Stacking Satisfaction: Exploring Flow and Competence in Tetris User Experiences
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Stacking Satisfaction: Exploring Flow and Competence in Tetris User Experiences
The goal of my thesis was to explore how different versions of Tetris— specifically NES, PC and VR— affect players’ experience of flow, a psychological state tied to focus and the psychological need for competence. I chose this topic to better understand how factors like competence and flow are related, particularly in game environments, and I happen to know a lot about Tetris.
These insights may help game developers to design games that better align challenge and skill while encouraging sustained engagement and a sense of mastery. Conducting this research taught me not only how to structure a user experience study, but also how design decisions— like input methods and user interface feedback— can directly influence psychological engagement.
Over the course of 90 sessions with 30 participants, I examined how different controls and user interfaces shaped players’ immersion and performance. This study found that there was a significant relationship between competence, need satisfaction, and flow, especially in Virtual Reality. Post-hoc analysis of the two dimensions that make up flow— fluency and absorption— revealed that VR tended to produce stronger overall flow experiences due to its positive influence on both.
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