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What is flow and how can we use it to inform game design practice.
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Game Design 1Flow
What is Flow?
• A theory of the “optimal experience”
• that experience, you all know it - where you lose yourself, time disappears and you are completely immersed in your current activity.
• being in the zone
• Hungarian psychology professor
• studies happiness and creativity
• his book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” (1990) is hugely influential
Flow
• Csikszentmihalyi was fascinated with artists who would get ‘lost’ in their work.
• But he realised that the same phenomenon was present in other fields - climbing, playing music, playing games, martial arts
Antecedants for Flow
• One must be involved in an activity with a clear set of goals and progress.
• The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback.
• One must have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and his or her own perceived skills.
Experience of Flow
• Intense focused concentration on present
• merging of action and awareness
• loss of reflective self-consciousness
• strong sense of personal agency
• distortion of temporal experience
• experience is intrinsically rewarding
Flow and Games
• Flow has been a key theory within games design since early 2000s.
• Jenova Chen (Journey / Flower / Cloud) helped publicise the theory with his Flow game
Applying Flow to games
• Characteristic 1: Games should have concrete goals with manageable rules.
• “I'm lost. An NPC just told me what I was supposed to do, but I was distracted by the loot in the middle of the room and the Giant Spiders coming at me from all directions. It doesn't help that that I can't access the NPC anymore, or that all of the rooms in this dungeon are the same shape and color. Lost. I have no idea where to go or how I'm supposed to get there. Fifteen minutes pass before I find the puzzle I need to complete. But now I have no idea which of the 20 quest items in my inventory I should use to solve it. After a while, I give up in frustration.”
Why concrete goals?
• We have limits on our information processing and attentional capabilities.
• Our problem solving ability is affected by information processing and attentional issues.
• Achievable, concrete goals are rewarding
Applying Flow to games
• Characteristic 2: Games should only demand actions that fit within a player's capabilities.
• I know I'm supposed to swipe in the opposite direction of the Fiend's attack. This should parry his attack, opening him up for my own counter. But I just can't do it. Whether it is lack of reflexes, or the fact that I just started playing the game, I'm hopelessly inept. I'm also seriously frustrated.
Why limit demands?
• Stress and performance affect Flow.
• Goal difficulty and player perseverance
Applying Flow to games
• Characteristic 3: Games should give clear and timely feedback on player performance.
• I did that right, right? Is the axe I just made actually in my inventory? Is this action adding to my enchantment abilities?
Why feedback?
• Innate learning & conditioning mechanism
• connects actions to goals
Applying Flow to games
• Characteristic 4: Games should remove any extraneous information that inhibits concentration.
• These animated spell and item icons across the bottom and top of my screen sure look cool! See the particle effects on my Ice Storm spell... Wait -- is someone attacking me?
Why restrict info?
• Again, inherent limitations on information processing.
• Working memory is 7(ish) items
Further Reading
• http://j.mp/gd1flow