Games & Virtual Worlds Series

Difficulty & Mastery

Understanding Games: How Video Games & Board Games Work

Michael Filimowicz, PhD

Published in

Understanding Games

5 min readJan 3, 2023

Flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was a psychologist who developed the concept of “flow” to describe the mental state of complete immersion in an activity. According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is a state of concentration and focus in which a person is completely absorbed in an activity, and is able to lose track of time and their surroundings. Flow is often associated with feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction, and can lead to increased productivity and performance.

The concept of flow has been widely studied and applied in a variety of fields, including psychology, education, and game design. In the context of game design, flow is often seen as an important factor in creating a satisfying and enjoyable player experience. Game designers aim to create games that can lead to a state of flow for players, by providing challenges and goals that are appropriately matched to the player’s skill level, and by designing the game in a way that allows players to lose themselves in the gameplay.

Mastery

Game designers design games that allow players to achieve mastery by carefully balancing the challenge and complexity of the game with the player’s skill level. This can be achieved by providing players with a variety of challenges and goals that are appropriately matched to their skill level, and by allowing players to gradually increase the difficulty of the game as they improve their skills.

Designers can also create systems for players to track their progress and measure their improvement, such as leaderboards, ranking systems, or achievements. These systems can provide players with a sense of accomplishment and help them to feel like they are making progress towards mastery.

Another important aspect of designing games that allow players to achieve mastery is providing players with the appropriate tools and abilities to overcome challenges. This can involve providing players with a wide range of abilities or options to choose from, or allowing players to customize their characters or equipment in order to tailor their gameplay to their individual playstyle.

Fiero (Hard Fun)

Fiero, also known as “hard fun,” is a term used to describe the feeling of accomplishment and pride that players experience when they overcome a challenging obstacle or achieve a difficult goal in a game. This feeling of fiero is often accompanied by strong emotional arousal, and is often seen as an important factor in creating a satisfying player experience.

Game designers can create fiero in games by designing challenging obstacles or goals that players must overcome, and by providing appropriate rewards or recognition for players who successfully complete them. This can involve designing difficult levels or boss battles that require players to use their skills and knowledge to succeed, or providing players with achievements or other in-game rewards for completing difficult tasks.

Fiero is often seen as an important aspect of game design because it can create a sense of accomplishment and pride for players, which can be a key factor in maintaining player engagement and enjoyment.

Bibliography & Further Reading

A Game Design Vocabulary: Exploring the Foundational Principles Behind Good Game Design by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark
A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach by Michael Sellers
An Introduction to Game Studies by Frans Mayra
Basics of Game Design by Michael Moore
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier
Board Game Design Advice: From the Best in the World vol 1 by Gabe Barrett
Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: an Encyclopedia Of Mechanisms by Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev
Character Development and Storytelling for Games by Lee Sheldon
Chris Crawford on Game Design by Chris Crawford
Clockwork Game Design by Keith Burgun
Elements of Game Design by Robert Zubek
Fundamentals of Game Design by Ernest Adams
Fundamentals of Puzzle and Casual Game Design by Ernest Adams
Game Design Foundations by Brenda Romero
Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton
Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans
Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames edited by Chris Bateman
Games, Design and Play: A detailed approach to iterative game design by Colleen Macklin and John Sharp
Introduction to Game Systems Design by Dax Gazaway
Kobold Guide to Board Game Design by Mike Selinker, David Howell, et al
Kobold’s Guide to Worldbuilding edited by Janna Silverstein
Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition by Scott Rogers
Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote, et al.
Narrative Theory: A Critical Introduction by Kent Puckett
Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates by David Herman, James Phelan, et al.
Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, Fourth Edition by Mieke Bal
Practical Game Design by Adam Kramarzewski and Ennio De Nucci
Procedural Storytelling in Game Design by Tanya X. Short and Tarn Adams
Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing by Wendy Despain
Rules of Play by Salen and Zimmerman
Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology (Frontiers of Narrative) by Marie-Laure Ryan, Jan-Noël Thon, et al
Tabletop Game Design for Video Game Designers by Ethan Ham
The Art of Game Design, 3rd Edition by Jesse Schell
The Board Game Designer’s Guide: The Easy 4 Step Process to Create Amazing Games That People Can’t Stop Playing by Joe Slack
The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative by H. Porter Abbott
The Grasshopper, by Bernard Suits
The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies by Bernard Perron and Mark J.P. Wolf
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory by David Herman
The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design by Flint Dille & John Zuur Platten
Unboxed: Board Game Experience and Design by Gordon Calleja
Video Game Storytelling: What Every Developer Needs to Know about Narrative Techniques by Evan Skolnick
Writing for Video Game Genres: From FPS to RPG edited by Wendy Despain
Writing for Video Games by Steve Ince
100 Principles of Game Design by DESPAIN