Week 5

People will feel satisfied after playing a good game, and feel not happy after playing a stupid game. There are three aesthetics of play - reward, flow and iteration. I choose flow to talk here.

Salen K. and Zimmerman E. (2004, p336) said “Flow is, more than anything else, an emotional and psychological state of focused and engaged happiness, when a person feels a sense of achievement and accomplishment, and a greater sense of self”. It is the best experience to enjoy the games with the fervor. Maybe it is the exiting period for fulfillment. Flow is one part of games.

There are eight components of flow - four prerequisites and four effects. It affects us emotionally and physically. The first prerequisite is challenging activity. It means that we need to be active for every thing. The second prerequisite is clear goals. We have to know what we want to get. The third prerequisite is clear feedback. We can find the positive aspects and negative aspects from it, and get more experience. The fourth prerequisite is control in an uncertain situation. We can not avoid the accidents and failures.

The other four are the effects of flow. The first effect is merging of action and awareness. It means we can be absorbed voluntarily. The second effect is concentration. It is said that we can focus on one thing without any other hinders. The third effect is loss of self-consciousness. It means we can be oblivious of ourselves and can not feel ourselves clearly like be melted. The fourth effect is transformation of time. It is said that we need to control the time convertibly for us.

Csikszentmihalyi tried to examine the challenge and skill level before: if the game is too difficult, it should be anxiety; if the game is too easy, it should be boredom. Salen K. and Zimmerman E. (2004, p353) suggested that “Boredom and anxiety, as game design watch words, are wonderful because they speak directly to play experience.”

Game: Food Force
It is exciting to play Food Force intently. We need to take the whirlybird to find the people who are lying on the floor and save them in a short time. If we do not pay enough attention on it, we will get less people rescued. It makes me to be very fast and try my best to control the whirlybird.

Reference:
1. Salen, Katie and Zimmerman, Eric (2004). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, Cambridge, Ma: MIT