<aside> đź’ˇ Note: This is only one interpretation of building strong game mechanics, please feel free to comment and share others!

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THE FLOW THEORY APPLIED TO GAME DESIGN

In the 1970s a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi experimentally evaluated the flow. He found’s that a person’s skill and the difficulty of a task interact with a result of cognitive and emotional states.

In resume, Csikszentmihalyi looks at what makes us find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities.

source: ted.com

https://gamztube.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.jpg

The flow is a mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing. It is a state and a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of an activity.

In game design, the flow is an important factor to take in consideration if you want to create player engagement. Here is the list of elements that can influence and affect the flows in video games.

Rewards: Intrinsically rewards are constantly obtained by the player as real and instant rewards.

Clear goals: The players have clear goals and know what to achieves. There’s is no question about it and this element is important to be clear for the entire player progression through the game.

Loss of consciousness: The flow works well in video games when the player doesn’t have to concentrate on what he’s doing to achieve an action. This is the state for the player is the merging of action and awareness.

Loss sense of time: The player is hooked by the activities that he’s doing and doesn’t realize that the time flies while doing it.

Direct and immediate feedback: The player is guided by the feedback of the game and know what and how much to succeed.

The balance between player skills and challenge: The challenge of the activity is neither too easy or too difficult. The challenge is constantly adapted to the player’s skill. Even if this seems to be obvious, this is where most of the game failed and I will explain why later.

The player controls the situation and the activity: The player feels that he can successfully beat the challenge. The objective for him seems reachable.


PINBALL IS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF FLOW

PINBALL, (I know, I’m old) is a great example of flow. I am a huge fan of pinball. It is one of my ex-colleague that give me that example and I have to agree with him. all the elements needed to create the flow state of mind to the player is in the design of a pinball. Let.s take a look at the video and try to identify the elements listed above in the video sequence.

source: plunder pinball youtube