4 ms·

Real Games Have Curves: Welcome to the Competence Zone

52 points by kilian 16y ago

hazzen 16y ago
An addendum, and a game I think about quite frequently, is FlyWrench. It looks like Bit.Trip Runner has taken some lessons from it. FlyWrench is also a punishingly difficult game that appears to flow for an expert player, with instant death on any mistake. What it nails is that the amount of work you have to redo for a failure is tiny, and the restart is as close to instantaneous as you would be comfortable with. You enter a very flow-like state perfecting a 10-20 second stretch of inputs because of this structure. The game demands perfection as you enter the later levels, but somehow you are comfortable with it because the penalty is so small. I guess VVVVV is also in this school of game and has largely succeeded. I think, then, that Bit.Trip Runner may have failed somewhat if the restart penalty is as large as the author makes it sound. You don't need to have a large competence zone to create flow; you can alternatively have a low penalty for failure with some tangible measure of progress and keep the player (or at least this player) hooked.
mbateman 16y ago
This is just an aside in the article, but I had no idea that Rock Band 3 was going to feature something much closer to the real instruments. I've been wondering, ever since I played the first Guitar Hero, how long it would be before it was possible to learn a real instrument in this manner. If it actually works, this is awesome. You can transition smoothly from trying to get high scores in a fun video game to playing the songs for real.
- abstractbill 16y ago
  There's a more in-depth article about that here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1430447 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1430447
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Fingers crossed that Rock Band 4 will support guitar pickups, letting you use a real instrument. It might actually be possible.
- te_platt 16y ago
  I wrote a prototype "Piano Hero" that used the midi out from my piano keyboard. Instead of the notes coming down I had them come across the screen laid out on a staff like standard sheet music. My kids use it for piano practice and it seems to help develop real piano skills.
  - baddox 16y ago
    http://www.synthesiagame.com/ http://www.synthesiagame.com/
chipsy 16y ago
A problem with this theory: Flow isn't "I'm passing this level." If you flailed through the whole thing, succeeding more on luck than skill, you probably didn't achieve flow. Flow requires a combination of a tight feedback loop and succeeding at getting positive output from it. So while Bit.Trip.Runner _requires_ flow for any degree of success, lenient music games like Guitar Hero let you use a resource-hoarding strategy(retaining star power for hard parts) to pass songs at a pre-flow skill level, and then return to them later for higher scores.
diziet 16y ago
It's no wonder that games such as World of Warcraft have a really low competence zone and a really large amount of space left to provide rewards for both time investment and player skill.
kilian 16y ago
It's interesting to contrast this with games such as WoW and Farmville, which seem to reward endurance more than skill. Interestingly, Cory Doctorow's latest book 'for the win' explores exactly this.

52 points by kilian 16y ago

An addendum, and a game I think about quite frequently, is FlyWrench. It looks like Bit.Trip Runner has taken some lessons from it. FlyWrench is also a punishingly difficult game that appears to flow for an expert player, with instant death on any mistake. What it nails is that the amount of work you have to redo for a failure is tiny, and the restart is as close to instantaneous as you would be comfortable with. You enter a very flow-like state perfecting a 10-20 second stretch of inputs because of this structure. The game demands perfection as you enter the later levels, but somehow you are comfortable with it because the penalty is so small. I guess VVVVV is also in this school of game and has largely succeeded. I think, then, that Bit.Trip Runner may have failed somewhat if the restart penalty is as large as the author makes it sound. You don't need to have a large competence zone to create flow; you can alternatively have a low penalty for failure with some tangible measure of progress and keep the player (or at least this player) hooked.

mbateman 16y ago

This is just an aside in the article, but I had no idea that Rock Band 3 was going to feature something much closer to the real instruments. I've been wondering, ever since I played the first Guitar Hero, how long it would be before it was possible to learn a real instrument in this manner. If it actually works, this is awesome. You can transition smoothly from trying to get high scores in a fun video game to playing the songs for real.

abstractbill 16y ago
There's a more in-depth article about that here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1430447 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1430447
sliverstorm 16y ago
Fingers crossed that Rock Band 4 will support guitar pickups, letting you use a real instrument. It might actually be possible.
te_platt 16y ago
I wrote a prototype "Piano Hero" that used the midi out from my piano keyboard. Instead of the notes coming down I had them come across the screen laid out on a staff like standard sheet music. My kids use it for piano practice and it seems to help develop real piano skills.
- baddox 16y ago
  http://www.synthesiagame.com/ http://www.synthesiagame.com/

chipsy 16y ago

A problem with this theory: Flow isn't "I'm passing this level." If you flailed through the whole thing, succeeding more on luck than skill, you probably didn't achieve flow. Flow requires a combination of a tight feedback loop and succeeding at getting positive output from it. So while Bit.Trip.Runner _requires_ flow for any degree of success, lenient music games like Guitar Hero let you use a resource-hoarding strategy(retaining star power for hard parts) to pass songs at a pre-flow skill level, and then return to them later for higher scores.

diziet 16y ago

It's no wonder that games such as World of Warcraft have a really low competence zone and a really large amount of space left to provide rewards for both time investment and player skill.

kilian 16y ago

It's interesting to contrast this with games such as WoW and Farmville, which seem to reward endurance more than skill. Interestingly, Cory Doctorow's latest book 'for the win' explores exactly this.