Flow State: The Art of Being in the Zone
By: Anthony Mendez
Tags: Game Design, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, Psychology

by Anthony Mendez

“The zone” is something we’re all familiar with, whether we realize it or not.

It’s that wonderful feeling of intense focus that often accompanies the pressure of a deadline or a competition.

This feeling has a proper name: Flow State and it has a lot to do with contemporary interactive media. In fact, if you want to be a good digital designer, you should be in the know about flow.

I’ll help you better understand the concept and show you some examples.

Meet Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Image courtesy of TrendHunter

Yes, you read that right.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (chink-sent-me-hi) was born on September 29th, 1934. He emigrated to the United States at 22 years old, studying at the University of Psychology where he would earn his Ph.D.

Aside from his extensive research on Flow state, he is recognized as the Distinguished of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. He was also the head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.

What is Flow?

Csíkszentmihályi provides a number of criteria that, when taken in combination, help facilitate a Flow state:

Intense focus on the task at hand. Merging of action and awareness. A loss of self-consciousness. A sense of personal control in the task. Intrinsic motivation toward the task. A distortion in sense of time.

A few of these in particular are noteworthy; the sixth point harkens back to the age old saying “Time flies when you’re having fun.” Requiring intense focus on the task at hand also makes Flow fundamentally different from daydreaming or “zoning out,” which lacks focused attention. With that said, it takes more than just a difficult task to instill a Flow state into someone.

The Flow Model. Image from Imgur.

As illustrated, in order to achieve Flow, a balance between challenge and feasibility has to be struck. Unfortunately, because entering Flow takes into account what an individual considers “feasible,” it could prove difficult to design something explicitly meant to put a user into Flow. That begs the question: how have people tried to put users into a Flow state? Let’s take a look at how game designers have succeeded, or failed, in this pursuit.

A Sticky Situation: Paper Mario Sticker Star

A page from the wrong book. Image from Nintendo

To those of you familiar with this title, it’s likely you rolled your eyes at the sight of it. For the rest of you, allow me to offer a brief history: Everyone is Familiar with Nintendo’s videogame kingpin, the Super Mario Bros.

Whenever a franchise gains success, it’s a common practice in the videogame industry to create spinoff titles; games tangentially related to the core series, usually featuring the same characters. One such spinoff is the Paper Mario franchise, a series that started off as a traditional turn-based role playing game, featuring the beloved cast of Mario characters as, you guessed it, paper cutouts. The series in its early years garnered a large fanbase, largely due to its action-command style of combat, and its quirky dialogue and characters. Super Mario’s flat counterpart was becoming a household name.

The jump to a handheld platform would prove to be a rough patch for the series. While the series had temporarily strayed from its original formula with a 2D platformer, Paper Mario Sticker Star on Nintendo’s 3DS made itself out to be a return to form; another RPG. Fans would soon learn that it was an RPG in name only. The system was turned on its head; previous staple abilities to our flat hero were now took the form of consumable stickers.

Paper Mario sticking it to some paper goombas. Image courtesy of NintendoWorldReport.

This on its own isn’t an inherent problem. In fact, I believe if applied correctly, this could have made for an interesting spin to the combat. The true nail to the coffin for Sticker Star was how it handled it’s level mechanic. Well, to be more accurate, it would be its lack of a level mechanic. Normally in an RPG whenever you complete a battle you gain “experience points” to level your character up and grow stronger. Sticker Star went away with this staple. Instead, your reward for completing battles were coins, and occasionally, more stickers. What could you spend these coins on? If your answer was “more stickers,” congratulations, you nailed it in one. This, in essence, formed a pointless loop; players would enter a battle, use up stickers, and gain resources for more stickers. Players would quickly notice that there was no point in engaging in any battles at all, making each level feel more like an obstacle course of dodging fights than an adventure. To refer to the graphic from earlier, players found themselves squarely in the Apathetic to Bored state, rather than reaching Flow.

The Ultimate Brawl: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

A clash of gaming titans. Image courtesy of MobyGames.

Seeing as I picked on Nintendo for showcasing dust when it comes to Flow, it’s only fair that highlight some of their magic. If there’s any one genre that excels at putting players in a Flow state, it would have to be fighting games. For the sake of this article, I want to call attention to Nintendo’s trademark 2D platform fighter, the Super Smash Bros. franchise, and its latest edition Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

While the Smash Bros. series provides its players with a wide variety of ways to play, a large group of players have leaned toward the competitive aspects of the game. This competitive scene is a metaphorical breeding ground for Flow state (perhaps we should call it a river). Any game that can form a competition is more likely to put competitors “in the zone.” Inevitably, any player is bound to find someone around their level of skill, if not slightly higher. This scenario would strike that perfect balance between difficulty and feasibility that is crucial for achieving Flow. The difficulty of the “task” is fully dynamic, based entirely on the skill of your opponent. Flow is present in a number of iconic moments in esports. Below, you’ll see a video of a player ranked worldwide (Samsora, playing as Princess Peach) facing off against a player ranked only in the state of Virginia (Puppeh, playing Pokémon Trainer).

Getting in the Groove: The Magic of Rhythm Games

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Another genre of games well known for putting players into Flow are rhythm games. By their very nature, a rhythm game requires its players to be intently focused. Your actions are timed to the beat of the music, meaning if you lose focus, you will quite literally be off tempo for the whole challenge. Rhythm games also tend to provide players with on-screen cues in the form of recognizable patterns, further intensifying the focus needed. Combined with the ability to adjust the difficulty of the challenge to suit your skill level, and it’s clear to see how rhythm games help their players get in the groove.

Go With the Flow

So, what’s the point? Ultimately, Flow can lead to memorable moments in gaming. Ones that can resonate not just with the player experiencing it, but also spectators looking on. Flow leaves an impact, like a splash of cold water. What I would argue is most important is that Flow can’t be forced onto someone. A well-designed game will likely get its players to achieve Flow on its own, without having to go out of its way to do so. While I highlighted fighting games as a method for players to reach Flow, it is by no means the only one. A difficult puzzle or a vast expanse of land to explore can also instill this feeling into players. Instead of straining yourself to get players to reach Flow, focus on the core mechanics and your players will find their way to it themselves. Along the way, you may even find yourself in the zone.