Some games bring me in the zone/give me flow like no others.
For example the following games do that for me:
- Olli Olli
- Contra (NES)
- Dark Souls
- Street Fighter II (SNES)
- Street Fighter 3
- Street Fighter 6
- Like Dreamer
- Choplifter HD
- XCOM
- Infested Planet
- Tetris Effect
What games are providing you with flow experiences?
Doom Eternal and especially its challenge arenas are immediately what came to mind for me!
While id soft screwed Mick Gordon on the OST, they did so much right in the gunplay and movement mechanics in that game. Rotating through the power trinity and bhopping around an arena whilst gibbing demons is something I just don’t tire of.
Any soulslike. When the boss movements click in your brain it’s very much a flow state.
Any simulation game usually.
I was playing bakery sim the other day, before I knew it 6 hours had passed.
Rogue Legacy does it for me in a pinch.
The Last of Us does too, but I tend to zone out and take my time sneaking around or observing stuff. So I don’t play it unless I know I have a lot of time to waste.
Sound Shapes did it for me too, but I haven’t played in awhile.
Monster Hunter World once I got down the controls/equipment well enough that I didn’t have to think about them. But once I dropped it, I didn’t go back because I don’t have time to relearn.
Halo Reach would take my time for hundreds of hours back in the day. It’s a unfortunate/fortunate that the Master Chief Collection doesn’t include multi-team in matchmaking.
Xcom was a good one too during missions. I have some great war stories from that game. My first encounter with chryssalids was straight out of a horror movie. Quickly went FUBAR and barely got one soldier out alive.
Sekiro, and nothing else has ever come close. It’s so smooth and so fast that I drop into the flow state with no trouble at all.
Sekiro truly did that to me, especially the boss rush where I took a chug of water before getting started and got into the flow zone for the next hour.
Rhythm games do it for me!
- One Finger Death Punch
- Rock Band
I’m a DDR 3rd mix bitch and huge into IIDX, Ouendan, and beat saber (before Facebook bought it) I could not agree more
Apex Legends. Its a difficult game to master, but every once in a while I get “in the zone” and pull moves/plays that impress myself. It’s not often, but feels nice when it happens. I still enjoy it even though I “suck” most of the time. I basically play it as a survival game >90% of the time.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Factorio
Both are almost exactly like programming for me. Impossible not to get in the zone.
I go between flow and “burn it to the ground” with Foctorio.
Do you do DCSS with pictures or @?
I’m a webtiles man.
Dark Tide (Warhammer 40K). The combat just flows so well, and the relentless hordes of enemies lay on the kind of pressure that forces you to use every tool in your character’s arsenal to its maximum potential.
Katana Zero did it for me
Infinite forest for Destiny 2’s Halloween event did it as well
Trackmania sometimes does it
Super Hexagon too
It was the coil for me in destiny. I put so much time into that and I’m kinda sad contest of elders doesn’t have a similar upgrade system.
Destiny 2
As a launch computer player I have never been so scorned by how shit a game could be
I had such high hopes and low expectations and it ruined me
God I miss the Haunted Forest.
Don’t play it much anymore, but the original Borderlands on xbox360.
Celeste.
Used to get this from Rocket League back in the day. My eyes would practically glaze over at times with just how automatic my movements would be.
League of Legends. I don’t even think anymore when I play.
How do you manage the macro for example ?
There are a lot of cues that happen in the game and you just kind of respond to that. I mostly play roaming supports so my brain is wired to go straight to mid after recall then look around the map to see where my presence is useful. The most obvious cues are the junglers.
Anyway, it’s kind of like flash cards. When you memorize things with flash cards, at some point you don’t really think anymore. There’s a default answer to every situation. But sometimes you get it wrong though. If you get it wrong too often, then those are bad habits.
Dead Cells, especially the first level puts me in a flow where I’m wondering at the end how I actually got there.
