Clearing the game is commonplace for Li Weiji.

As a game journalist, it's his job to dig as deep as possible into the game's gameplay. To achieve this, he usually beats the level repeatedly until he exhausts all the gameplay, details, easter eggs, and endings arranged by the game's designers.

In Li Weiji's view, clearing the game is not only a process of fighting bosses and taking treasures, but also a battle of wits and courage between players and designers.

The level of detail of the game's levels is a direct reflection of the realm of the game designer.

After many years in the industry, Li Weiji has seen levels that are simple to the extreme but exquisite to the extreme, and he has also seen seemingly complex but empty levels.

Of all the levels, the one that impressed him the most was Super Mario Bros.

Released on September 13, 1985, this simple 8-bit pixel game was a fully custom-made game for the FC console.

The game has been praised as the original model of video games, establishing the production concept of characters, game purpose, flow distribution, operability, hidden elements, bosses, miscellaneous soldiers, etc.

On his first day as a game journalist, Li Weiji's first challenge was to write an article about this prehistoric game that has been cleared and thoroughly studied by countless people.

It seems that there is hardly any difficulty in this.

Li Weiji, who had never played this game before, confidently entered the block world of Super Mario Bros. and opened up a real game life from then on.

What catches your eye is the login screen.

This login interface can be said to be the earliest login concept, compared to the current brainwave games, Super Mario Bros. uses the game mode (single or double) as the player's choice, and directly uses the in-game interface as the background.

Seeing this simple picture, Li Weiji felt a little disdainful in his heart.

With a slight glance, the score, coins, level progress, and time taken to clear the level at the top of the login screen are all clear.

"This kind of game in ancient times, really, the quality of garbage graphics hurts the eyes."

Li Weiji, who has played countless realistic games, is really not interested in this kind of interface, and he even thinks that choosing to be a game reporter is an obvious mistake, and it is better to be a painter.

After hesitating in front of this rough landing screen, the game suddenly enters an animated presentation.

The login interface directly uses the game screen, the characters move to the right, and the overall picture changes are extremely continuous, and even Li Weiji didn't feel the slightest abruptness.

In the picture, you can vaguely see a middle-aged uncle with a short stature, wearing a red hat, and red suspenders, automatically walking to the right, no need to ask, this is naturally the protagonist of the game, Mario.

As the screen unfolds, the play space is divided into three layers: the sky, the partition, and the floor, which are shiny question marks and bricks at first glance.

On the floor level with the middle-aged uncle, there was a mushroom with an eyebrow standing diagonally and looking extremely vicious. Li Weiji later searched for information and learned that this monster was not a mushroom but a chestnut boy.

Take a few steps forward, then jump slightly and hit the question mark figure overhead, the question mark figure turns into a hard-looking square, and a gold coin disappears from view with a pleasant money sound and 200 points.

Immediately afterwards, the middle-aged uncle stepped on the mushroom monster worth 100 points, and hit another question mark graphic again, this time there was no gold coin, but a cute red dot mushroom.

The middle-aged uncle jumped on the bricks of the second layer with great force, and the red-dotted mushroom hit him right on him, and he became bigger and thicker.

The thickened middle-aged uncle tried to jump on the higher question mark figure, but he failed to fall back to the floor floor and was blocked by a green water pipe that was as high as him, the middle-aged uncle jumped on the spot and jumped over the obstacle, and the middle-aged uncle was greeted by a new green water pipe that was a head taller than him at noon, and the middle-aged uncle jumped again, and he successfully jumped over the obstacle again.

The music is very light, and the jumping sound effects are simple but straight to the heart.

Watching the middle-aged uncle cross two obstacles higher than himself in a row, Li Weiji couldn't help but want to applaud him.

It's really difficult for people to have the courage to challenge themselves when they reach middle age.

Next is a higher water pipe plus two mushroom monsters, and if nothing else, the middle-aged uncle will definitely jump over the water pipe and step on the mushroom monster to death.

It's a pity that the screen switches, and everything goes back to the beginning.

Li Weiji realized that he really wanted to see what was hidden in the two question marks that the middle-aged uncle did not open, and he knew very well whether there was a more exciting world behind the higher water pipe.

Only then did he realize that the deceptively simple login screen covered almost all the important elements of the game, and that there was an additional tutorial hidden for beginners.

This is really a brilliant design, the login screen itself does not provide any tutorial demonstration options, the purpose of the game designers want the player to enter the game on their own to explore, but the design of the login screen after a period of time to play the tutorial is designed to prevent users from losing users due to other factors such as the unappetizing style of the game at the beginning. Through the tutorial, the progress of the next game can be revealed, giving players a positive feedback.

Subconsciously, Li Weiji pressed the start button.

After entering the game, the background of the entire screen turns black, retaining the information elements of the score, coins, level progress, and time taken to clear the game at the top of the login screen. This loading screen is designed with strong color contrast, in addition to re-clarifying the previous four basic information, it also conveys the most critical new information to the player through the colorful character and the centered position, the character's life.

Li Weiji knows that he has 3 lives and is 1-1 in the world.

The screen then shifts to the initial screen, which is almost identical to the initial login screen.

With the previous novice tutorial, Li Weiji pressed the right arrow button, and the middle-aged uncle, who was originally on the left side of the screen, walked a few steps slowly.

Li Weiji paused the game, and he was thinking about a question: "If the player skips the beginner tutorial, how can he go in which direction?" ”

After staring at the screen for a few minutes, he came to the conclusion that as long as the player was a normal person, he would definitely go to the right.

Why?

Because Super Mario's character is very elaborate in the initial position.

The floor of the Primage screen has 16 squares, and Mario spawns between the 3rd and 4th squares from the left, with the character facing right. The design provides a lot of psychological cues. When players start playing the game, they will not have too much confusion about whether to go left or right, and most players will subconsciously choose to go right to ensure that the next mechanics of the game appear normally.

Break off.

Li Weiji resumed the game and walked to the left.

He always wanted to do something different, but it backfired, and the left side was impassable.

Li Weiji naturally understood that this was a hint of the game, and he turned to the process of moving to the right.

After a few steps, Li Weiji found that the figure that was originally on the left would always remain in the middle of the screen, the eighth square.

"I see. I see. ”

Li Weiji sighed in his heart, he stopped the figure in the grass, and the mushroom monster in front of him was menacing.

"The starting screen is extremely empty, and players have a lot of freedom to try all kinds of things, and they don't have to worry about any traps or enemies causing their own death, so they can get into the operation as quickly as possible."

Li Weiji wrote this sentence casually, but immediately had a question: "What will players who have not read the beginner tutorial do at this time?" ”

First of all, one thing is for sure, the shiny question mark squares will entice players to explore.

With this premise, the oncoming mushroom monster is easy to understand.

Players will subconsciously think that this mushroom monster is an enemy that is hindering the exploration of the shiny question mark.

After carefully observing the mushroom monster, Li Weiji finally discovered where this subconscious came from.

First of all, this mushroom monster has a clear expression, and its eyebrows are slightly upturned, giving people a hint that it is not easy to mess with.

The second is that the direction of movement of the mushroom monster is the opposite of the direction of the player's movement, and people will subconsciously classify the person or object that is opposite to them as hostile.

In this way, the game successfully establishes the basis for the player's interaction with the game by giving the player a target to explore and a mushroom monster that may be an enemy: the player needs to constantly move through obstacles in order to explore the question mark square.

Thinking about this, Li Weiji pulled out the gold coin, and the mushroom monster walked slowly.

It's another fork in the road.

Li Weiji, who has read the novice tutorial, naturally knows that he can step on this mushroom monster, and according to the fact that Mario can jump, the player can also jump from the top of the mushroom monster, but what will the player who has not read the beginner tutorial face?

Thinking of this, Li Weiji stopped the short middle-aged uncle in place, and the mushroom monster stepped forward and hit it with both feet, and as the rhythmic syllables sounded, Mario seemed to be burned by magma, jumped up on the spot and spread his hands and feet to quickly fall off the screen.

"As expected, this mushroom monster is an untouchable and hostile character." Li Weiji watched as the game interface turned black again, and the health value became 2.

There are 2 lives left, and you can continue to do experiments.

This time, Li Weiji directly used the jump to step over the mushroom monster, and the mushroom monster continued to walk to the left without looking back.

"Coupled with the option of stepping on mushrooms, there are three situations in total. In either case, players can gain a certain amount of information through their own decisions. Moreover, the game has just begun, and even if the player collides with the mushroom monster and dies unexpectedly, they can still quickly return to the game without any repetitive fatigue. Li Weiji muttered, "Trying quickly and repeatedly is indeed the best way for players to build awareness of the game." ”

Back in the game, Li Weiji pulled out the gold coin at the first question mark.

The number of coins above the game becomes 01 and the score becomes 000200.

Does this method imply that there is a hidden element when the coin becomes 99 or the score reaches 99999?

Li Weiji was aroused, and the villain in his heart secretly clenched his fists and said: "Set off for gold coin 99." ”

As the game progresses, three question marks appear in front of it, two of which are above Mario's head, caught between three dangling bricks, and one higher up in the dangling bricks.

Instead of imitating the second question mark of the beginner's tutorial and eating the red-dotted mushroom, he jumped up and hit the bricks, and when he watched the beginner's tutorial, he really wanted to top a brick that was different from other elements.

The bricks are lifted and dropped by the little characters without any change.

"It looks like this brick is just decoration."

Li Weiji had no choice but to open the second question mark in the beginner's tutorial, and the red-dotted mushroom appeared and slid to the right.

At this time, you can see the difference between Li Weiji and others, he controls the little character to walk quickly to the bricks near the water pipe, the red-dotted mushroom just slid on, he jumped hard, the brick was jacked up, and the red-dotted mushroom was suddenly flying by the brick.

Li Weiji laughed out loud.

From the moment he knew he could lift the bricks, he wanted to use the bricks to lift the red-dotted mushrooms as well.

In fact, he did.

A dream come true makes people laugh from the bottom of their hearts.

This kind of laughter is very simple.

After laughing, the red-dotted mushroom crashes into the corner of the green water pipe and rebounds and slides towards the middle-aged uncle, and Mario inevitably becomes thick.

Pause the game.

Li Weiji once again fell into deep thought: Isn't this mushroom a must-eat?

To test the idea, he restarted the game, expertly eating gold coins and stepping on monsters, pushing out red-dotted mushrooms again, and then wittily saving them on the fly.

The red-dotted mushroom slowly glided on the suspended brick road, and Li Weiji let it fall naturally.

The cute mushroom lands on the ground and continues to glide to the right, hitting the green water pipe and bouncing back to finally come to Uncle Mario.

Li Weiji smiled slightly and read the previous archive.

The red-dotted mushroom slowly glided on the suspended brick road, and Li Weiji let it fall naturally.

Seeing that the mushroom was approaching, he controlled the angle to jump, and the little character tripped over the brick above his head and fell back to the ground, eating the mushroom again.

"No, no, no."

Li Weiji leaned in front of the screen and waved his hand and shouted as if he was talking to a friend, and re-read the file.

The red-dotted mushroom slowly glided on the suspended brick road, and Li Weiji let it fall naturally.

This time, Li Weiji carefully controlled the character to jump, and he stepped over the head of the mushroom that could make Mario bigger.

Seeing that the red-dotted mushroom was about to disappear on the left side of the screen, he regretted it and hurriedly chased after him, but after all, he was still slow.

Li Weiji was in a hurry, and immediately re-read the file, this time he took the initiative to catch up with the red-dotted mushroom.

After a brief flicker, Mario grows louder with a grunt.

The murmuring sound was like a cry of hunger, or a crunch of bubbles slowly emerging from the water.

The combination of the two gives the feeling of eating and getting bigger.

Looking at Uncle Mario, who had a stiffer belly, Li Weiji jumped back and forth a few times, neither jumping higher nor farther, and eating red-dotted mushrooms seemed to just get bigger.

At this time, there are still two question marks on the interface, one high and one low, that are not opened.

Li Weiji controlled the larger Mario to eat the gold coins on the upper floor first, and then jumped back to the floor to eat the question mark next to the bricks.

At this moment, he had an idea, and controlled the larger character to press hard against the brick.

Bricks scattered.

Getting bigger Mario can break bricks.

Li Weiji was overjoyed, he ate the remaining gold coin, and then smashed the remaining two bricks in one go.

Looking at the 3 gold coins and 1850 points above the screen, Li Weiji sat in front of the screen in a daze, regardless of the countdown of the game.

He was still thinking about the same question: how do players who haven't seen the beginner's tutorial play?

"Let's say I've never seen a beginner's tutorial. I instinctively dread the shroomroom monster when I saw it, and when I tried a few times and managed to jump or stomp on it, I got to grips with the game's main point of interaction: jumping. At this time, I saw four question mark squares, and my first reaction was to interact with the question mark with jumping. There are three types of interaction here, the first is touching, and you will know that it has no effect immediately after touching. The second case is to step on the foot, jumping up on the question mark and stepping on it hard will not have any effect. Since stepping on it from the top down doesn't work, you have to go up from the top. ”

"Oops." Li Weiji clapped his hands and said, "Actually, it's not so complicated, these bricks are all on top of the character's head, and jumping up to top the question mark is the most intuitive behavior." After the player tops the question mark, gold coins and a melodious sound effect appear, which completes the interaction of the first reward mechanism in the game. Even if the player doesn't know the use of the gold at this time and doesn't notice the change in the score, it can still give the player the most positive feedback, and at the same time clarify the logic that you can get the gold by hitting the question mark. ”

"I'll see three question mark squares next up, and it's natural to think of using the question mark to get the reward. At this point, I'll go to the second question mark. As a result, the second question mark turned out to be not a gold coin, but a red-dotted mushroom. Although this mushroom is significantly different from the previous mushroom monsters, it can make people feel nervous somewhat. My first instinct was to dodge, and if I wanted to dodge, I had to retreat, but there was no way on the left, and the only way was to jump. But I'm under the bricks, and it's easy to trip over the bricks and not be able to jump. ”

Thinking of the experiment he had done, Li Weiji had to admit that the player had a high probability of eating this mushroom.

"Once you eat this mushroom, the character gets bigger, which is extremely positive feedback, and the player will feel stronger, but also be sure that what comes out of the question mark is the reward that the game gives to the player. This increases the player's impulse to explore other question marks, and when exploring other question marks, it is possible to find that they can break bricks when they get bigger. ”

Li Weiji wrote down his own experience, and finally came to the conclusion that through the above short and powerful game process, the designer has made the basic gameplay and interaction mode of the player psychologically through various designs.

That's textbook onboarding.

After a short novice start, Li Weiji is completely obsessed with the rough graphics of Super Mario Bros.

In order to write a better analytical essay, he shut himself in the door and began to experiment day and night with what he thought was possible.

Three days later, Lai Yi almost thought he was dead and made a special request to the peace system to violently break down the door.

The peace system first sent a warning notice to Li Weiji's neuronal network management center, but Li Weiji was addicted to the game and ignored it.

In desperation, the peace system had no choice but to violently break down the door.

With the help of the shield-wielding robot, Li Yi successfully entered Li Weiji's room, only to see an extremely bright light in the dim light, in which a person was naked, unkempt, sitting with his eyes blurred, and his hands on his crotch kept shaking.

Li Yi hurriedly dispersed the shield-wielding robot and walked towards his friend alone, only to get closer, and a sour smell rushed to his nose.

Enduring the disgusting taste, Li Yi took a closer look, only to find that Li Weiji's body was stiff, his vertebrae were clearly visible, and his whole head was about to burrow into the strong light, and what was worse was that his boxer shorts turned into a triangle because of the back and forth rubbing to expose half of his buttocks.

"Lao Ji."

Li Yi patted his friend's shoulder, Li Weiji shook his shoulder twice, ignoring the person behind him.

Enduring the dazzling bright light, Li Yi tried to see the contents clearly, this should be a game, in the game, a vague villain is bouncing around the ugly square world.

In Li Yi's impression, his old friend is the kind of person who can endure the strongest painful feedback in pursuit of realism, and it is absolutely impossible for him to play this kind of grubbish quality game.

Therefore, Li Yi's first reaction was that Li Weiji was brainwashed by some evil organization, and he immediately unplugged the power of the strong light.

The room was completely dark.

In the darkness, only a noisy clattering sound was heard from Li Weiji's crotch.

"Hello, Room 25, 13th Floor, Building 7, Living Area 0119 needs emergency services."

"A request for emergency has been received, please adjust the ambient brightness to 270 nits. The medical system is applying for holographic projection permissions, do you agree to grant permissions? ”

Li Yi hurriedly turned on the light, adjusted the light in Li Weiji's room to the specified value according to the instructions, and responded at the same time: "Agree to authorize." ”

"Authorization successful. Holographic projection transmission is being prepared, please keep the ambient altitude at 270 nits. ”

Moments later, a doctor assigned by the medical system appeared out of thin air.

The doctor mechanically asked, "Which one needs emergency services?" ”

Li Yi pointed to Li Weiji.

The doctor circled around Li Weiji a few times and said: "His vital signs have been detected through the neuronal network, and there is no disease phenomenon, so there is no need for first aid." ”

Li Yi hurriedly said: "His current state is extremely bad, and he has been in a dull state for many days, and his body must lack vitamin D. Prescribe him some medicines for hydration, vitamin D, calcium, iron, zinc, and tin. ”

The doctor pondered for a moment and replied, "The request is reasonable, the relevant medicine will arrive through the conveyor belt within ten minutes, please pay attention to collect it." Remember to take him to the sun. ”

The doctor disappeared, and Li Weiji also put down the black plastic equipment in his hand.

He closed his eyes and stretched his hands, and the joints of his body snapped at the same time.

Looking at Li Yi's helpless expression, Li Weiji smiled and asked, "How many days?" ”

Li Yi took out his clothes and pants from the messy ground and threw them to Li Weiji, and replied, "It's been three days." ”

Li Weiji took his clothes and pants and didn't wear them, and let out a breath of turbidity: "I'm really tired." It's been a long time since I've stayed up like this. I'll go take a shower, you clean up for me. ”

After speaking, he walked straight out of the room and walked towards the bathroom, Li Yi hurriedly stopped: "You can't slow down first, but don't wash and die suddenly?" ”

Li Weiji laughed twice: "Okay, I'll take a walk and wash again." ”

It's a walk, but it's actually walking back and forth in the living room.

In about ten minutes, Li Yi packed up the house and threw a bag of sundries into the garbage transfer entrance, pointed to the door that fell to the ground and said, "You can directly open a family permission for me, so you can save so much trouble." ”

Li Weiji shook his head: "Family authority is only open to wives and children." This is the principle. ”

Li Yi said disdainfully: "My family authority is only open to my wife and children." After that, he opened up the access to his house to Li Weiji.

Li Weiji did not refute with a smile, and ran into the bathroom to take a shower with a grin.

When Li Weiji came out in a bathrobe, the door had been reinstalled, and Li Yi held several bags of potions in his hand and smiled evilly.

Li Weiji's expression was distorted, he took the medicine bag, closed his eyes and drank it all.

A bag of potion entered his abdomen, and Li Weiji fell directly to the ground, his face was miserable, his eyes rolled white, and saliva flowed out of the corners of his mouth.

Seeing that Li Weiji looked more like he was sick than before he didn't drink the medicine, Li Yi laughed heartlessly.

After a long time, Li Weiji took a deep breath and stood up straight from the ground, his face was ruddy, his facial features were upright, and his eyes were bright.

"It's cool." Li Weiji took out a cola from the refrigerator and threw it to Li Yi, "Knowing that I am allergic to vitamin D orally, he still prescribed me medicine." ”

Li Yi took a sip of Coke, sat down next to Li Weiji and said with a smile: "Anyway, it's just drooling, you drooling is really good, quite stupid." ”

Li Weiji scratched his thighs and said, "I was careless in making friends." I'm fine, you can go back. ”

Li Yi was willing to move his nest, came to Coke again, and asked, "Why are you staying in the house for three days?" ”

"Play games."

"That bouncing around?"

"Yes."

"Fun?"

"In order to play it, I deliberately bought some antique equipment from the black market, do you think it's fun?"

Li Yi remembered the glass screen that glowed with strong light, as well as the black equipment in Li Weiji's crotch, and asked, "Can I play for a while?" ”

Li Yi shouldn't have asked this, because Li Weiji's door was slammed open again three days later.

This time it was naturally Miao Miao who slammed the door.

Miao Miao was furious, she saw two sweaty men shaking their heads and laughing in a bright light, and couldn't help asking, "***** are you watching?" ”

Li Yi waved at her, and Li Weiji looked unhappy to give her up his place and handed her his gamepad.

I saw Li Yi whispering a few words next to Miao Miao, Miao Miao crossed her skirt, and her hands kept shaking in front of her crotch.

After that day, Li Yi didn't have to hide Miao Miao's game.

After that day, Li Weiji completely lost his antique game console.

After that day, Li Weiji became a game reporter and worked for five years.

Sitting at the door of Lindeno's tent, Li Weiji remembered the past.

Thinking of the middle-aged uncle who was bouncing around in a complex and changeable world in order to find his beloved, the corners of his mouth were full of smiles.

In retrospect, Super Mario Bros. is a game that may seem rough on the surface, but it actually embodies a major part of the game's design today.

The seemingly simple level design and map element placement incorporates a lot of psychological guidance into it.

Through reasonable arrangement, players can gradually understand the game step by step according to the game designer's ideas and be proficient in the game.

Isn't it the same with Guild Wars?

All three of the current novice trainings have followed and carried forward this ancient and effective method of facilitation.

I'm glad I met "Super Mario Bros. in 1985".

I'm glad to meet "Guild Wars" in 2050.

Thinking of this, Li Weiji turned out to be downbeat about not being able to quit the game at the moment.