How Gameplay Loops Keep You Playing
How Gameplay Loops Keep You Playing
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The Architect isn’t the only person out there with a steadily growing backlog of games that’s impossible to ever finish- and despite that, they still go back to the same old games time and time again, but what makes a game compelling, and what makes us get bored of a title long before we’ve finished it?
The answer, is gameplay loops, a foundational game design trick designed to keep you playing for longer, but that’s not always a good thing.
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You Saw:
Starcraft 2 – 2010
Frostpunk- 2018
Astroneer- 2019
Grim Dawn- 2016
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided- 2016
Steamworld Dig 2- 2017
Transistor- 2014
Hades- Early Access
Destiny 2- 2017
Steamworld Quest- 2019
Wandersong- 2018
Pyre- 2017
Super Mario 64- 1996
Doom- 1993
DOOM- 2016
New Super Luigi Bros U- 2014
A Hat in Time- 2017
Jamestown- 2011
Furi- 2016
Bayonetta- 2009
Total Warhammer 2- 2017
Final Fantasy 6- 1996
Dark Souls- 2012
Sunless Skies- 2019
The Hex- 2018
Far Cry 3- 2012
The Lenged of Zelda: Breath of the Wild- 2016
Far Cry 5- 2018
Super Paper Mario- 2007
Pokemon Ultra Sun- 2017
Pokemon Fire Red- 2004
Pikmin- 2001
Factorio- Early Access (technically)
Devil Daggers- 2016
Bad Rats- 2007
Clash Royale- 2016
Candy Crush- 2012
Bejeweled 3- 2010
Sonic Adventure 2- 2001
Rimworld- 2016
Her Story- 2016
Ai War 2- 2019
best part of the video was the ff6 music. that being said, the rest of the video was fantastic too
Terra’s Theme starts playing and I stop listening to Adam D:
I find Football Manager Game Loops extremely interesting, wonder what your thoughts are
….not really. I got bored of shining soul in a single play
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My poor heart when you mentioned grim dawn as an example of something done bad
Someone might of already commented this but rimworld is a great example
YOU DIDNT EVEN MENTION ENTER THE GUNGEON
Yahtzee talks about these in one of his Dev Diaries – unfortunately, I forget which. He refers to primary, secondary, and tertiary loops. The primary loop is the second to second action, the secondary is the minute to minute, and the tertiary the hour to hour. Each level is a more and more overarching and complex level of play.
I feel as time goes on, I value core loops more, and everything else less. I used to care about matters such as story and progression, but now they just get in the way. I only desire the pure, uncompromising arcade experience with no narrative or progress roadblocks along the way. While others can get so much out of games like The Division 2 or God of War, I find myself being impatient with both. I’d much rather play a few straight hours of games like Grip: Combat Racing, Killzone 4’s botzone, Unreal Tournament’s Instant Action, or Twisted Metal 2012 set to my own music playlists. And unfortunately the current gaming market, along with gamers themselves, no long sees value in this game model. Its quite difficult to find a truly uncompromising arcade title these days, even games like Killing Floor 2 have the unnecessary in-match weapon progression and downtime between waves. I’d much rather be loaded out with all guns from the get-go and endure each wave in succession.
At the end of the day, the only two things I value are addicting loops and immersion, enjoying only the most polarizing titles on both ends. With pure arcade games on one side, and what I refer to as "true" RPGs on the other. Second life games with no clear narrative or objective. Where you just basically play as yourself doing whatever you desire within the universe given to you, rather than being some chosen hero or a part of a dungeon-crawling team of questers. Games like Elite Dangerous or Ark Survival, where you can simply build a house and be a farmer/dino breeder, or use your ship as a space pirate or star charter. Basically games where you are able to just go off on your own and do nothing of narrative value, simply living in the moment. Sure, they’re also bogged down by progression, with Elite’s being unnecessarily grindy, yet at the same time, such progression isn’t the motivation for playing, its the end game. With Ark in particular, players just try to bypass leveling as quickly as possible to get to the real meat of the game, and once you level out a character, you won’t need to do it again. If you want on a different server/map, you can transfer your character. Likewise with Elite, many players outright ignore its progress, simply sticking with smaller ships rather than aiming for vessels more akin to a star destroyer.
Who else paused underway to see what games he had?
zelda with no shrines? yes pls those suck.
Ow my…
I have also a lot of those games…
But that has mostly to do with that they are or boring…
Or control like shit…
(Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PS2!) XD
Nice video!
I’m a simple man. I see supergiant, i click
I’m really surprised you didn’t mention "Outer Wilds" in a video about loops, a game where the main gameplay loop is an actual time-loop. I guess you’re trying not to be too obvious about it, or mention the same games over and over in your videos? :p
Not mentioning Monster Hunter World is a crime it is the prime example of gameplay loop
Did anyone even noticed that He pats the dog?
So you’re saying I don’t actually like Warframe. I spent over a thousand hours in that game and I feel like I wasted my time.
I am a simple man. When I see a game with, 0/65 shrines , 0/180 documents and other similar shitty stuff, I uninstall. If the creators don’t give a damn why should I?
This was a great video & I’ve subscribed on the strength of it, but I do wish your subtitles were a little better, since I have great difficulty following without subtitles but the subtitles on this were actually more confusing than not having any, unfortunately. (Concrete suggestions: subtitles that actually match what you’re saying, rather than what was in the script, and line breaks in "natural" breaks in the flow rather than wherever would help a lot.)
I suffer from the Skyrim Modding Loop. I spend all day modding Skyrim just to play it five minutes. Rinse and repeat since 2011.
I’ve put hundreds of hours into grim dawn and it’s by far my favourite arpg of all time.
I have no idea what background music you used for this video but I keep feeling like a phone is ringing in the next room.
I like to think that gameplay loops (which they probably are to certain extent) are based on ‘real life loops’
– It’s easy to lose yourself in the small real life loops; eating food you like, having a smoke, watching a movie or playing a videogame.
And then there are longer lasting loops like the release of a new game, getting a paycheck or a celebrating a holiday
Altough they are fun and all, and are certainly important to not go crazy, it’s *also* important to keep the longer lasting loops in the back of your head: getting your drivers licence, graduation, find a partner or save money to buy a house or whatever
3:45
What game is this?
See also gmtk’s "keeping players engaged"
Dark Souls has such a brilliant "loop"
Your first playthrough is broken up into loops
Push through area from bonfire, Find boss, Die to boss, Repeat until you kill boss, Then Begin again
First playthrough is maybe 20 hours depending on player ability it could massively vary but say for arguments sake 20 hours,
you next NG+ playthrough might drastically drop to a 10-12 hour playthrough, then NG+2 become 8 hours, then 7, 6 down to 5 hours
then your entire playthroughs become a "loop" before you know it a normal playthrough without setting challenges or handicaps only takes a few hours
then the DLC comes out and slave knight gael skullfucks you until you cry
Can you make a more in depth guide to design a game play loop
loved the video ending hahaha 😛
The music playing during the outro really made me think of The 7th Saga.
Isn’t it fully possible for a game to have a primary (short) gameplay loop and a longer secondary or tertiary gameplay loop?
6:22 I disagree
for example Whitcher 3 doesn’t have such things yet you are not lost
Anyone know what game is at 5:06?
I don’t see it in the description of the video.
I like how this was brought around to game design ethics in the end.
There are three kinds of game that I refuse to play: MMORPGs, f2ps, and anything involving lootboxes. I believe all three have exploitative gameplay loops, and I’m just not going there.
Extra Credits thinks that loot boxes are here to stay, and are now a necessary evil of AAA game design. Maybe that’s why I spend so much time on old SNES and GBA games.
I’m kinda poor so when this happens I usually finish the game over the next 5 years. In the last 5 years I probably only got 5 new games.
I think you’d change your tune about pokemon if you played the pokemon crystal clear rom. Basically nothing is changed except gym leaders scale and it’s open world, and yet it’s more fun than normal pokemon
que timo
Basically:
Primary loop: The thing your player is trying to achieve on a second by second basis. This is where a lot of the polish should be. For example, in doom it’s shooting enemy’s and exploring the level.
Secondary loop: The thing your player is trying to achieve on a minute by minute basis. It’s usually done by completing many of the primary loops. For example, in doom, it’s killing/exploring everything in a level.
Tertiary loop: The thing your player is trying to achieve on a hour by hour basis. It’s usually done by completing many of the primary and secondary loops. Once your player completes on of these, they should feel like they’ve truly achieved something. For example, in doom it’s completing every level.
Hades is so good! Thanks for the video as always!
still sub’d and got hades
I’m still trying to put together how to make a gameplay loop or distinguish it as "medium loop," I’m studying to be a game designer and I’m sure what way to build out the core gameplay beyond just making what seems fun. Should I try to make a fun gameplay shtick and then append another one? Any advice would be appreciated
Factorio has stolen weeks of my life
Shorter more enjoyable loops are the reason I have like tens of indie rougelikes (but not only) games in my library and maybe 1 or 2 bigger games. I can’t get bothered to try and chip at 40+hour open world game when I can have a satisfying session in 20-30 minutes and decide if I wanna play more or not. Games like Enter the Gungeon, Slay the Spire, Into The Breach, Crypt of Necrodancer, Spelunky, Dead Cells and many more.
Ha, for me a first example I thought of of a game I never came back to was Supergiant’s ‘Transistor’ 😉
And at the same time, the most recent game I bought on steam, 30 minutes ago and before seen this vid, is Hades 🙂
I literally played Sims 2 for 5 days straight only sleeping for an hour where I sat just to wake up and continue. When I turned it off I didn’t touch it again for 2 years.
Wow… Nice one on ripping off that GMTK video. You could at least tried…
Pathologic 2 has such a long gameplay loop that I can’t find the motivation to come back to it compared to other 2019 games I want to complete.
Games with good/fun gameplay loops with a longer/meta loop for longer term, is hard to find.
I can count them on 1 hand.
But the boring gameplay loop games are limitless. It’s such a simple concept but idk if people emphasize on it enough
Your critic on Destiny 2 is lack of concrete example and reasoning.
what is the outro music from?