Can a simulation put you in flow? I think it can, maybe even more so than a game. Assuming you’re the expert it was designed for. Flow doesn’t belong to only games or simulations, it’s a part of both!

The distinction comes from the intended level of learning. Games are generally focused on a set of basic or intermediate skills – maybe a whole bunch of different beginner-type skills. But, when I try to design a game that is focused on expert level skills, it quickly stops feeling like a game, and starts to feel like a simulation.

There’s a reason it’s hard to say which is which. At some fundamental level, a game and a simulation are the same thing – one’s just more complicated. So, we could try to specify which is which using a bunch of complicated technical definitions. But I prefer simplicity.