**4. Single-player mode(s) of engagement**

*'Play is a total activity. It involves a totality of human behaviour and interests'. R Caillois: [20]*

In the previous section, three key characteristics of single-player play were suggested: challenge, creation and completion and a detailed consideration of these three aspects of gaming pleasure is the substance of this section. These characteristics will then be employed to evaluate the case study to follow and as a vehicle to assess the effectiveness of the TNAR-gamified application central to this chapter.

## **4.1 Challenge**

According to Costello [37] challenge is largely analogous to difficulty; participants derive this form of pleasure *'from having to develop a skill or to exercise skill in order to do something'*, and '*an activity can often be more fun if it is not too easy'* (p. 66). Csikszentmihalyi's ([18], p. 74) example of rock climbing, as *'a private experience rather than a public event'*, is of relevance here, as it allows the participant to '*choose the level of challenge that best suits one's level of skill'* ([18], p. 79) or mood for challenge at the time. In his example, there is a grading system for potential climbs that allows the climber to compare their inherent ability to the potential future challenge. The successful completion of sufficient challenge is found to produce both pleasure and self-fulfilment, with the activity of engaging providing its own intrinsic reward. Similar entirely non-social pleasure is present in other game-playing activities, such as playing solitaire or attempting to solve a crossword puzzle; pleasure is derived from using skill and/or perseverance to tackle the challenges presented by the system being engaged with.

*'Games that are too hard kind of bore me, and games that are too easy also kind of bore me'. Koster ([13], p.10).*

Koster's position, as defined in the above quotation, supports Csikszentmihalyi's argument that in order for a single participant to derive pleasure from engaging with a gamified system it must present the correct level of challenge. As in the Three Bears story, for every Goldilocks gamer, the beds should not be too hard, or too soft… they should be just right. Of course, as shall be seen in the studies below, games, like beds, do not always have a hardness level or degree of difficulty indicator to usefully guide us through our challenges. In the arena of electronic games, this raises the spectre of the potential for a mismatch between desired and offered challenges.

#### **4.2 Completion**

This characteristic is to an extent akin to challenge in that it forms part of the same process of engaging with the game or system to achieve an end: reaching the top of the cliff and finishing the jigsaw. However, there is an important difference, which relates fundamentally to the specific pleasure derived. Challenge is conceived as the embodied experience of the encounter; that moment of pleasure in the effective application of skill, the achievement of a 'flow state' [21] that can only occur whilst actively engaging. Completion is generally the goal at the game's start, but the pleasure

derived from challenge is not dependent upon completion. Completion is seen more as a lasting sense of achievement, residing in memory rather than in the instant. Whilst this sense of satisfaction can be related to the challenge faced in attaining completion—the *'process'* to take an Aristotelian view [38, 39]—it is not necessarily dependent upon it. Sizar [40] summarises this position succinctly as the one being the 'excited engagement during activity' and the other the 'satisfaction and contentment at their completion'.
