behind catch up, thus leveling the field.
4. Scaffold. The tools used in Super Mario Kart also apply to the idea of scaffolding users. Scaffolding is the help structure we implement to assist users who are struggling. In classrooms, scaffolding involves numerous steps including grabbing the student’s attention, adjusting the task, modeling the task, and providing encouragement.
While traditional models of scaffolding largely focus on correcting wrong answers via a learning moment where all gameplay stops, other models provide opportunities for learners to play with the content in a more exploratory way. The goals of your product can largely deliver whether you take a more traditional route or if you have the flexibility to play around a bit more.
5. Embrace data. A significant part of scaffolding is how we interpret and use data to identify players who are struggling (see the next point!). But another opportunity of data is to make it available in game to help players understand their progress as well as to strategize future gameplay. A number of games have done this in various ways — Halo 3, QatQi, and The Eyeballing Game.
6. Provide real-time, contextualized feedback. Data also enables real-time feedback, or the idea of providing ongoing information on how the player is doing and using that to improve the experience. Paper-based test are an example of this feedback loop, though it can take a long time to play out. Games offer opportunities to assess learning and make incremental changes at a fast-moving pace.
But the data must be contextualized. My big bugaboo with most child-progress-tracking apps these days is that they provide information in a way that may only make a parent paranoid, rather than offering ideas on what to do with that information. It’s a tough challenge but one that I think we’ll see evolve over time.
7. Use achievements to motivate new ways of playing. Progress tracking also shows up as achievements. Many well-designed achievement systems, such as those in Plants vs Zombies, actually require you to radically shift your thinking in order to achieve the goal. Designed in the right way, achievements have the potential to guide players to new strategies, even in learning.
8. Be different. Some estimates are that there are nearly 100,000 active educational apps in the App Store. Don’t rush to make an ABC app unless you have the power and money and amazing design to compete with Disney and the other big ones. Even with so many apps in the store, there is opportunity to differentiate. It always makes me a little sad that I need to include this, but I see far too many start-ups targeting already saturated areas.
9. Create distributed learning opportunities. We all know cramming for the test is not as effective as repeated exposures to material (otherwise known as distributed learning). Episodic content is common and interesting to do on mobile and in games, which means new opportunities for fostering distributed learning.
10. Test early. Test often. Adjust. Repeat. No explanation needed here, I hope. Right?
And because I like to over-deliver on my promises… a bonus prediction!
11. Foster discovery and curiosity. I love letters and numbers. But one of the things that games are good at is encouraging a love of learning and an exploratory mindset. As we continue to better understand how to foster STEM learning, games are going to play an ever-increasing role. Check out my post on 50 STEM games for more thoughts here!
So, I guess we’ll see how I did in 2023…(source:kidscreen)
