“Super Mario” was the main game I chose to play for this week it’s a simple game to follow in which you play a character who you play many different levels and try to win the over all game. Super Mario can fall well into the reward category as it can be seen as a adventure game, this means that the ‘game can tap into the brains natural reward circuitry’ The Idea that you keep getting a reward there is always a new one coming up. This is seen well in Mario as through out the game you can bump bricks and win things to make him stronger or give him more lives and they are hidden all the way through each level. There are 4 types of rewards; they come in the form of glory, sustenance, access and facility. The reward for glory is when the reward has no impact on play so in “Mario” this is seen when you can go down a tunnel which can cut some of the scene out then you come up and carry on playing. Rewards of Sustenance is seen as character maintenance, this can come into place when Mario wins more lives so it’s harder for him to die. Rewards of access is not as common in Mario in my opinion, you don’t really win passwords or too many secret ways there seemed to be very few of these. Rewards of facility are a big thing in Mario as you can make him stronger by winning different things for him such as weapons like him being able to shoot fire to kill his opponents. It can be easy to get really involved in Super Mario and lose track of time as you keep thinking to go just a little bit further. However a better game that carries flow 'The state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter, totally unaware of your surroundings but enjoying the task and having fun while doing so' Theories/flow.com, stronger which I played this week would have to be “Tony Hawkes Pro skater” in this game you are the skater and you get to perform lots of tricks and challenges with so many different moves to learn. It is very easy to play this game for hours as there is so much to do. It fits well under the four prerequisites for flow which are; being a challenging activity (learn lots of different skills all ranging in degree of difficulty), Have clear goals (get a certain amount of points and you get graded), clear feedback (end of each session you get scores and skill ratings) and control in an uncertain situation (don’t know if you can make every move). The effects of flow and these being which all do apply to this game is the merging of action and awareness, concentration, lose of self-consciousness and losing track of time. When looking at iteration, which is the idea that the game you are playing is not exactly repetitive in the sense that if you die and have to redo your scene you will try something different each time so it changes what happens all the time until you get it right. Iteration is what stops the game getting boring by varying your moves. “Super Mario” demonstrates this by if you get killed by being hit by a certain creature while standing at a certain spot you would go back and vary where you stand and maybe how you would move to as to not die. This is very different to repetition in which you carry out the same move each time without trying anything different this can be seen as boring and with the lack of rewards you lose interest in the game.
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