Rage-Quit - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 74

that learning has occurred; on the other hand, when students fail the
tests, we know that it hasn't. In order to promote flow experiences in
games, we need to make sure that all players arrive at the same skill
level as fast as possible. What this means is that tutorials must illus-
trate the points of the game to the player rapidly, whether through
pop-ups, cognitive apprenticeship modeling, or some other method.
We realize the importance of having a skill-challenge balance in elic-
iting flow. In Chapter 3, we learned how to teach people particular
things in games, and how we should introduce additional challenges
to extrapolate from prior learning. If this is happening successfully,
challenge and skill level will be in perfect balance. The clearest way to
promote good behaviors and cull out bad ones in order to reach this
balance is through consistent and constant feedback .
Feedback
A second hallmark of flow illustrated in the flow scale described pre-
viously is the presence of clear and unambiguous feedback. While I
could write an entire topic on the feedback loop in video games, I will
demonstrate with a few key examples. Both Contra and Super Mario
Bros. as previously described use feedback to either reinforce or dis-
courage particular behaviors in games. Tens of thousands of individu-
als studied experiencing flow have universally relayed the fact that
they were exactly aware of how well or poorly they were doing at any
given moment. For this reason, it is very important to punish failure
and reward success harshly, quickly, and overtly. While this may not
be the case at the very beginning of the game, where we are trying
to reward experimentation and innovation in order to “grow from a
nascent experience,” we do want to ramp up the punishments for fail-
ure significantly, and ensure that the rewards for success are always
amazing. Finally, players must always know how to reach success or
failure, and what behaviors will bring them to a successful or failed
state in order to maintain clear outcomes .
Clear Outcomes
In years of flow study, one additional facet that recurs consistently
is that individuals studied were exactly aware of what was required