Programming
Control flow
Game Design
A state of sustained focus, pleasure, and enjoyment. A feeling of complete and energized focus in an activity with a high level of enjoyment and fulfillment. It was studied extensively by pyschologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
When a game experience is interesting enough that it holds the player's focus intensely for long, capturing his complete attention and imagination for a long period, he enters "flow." That is exactly the feeling game designers want players to enjoy.
Key components necessary for creating flow:
- Clear goals: when out goals are clear, we are able to more easily stay focused on our task. When goals are unclear, we are not "into" our task, for we aren't at all certain whether out current action are useful.
- No distractions: Distractions steal focus from our task. No focus, no flow.
- Direct feedback: If every time we take an action, we have to wait before we know what effect the action caused, we will quickly become distracted and lose focus on our task. When feedback is immediate, we can easily stay focused.
- Continuous challenging: Human beings love a challenge. But it must be a challenge we think we can achieve. If we start to think we can't achieve it, we feel frustrated, and our minds start seeking an activity more likely to be rewarding. On the other hand, if the challenge is too easy, we feel bored, and again, our minds start seeking more rewarding activities.
Flow activities must manage to stay in the narrow margin of challenge that lies between boredom and frustration, for both of these unpleasant extremes cause our mind to change its focus to a new activity. Csikszentmihalyi calls this margin the "flow channel." Keeping someone in the flow channel is difficult since player skill level changes. As skill increases, you must present them with commensurate challenges. For traditional games, this primarily means seeking out more challenging opponents. In videogames, this means the sequence of levels usually gets more challenging. Players with a lot of skill can move through lower levels quickly until they come to the level that challenges them. This connection between skill and speed of finishing a level keeps skilled players from getting bored. Players who persist enough to win the game are rare. Most players eventually reach a level where they spend so much time in the frustration zone that they give up. Whether that's good is debateable. Many players are frustrated, but winning is an accomplishment for the skilled players.
Moving straight up the flow channel is best in some designers' minds, but moving up in a sine wave within the flow channel is also championed. Option 1 keeps the game from ending on anxiety or boredom Option 2 feels more interesting to the player, as a repeating cycle of increasing challenge followed by reward then ramped up challenge. Take 3 shots to kill enemies, get a gun that reduces that to 2 shots, feel powerful for a bit, suddenly find new enemies that take three or four shots to kill even with the new gun taking the challenge to new heights. This cycle of tense and release, tense and release comes up again and again in design and may be inherent to human enjoyment. Too much tension wears us out, while too much relaxation bored us. Fluctuating gives us both excitement and relaxation with variety and anticipation.
(The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell, Carnegie Mellon University, 2008. Page 118-122, http://www.lostgarden.com/)
Lens #18: The Lens of Flow
To use this lens, consider what is holding your player's focus. Ask yourself these questions:
- Does my game have clear goals? If not, how can I fix that?
- Are the goals of the player the same goals I intended?
- Are there parts of the game that distract players to the point they forget their goal? If so, can these distractions be reduced, or tied into the game goals?
- Does my game provide a steady stream of not-too-easy, not-too-hard challenges, taking into account the fact that the player's skills may be gradually improving?
- Are the player's skills improving at the rate I had hoped? If not, how can I change that?
To test for flow, you must observe players for long periods. A game that keeps someone in flow the first few times may become boring or frustrating later. Flow is easy to miss when observing. In singleplayer games, it often involves quiet withdrawal, possibly muttering to themselves. Maybe they will be slow to respond or irritated with questions. In multiplayer, players will communicate with each other enthusiastically, constantly focused on the game. Watch for the event that moves them out of the flow channel so you can prevent that. Also, flow is when you work best, so analyze how to keep yourself in flow while working.
(The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell, Carnegie Mellon University, 2008. Page 118-123, http://www.lostgarden.com/)