Week 6

Game systems

Making pillars

Every feature needs to contribute to at least one pillar
3-6 pillars keep the team aligned and prioritising clear and consistent
Title of pillar and 1-2 sentences to support and enhance understanding of what the game is about
Pillars should adapt throughout development

Game loops

Chair of repeatable actions that form the flow players experience. They’re sets of game mechanics that players engage with to make progress and achieve their goals within the game.

Core game loops

These are moment to moment, highly repeatable player actions within the game. They deal with short term goals and is done repeatedly multiple times to make permanent progress.

e.g. Hades II – defeating enemies and advancing through levels forms the core game loop

Meta game loops

Repeatable actions outside core gameplay. Long-term progression, story progress, feature unlocking, etc.

e.g. Hades II – upgrading abilities, unlocking new weapons, advancing relationships, are part of the meta game loop.

Making loops

List core set of actions player will perform and connect them
Resource flow under each action and description, list the flow of resources resulting from those actions.
- This allows designers to map out time units to resources
- It gives a sense of progress
- Optionally could include and icon for readability

From this I decided to try and map out a game loop for my own game. So, I listed actions that are performed in the game and made a resource flow chart:

Read list
Leave house
Walk to grocery store
Walk into grocery store
Put items into cart
Remove items from cart
“hide” from hostile NPCs to avoid “minigame”
Play “minigame” when sussed out by NPCs
Seek quiet spaces to regenerate health points
Checkout
Leave store
Walk home

Read list –> grocery shop –> play minigame –> seek quiet spaces

+ mental note + list items – mental note + mental note

– List items + anxiety if lose – anxiety

no anxiety gained