Games Decisions

My reading for week 7 consisted of the flow of a game. A method called "Flow Design". From my understanding this is basically a method used to help design the difficulty of a game during its development. Devs will typically use a X Y Axis chart with "Challenge" & "Player Skill". Each of these two headings will have a Low to high, both lows meeting in the bottom left. The importance of this is to gradually increase the difficulty of a game the "Challenge" but only as the players skill improves to match it.

Flow Design Chart showing how the challenge of a game and the players skill has to work together to form a Flow Channel.

Img Link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elise-Van-Den-Hoven/publication/221054198/figure/fig1/AS:305487296909316@1449845255781/The-Flow-Channel-is-the-right-balance-between-a-challenge-being-too-easy-leads-to.png

It is quite important to grow the two of these equally when designing a game,  as the video I watched for this week gave a great example. If say the game has a low challenge bracket as the game progresses, the players skill would of improved to the point where it is no longer a challenge to them. This would eventually lead to what is known on the chart as "Boredom". If this happens you could risk the player loosing interest in the game and they may not end up completing it and just leaving the game for something more interesting to play.

Aswell as that, you can have the opposite where the player can find the game way to difficulty for the skills they have acquired and end up not being able to progress with the game any further. This is known as "Anxiety". It is said that after the player has got a basic grasp of the game the challenge should be that bit more challenging than the skill the player has, so that they cant just fly through the game without any sort of achievement.

For the game I am hoping to develop, since its going to be level based I will more than likely have the first level very basic stuff. It will give the player a change to get to grips with the meta and controls of the game, as well as the rules in place such as what can fail you etc. As the player goes on to say level 2, the game will develop to be slightly harder, similar to level 1 but this time with say more precise timing. This will help the player grow their skill set for the game, but yet not challenging them to much that they wont be able to complete it. As the game goes on for say level 3 I will more than likely up the challenge for the game, It is a challenge game after all. This will now have the player using the skills they now have to really challenge them selves to complete the final level that will throw everything at them. For this level I would hope to up the challenge a good bit higher than the skill set, this is not that the player wont have the skills to complete the level. More so that the player will have to learn the level and it wont be a "First Time" completion.