Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the impact of adaptable difficulty on the flow
experience of players and to see if it is possible to trigger flow in players regardless of
their skill.
To research this question a game was created with an adaptive and a non-adaptive
version. By using a short empirical survey, information is gathered and then presented.
It can clearly be seen, that adaptive difficulty has a positive effect on flow.
The results suggest that adaptive difficulty is strongly impacting the flow experience of
the participants of the study. However, it has to be concluded that adaptive difficulty
alone is not enough to trigger the flow state in every player and other factors have to
be considered too. Furthermore, the survey shows that players experience flow very
differently.

In addition some further topics are discussed and their relation to adaptive difficulty.
-Learning through flow
-Accessability
-Addiction to video games

Link to the game: https://chakrosch.itch.io/circleflow