On Jenova Chen's "Flow In Games"

I was recently directed to the work of Jenova Chen - a work I had heard of numerous times, but somehow managed to skirt around until now.

http:///www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/

While the body of work discusses the apllicability of a dynamic difficulty system - and does it very well, I might add - there is one small passage that I took some umbridge to:

"Unfortunately, like fingerprints, different people have different skills and Flow Zones. A well-designed game might keep normal players in Flow, but will not be as effective for hardcore or novice players. ... To expand a game's Flow Zone coverage, the design needs to offer a wide variety of gameplay experiences"

Before I explain my issues, I'd like to say that if there was research done on the subject which I have somehow missed, I apologize. I'd also like to add here that I found Chen's work to be brilliant and inspirational - I tend to sound very harsh when criticizing people's work, and I don't want to give the appearance that I have anything other than the utmost respect for Chen. If it had not been for his work, I would not have had the thoughts laid out before you - and I lay them out for the sake of promoting discussion on game design and advancing our collective understanding of it.

That being said, I don't think that different players need necessarily have a different Flow zone, or that the game must adjust to cater for them. This is a simple case of logic - the only way in which a player can be classified as "Hardcore" or "Novice" is in their experience of a particular type of game. Surely if a game is unique enough not to be an expansion of an existing game, players will not be able to so readily transfer their skills?

Far Cry 2 - so often my go-to game for design examples these days - implemented a number of new and interesting elements that create a rather unique experience. Fire propogation had been done before (Alone In The Dark), as had convincing AI (too many games to mention) and weapon jamming (an example escapes me for the time being). Yet putting them together created a unique experience - what Clint Hocking referred to as a "series of systematic failure". This was intended to deliberately kick the player out of the compose/execute cycle, and keep them constantly thinking and reevaluating their actions.

This created game-specific thinking. The player's success or failure didn't depend on their experiences in previous games, or (so heavily) on their abilities to weild a controller. The most prevalent issue in their success or failure was their understanding of the game's mechanics, and how they reacted to this.

Interestingly, by offering a variety of different ways in which the player can approach any situation, and by using a large number of variables in the gameplay mechanics, the game really does offer an abstract form of difficulty adjustment - players are free to play the game as stealthily or as recklessly as they like - but neither is "easier" or "harder". The player has the many choices Chen describes, but I don't believe that they will appreciate those choices based on prior gaming experience (or lack thereof).

Where Chen, later in his report, says that a system which assesses the player's progress and adjusts the game to suit would be marred by players who might get lost in other activities within the game world (such as performing suicidal stunts in GTA, or endlessly jumping around in a 3D Mario game), I would have to ask the question of whether or not this should be something that we accept as part of a game. Yes, it might be fun, and no, a player should not be restricted from seeking out a fun experience that they see within a game, but if there is something fun to do in a game, should it not be integrated into the central gaming mechanic? If it clashes with this, has the game not failed the player? Is this not a prime example of the game's core mechanic failing to capture the attention of the player? Has the player not broken out from the game's "Flow" mechanic, and then created their own (thus proving that ours was not good enough)?

Chen's point, of course, still stands - it would make the game worse if taking a moment to perform a breathtaking, fun, but ultimately suicidal leap in GTA resulted in making the game easier, but I felt it needed to be addressed that such things should not be accepted as a standard in design. In the case of GTA it goes to show a major failing in the GTA series - making us care about the death of our central character in a character-driven story-based game.