Elements of Game Design: Game Flow

Continuin my series about elements of good game design, it's time to talk about Game Flow. Game Flow keeps the game moving, fast-paced, constantly interesting, and one would hope, never dull for the player. Rewards, as I mentioned in the last post of the series, can be used as an element of game flow, but it does not encompass all of game flow. A game can not be driven by rewards alone -- at least not in the conventional sense.

What is Game Flow?

Game Flow is the term I use to describe the aspect and element of the game that keeps the player wanting. It is the element that tells the player you need to keep playing, you need to check this out and this is worth continuing. Liken it, if you will, to a game almost every one has played in the real world; tag. Almost every game of tag beautifully demonstrates 'game flow'. There is always a small element of danger, always something moving or progressing, and generally speaking, there's always a small place to take a quick rest or a breather, which also plays a great role in game flow. To bring a good example to the floor, I bring up Call of Duty a lot. I'm going to have to do it again, simply because the whole series demonstrates some of the key principles of game design and executes them in what I believe to be a beautiful manner. Here are the key elements to game flow and examples shown through the Call of Duty series and some other games I will mention.

1. Constant Goals (aka Action Action Action!)

To mention a bit of zen philosophy, this rule is very much about "living in the now", or in other words, taking the entire game and breaking it up into constant miniature goals and objectives. A nice example is as follows;

The overall goal is to assault a nearby German encampment.

- The player must go through a barn to get to the rear of the building.
- A German tank suddenly plows out of the barn and begins to wreak havoc on your and your squad! A new objective; The player is ordered to take out the tank with some nearby rockets.
- The player destroys the tank. A new objective; the player must clear the rest of the barn.
- The player must get to the rear of the barn and hop on a waiting allied tank.
- Riding the tank is what we call "The Breather" (we'll talk about this in a moment).
- The tank convoy arrives at the German encampment, the player must hop off before the tank is destroyed! (See? A small, but nonetheless significant objective)
- There are machine guns in the guard towers, the player must take them out with rockets so that his friends can move up and secure the rest of the camp!

Meanwhile, the entire time, the player's overall goal has been to siege the German encampment, but the player has been driven to that final destination by subsequent mini-objectives. Developers should be careful here not to railroad the player down a silly path. This is where multiple paths (something I'll touch on in a later article) comes in to play. Allowing the player to complete (or sometimes even ignore) these mini-objectives gives the player a lot more empowerment over their journey through your world. Developers should be careful about how they do this, and strike a balance between "too much guidance" and "not enough guidance."

In Call of Duty, enemies will continuously 'spawn' (appear) and attack you until you gain a specific amount of territory on the battlefield. This keeps the player in constant action, and gives them a very clear goal of "I have to fight my way up there." Sometimes this can feel like a bit of sensory overload, so developers must watch out for giving the player more than they can handle, not just in terms of skill, but in terms of how much information they can process. Too much and the player gets aggravated with the game, or feels rushed. This happens often (to me personally) in arcade games such Geometry Wars or Dance Dance Revolution. A bit too often my senses seem overloaded by all the action going on.

Another example of the Constant Goals element in game flow is found in Mirror's Edge, but on a much more subtle level. As the game can (usually) be navigated many ways by the player, each ledge, every gap, every pipe, is a new goal. In the game, important objects, ledges, and pipes, are highlighted in red, and in that sense they are very much the immediate goals that drive the player through the game.

While there may be an overall goal for you to achieve in a given level, there are hundreds of small things to accomplish along the way. This keeps the player moving and playing in the now -- in the present -- instead of hanging a giant carrot on the stick and only allowing them to get it once they've completed the entire level. Smaller, frequent carrots (goals) make for happier horses (players).

2. Plot (aka Storytelling)

Many games, movies, and other entertainment are driven by Plot. Story is a must for most games. From the very simple to the very complex, players generally expect a compelling story to keep the singleplayer (and sometimes even the multiplayer) moving along. This is most obvious in the campaign of many games. An event happens which drives the player to the next event.

The events can be something as revealing as the cutscene where we find out Cortana is now Master Chief's mother-in-law (plot twist?), or the part of the story where the science experiment goes horribly wrong (no one expects that one), or the player finds themselves transformed into an amoeba fighting white blood cells in someone's body! (It happened in some game I saw.)

The events can also be something small, such as a quick reference to something going on in the story (witty quip?), a new enemy (kill this boss?), a cinematic crash landing overhead (rescue the survivors?), or a civilian being slaughtered by the alien overlords (more emotion added to the player's drive to vanquish his foe).

Whatever the event may be, it should always lead the player along the path to the next story event, objective, and eventually, the final goal. The climax of the game should be built up to by all the events that brought the player to that single point. So, after all this talk of action and story, what if the player is feeling a little too much adrenaline? That's where The Breather comes in.

3. The Breather (aka Catch Your Breath)

Ahh... Well, that's what you should be saying during this moment anyway. The Breather is just as it sounds. It's the moments in the game where there really is no action at all. It's the moment after the battle, the moment the dust clears, the moment when everything calms down and the player's mind tells them everything is going to be OK. As zen will teach us, the mind can not be fully present without space. Consider this the necessary space between the events. I say necessary for a good reason. Without these moments, the player has very little time to regain their calmer state. With too much action, the body becomes dulled by the constant panic, or the constant energy they're putting into the game. Instead of giving the player constant fun, that merely gets the player tired, or dulled towards the game. You will notice this if you play a game, especially a very action-packed game, usually multiplayer, for too many hours -- it becomes a little bit dull.

This is the moment developers must give, use, and take advantage of. This is where you can sneak in Plot, or simply give the player art; be it a scenic view, a fun easter egg or a wonderful cinematic. You can do this actively, while also giving the player a spot to simply 'catch their breath', usually mentally, but physically too.

Game Flow is of key importance to any game, in order to keep the player focused and oriented, by dangling that magical golden carrot of Constant Goals, Plot, and the space that The Breather gives us.

And that closes this post. Remember the objectives, coupled with genuinely fun gameplay, and you can't go wrong.