Flow = balls are spoon fed right back to your flipper from a ramp requiring no nudge or advanced skills to catch random wild balls.

She was the waitress in dumb and dumber

and I thought this was ...

Flo.jpg

it usually happens to women about once a month

Flow = balls travel around an orbit or loop.

Flow for me is the ability to string multiple different shots together with out ever needing to trap the ball, do a dead flip etc. Combo'ing shots together.

STTNG - Alpha ramp to Beta Ramp To left orbit to Delta ramp to Left orbit to Delta, rinse and repeat - ball never stops.

ToM - center stairs, center stairs, inside loop, inside loop, right stair case, left orbit, left orbit ........ball never stops

To me flow is constant movement without having to wait too long for ramp returns, modes, and game interactions. For example: Return time on ramps with diverters like LOTR and BDK make flow slow and gets annoying after time. Another example is JM. I could not wait to get one. It lasted one week in my collection before the slow glove mode drove me crazy and I had to sell it. Avengers is another title that does not flow well. The playfield design with close distance between flippers and shots makes it a very difficult pin and also affects overall flow. I still enjoy it because of the difficulty but I have had very few games that I feel "flow well". Games that have tremendous flow in my opinion are Tron, Metallica, X-Men, IM, and ST to name a few.

You gonna love my games!

ball doesnt really lose much momentum

images.jpg

There's physical flow - which is what the flow-police are always after...relatively non-stop combos & balls feeding to flippers. Speed, really.

There's also logic flow. TSPP always gets shit for not being a flow game...but I submit that it is....every shot links to another meaningful shot organically. Sure, there are pauses - but pretty much every shot has a combo possibility. Example - you can shoot the ramp (back to flipper) then the Otto loop (pause, but feeds to upper flipper), shoot to Treehouse ramp (pause, pops to upper playfield), then shoot to TV (pause, feeds to upper right flip), then shoot up ramp to couch (pause and lock or start Multiball). So - less speed there, but still flow.

Flow in a game is a good thing, but if every game had great flow games would all feel very much alike. I'm not hating on flow games, I like them too.

No stop and go.

I can't believe someone thumbs downed this post and didn't add anything....uh maybe it was just JM love that caused it. You can't argue with the full stop of the glove. I like that kind of thing in a pin though ,it gives me time to take a drink or 3.

but I think Pinmister is on the right track in his def though.

Steve Ritchie=flow Barry Oursler=not so much

The thing about this is - every "flow" game has SOME stop. It just has to happen.

AC/DC=Jukebox saucer, Cannon, pops area, Bell (sorta)
Spider-Man=Doc Ock saucer/VUK, Sandman saucer/VUK, pops area.
Star Trek = Mode saucer, Vengeance Lock, Away Team shot

Even the beloved flow games have to stop the ball every so often.

Flow = The name for a product feature that Steve Ritchie is trying to sell to you.

This is the part of the hobby where I don't fit in. Play more. Who spends their time defining and measuring flow. Maybe you don't get it more importantly feel it but folks I talk to do.
And if you have a different definition , good for you enjoy it!

Want to know what flow is play ST and or SM you will have it right in your face. To me a big part of it is the layout providing potential to backhand a wide variety of shots so you can be going towards an objective with either flipper and not have to stop the ball or hit a meaningless shot to get it to a different flipper. It also has to do with speed IMO. Once you string a few shots together and you are in the flow the ball gains momentum and the ball is just flying around the field. Ramp areas and how they return can also have a big impact on how well a pins layout flows. If you have a bunch of upkickers, scoops, and stuff stopping the ball or only one ramp entrance with multiple upper/lower playfields then you are likely playing a pin with very little flow.

To me a flowy game makes you want to keep making on the fly shots because theyre very satisfying. Might not be the best strategy but on a pure gameplay level its fun.

Funny how every flow game you mentioned is a Ritchie game

The irony for me is that when I play these so-called "flow" games, I end up hitting nothing but BNODs.

Tony

I'ts everything that TSPP is not.

The kicker is ....
Star trek, I believe, is the first flowing backhand - left flipper to left ramp - rinse n repeat

Flow is what doesn't happen when you play TZ. (but TZ is still a great game)

The glove didn't kill the flow for me because I'm still actively controlling where the ball goes to choose a specific bonus and/or setup triple jackpots.

The video *snarf* mode, on the other hand... That's a flow killer. I like getting the extra ball as a strategic choice, but when the hand is disabled you get video mode every time which completely kills the flow of the game and makes me turn it off (or just let the video mode timeout while I grab another beer).

Flow=Demo Man if you are hitting the shots, very smooth game.

I did that on purpose.

I explained why that's not true

Party Zone's "Eat, Drink and Be Merry", now that's flow.

You can have have good flow without tremendous speed (Think STTNG) but you can't have tremendous speed without flow (Think JM).

Games with good flow - JM, HS2 (and 1), STTNG, Tron, IM.....etc.....

Games with horrible flow - TZ, WOZ, TSPP....etc....

i think part of "flow" is also the game doesn't constantly stop the ball for you.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=flo+alice&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&biw=1355&bih=843&tbm=isch&tbnid=p0lt-PIHs_CKRM:&imgrefurl=http://www.screeninsults.com/alice-tv-series.php&docid=Tv-9rmTeQ5PVHM&imgurl=http://www.screeninsults.com/images/alice-flo-kiss-my-grits.jpg&w=332&h=500&ei=n-izUofnKJbfoAS2goKIDA&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:0,s:0,i:102&iact=rc&page=1&tbnh=186&tbnw=122&start=0&ndsp=21&tx=61&ty=83

I forget who it was but somebody here once said that Pin*bot had no flow at all.

There's a totally different type of "flow" that I first expereienced with pinball. "Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity." You're "in the zone". It's when you can do no wrong. Every shot you make hits it's target - missing is not even an option. "The digit counters fall" and you win game after game. And the ball doesn't just not drain - it's like it can't drain.

I'm an amateur guitar player and one time I had the same thing happen while I was jamming with some other guys in college. I got into this state where my singing was great and effortless, and my lead guitar playing was as fluid and brilliant as Jimi F-ing Hendrix's. Unfortunately about 6 seconds into it I became conscious of it ("hey this is cool!") which of course totally kills any state of flow you're in. Never had that happen again with guitar, but for 6 glorious seconds it was like god (or maybe Jimi) shining a beam of light down on me from the heavens.

Still happens occasionally in pinball, though!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Flow is 15.5 gallons of Boston Lager coming out of my tap handle over the holiday season.

Yonkiman is referring to Flow Theory I think as introduced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

"The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill—and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored."

It is a theory of Optimal experience and can certainly apply to pinball. Maybe that is what SR is referring to in his designs.

here is a link to a TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

Flow is me standing in the corner of the back yard after drinking 15.5 gallons of your Boston Lager.

Flow = TRON
\

All good, but did you find a few more last night? Thanks for dinner bro! How was that at one time the three of us were just standing there playing only the System 3 games? Barb Wire's got some flow, eh? Have fun at the "land"!

In STTNG, you need the momentum to make the upper flipper shot to the ramp. In fact that shot is hard to hit, not as a combo.

Someone said 'returns' are not flow' which I tend to disagree with, since I think of flow as when you are not having to stop the ball to take control if to make shots, as well as the game stopping the ball excessively.

I do agree that a game with fast shots and combos is typically a flow game. But that would not be my only definition, since I do think a game like LOTR, with ball returns, has flow to it (low intensity flow), but certainly not to same degree as say BK2K (high intensity flow). I500 is a fast game with flow, but does have a game ball stop (the turbo), that breaks that flow a little bit, so, I guess that is "flow with a speed bump".

Also many games will just drop the ball into pops, typically out of lanes (LOTR, STTNG, I500 all do this), which I find kills flow, but I don't think that kills a game from being a 'flow game'. What is interesting is the Steve Ritchie games often do this, and he is the king of speed/flow. Pat Lawlor games typically don't (He loves the shot through the pops) and most don't consider his flow games. NGG, which is often called Lawlor doing Ritchie, also drops the ball into the pop like Ritchie.

shadow is a flow game

Even games that are predominately, "stop and go" can have flow. If you ever scored a four way combo on TAF, you know what I'm talking about.

Fluidity of shot.

Like art, I know it when I see it.

I think it's largely uninterrupted shots that flow back to flippers.

Games that don't flow real well can have combos that do flow in the short term (TSPP), and games that flow really well can have times when the action slows down for toys, ball locks, mode holes and what-not (JM, WH20).

I think what defines a game as flow or stop and go is what it feels like a majority of the time. Not all the time.