Game Design: Steam Game Coreloop – Journey of a Solo Game Developer (Journal #3)
Good morning journal (and to you, dear reader)
This morning started off calmly, even though there was a storm rising behind the lake. Big waves pushed onto shore while the wind was blowing steadily. I still decided to jump into my running pants and took a short run around the nearby field. It started to rain heavily when I was halfway through, and it actually felt rather nice. I didn’t have to encourage myself to go for a swim, since I was already completely wet when arriving back at the cottage.
The time is 07:51, and I have my “traditional morning coffee” with me. It’s time to write down some thoughts I’ve been pondering lately.
“Coreloops aren’t just for mobile games.”
I’ve been thinking about the coreloop of games. For a long time, I thought that coreloops were for casual mobile games only. But it’s been nice to discover that those are actually in all of the games we digest. Fun fact is that coreloops are actually built into our psychology as well. One way to call it is “Patterns.”
We humans love patterns. If there are two paintings on a wall, our brain does not really like that. We require the third. And when the third is put there, those need to be not only straight, but also the paintings need to hang there within a certain distance of each other. They need to form a pattern our brain can grasp.
If there is no pattern, it feels wrong. It feels like chaos. Sure, the feeling won't be that overwhelming. It’s just that feeling of “not being right.”
Same goes with game designs. Good designs have patterns. They repeat some specific processes again and again. While the player is playing the game for the first time, they start to feel a sense of learning. Or even start feeling that “I’m good at this” just because they learned the loop. Their brain can already expect what is happening next, and when that happens, the game is starting to “feel good.”
One very simple example of a “loop” would be in the user interface design. If there is a popup window that opens, the closing button needs to be in the same specific spot each time. If it varies, the player will have that short moment of “uncertainty” when trying to figure out how the window closes. It breaks the immersion. Not completely, but it cracks.
“When immersion has no cracks, it feels good—even if we don’t know why.”
When there are no cracks in the immersion, we can’t really explain it while playing. It just feels like we want to go “for another round” because we’re getting that small (or big?) dose of dopamine into our system saying that “I know what I need to do, I’m good at this.”
I feel that “hardcore” and “casual” games are not that much different. Casual games just give the instructions for the player more clearly—what they are expected to do. While in hardcore games, the player more or less either learns the loop by himself, or lives in an illusion that they did.
If you start to give too many instructions for the “hardcore” player, the game may start feeling “too easy” or “too predictable” or something similar. Which is also the main reason why many hardcore games offer the tutorial built into the gameplay itself, rather than offering clear instructions.
“Designing games is just designing loops—big, small, and everywhere in between.”
In my opinion, good game designs are just different sizes of loops. As the game designer, one of our most important tasks is to figure out all of those loops and offer tools for the player to discover these in interesting (and hopefully fun) ways.
Now the kids have woken up and they are hungry! Better start serving some food before they find the ice creams from the freezer. I guess their summer vacation “loop” is already built around “Eat real food = get sweets in return.”
Have a great day ahead!
Let’s talk loops—or just hang out.
Did you enjoy this journal entry or maybe you’re a game developer yourself? Be sure to drop into our Discord channel to talk more about coreloops… or something totally different maybe!? https://discord.gg/Cb9hY8y