Our player, Emily, has a great deal of patience, and rarely wavered from "Uncertain." Only toward the end did she move to astonished, and pleased. Most of the time, Emily found herself in the upper left quadrant. This is understandable. We had forgotten the name of the game (Orbital Trader), and without that, it was very hard to figure what the game was about, or its goal. Had we remembered this, a quicker understanding would have ensued.

But as Csikszentmihalyi (flow) would have predicted, as she became more skilled, her enjoyment increased, and her self-report moved from Uncertain, gradually to Pleased. However, she never felt, nor did she appear to enter a state of flow. The challenge was too high for her skill level. Regarding the ARCS model (Keller), none of us, including Emily found the topic relevant to our lives (either trading, or astronomy) and this may help explain the very long learning curve.

As an observer, I found myself starting in the Uncertain quadrant, and quickly moved to Frustrated and Annoyed. Had I been the one playing, I would have searched early on for the instructions, or the Help button (none of which existed.) The challenge was a bit too high for my total lack of skill or understanding. There was no possiblity of flow to occur for me personally with this game (and as an artist, I experience flow frequently). Had I stumbled upon, and played this game on my own, I would have abandoned it early on. Emily agrees.