Basics of Flow & Synergy in Game Design (Multidimensional Flow Part 1)

What is multidimensional flow? Before we get into that, we need to cover the basics of flow & synergy, which this part one covers.
** Part Two will be available on February 12 **
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Created by:
/ daltrey.waters

[@torisunanohokori7522]

You have a really nice voice for narrating concepts like this. Love your vids.

[@daltreywaters]

+Torisunanohokori Thank you! =)

[@MatsTijmes]

Man, your superman voice sequence was epic. Looking forward to the next video! Also, subscribed!

[@daltreywaters]

+Mats Tijmes Thanks! =)

[@TheOvy]

Your best video yet, great job.

[@daltreywaters]

+Benjamin Carter Thanks!

[@SaiNarayan_]

Hope you make more of these man!

[@daltreywaters]

Sai Narayan will do!

[@bulgarianogre]

Your videos are improving greatly.

[@daltreywaters]

+bulgarianogre Thanks!

[@dragosilies5764]

Great video! Thanks

[@losalfajoresok]

Loved it, just what I needed to keep organizing my next game design class :D

[@mycomputerfund]

good video. love the way you explain things.

[@daltreywaters]

+Zeta Reticuli Thanks! =)

[@Case_Portman]

Great vid man, very informative.

[@daltreywaters]

+Case Portman Thanks!

[@Gnurklesquimp]

I would be really interested in videos about synergies that emerge from a combination of mechanics naturally, so without tinkering with the resulting synergy. It's very hard to do without context, but as long as you go in with the premise of how you have to restrict yourself to a limited amount of games it could lead to very interesting videos where you trully look at the dynamics that shape gameplay for someone who understands, atleast on a basic level, how to play the game well. Think for example of looking at the relation between iconic rts concepts such as putting resources back into resource production and other long vs. short-term advantages and how these dynamics would fall on a graph. Prismata is an amazing symmetric and deterministic turn-based strat game that will help you immensely if you are interested in learning this stuff, each game is VERY different, so you're forced to develop an understanding of the game rather than memorizing things moreso than if it wasn't that way. Here's a vid: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l5aXi5qGosaiiJI When I first saw it, the art-style didn't leave the best impression on me, but thhat's just because they're low-budget indies with an amazing amount of talent to make up for it when it comes to designing the gameplay. I seriously recommend it to anyone who is interested in strategy game design, even if you're not you can learn loads about how you could go about balancing your rpg and make the interactions interesting, for example. Knowing how to engage your player in thinking about the game in interesting ways is good for any game, it doesn't have to be quite so hard as Prismata to learn from it.

[@ZaneFriday]

Undertale has great synergy with character development and combat. Through fighting an enemy, you learn more about its personality.

[@daltreywaters]

+Zane Friday I've been hearing quite a bit about this game lately, though I haven't played it yet. Given your remark, I'll add it to my "to play" backlog. Maybe fodder for a new video one day =)

[@adwinnie]

Cool! Nice easter egg at the end of the video ;-)

[@daltreywaters]

+Adwinnie Bernacchi =)

[@Gnurklesquimp]

''The solitary sailor begins to feel that the boat is an extinction of himself'' haha 1:23

[@Gnurklesquimp]

That wild guess at where the timestamp was was extremely accurate

[@taisanbarros]

Another great one, Daughtrey! Now I wanna try Supermeat Boy too! And to answer your question, I thought of Angry Birds and Candy Crush, although for CC I almost always feel like SCREW.THIS.GAME.

[@daltreywaters]

+Taísa Nunes =)

[@stayphrosty]

a great example of flow would be esports pros. they have learned *all* the tools of these complicated games and they can effortlessly use them all together in high-intensity matches.

[@daltreywaters]

+stayphrosty Yup, all of that while facing the high intensity challenge of confronting someone that's highly skilled on the game as well can certainly lead to flow.

[@ajmarr5671]

Why the Flow Model is illogical: A contrarian perspective on Flow from the perspective of affective neuroscience On the surface, the graphical representation of the flow channel is simple to understand. When you arrange a demand/skill match, flow happens. For any task, the problem is that although demand moves up or down dependent upon the exigencies of the moment, skill should be relatively stable during or within the performance, and only change, and for the most part gradually between performances. Thus, one may accomplish a task that from moment to moment varies in demand, but the skills brought to that task are the same regardless of demand. What this means is that for any one-performance set, skill is not a variable, but a constant. That is, one cannot adjust skill against demand during performance because skill can only change negligibly during performance, or in other words does not move. Thus, for performance that requires any skill set, the only variable that can be manipulated is demand. For moment to moment behavior the adjustable variable that elicits flow is demand and demand alone. But that leaves us with figuring out what demand exactly is. A demand may be defined as simple response-outcome contingency. Thus, if you do X, Y will occur or not occur. It is thus inferred that demand entails a fully predictable means-end relationship or expectancy. But the inference that the act-outcome expectancy is always fully predictable is not true. Although a response-outcome is fully predictable when skill overmatches demand, as demand rises to match and surpass skill, uncertainty in the prediction of a performance outcome also rises. At first, the uncertainty is positive, and reaches its highest level when a skill matches the level of demand. This represents a ‘touch and go’ experience wherein every move most likely will result in a positive outcome in a calm or non-stressed state. It is here that many individuals report euphoric flow like states. Passing that, the moment-to-moment uncertainty of a bad outcome increases, along with a corresponding rise in tension and anxiety. Momentary positive uncertainty as a logical function of the moment to moment variance occurring when demand matches skill does not translate into a predictor for flow, and is ignored in Csikszentmihalyi’s model because uncertainty by implication does not elicit affect. Rather, affect is imputed to metaphorical concepts of immersion, involvement, and focused attention that are not grounded to any specific neurological processes. However, the fact that act-outcome discrepancy in relaxed states alone has been correlated with specific neuro-chemical changes in the brain that map to euphoric, involved, timeless , or immersive states, namely the co-activation of dopamine and opioid systems due to continuous positive act/outcome discrepancy and relaxation, narrows the cause of flow to abstract elements of perception rather than metaphorical aspects of performance. These abstract perceptual elements denote information and can easily be defined and be reliably mapped to behavior. A final perceptual aspect of demand that correlates with the elicitation of dopamine is the importance of the result or goal of behavior. Specifically, dopaminergic systems are activated by the in tandem perception of discrepancy and the predicted utility or value of result of a response contingency. The flow model maps behavior to demand and skill, but not only is skill fixed, so is the importance of the goal state that predicates demand. However, the relative importance of the goal state correlates with the intensity of affect. For example, representing a task that matches his skills, a rock climber calmly ascending a difficult cliff would be euphoric if the moment to moment result was high, namely avoiding a fatal fall, but would be far less so if he was attached to a tether, and would suffer only an injury to his pride is he were to slip. Finally, the flow experience correlates also with a state of relaxation and the concomitant activation of opioid systems along with a dopamine induced arousal state that together impart a feeling of euphoria, which would also be predicted as choices in flow are singular and clear and therefore avoid perseverative cognition. It is the sense of relaxation induced pleasure and a feeling of attentive arousal that constitutes the flow experience. This interpretation is based on the work of the distinguished neuroscientist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan, who was kind to vet the work for accuracy and endorse the finished manuscript. Berridge’s Site sites.lsa.umich.edu/berridge-lab/ I offer a more detailed theoretical explanation in pp. 47-52, and pp 82-86 of my open source book on the neuroscience of resting states, ‘The Book of Rest’, linked below. The Psychology of Rest www.scribd.com/doc/284056765/The-Book-of-Rest-The-Odd-Psychology-of-Doing-Nothing

[@TheMellowSide]

I think Mirrors Edge had good flow when it worked, but it didn't always work. Games that involve traversing the environment are the ones that come to mind when I think of flow.

[@daltreywaters]

+TheMellowSide I haven't played MIrror's Edge (yet), but I hear that the sections where one has to fight armed henchmen break the player's flow. I'll give the game a a shot and see if that's the case.

[@TheMellowSide]

I think combat was almost always only an option, if memory serves me correctly you could normally just run right past them. I think the intention was that you were meant to find them hard to deal with and meant to find other ways around fighting them, but they all responded in the same way so I they didn't feel like they broke the flow too much.

[@CraparellaSmorrebrod]

That's a bit of a misnomer to have a video called "Multidimensional Flow" and then not explain it until a few weeks later when the second part comes out. Why don't you call it "basics of flow theory" or something like that?

[@daltreywaters]

+Craparella Smørrebrød Yeah I got a similar vibe as well after re-watching the video since i posted it. The original script started as just one part, but grew too large so I ended up splitting it. Thanks for the feedback though! I'll keep an eye for this next time.

[@CraparellaSmorrebrod]

+Game Design Wit Don't fret it.

[@katanalevygames]

I'm sure there's plenty of great information in this video, but I just can't get past the annoying silly voices less than 2 mins in.

[@daltreywaters]

Well I guess you can't please everyone =) Still thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment!

[@2Cerealbox]

It's pronounced "me-high (first name) cheek-sent-me-high (last name)."

[@edkabessa]

this is good content, but you break the flow of the video with silly jokes no one wanted...just a constructive criticism