Where’d the Time Go? A Case Study in Flow State in Two Video Games
By Rashid Carter
Have you ever been so engaged in an activity that you didn’t even realize where the time went?
So have I.
Welcome to “Flow State” … where you become fully immersed with energy, involvement, and enjoyment in what you are doing.
Before we go deeper into this, let’s meet the person behind this theory.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was born September 29, 1934 in Croatia. He recieved both his B.A. and PhD in Psychology from the University of Chicago. Eventually, he became head of the department of psychology for the same University.
Currently he’s a professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. After founding the idea of flow, he spent years researching and writing about the topic. Here’s a Wikimedia image that quickly introduces the concept.
How Does it Work?
Once an adequate level of skill and difficulty has been reached, from there on flow is being activated. In order to achieve a state of flow, there must be a balance between the skill of the performer and the challenge of the task at hand. In particular, Mihaly highlighted nine pieces that must be put in place for the event to occur; those being challenge-skill balance, merging of action and awareness, clarity of goals, immediate and unambiguous feedback, concentration on the task at hand, paradox of control, transformation of time, loss of self-consciousness, and autotelic experience. Each of these elements help create a state of flow.
Flow State in a Video Game
Celeste is a classic “platformer” experience that creates the conditions for Flow state, via simple controls and a persistent challenge. Completing a level requires precise timing of jumps and dashes. As seen in the image, these people are probably in some degree of a flow state. They are in deep focus trying to complete a level. A lot of platformers do not have a hard time pulling players into a flow state.
Another genre of game that can make a player achieve a state of flow are fighting games. Take Mortal Kombat 11 for example. Mortal Kombat has a deep fighting system that is based on reflex, timing, combo memorization, etc. Elite competitive Mortal Kombat players can be found fighting it out at an annual esports event called EVO. Below is a video of two competitive players facing off at EVO. Notice how deeply concentrated and “in the zone” they are.
The idea of being in such a state where you are entirely focused on an activity and you are so locked in that everything around you is momentarily nonexistent is fascinating. Interactive designers can use this power. Flow state is a concept that should be in every interactive designers toolkit.
