Games Decisions
This week I have done some reading on game decisions and how they make a game "fun" and interesting to play.
The first article I have read talks about some more game theory and "flow". The decisions you make in games, their difficulty, and how effective those decisions are at getting you into the "flow" of the game are key factors in determining how "fun" a game turns out to be.
It was quite an interesting article to read as it made me think back to the decisions I made in games I like and dislike and noticed how the game I liked had meaningful decisions full of challenge and variety.
The article mentions a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who identified three different things that need to happen for a "flow state" to exist: you need to be performing an activity that is challenging and requires skill, it must have a clear goal, and the outcome inherently uncertain but is also influenced by your actions.
This flow state is said to be in many tasks and not just video games.
This graph from the article gives a visual representation: if your skill level is high and you're given an easy task, you're too bored, if you skill level is low and the task is hard, you're frustrated, but if both are compatible, you get the "flow" state!
This website also has some interesting readings on different "types" of games that cause different states of emotion, such as "Cozy" games like Animal Crossing which are not so challenging or intensive, but are very popular because of how they make you feel within the game.
I actually love the animal crossing series myself, and decided to read up on why it is so "fun" from a game design perspective and found this interesting article https://www.usgamer.net/articles/why-does-everyone-keep-playing-animal-crossing that explains a bit about why.
The first article I have read talks about some more game theory and "flow". The decisions you make in games, their difficulty, and how effective those decisions are at getting you into the "flow" of the game are key factors in determining how "fun" a game turns out to be.
It was quite an interesting article to read as it made me think back to the decisions I made in games I like and dislike and noticed how the game I liked had meaningful decisions full of challenge and variety.
The article mentions a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who identified three different things that need to happen for a "flow state" to exist: you need to be performing an activity that is challenging and requires skill, it must have a clear goal, and the outcome inherently uncertain but is also influenced by your actions.
This flow state is said to be in many tasks and not just video games.
This website also has some interesting readings on different "types" of games that cause different states of emotion, such as "Cozy" games like Animal Crossing which are not so challenging or intensive, but are very popular because of how they make you feel within the game.
I actually love the animal crossing series myself, and decided to read up on why it is so "fun" from a game design perspective and found this interesting article https://www.usgamer.net/articles/why-does-everyone-keep-playing-animal-crossing that explains a bit about why.
Hi Anna, glad to see you understand game fun and how the flow works. Despite all that I feel like you left out certain important points, like how fun is based on our primal age and how everyone is different. People like different things and find things fun that others may not and that's when making a video game fun becomes quite difficult. For example some like side quests and some don't.
ReplyDelete