The Quest for the Perfect ExerGame

Today I had the privilege of having lunch with Jenova Chen, Video Game Designer extraordinaire. Jenova’s MFA Thesis was entitled “Flow in Games“. Why I hadn’t thought of being “in the zone” in relation to active video games I’ll never know. However, Lisa Hansen very helpfully prompted me to explore this area. Indeed, it was when I was playing a Snowboarding ExerGame that I experienced a period of “flow”. As I shifted my weight side-to-side over the board, the immersive graphics of the game responded to my every move as I sped gracefully down the mountain. Suddenly I was totally and utterly in the game. My most vivid memory from my own sporting experience of the flow is a slow motion action replay of 1 hour 8 minutes and 21 seconds running round a forest in northern Sweden in 1990. Quite a long time to be in “the zone”!

I was keen to meet Jenova because his work provides pointers as to how to increase the likelihood of the player reaching the “flow state”. One key issue is that the game needs to be able to adapt to the skill and ability of the player. I had been considering exactly the same issue from the direction of physical exertion. 

So we talked and we ate and we discovered common issues and themes. Our desire to bring video games/ “ExerGames” to a wider audience and make them a richer experience was very much to the fore. Jenova impressed upon me more than ever to not loose sight of the fact that they are all fundamentally “Games”. I shared a variety of applications including rehabilitation therapy, all with the intention of making physical exertion more accessible to more people.

We parted, having both having learnt much form our encounter and very much intending to continue the conversation.