Flow within games (22nd Sep)

In this weeks seminars we discussed flow and its connections with video games. And to know how to balance the right amount of flow for your game. Making it so that the player is fully focused on the game thus helping them to progress in your game. But not making the game so hard that it breaks the flow of the game and the player loses interest. I can relate to this concept as I have played games in the past that have made a game too hard thus even with immense concentration its still too hard to complete certain levels , thus making me lose interest in the game and taking away from its fun factor

I believe if a game does this right and rewards the player for concentrating on their task in the game, it is hard for the player to step away from that game. Thus making them fully immersed.

I think that the idea of immersion has been skewered a bit, as people see this (especially in games), as immersion being how good the graphics are or/and how good are the sound effects etc. In fact I think its the idea of flow that makes people fully immersed and have found that some older games are much more immersive then newer games even though graphically there’s no comparison between the two.

A good example of this is the Assassins creed [1] series, personally being a big fan of the series I prefer the older games as they are more rewarding and deep with their storylines. The new games even though breath taking in their graphics, are more grindy and thus lack (for me personally) the immersion and flow of the older games. Showing that high graphics and sound effects only play a set part in a games immersion and flow.

[1] Ubisoft, first game of the series made in November 2007, Assasins Creed [Computer game], Available at: https://store.ubi.com/us/assassins-creed/?lang=en_US

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