[0:0]Hey, my name is Erik Hazzard and I hope you’ll join me for a discussion about game design, at a higher level.
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[0:12]In this episode, we’re gonna talk about what psychologists call “Flow”. Even if you don’t know what it means, don’t worry - I guarantee you’ve experienced it. Our goals today - understand what flow is, and look at game design through the lens of flow.
[0:28]If we’re successful - I’ll be able to convince you that you can enjoy any game, even a game you think you’d hate, if when you play it, you can achieve this state called “Flow.”
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[0:45] Level 1 Into
[0:52] It’s 10 PM and you wanna play a quick game before bed. You load up your favorite game - maybe it’s counterstrike, minecraft, league of legends, civilization, street fighter - whatever.
You start playing, and you’re really getting into it. It’s just challenging enough - just at the cusp of your skill level. You’re timing your attacks flawlessly, you’re out-witting your opponent, you’re pushing your problem solving skills to the limit. Whatever you’re doing, you’re so involved that it feels almost effortless. You know exactly what to do to accomplish your goals and you’re in absolute control. All your attention is entirely focused on the game - nothing is distracting you from playing. You’re totally involved.
Then you glance at the clock, and although it seems like you just started…it’s already 3am.
[1:40] This experience happens to me all the time, and, even if you’re not a hardcore gamer, I’m sure it’s happened to you as well. This experience is what we’re gonna talk about today. This experience called “Flow”.
Maybe you didn’t know this phenomenon had a name. Maybe you just refer to this kind of experience as “fun,” or “being in the zone.” Maybe there are some games that you just can’t, or won’t, get into, because you think they’re not for you because you can’t get into flow when you play them.
[2:16]So We have two goals today:
- First, to understand what defines Flow.
- Second, to use Flow as lens for analyzing game design.
Once we have this understanding, you’ll believe me when I say that you can enjoy ANY game, even one you think you’d hate, if when you play it, you can achieve flow.
Maybe you’ve played a variety of genres and experienced flow in all of them, so this statement sounds self evident - but if not, bear with me. Let’s try to understand this experience called Flow.
[2:45] Let’s start with a broad, generic definition. We can define flow with two words: Total Involvement.
That example of playing a game and losing track of time - we could summarize that as “being totally involved in the game”. Or, another way to put it: “being in the zone”
But what does this definition tell us? It’s too broad to be very useful. Without a formal system for classifying flow experiences, how can we know if we’re even having one? How can we use it as a perspective for designing games? There’s definitely something different between mindlessly watching TV and the kind of engaging, rich gameplay experience I described earlier.
[3:24] So, “Total Involvement” is a start, but we need more. And we’re going to get it by more formally defining Flow. There’s lots of white papers and books about Flow - the canonical one is by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced Me-high Cheek-sent-me-high), which you can find in the show notes.
So let’s take that broad idea of “total involvement” and break it down by defining Flow with these three rules:
- Skill vs. Challenge.
- Clear goals and immediate feedback
- Fully focused attention
These rules feed into each other, and as we’ll learn - it’s not about what you’re doing, but about how you’re doing it. And as we’ll learn - it’s not about what you’re doing, it’s how you’re doing it.
[4:17] Rule 1: Skill vs. Challenge
When people talk about ‘difficultly curves’, this is what they’re talking about. Skill vs. challenge means that your skill is well matched to the game’s challenges. That, while you’ll struggle, you’re equipped enough to overcome whatever the game throws at you.
Ideally, the ratio of skill to challenge is roughly 1:1 - the better you get, the more challenging the game becomes. If the game is too challenging, it’s easy to become frustrated or anxious, and you won’t experience flow. If the game is too easy though, it can be too boring, so you won’t be challenged to do your best, and you won’t experience flow.
[4:59] For example, take Mario - the first one, for Nintendo. Let’s assume you’ve never played a game before, so your initial skill is about zero. So, the first challenges you face are figuring out what the buttons on the controller do. Now, if you’ve played games for a long time it’s hard to remember what that first learning experience was like. It was actually a bit harder than it sounds. Not terribly difficult of course, but, you didn’t have the skill coming in, so it was a fitting challenge. After you learn how to move Mario for the first time, now you need to learn which way to make him run, and once you figure that out, you know, to run to the right, you soon see a goomba and you probably die.
[5:44] Then, the challenge is how to get past the goomba without dying - you press some more buttons, you learn how to jump, your skill increases and you’re now equipped to get past that goomba, break some bricks, and continue on with the level.
The basic idea is that there are all these challenges that you must overcome, and you do that by getting better. Obvious, right? You learn how to run, how to jump, how to time your jumps so you avoid goombas, and then how to kill the goombas by jumping on them, how to run and jump at the same time, how to shoot fireballs to take out enemies, the list goes on.
[6:21] Now, let’s say you’ve mastered all these skills which might seem pretty basic to you. Well, then the challenge is to beat the game. After you’ve mastered that, you can even take it a step further - you could do speed runs. Can you beat your best time? The better you get at the game, the more challenging it becomes - how fast can you beat it without using any warps, without losing any lives, or taking any damage?
[6:50] As you get better, you’re able to see the game differently. Depending on your skill level, the CORE of what you’re doing is different. At first, the core of what you’re doing is figuring out how the buttons work - you’re not even really playing the game yet. Then, as you get better, the core of what you’re doing is actually playing the game - you’re trying to beat the levels. But after you’ve mastered that, maybe you start getting into speed runs. The core of that is even different - you’re looking for strategies to beat the game as quick as possible - it’s almost more like a puzzle, and a matter of flawlessly pressing buttons at the exact right time. But, when your skill is not yet up to that point - it’s hard to appreciate the kinds of solutions speed runners come up with.
[7:36] See, Mario is a great example because it provides challenges for all ranges of skill levels - from the complete newbie to the professional speed runner. It’s an example of a game that has good depth. Meaning, it gets deeper and more challenging the better you get at playing it. It provides challenges to all skill levels. And, the deeper a game is, the more skills you have to master, so deep games provide more opportunities for flow. There’s more learning you can do.
[8:04] As your skill increases, more challenges open up to you, and you can play and appreciate an even wider variety of games. You grow - you become a more complex, more differentiated game player.
[8:15] Why is this important? Because, at their core, I feel that all games are essentially about one thing: learning. When your skills increase, you’re learning. When you solve that puzzle, or time that attack just right, or outwit your opponent’s strategies, you’re learning.
If you think about a game you’ve played that you had absolutely no fun in, I’d wager that it’s probably due in large part because you didn’t learn anything. Either it was too hard so you couldn’t learn, or it was too easy because you’ve already mastered it.
[8:46] In flow experiences, you’re pushed to your limits and you’re challenged to do your best. The challenges that you CAN face shape which kind of games you’ll enjoy. If you’re a complete chess novice, you won’t be able to appreciate the kind of things that are happening when two grandmasters play. So, watching chess would be very boring.
[9:05] But, as your skill grows, more challenges open to you, and you’re able to interpret more of the game’s subtle feedback - higher level strategies that are invisible to lower level players. Which leads us to our second rule
[9:23] Rule 2 - Clear Goals and Immediate Feedback
This rule means that you must know what to do and you need to know if what you’re doing is working. You must have immediate feedback which informs you how close you are to completing some clear goal.
This is tied to the previous rule - if you can’t understand what’s going on in game because you don’t have enough skill to interpret the feedback, you won’t get into flow. And, if the game has not given you clear goals, or you aren’t able to create goals for yourself, then you won’t get into flow.
[9:59] What do clear goals even mean though? Can’t nearly all games meet this simple rule - after all, most games do have one clear goal: to win.
But, winning is too broad of a goal - to actually win, it requires many subgoals, and even those subgoals have subgoals, all the way down.
[10:18] For example, take the team based, first person shooter game Counterstrike. You couldn’t imagine a simpler goal. The goal is to beat the enemy team. But, that goal alone is so broad as to be almost meaningless. If you don’t know what to do to accomplish that goal, you’re gonna get frustrated. See, implied within that broad goal of beating the enemy team are some simple, basic subgoals such as: don’t die, kill your opponents, and win as many rounds as possible.
These are just a few of the subgoals, and each of these even have subgoals. Let’s look at the subgoal of not dying. This has subgoals such as not exposing yourself to enemy fire, knowing when to peek around a corner, and knowing where to place your crosshair. Even these subgoals have deeper subgoals, and the further down you get the more you need to learn, and the more challenging it becomes. It’s like a tree’s root system, branching deeper and deeper. That’s what I mean by game depth - the deeper and more diverse the subgoals are, the more there is to learn and to master.
[11:19] Now, the other side of clear goals is the condition of immediate feedback. You must be able to know right away how well you’re doing. Your goal of not dying? The immediate feedback would be your health, but also includes deeper things like knowing where enemies are on the map. Some of this feedback is invisible at lower skill levels, which can make it frustrating if you haven’t learned enough yet to be able to even see the feedback.
[11:44] In counterstrike, let’s say you have a sniper rifle and you’re not sure if someone is around the corner. So you crouch, moving more slowly, and you zoom in before you slowly peek out past the wall - BOOM HEADSHOT - you get your head blown off before you can even see the bad guy. Well, if your skill level is low, you’ll probably rage and be mad that someone killed you. But, if you’re internally motivated to learn, you’ll start figuring out that feedback of dying and what actions you can take so that you can accomplish your goal of not dying - such as not crouching and turning a corner, because you’ll learn that they can see you before you can see them. You’ll learn to peek around the corner faster, and hit them before they can hit you.
[12:28] Now, if you haven’t played counterstrike and that was all a little over your head, I apologize, but it even goes to prove my point - if you haven’t learned enough about the game, then it won’t seem very deep to you, and it will just look like people running around shooting each other - you can’t see all the deep underlying strategies and tactics. Another example is chess - if you haven’t learned much about chess, it can just look like people moving around weird shaped miniature statues on a checkerboard.
[12:54] The thing is, in games like Counterstrike, the game itself doesn’t tell you what any of these subgoals are. You have to set them for yourself. The game only tells you to win as many rounds as possible - It doesn’t tell you where you should place your crosshair or what strategies you should use; it doesn’t tell you HOW to win.
The goals are all implicit - you must be motivated yourself to learn what the best ones are, to create strategies and give yourself clear goals so that you can accomplish the main, stated goal of the game - which is of course to win.
[13:33] So, why does this matter? Well, There are two types of goals: External Goals and Internal Goals.
[13:40] External goals are explicitly GIVEN TO you - the game tells you exactly what to do to win. As we’ve seen, Counterstrike and Chess are NOT examples of this. In general, especially among competitive games like chess, the more gameplay depth a game has, the less it can rely on external goals.
[14:01] But not all games are like chess. Some games, such as many Role Playing Games, make many of the goals and subgoals explicitly clear - they tell you not only what you can do, but also how to do it - kill 10 more boars to get the next best item, or finish this quest to level up - the goals and feedback are always very clear, and given to you.
Nearly all games use external goals to at least some degree - even chess has the external goal to beat your opponent.
[14:30] The other type of goals are internal, intrinsic goals. These are goals that YOU CREATE by yourself. The game isn’t telling you what to do, you’re figuring it out. And, because you’re motivated to create your own set of goals, they’re much more powerful and rewarding than externally provided goals. If someone tells you to do something, it doesn’t feel as good as if you were to come up with the idea yourself.
[14:55] Chess and Counterstrike are examples where you must use your knowledge and skills to devise your own strategies and subgoals to accomplish the external goal of winning, but some games don’t even have a “winning” state. One example is Minecraft. There is no explicit goal, you’re just plopped down in a destructible world and you can do whatever you want. The success of Minecraft and how devoted its fans are goes to show just how powerful intrinsic goals can be. It’s a worldwide phenomenon, and it creates deep flow experiences for many players. When you’re setting your own goals and able to interpret the feedback of how close you are to reaching them, you’re one step closer to achieving flow.
[15:38] But, even if you’re suited to handle the game’s challenges, if you don’t have clear goals and feedback, either because the game didn’t give explicitly give you clear goals or you weren’t able to implicitly create them yourself, your attention is going to be focused on wondering what it is you have to do. And if you’re thinking about what to do, that means that your attention is scattered - it’s not all focused on the game - which prevents flow, and leads us to our next rule.
[16:06] Rule 3 - 100% Focused Attention
Flow states require 100% of our attention. All of our focus, every ounce of energy, is directed solely at the game. This means you’re so totally absorbed that you can’t doing be anything else - not being frustrated at the game, not wondering what goals you need to accomplish, not even listening to an audio book or podcast. It’s as simple as this: if your attention is split between the game and any other thing, you’re not in flow.
[16:40] For example, imagine that all your attention is broken down into percentages. In a flow experience, all 100 precent of your attention is directed at the game itself. It’s that simple.
It gets a little more tricky when your attention is not focused. The two previous rules tie into this one. If your skills exceeds the challenge, the game is too easy and you’ll get bored, so your attention will probably wander - or, if it’s too hard, you might direct your attention at getting frustrated.
Secondly, If the goals aren’t clear, you’ll be wandering what it is you have to do.
[17:14] To make this concept of 100 percent focused attention more clear - let’s look at example of a NON flow experience. You’re leveling your character in World of Warcraft. Even though the goals are clear, your skills are high and the challenge is pretty low, so it only takes about 20 percent of your attention to actually play. Because you’re not being pushed to your limit, you can passively play the game while you, let’s say, listen to this podcast. Maybe that takes up 40 percent of your attention. The rest of your attention is split between talking in guild chat, eating hot pockets, and wishing that your character’s shoulder pads were just a bit bigger.
[17:52] So, even while you might have a fun, pleasant and relaxing experience - you’re playing, but you’re on autopilot. You’re not in flow. And if you’re not in flow, you’re not learning, your skills aren’t growing, and you’re not becoming a more complex game player. When multiple things are competing for your attention, it’s hard to play the game any way except passively.
[18:16] Think about it - when’s the last time you played a game and you weren’t in flow? When you were half playing and half watching a TV show or listening to an audiobook. Does that GAMEPLAY experience really stick out in your head? Does it feel like you made good use of your free time, that you grew as a player?
[18:36] Now, think about the last time you WERE in flow - when time didn’t exist, when you were so perfectly challenged and in complete control and knew exactly what to do. You felt a sense of accomplishment. You learned something new…not just leveling up a virtual character, but leveling up your real life game playing skills. When you have those kinds of experiences, there is nothing else besides the game - not you, not the world, not any distractions.
[19:03] Let’s break this down. It sounds simple: no distractions. But, the word distraction is a loaded term - it means anything that pulls you away from the gameplay itself.
We mentioned how the two previous rules were related. There must be a good match of skill vs. challenge and you must have clear goals and immediate feedback. If either of these rules are not met, it could be the fault of the game OR the player. Sometimes the game’s design makes it unclear what it is you even have to do, but like in chess, sometimes you have to be internally motivated to create your own goals. It’s up to the game designer to make a game that can keep the player’s attention, but it’s also up to the player to make an effort to direct their attention at the game.
[19:46] There is a clear distinction here. Distractions come in two forms. In game distractions, things the game controls, and out of game distractions, things the game cannot control.
[20:02]The in game distractions are things that the game does, intentionally or not, to pull you away from actually playing it. For example, if you’re playing an online game and there’s a lag spike and everything slows down, your attention will shift to the lag and away from playing the game. If you’re playing and alert boxes popup everywhere, or if the game’s user interface is not understandable, you’ll be focused on the interface. Not playing the game. If the game doesn’t provide a good skill vs challenge match, you won’t be challenged, and you won’t really be playing the game. As players, we often have little to no control over in game distractions. So, let’s talk about the other type of distractions.
[20:50] Out of Game distractions.
There are two subtypes of out of game distractions: those that we can't control, and those that we can. We can’t always control things like our phone ringing, dogs barking, or earthquakes. So, let’s focus on out the of game distractions that we CAN control - things that are internal to us.
By that I mean It’s entirely up to us if we decide to split our attention while we play. No matter how hard the game tries, only you can control where you direct your attention. It’s up to you if you also decide to listen to a podcast, or an audiobook, or leave the tv on while playing. If you do that, it will be nearly impossible to experience flow, because your attention is split - 100 percent of your attention won’t be directed at the game.
[21:40] But even if you choose to not distract yourself, there are other subtle internal distractions that many people think that they have no control over. Two of the most common ones include:
- One, our ego, and
- Two, focusing on non gameplay elements.
[21:57] For most people, separating game and ego is tough. If we play an online game and we worry about what people will think of us, we’re directing our attention on something other than the gameplay. For instance, when someone trolls us, or if they’re a jerk to us, we’re the only ones that have the power to get upset about it. And if we get upset, it means that we’ve allowed our attention to be directed away from the game and towards our ego. It can be hard sometimes, but even handling a troll can be a flow experience. One common way to handle it is to just ignore the troll. Another way is to be nice to the troll in response. Or, my favorite, to troll the troll. Don’t let the troll control you. If our attention is directed away from gameplay, then obviously we’re not focusing on the game, and so we can’t get into flow.
[22:52] The second common internal distraction we can control is our opinion about non gameplay elements, like what we think about the game’s art or theme. If you’re too held up thinking the art style is too cartoony or too gritty, or that it just doesn’t look like a game you’d think you’d enjoy - well, you’re focusing your attention on that instead of the gameplay itself. So, no flow.
[23:17] If we think we won’t prefer a game because of how it looks, then we’re not giving it a fair shot - our attention is directed at things that have absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay. The aesthetics of the game, the art and the sound, yes they all create a powerful experience - but when you’re playing the game and you’re in flow, you’re so focused on the gameplay that you have no attention left be picky about what it looks like.
[23:47] So why do all these distractions matter? What’s it mean? Well, we can play games in two different ways: by being Passively Engaged or by being Actively Engaged.
[23:58] Playing a game passively is like the example earlier of leveling your character in world of warcraft. If you’re just playing it without full concentration, without being challenged; you’re passively engaged. It might be pleasant or even fun, but passive engagement cannot produce flow.
[24:17] If, however, all 100 percent of your attention are directed solely on the game, then you’re actively engaged in it. In this case, you have full concentration. It’s as if you and the game become one. You lose your sense of self, your ego. It’s at this point that you’re likely to experience flow, because you are totally involved.
This distinction of passive and active engagement is important, because it highlights the fact that it’s not about what you play, it’s about how you play it.
No matter how well a game is designed, if you choose to split your attention while playing it, you’ll play it passively and not have a flow experience. If you think back on your most powerful gaming memories, the ones that stick with you, chances are those were active, flow experiences where you were at the edge of your abilities.
[25:08] Passive experiences are rarely memorable. It’s similar to TV - you can mindlessly play games just as you can mindlessly watch TV, and do you really look back fondly on being mindlessly entertained?
But, it’s not enough to just focus all your attention on the game; for flow, the other two rules must be met as well. The game must meet the first rule of providing a good challenge vs. skill match, and the game must meet the second rule of providing clear goals and immediate feedback. When all three rules are met, you’re in the state called FLOW.
[26:00] Level 2 - What Flow is Not
Now that we have a framework for understanding what flow is, let’s talk about what flow is NOT. The components of flow, all together, create a very powerful experience. Each component of flow, just by itself, is powerful and can draw players in. Often, intentionally or not, game developers will use some of the components of flow individually to encourage players to play, but not encourage a unified flow experience.
[26:35] They exploit flow. By exploiting some of the properties of flow, games can create addictive, more simple and passive experiences which can drive player engagement, but provide little to no lasting or enriching value.
[26:49] For example, clear goals and feedback feel great. Even without any challenge or focused attention, you can cause the brain to release the same chemicals that are released during enriching flow experiences, but without actually having a deeply engaging or rewarding experience. Many social games, and even some game genres, abuse this, knowingly or not, to deliver those dopamine hits to keep players coming back - but yet, these games provide little challenge and require little attention. They don’t encourage flow.
[27:22] Games which rely heavily on virtual progression fall into this category. Leveling and achievement systems provide amazingly clear goals and immediate feedback. Some games are even designed around progress bars.
[27:34] In the browser based game Cookie Clicker, there is a giant cookie which you repeatedly click to get cookies. The more you click, the more cookies you get, which allow you to build cookie farms and factories which produce even more cookies for you. It’s a very simple game with little gameplay depth.
[27:54] In this game, two of the three rules for flow are not met: There is not a skill vs challenge match - sure there is a small bit of challenge in terms of how you want to manage your cookie production, but you’re certainly not pushed to your limits to do so. There’s little to learn, and there’s virtually no skill difference between someone who plays it for the first time and someone who has spent days playing it. It’s all virtual progression. Having 200 billion cookies doesn’t mean you’re any more skilled than someone with 200 cookies.
[28:22] Also, the game requires virtually no focused attention to play; you don’t have to concentrate on it, and you can leave it running in the background while your attention is focused elsewhere.
[28:32] So, two rules are unmet - no skill vs challenge, and no focused attention. However, Cookie Clicker does do an incredible job at the second rule - it provides clear goals and immediate feedback. Cookie Clicker is centered around virtual progression, and even though you don’t reach flow when you play, the game gives you dopamine hits and feels good to play.
[28:57] Increase the progress bar until you reach the next level; get a reward when the bar is filled; repeat. It feels great filling that bar. You level, or your building completes, you hear that DING and you get that dopamine rush - it’s very pleasant and if it took you a long time to get there it feels even more rewarding, even if you didn’t have to learn anything in the process. However, it’s not tied to real skill, and there’s little learning happening. You’re rarely pushed to your limits to fill that bar - the reason you play isn’t to improve yourself, it’s to unlock the next level of content.
[29:36] Thus, when games rely too much on virtual progress, they often miss skill vs. challenge and rarely require your full attention, so you’ll be unlikely to achieve flow just by playing. In general, the more a game relies on virtual progression, the less effective it can be at providing flow experiences.
[29:57] There are not many broad general truths in life, and this is no exception. Virtual progress can be extremely effective when it’s used to represent actual skill, and not be a replacement for it. If your character is level 100 in World of Warcraft, or you have 200 billion cookies in Cookie Clicker, it doesn’t tell you how much you’ve learned, how skilled you are.
[30:20] However, games like Chess and Starcraft rely on some sort of ELO system, which is a way to represent your actual game-playing skill. This system was originally designed for Chess, and most modern competitive games use some form of it. It works by assigning you some score, or ranking, which represents how skilled you are, how likely you are based on your previous performances to overcome your opponent. It’s often a very reliable predictor of challenge. It also provides a clear goal, as if your ELO ranking is 1500, the obvious goal is to raise it.
[31:02] When virtual progress is a representation of your actual skill, it’s not virtual progress at all. It’s just clear feedback in terms of how much you’re learning. It’s not a cheap trick or psychological hack to keep you playing. It’s a tool to help you stay in flow.
[31:20] So, now that we have a sense of what flow is and what it is not, let’s look at game design through the lens of the flow.
[31:39] Level 3 - Designing Games with Flow
Now that we’ve wrapped out heads around what flow is and what it is not, let’s explore game design through the lens of Flow. There’s a limitless amount of perspectives that we can view game design through, and flow is just one of them. It’s just another tool. However, it’s a powerful one, and one of my favorites, because flow leads to enriching, memorable experiences.
[31:10] The primary goal of this level is to look at how games can be designed with flow in mind, and we’ll do that in three ways.
- First, we’ll talk about why it’s difficult to design a game that encourages flow.
- Second, we’ll look at some general techniques for each of the three rules of flow.
- Lastly, we’ll dive into a specific game and analyze at a higher level.
[32:34] So first off, why is it hard to design a game that encourages flow? We have a framework for thinking about flow now - we know what three rules must be met. So what gives? Well, because each game is unique and each player is unique, techniques that work for some games might not work for other games. So, we cannot expect a game to encourage flow just because it has some sort of ELO ranking system - no, it’s how all the components of the game work together to create a unified flow experience that is much more than just the sum of it’s parts. It’s part of the whole design process - not something that can be tacked on later. To summarize, one reason it’s hard is because general techniques don’t work for all games.
[33:18] Now, the central thesis of this episode is that you can enjoy any game if you can get into flow - and we know that it’s not just about WHAT you play, it’s more important HOW you play it. So if general techniques like an ELO ranking system exist, but they don’t work for all games, and if it’s more about HOW a player plays the game, how can we possibly hope to design a game with flow in mind?
Take a second to think about it - techniques exist, and the what isn’t as important as the how. This may sound a little strange, and it’s subtle but I think you’ll be able to understand - instead of applying these techniques to the what of the game, apply them to the how.
[34:04] This means to focus on encouraging the player to play the game in a way that will help them achieve flow - encourage other forms of gameplay. Now if you’re lost, bear with me, and let’s start looking at some techniques for each of the three rules of flow.
[34:28] Each game has it’s own unique set of challenges, difficulty curve, and audience, so it’s hard to provide specific techniques for the “what” of this rule, but there are a couple.
[34:43] First, ensure the difficulty curve is roughly matched to the player’s skill. Just a little bit of a mismatch is often good at times, to either encourage players to push themselves just a little bit harder, or to give them a break after they’ve overcome a difficult area.
[34:58] Second, add more gameplay depth. This means not just adding more levels and items and quests; no, add more gameplay mechanics for players to learn. For example, what would happen if you replaced randomness with actual gameplay mechanics? Instead of a weapon having a 20% chance to do critical damage, what if the player had to learn and master some technique to do that extra damage? Randomness gives the illusion of depth, but since the player can not control it, it’s not a skill they can develop. The more skills a player can develop, the more gameplay depth there is. The more there is to learn
[35:37] So, these two techniques can help with the what of the game - but they’re pretty broad. It’s definitely one side of the coin, but another perspective to consider is designing for the how of the gameplay.
[35:50] Alright, I’ve said this a few times - but what does the how of the gameplay mean? Specifically, we can do things to encourage other forms of gameplay.
Like we discussed earlier - once you beat Mario a few times, it’s not as challenging. But, if you replay it and try to get through it as quick as you can, well - that’s a whole other dimension of skill vs. challenge. You’re still playing Mario, but HOW you’re playing it is much different.
[36:20] Now, this does require a player to be intrinsically motivated enough to do a speed run. But, the game’s design can encourage this behavior by providing things as simple as an on screen timer or additional replay modes.
[36:36] Another general technique is to provide better teaching. Games are about learning, and all games have different initial skill requirements. Some players may have a hard time getting into games like Starcraft or Magic the Gathering or Counterstrike, because of how overwhelming and complex they are. If their initial experience is one of frustration because the game’s challenge is too great, chances are they’ll dismiss it. It’s not necessarily a fault of the gameplay itself, but of the mechanisms for teaching players how to play.
[37:07] As a metaphor, take piano - we don’t say piano is a poorly designed instrument because you can’t play a symphony after just a couple weeks - no, we get instructors which give us clear goals and feedback which allow our skills to develop. Likewise, games can provide better on boarding, better initial learning experiences, to encourage skill development. This leads us to techniques for the second rule.
[37:33] Rule 2 - Clear Goals and Immediate Feedback
One technique here is to incorporate leaderboards. Of course, leaderboards alone won’t encourage flow, and leaderboards won’t work for all games. However, leaderboards provide clear feedback and the inherent goal of encouraging players to rise up in the ranks. This doesn’t change the what of the game, but it encourages players to push themselves to rise up in the ranks.
[38:06]And Leaderboards can be a lot more complex than just the top ten high scores - I’ve written a post about them which you can find in the show notes ([http://vasir.net/blog/data-visualization/data-visualization-in-games-leaderboards]), so I won’t go into too much detail about them here, other than to say: There’s a good chance you probably have memories of playing arcades games and trying to get the high score. I know I certainly do, because the desire to get on that leaderboard encouraged me to push myself to my limits, to experience flow.
[38:32] Another technique is to provide data visualizations and detailed stats about a player’s performance. This technique can be used really on any game to provide a way for intrinsically motivated players to improve themselves. For instance, games like League of Legends provide detailed visualizations of a number of in game metrics - like how much gold you collected over time, how much damage you dished out, what items you had, and much more.
In games like Starcraft and Counterstrike, you have the ability to watch a replay of the game - you can slow down areas where you made a mistake to learn what you could have done instead, improving your skill. Even games like World of Warcraft provide in game DPS (Damage per Second) or Healing meters which enable you to gauge how well you’re doing. All these tools provide players with feedback about their performance. And they get at this question: how can you possibly know if you’re improving yourself if nothing is being measured? In other words, how can you learn if you don’t have a way to know how good you’re currently doing? With data visualization, you have insight into your performance.
[39:38] Elo ranking systems are a sort of combination of both leaderboards and performance visualization. This system works very well because it provides clear feedback into how far your skills are progressing - how good of a player you’re becoming; how much you’ve learned. So, by providing stats like these, and other gameplay feedback, it’s sort of like that piano teacher who’s pointing out what notes you missed.
[40:05] So, to reiterate - a general technique to encourage flow is to provide visualizations and feedback on how well the player performed. This won’t change the what of the game, it doesn’t change what kind of game the player is playing; but it can help players improve themselves, changing how they play the game.
[40:22] There is a fine balance here though. Showing too many stats during gameplay could cause a shift of attention. Players might focus too much on the feedback, and not the game itself. And as we know, to reach flow, the game itself must be the focus of all the player’s attention.
[40:44] Rule 3 - 100% Focused Attention
There’s one simple trick to encourage flow in all games. But, just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. The trick is this: Create no distractions.
[41:03] If players can’t move their avatars because the camera doesn’t work well, they can’t focus on the game. If annoying user interface elements get in the way, they can’t focus on the game. If players can’t do what they want to do because they aren’t sure what buttons to press or the control scheme is awkward, they can’t focus on the game.
[41:22] As we know, to get into flow, players must focus on the game.
[41:27] One technique that can work well for some multiplayers games is to limit communication. Some players have a harder time than others focusing their attention on the game when they play with trolls or jerks; but there are some techniques to help mitigate this. For example, in counterstrike, you can mute other people if they’re bothering you. It’s a reactive solution though, meaning the player has to do something after they’ve had a bad experience.
[41:51] One way to help mitigate this is to just block or limit all communication, but this is highly game dependent. It can work pretty well for non-team based games, but it can also even some team based games like Splatoon, where there are a few pre-canned phrases you can say. However, if there’s a way, there’s a troll, and if you make a mistake there’s a good chance your opponent will say “Well Played!”
[42:16] Blocking communication has tradeoffs, especially for team based games. Limiting communication will greatly limit how deep and complex a team based game can be. That’s because team communication is a whole other set of skills to learn, to master. For instance, Counterstrike can really only be played a surface level without team communication.
[42:39] The general technique is to ensure that non-game elements do not prevent people from playing the game itself. The solutions are specific for each game; but whatever they are, they need to help ensure that the players, if they try, can focus 100% of their attention on the gameplay.
[43:02] So, those are some techniques to help encourage flow. If you were expecting an easy catch all solution, I’m sorry to disappoint - but fortunately, if you’re listening you’re probably not looking for cheap tricks. Designing a game to encourage flow means looking at all the rules of flow and integrating them into the core of the game - not just throwing some techniques on top. It takes time, practice, and experimentation.
So, let’s go through part of that process together - but, instead of trying to create a game from scratch, let’s use the lens of flow, keeping in mind these techniques and rules of flow, to analyze a highly successful and popular video game franchise - one that essentially requires you to be in flow to play it.
[43:42] The first things is this. One, certain TYPES of games are inherently better at encouraging flow than others. You can get into flow with any games depending on how you play it, but there’s one category of games above all other that are just naturally good at creating flow experiences: competitive games.
If you play them, you have an idea why this is true - if you don’t play them, it might be hard to see why. There’s a lot of reasons why, but they all are tied to the meaning of competition. It may surprise you. The word compete actually comes from a world in latin (competere (com-pay-ter-ray)), which means: “To seek together”. Competition is really about working with other people to improve yourself, not working against them.
[44:30] Some people focus too much on the competition, or think that antagonism is inherently negative. But when you’re playing with others, they help push you to be better. To improve your skills, to learn. In a book, the protagonist is only as interesting as the forces of antagonism, and in a game, opponents encourage you to be your best. You’re forced to focus your attention on playing, and if you’re matched against someone of similar skill, the depth of gameplay is so profound and nearly limitless. Non-competitive games can still be successful if you don’t reach flow when playing; but this is usually untrue for competitive games. Flow is often a requirement, and if players can’t reach it, the game won’t be played.
[45:17] The second thing I want to mention is about preference. Maybe you don’t like competitive games because you think they’re not for you. Or maybe you don’t like a certain game because it doesn’t fit the kind of art style or theme you normally enjoy. Personally, I tend to enjoy fantasy and strategy games, but I spend most my time playing games on Counterstrike. [45:35] Preference is a sort of heuristic, a shortcut, a pattern we match, to predict if we will enjoy an experience. Because flow produces deep, enjoyable experiences; we can say that preference is a way for us to predict if we’ll experience flow. [45:52] If you’ve don’t experience flow when you play Counterstrike, or Starcraft, or League of Legends, then of course you’d think that the game isn’t for you, that you don’t prefer “those kinds of games”. If you do try it, and it isn’t enjoyable, then it can only reinforce that belief that it’s not for you. But, I bet that if you did get into flow, then they would be games you enjoy and even prefer to play. Expectations are powerful - if you go into a game thinking you’ll hate it, chances are you will.
[46:27] So, with those two ideas out of the way, we’re ready! let’s put everything we’ve learned so far into practice. Let’s take a game that does an amazing job at creating flow experiences, and let’s analyze it through the lens of flow. A game that is naturally suited to encourage flow, a game so deep you can play for a decade and a half and still not master, a game we’ve already hinted at - maybe you’ve guessed it - Let’s discuss of the most popular online competitive First Person Shooter: Counterstrike: Global Offensive
[47:05] Level 4 - Interview
The thesis of this episode is that you can enjoy any game, even one you think you’d hate, if you can get into flow. So, to analyze Counterstrike, we’re gonna need some help. And, to make it even more interesting, let’s analyze it with someone who has never played it and hasn’t even ever wanted to. And even though Counterstrike is outside their preferred genre, let’s see what happens.
[47:32] Erik: Ready to do this?
Alisen: Hey guys, I’m alisen. I do Web Design, and in my free time I write books.
[47:39] Erik: What kind of games do you typically like to play?
Alisen: I like Civilization, Shovel Knight, Mario Kart, Everquest 2
[47:46] Erik: How do you like to play those games? What draws you to them?
Alisen: When I’m playing a game, I don’t like to be reading a lot of stuff. I just like to see the bad guys and go take them down.
[47:56] Erik: Hah. It sounds like you to like to play games for the gameplay mechanics, not for things like story or for escapism?
Alisen: Well, I like to play games that are fun to look at, but mostly I just like to get in there and have a lot of active gameplay.
---- Full Interview Transcript Coming Soon