A Sudden End of Flow

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the reason why spinning out or losing control in a racing simulation is a very disappointing experience.

While in a state of flow, a person is totally immersed in an activity and derives fun from the performance of it. Furthermore, the state of flow is a very rewarding experience that motivates a person to continue with an activity in order to remain longer in this state. That way, flow can be seen as a state of happiness. Ending or changing the activity are not a good option as it would result in the end of flow.

Ferrari LaFerrari in Assetto Corsa

This of course also applies to playing computer games. Players can get into the state of flow when a computer game provides new challenges they can barely overcome and informs them about their progress towards the completion of the goals. As a result of this, winning, failing or changing the game are no satisfying options as this would result in the end of the flow experience.

Personally, while playing racing simulations, especially in the case of DiRT Rally, I was surprised why it really annoyed me when I lost control over the car or caused my car to spin for various reasons. Recently, I realized that this strong disappointment was not just a result of the fact that I did a mistake but an effect of the instant end of my flow experience.

As racing simulations easily allow me to play at the very limit of my driving skills, they are highly flow inducing virtual environments. Operating the virtual race cars at their limits demands my full concentration and, by indicating the time I needed to complete a lap or a stage, respectively, I constantly receive immediate feedback about my performance. As a result, I am immediately in the state of flow when I start to drive one of those cars.

However, spinning out and subsequently getting off the track is not a soft transition out of the immersion but an abrupt end of it. This sudden end of flow immediately results in a short but high degree of frustration as it is a completely unsatisfying outcome. Simultaneously, it demonstrates the strong motivational effects of game flow.

In the end, since having identified the reason why I am all the time very disappointed after an incident, I just need to smile when it happens to me again as it then makes me feel very connected to my research.

The End of the Conelanders Racing League

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the end of the Conelanders DiRT Rally Racing league which kept me entertained and challenged for the last one and a half years.

Next month, about two years after DiRT Rally was made available as an early access game, DiRT 4 will be released. Amongst other things, the next version of the rally simulation game implements a random stage generator which automatically generates unique stages that can range from easy short stages to technical long stages. In addition, by randomly generating stages, players can no longer memorize specific locations and hence will be challenged over a longer period of time. Also, this feature hopefully ensures a better competition in DiRT’s league system as, in DiRT Rally, players who memorized a stage had a strong advantage over players who were dependent on the co-driver calls.

DiRT Rally

With the upcoming release of DiRT 4, the Conelanders Racing League–a relaxed racing community I was a part of since its humble beginnings one and a half years ago–will come to an end next Wednesday. Over the course of the last 17 months, the Conelanders DiRT Rally League challenged its drivers with weekly and sometimes monthly events thus bringing the members closer together and resulting in many new friendships. One of the unique features of this league was the strong focus on video content creation. For this purpose, most of the events could be completed within 20 minutes which is a good length for a YouTube video.

Personally, the content creation became a weekly ritual to me I was all the time looking forward to. Every event was different and provided the potential to tell a very exciting and unique story: a very close competition, a great recovery run or just an empty stage to discuss observations I made while playing the game. Of course, there also was the competitive aspect of competing with my friends on a weekly basis. I eagerly awaited the videos of their runs to see how well they did and where they managed to pull away from me.

After having produced more than 60 Conelanders DiRT Rally videos, it feels very strange to me that the league now hosts its final event. The celebrations of the league’s end already started two weeks ago as the Child’s Play grand finale began. Drivers who wanted to compete in this final evant were asked to support this charity thus ultimately racing for a good cause.

In the end, the last one and half years of Conelanders DiRT Rally were fantastic. I made many new friends from all over the world, expressed my creativity by producing a couple of unique intros for my videos and improved my driving skills by playing the game.

Thank you Conelanders and, more importantly, thank you ConeDodger240 for having organized the league!

Control Device Configuration Usability

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the importance of a good configuration usability of simulation games in order to ensure the best possible realism independent of the available hardware.

For the purpose of getting the best experience out of playing simulation games, it often is critical to use input devices that mirror real-world control devices and provide additional forms of sensorimotoric feedback, e.g., force feedback, about the current status of the simulation. For instance, playing realistic racing simulations with a 900 degrees of rotation force feedback racing wheel results in a higher immersion and better driving performance as the force feedback provides sensorimotoric feedback about the car’s status and the 900 degrees of rotation enables players to even perform slight and minimal steering inputs. As a result, players can control the virtual racing cars more efficiently and accurately thus experiencing a higher degree of realism.

However, it is also important that the simulations allow for an easy way to configure various input devices as well as the linearity of control inputs to provide the best possible realism independent of the input device’s construction and functions. Currently, I try to achieve a good flight experience using X-Plane 10, but, unfortunately, I constantly encounter issues with the linearity of my inputs. For instance, a slight joystick movement often results in a steep banking of the airplane which especially is problematic during a final approach. The same problem applies to the function of adjusting the trim: instead of gradually increasing or decreasing the trim rudder, the simulation changes the trim to either one of the maxima when I touch this button just a bit too long. Of course, X-Plane 10 provides many options to configure the game controls, but as the menus and sliders are not very intuitive, a lot of trial-and-error is needed which, thus far, has not reduced the negative effects, unfortunately.

In sum, simulation games not only have to directly and accurately encode the underlying physical principles but also provide a good usability to configure the available hardware to enure a realistic gameplay and avoid breaking the immersion.

Learning from mistakes

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the need for good tools to analyze the own gameplay for the purpose of developing an in-depth understanding of a game’s underlying principles.

Recently, I had to start a new game in Transport Fever because I made too many mistakes during my first attempt of successfully establishing a transport business and, as a result, I was about to go bankrupt. Of course, this was not a surprise to me as I already expected to encounter some issues the first time I play the game as I needed to develop an in-depth understanding of the functionality of the game’s game mechanics.

Transport Fever

However, before I started the new game, I took some time to analyze my steps and decisions that ultimately caused me to lose the game. In the end, I found out that I focussed on the wrong types of cargo at the start of the game. The ultimate goal of a player is to satisfy the needs of virtual cities by delivering the demanded products. For this purpose, the player must satisfy the requirements of those industries that produce the demanded products. This can become quite challenging as some factories demand multiple types of materials and stop to accept additional deliveries over time when not all requirements are satisfied or their final products are not shipped. As a result, a player can not just focus on the transport of one specific good but has to satisfy the entire supply chain for the final product that is demanded by the cities. Unfortunately, I was not aware of this game mechanic and, as a result of this, I ran out of money as my transport lines ceased to generate revenue over time.

While analyzing my first failed Transport Fever game was simple, other games are much more complex and hence it is much harder to learn from the own mistakes as too many variables play a role. Therefore, in order to allow players to learn from their failures, it is important that computer games provide many statistics or even a replay function at the end or even during the game that allow for a good analysis of the own performance.

This, of course, is even more important when the game is intended to help learners to learn or practice new knowledge. Without a good way to learn from the own failures, it is much harder to find the correct solution to a specific problem and hence makes the entire learning process more complicated or can even cause a high degree of frustration.

As a conclusion, allowing players to analyze their gameplay after a failure greatly helps them to develop an in-depth understanding of the underlying principles which ultimately can result in a better gameplay performance or learning outcome.