4 ms·

"Game designers, particularly video and computer games, benefit from integration of flow principles into gameplay design." Gamers will get into zones, similar

by cloudkj 17y ago

"Game designers, particularly video and computer games, benefit from integration of flow principles into gameplay design." Gamers will get into zones, similar to athletes, where their reaction times become ultra quick and reflexes are super sharp. Game designers sometimes try to bake these directly into the game, and it's arguable whether or not it's beneficial. For example, many people complain about the killstreak rewards in Modern Warfare 2; once you get going, you're pretty much indestructible.

Raphael 17y ago
Oh, so it's artificial flow. Great.
patio11 17y ago
Continuing on the theme of building game mechanics into our projects... couldn't we do this if we wanted to? Post-deploy hooks are available for your source control system of choice. You could have your computer tell you "Nice job" for one commit (if automated tests pass), "Keep it going!" for two in an interval, "He's on fire!" for three, "BOOM that's amazing!" for four, etc etc. This would incentivize yourself to do "just one more commit", in the same fashion as Civ and whatever get "just one more turn." (If doing it over a work day wasn't working for you, you could bump the visualization to your dashboard and create a chain, with one link for every day you do task X. Don't break the chain, as per Seinfeld.) This assumes, critically, that a commit is a measure of forward progress towards business goals.
algorias 17y ago
See gunroar for an example of an incredible flow experience in a videogame. I often play it to distract my body while working out algorithms. It's a surprisingly effective way of thinking through hard problems.
- Groxx 17y ago
  That game is awesome for flow. Within minutes, you start dodging on instinct alone, and the world flies past you. My personal favorite though goes to F-Zero GX. If I play that for a while, I start dominating other games because I'm so keyed-up and focused. Too bad it fades :\ Link for those interested in Gunroar: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/gr_e.html http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/gr_e.html
- teamonkey 17y ago
  Also Jeff Minter's games, most recently Space Giraffe and Gridrunner Revolution. SG in particular is designed around getting you in the zone and giving you so much information to process that you have to filter everything else out.
Groxx 17y ago
Making the top-tier artificially better is annoying. I seriously dislike it, and I do extremely well in most shooters. It hides skill, because one quite-good player with a lucky start can dominate an entire game. Even if that doesn't happen, it still screws over the people learning / less skilled, which just prevents people from getting better, which prevents more people from playing. My personal favorites are top-deprecating, where the top player is slightly easier to hit / harder to play / worth more points, or totally flat. It makes it extremely hard to really shine in a game, and when someone maintains a good score, they've earned it.

by cloudkj 17y ago

Raphael 17y ago

Oh, so it's artificial flow. Great.

patio11 17y ago

Continuing on the theme of building game mechanics into our projects... couldn't we do this if we wanted to? Post-deploy hooks are available for your source control system of choice. You could have your computer tell you "Nice job" for one commit (if automated tests pass), "Keep it going!" for two in an interval, "He's on fire!" for three, "BOOM that's amazing!" for four, etc etc. This would incentivize yourself to do "just one more commit", in the same fashion as Civ and whatever get "just one more turn." (If doing it over a work day wasn't working for you, you could bump the visualization to your dashboard and create a chain, with one link for every day you do task X. Don't break the chain, as per Seinfeld.) This assumes, critically, that a commit is a measure of forward progress towards business goals.

algorias 17y ago

See gunroar for an example of an incredible flow experience in a videogame. I often play it to distract my body while working out algorithms. It's a surprisingly effective way of thinking through hard problems.

Groxx 17y ago
That game is awesome for flow. Within minutes, you start dodging on instinct alone, and the world flies past you. My personal favorite though goes to F-Zero GX. If I play that for a while, I start dominating other games because I'm so keyed-up and focused. Too bad it fades :\ Link for those interested in Gunroar: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/gr_e.html http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/gr_e.html
teamonkey 17y ago
Also Jeff Minter's games, most recently Space Giraffe and Gridrunner Revolution. SG in particular is designed around getting you in the zone and giving you so much information to process that you have to filter everything else out.

Groxx 17y ago

Making the top-tier artificially better is annoying. I seriously dislike it, and I do extremely well in most shooters. It hides skill, because one quite-good player with a lucky start can dominate an entire game. Even if that doesn't happen, it still screws over the people learning / less skilled, which just prevents people from getting better, which prevents more people from playing. My personal favorites are top-deprecating, where the top player is slightly easier to hit / harder to play / worth more points, or totally flat. It makes it extremely hard to really shine in a game, and when someone maintains a good score, they've earned it.