Week 3 (Gameplay Loops) | "Nerves" Game Design

Week 3 - Gameplay Loops

This week during we looked at Gameplay loops. Gameplay Loops defined by hearthstats.net is "“Gameplay Loop” is a term coined by game designers to explain how a game progresses from one state to another. A gameplay loop is a process in which a game goes from one state to another, often back and forth, in an infinite cycle." They are the heart of the experience for the player and certain games may have different types of loops.

for our workshop task this week we looked At coming up with some gameplay loop examples from existing games and then we looked at our essential experience that we decided on in past weeks and tried to come up with some gameplay loops based of of our idea.

The gameplay loop format usually goes from Opportunity - risk - reward so based on that some of the game examples of loops I came up with are:

Pacman

eat fruit (opportunity)

gain points

run from ghosts (risk)

get to more complicated levels (reward)

Grand Theft Auto V

See pedestrian (opportunity)

kill them

get wanted level (risk)

get money (reward)

So basically in these examples and other game loops the opportunity is the event that happens that allows the player to engage in that gameplay loop so in Grand Theft Auto V the opertunity is just simple the presence of an NPC near the player character. The risk is the event that could possibly happen if the player engages in this gameplay loop for example in GTA the risk is getting wanted by the police and possible death. And the reward is the thing that the player gains from completing that gameplay loop successfully for example the reward in GTA is the money that the NPC drops upon being killed.

Next we looked at coming up with some gameplay loops for our essential experiences that we are tryna convey in our game. The essential experience that I have decided on is anxiety weather that be a experience of anxiety or a story about someone who has anxiety.

So following my essential experience the image on the right is a rather basic gameplay loop that I came up with that goes through the following stages:

narrative driven chronologically (opportunity)

Anxiety fueling level

failure (risk)

Calm Level (Reward/false sense of security)

repeat

The next and last loop that I mocked up for this task was a more in-depth look at a loop within one of the anxiety fueled levels featuring within the main game loop.

Some people get anxiety when they get stressed and overwhelmed so for a possible gameplay loop I looked at making a level that induces stress and overwhelms the player to portray anxiety in the character, the loop goes through the following steps.

Narrative driven chronologically (opportunity)

Timed event

Barely possible amount of tasks

don't complete them all (risk)

Panic

Calm level (Reward)

What I will be taking forward

I will be taking the 2 game loop ideas this workshop sparked in me forward to create an anxiety game that has a compelling an dintresting loop of events.