Designing games to maximize fun

Prior to designing the first playable level in the game, an understanding of how to model fun in games is required. Have you ever been involved in an activity and lost track of time, such as playing a game or otherwise? Cognitive psychologists call this mental state flow, and it is thought to be one way of maximizing fun. This is desirable because when the user is most engaged and having fun, learning and retention of information is maximized.

Game designers are interested in how we can design games that maximize the likelihood of the user entering this mental state.

It turns out that we have a model for how to entice the user to achieve flow. Consider the previous diagram that illustrates the relationship between the difficulty and the skill required for a given task. This is when the activity is moderately challenging and under moderate pressure. If the activity is too hard or too easy, or if the situation is too boring or too stressful, it reduces the likelihood of maximizing fun via the flow model.