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* slaps game * it fit many lööps, brøther

Huh... maybe that's why I spent so much time on Skyrim yet struggle to find anything I really enjoyed about that game.

11:48 a million crappy games wanting to steal your time and money *unrelated footage of sonic*

I feel like this explains my experience with immersive sims. I look back on System Shock, its sequel, Bioshocks 1 & 2, and the dlc's to infinite pretty fondly, but I can't go back to them as easily as say Minecraft or a level-based shooter because they're very involved games. I couldn't just put in a little bit of time to enjoy them, whereas the more minutely freeform structure of Minecraft or the snappiness of a shooter level makes them easier to pick back up and play.

Someone who sounds exactly like adam killed him and took over the channel. How do I know? He didn't speak about xcom 2.

Great video as always, I appreciate it a lot! I have a few pointers if you want them. "Gameplay loops", "Core game loop" etc. these terms are a way to dissect and analyze (often with the purpose of tuning) a game. It's not featured in varying "amounts" across games, instead all games have them. From a walking simulator to a predatory mobile game, it's technically not a game without having at least one (that would make it a movie). Think of it as a way of dividing your game you are looking at into sub sections of *modes of interaction*. The "sum" will always be 100%, so the reason we use them is mostly to identify how many there are, and which ones are supporting, which is the core, and then make sure that the core definitely is satisfying for the target audience, while the supporting ones generally can be used more freely for other things; control pacing or to hook players and so on. You mentioned Destiny 2 for instance, this game relies on RPG mechanics, a progression system meant to support the shooting core. In the video, you make it sound like it's using loops to kind of distract you from the fact that you don't enjoy it, but that is only true if you don't personally enjoy the mechanics. The game was made to appeal to a shooter audience, and uses rpg progression in supporting loops to hook them. In the video you describe it as them "using" loops to make it addictive, but this effect comes solely from its progression system. You talk a lot about progression systems and addiction overall, but that is not an effect that comes from the "use" of game play loop analysis. The "use" of game play loop analysis, is to make sure your players spend time on what you want them to spend time on, and that can vary from game to game depending on core audience. For instance, having "worlds" or "levels" in your game, dividing it up, does not necessarily change the modes of interaction at all. It can have 8 or 12 worlds, and still involve the same core / supporting game play loops. The mode of interaction within a level is generally the core game loop and benefits like you said, from being integrated, learned by the player. Augmenting the core game loop with weapons or different mechanics on levels such as an ice level, is not necessarily a new game loop. On the other hand, the Total War series as you said has a clear boundary between strategy and tactics modes of interaction. Those are a good example of separate game play loops, one encompassing the other, supporting each other and creating something whole. But things like the bike level in battle toads, when suddenly the game is different, is an example where the core game loop is completely changed. These are the situations where the term is most useful to have. The consensus has moved generally towards the reasoning that a game should focus on it's core game loop and not split up the appeal too much. "Instead make a new game" is often heard in the corridors, when someone goes overboard with core game play loop changes. A good example where this went a bit sideways is Contra 3, when it suddenly and jarringly becomes a top down game. Yeah, that's splitting the core game loop (and the appeal) in two. I'm not sure a consumer can use the understanding of game play loops to change if they enjoy a game or not, it's more up to developers to find the appropriate composition of game loops that fit their audience. Gameplay loops is a term used to segment modes of interaction, and it's better understood if we try to disassociate it with the actual mechanics and systems in the game, and also from enjoyment of a game, because enjoyment comes from a lot of things, loops can be every which way, but if the pacing is right players might still enjoy it. Hope that makes some sense, thanks for reading!

You... you just reminded me Factorio exists! I had so much stuff to get done today!

Fantastic video! Had me thinking about things like Dark Souls' bonfire system, Fallout/Skyrim's "return to town to sell before you're overencumbered" pace, and Escape From Tarkov's raid design. This'll surely keep me thinking about what was previously an undefinable rhythm in games, that I now know is a definite piece of game design.

Hades is SO good. What puts it above the competition, in my eyes, is the characters. SUPERGIANT always make interesting characters, great banter, fully voice their games, and make the story actually interesting. That's why I keep coming back to their games. There's a lot of indie titles with great gameplay, but Supergiant just put their games above others in so many ways.

Gameplay loops are pretty sweet, but what about froot loops?

So that's why I love Killing Floor! A medium gameplay loop of a 10-round match and the short gameplay loop being the rounds themselves, split up by small shopping breaks.

*Laughs and cries in EVE Online*

Thanks for the good design videos, I always love these! It's because of you and Mark Brown that I now am a full time student in game design, and I love it. Seriously. Big thanks!

Just now I'm playing through Persona 5...goddamn it's hard for me to rip myself away from the game. The loop is way too satisfying and so easy to do. I'm in love!

I close Hades and open up KZfaq and get recommended a video that makes me want to play Hades again lmao

The moral of the video: Appreciate the lööps, brøther .

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

I would have loved to hear your take on how the loop works for Civilisation games. The addictive aspect of “one more turn” which can easily be ttanslated to “one more short loop” in order to reach a medium (tech) or big loop (conquering an ennemy). I guess you did address it but I think it might be the greatest loop game ever and has perfected the addictive nature of loops.

I'm honestly in awe of your production of these videos. No one else puts in footage of like 40 different games just to illustrate a point. With sauce in the description, even.

Final Fantasy 6 music, nice. Best FF game ever.

Warframe is a good example of this. The main loop is the mission, one level with a clear objective that usually takes somewhere between 2 and 20 minutes. Smaller gameplay loops are the combat and movement, both of which are usually automated by your brain after a while. Larger loops are created by the grind; that is, you need to run multiple missions in order to get new warframes, weapons, mods, and other items. There are so many and such complicated systems that most players have a "macro" goal that might take weeks or months to achieve, split into smaller goals that might each take dozens of missions.

Awesome video as always. As a game dev, I really appreciate these types of videos. Would love to see more in-depth analyses of games using these principles though. It's great seeing quick examples in each video, but these could be supplemented with case studies of individual games in their own videos to help affirm the concepts presented. Keep up the awesome work!

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.

Well, that was excellent and informative! I've gotten into Slay the Spire recently and man, I can really see how all this applies to it. You can get through one or two runs in a gaming session, and are pushed forward by the meta level goals of initially gaining new unlocks, and then eventually driving up your succession level as you improve. Personally I design in the space of tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, and I think there's a huge amount of this type of design to unravel there. Will be giving this some serious thought, thanks again!

5:14 I'M NOT AN EGG AT ALL! AHAHAHAHA!

6:45 Many videogames having 8 stages/levels usually choose this number over others because it makes the progression felt worth it without feeling too short or too lenghty. For a example a common critic of Zelda: Majora's Mask (and BotW to some extent) is how there is only 4 main dungeons in the entire setting. Meanwhile having too many dungeons could end feeling repetitive ur overwhelming to some players. Final Fantasy games can be very daunting at first because, while they do usually have a clear number of mcguffins to collect, they often end having an unknown number of dungeons between each important one, so people are a bit scare on how long they can get to complete, specially in early installments when the Internet wasn't accesible for most people. Also having a set number of levels helps developers to spread resources better, since there is 8 stages to work on they would center in those said 8 stages, and once they are done they can now work in other add-ons for increasing the player experience during their playthrought.

The music playing during the outro really made me think of The 7th Saga.

As I make my RPG I try to keep all of this in mind. I’ve set up many different goals such as killing all the enemies in a given room, progressing the story, or even being able to perfect the attack mechanic. These are all short term goals I think so long term goals would be getting to a higher level, upgrading your weapon, or buying new weapons that will outweigh your upgraded one.

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

Great video! Your point about cash-grabbing games, like Clash Royale, is spot on. That game had me playing for three years. I'd even sit there thinking 'is this even actually fun?' or 'why am I even on this?'. These games create an illusion of 'meaningfulness' when really you should just load a real game up and be taken on a story or adventure. FIFA does this too, as does COD. They play on people's natural short attention span and create positive feedback looks through extravagant 'You're Awesome' feedback screens. This feeds into gaming addiction which damages the industry as a whole. I've dropped Clash Royale and so much time back: it's amazing how the 'just another game' of four minutes becomes 40 minutes of vacuous, empty 'entertainment'. Thanks! Back to developing my own game ...

This was a great video. I find gameplay loops fascinating in general and im quite a fan of the more abstract loops in games. I find short and snappy loops can sometimes make me really satsified but much like the loop it wears off in a matter of seconds... i can understand however, why some people dislike longer loops; i play dwarf fortress alot and its one of my favourite games but it has next to no distinguishable loop, i suppose thats the strength of "make your own fun" kind of games

Oh this vid is already great. Awesome. Appreciate the uploads

There are also games that have timers that count down while you are not playing. Some games have a lives/energy system where if you run out, you need to come back later once they recharge. Some games have events that give you a big reward if completed before a deadline. Some games have a streak system where rewards get bigger for playing at least once a day, and reset if you miss a day.

12:13 Her Story core loop = search with a term, find new clips. New clips contain new terms to search for, leading to another search and the discovery of still more clips. Mid-level loop = formulate a question then formulate and reformulate answers as you search. Answers lead to the formulation of more questions, which also inform your traversal of the core loop. Largest "loop" =/= a loop b/c you only do it once: Search database until you are satisfied that you've learned what you need to learn, then log off.

Thank you for shouting out Pikmin. My favorite series and imo an underused case study of game design

Great video Adam! Your point about open worlds makes me wanna plug my favourite video game though. Like you said, many companies will fit outposts and watch towers in open worlds to make them seem more full and give you things to do, but there is a game which manages to put only story content in these worlds, with different places to explore all having purpose and that game is: "Fallout: New Vegas." Everything you do is for a purpose and you get a rewarding story or character moment out of every part of the world you explore. It's incredibly satisfying and leads for the most addicting, immersive game ever made in my opinion and everyone should do themselves a favour and check it out if they haven't already!

I realized this before i got to carried away with buying games I know I wouldnt play. I saved my money instead of buying new releases to experience old gems and recent classics and wait for sales. I had a little of a back log but now i made it a thing not to buy any game until I beat this backlog and so far its been super fun. Sticking to games gives u that commitment.

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

Rpg and Strategy games have a particular traits that to be honest for most gamer's it is what will sell it. First one and the most important one(which goes for my comment about dark souls too) Relativity, or Who am i in relationship to everyone and what are the structures and hierarchy surrounding it and where do i fit in and where can i go and who can i be. This part about where can i go is very important for most players whether through knowing your skill(like dark souls) or through knowing your levels( like morrowind and to a lesser extent skyrim due to its level scaling which breaks everything if discovered by the player) is very important many strategy games ive seen try to focus on the short and mid game loops which are very important but completly fall flat due to the nature of repetition one game i can say that really proves this is kenshi the fact that you know you start the game as nobody and can have a potential to climb all the ranks of society to a king. now the second trait is scale which kenshi as mentioned before also exceeds at. Now non of the games ive played have this dark souls level unintuitive progression that keep things interesting but in order for strategy games to move up they need this unknown and uncertainty where all basic rules keep the game together but everything in the future is unpredictable and that is when these games will be Extremely fun. (Also death to Quicksave and Death to game pausing menus)

Breath of the wild obsesses me to a degree I've never experienced in almost 40 years or gaming. Not playing at the moment but it's a game can always return to and find an equanimity unusual in games.

Your explanation of long vs short term loops made me realize why Death Stranding has been such a divisive game. It looks like an action game without enough action, but actually the core of the game is not the moment-to-moment action of making bridges or avoiding enemies, but rather is the planning and route-making that goes into making a delivery before even making the first step, and the strategic use of resources, with the moment-to-moment gameplay serving as a test of those planning skills. In Metal Gear, the core loop is a lot more twitchy, reacting to enemies and setups, whereas Death Stranding is much slower-paced and meta in its strategy. But because it's so new and different, and does resemble older more arcade-like titles, not everyone has figured that out yet.

Noita has an interesting gameplay loop. You are a mage and you can die VERY fast if you do not pay attention and even if you are, you can just get an unlucky enemy spawn. It still works with your skill and rewards you for taking it slow and exploring. But on the same not it also moves you forward to the next section by only having healing between the layers. You can go up if you have the neccessary spells and time, but it is always a risk. So by having a smaller loop in the different layers and an overarching loop of die and retry it keeps you engaged, but because the overarching loop feels so random at times it can be very frustrating. Each time you die you lose everything and start in a completly new seed. Currently only with mods or file manipulation are you able too keep the seed after you die.

3:00 This one's going right on the fridge, son

00:52 As a proffessional german I can say, to me this arm does look like someone trying to do the Hitlergruß

If u like Hades i cant recommend Dead Cells enough. I love it enough that even after beating the hardest difficulty mode im still playing, one of my favorite roguelikes of all time which is also why i wanna try Hades, reminds me of Dead Cells from the gameplay i've seen

I Think u just psychologically fixed my gripe with most new games I play, Thank you so muchos

At least for some turn based RPG that questions "Are you having fun?" Might not work all the time. Because while I have this video on I grinding in Dragon Quest 3 and ask that question and it was fun. However knowing it's to defeat final boss of game (otherwise couldn't, had reached it but no matter what I tried I lost aginst it), I'm still playing it.

Great breakdown and great video!

I've always found that farming sim games tend to have very fun feedback loops, games like stardew valley and rune factory 4.

4:50 allow me to defend dear old ff games and offer a different point of view. I know the video is about gameplay loops but with rpgs, at least old(japanese) rpgs there is something that you must consider, that being the quality of the story being delivered. The story beats in, lets say, final fantasy 9 are the reward you get after a a few battles. The STORY, not the quality of the gameplay, is what makes you want to continue playing.

i played skyrim and fallout new vegas so many times, that i remember most of the dialog by heart. now i am playing the Outer worlds, which i enjoy more than skyrim and fallout NV. yet after i finished it once, the second playthrough feels boring. i can't decide if that makes it a better game or a worse one. their core game loops seems to be the same

I don't know if that's just me, but man i couldn't stop playing frostpunk because of its loops (core loop : one day of gathering, building, sleeping/hunting + the longer term goal of building an evergrowing city)

Fantastic video! you are an absolute master!

I think it's also worth looking into how loops of different scales interact with each other

'always 8 for some reason' Ever since reading Steel Ball Run, I've been noticing Fibonacci numbers more and more often. That's right, not even introspective analysis and contemplation is safe from JoJo.

Hades is so good! Thanks for the video as always!

Well, this is something that deserves more attention. I recall wasting months of real-time on the, well, grind of War Thunder (Though... This applies to most so called MMO games in my experience), and as nice as it is to sometimes win, and slowly chip away at next new shiny, it is a gameplay loop that the game itself exploits. I'm happy to have freed up 50 gigabyts of space off my limit of 256 gigabyte SSD and to find more time for educations and /good/ games like Hollow Knight

I just spent an hour trying to figure out the loops in old school runescape... im stumped my guy

4:05 "veni vidi vici" - Total Warhammer 2 gameplay loop, basically.

3:00 "older than a significant audience of this video"... thanks. now I feel old.. again

Great video mate

11:22 He understands, finally someone understands.

I've put hundreds of hours into grim dawn and it's by far my favourite arpg of all time.

See also gmtk's "keeping players engaged"

best part of the video was the ff6 music. that being said, the rest of the video was fantastic too

Dontchu ever, EVER hate on Sonic Adv I/II again... that being said great video a lot of info. Seems like a combo of great Gameplay loop, juice and smooth animation is the way to success, instead of focus on music, story, art etc

at 3:27 not sure if anyone saw the subtitles, but it's just great

Core loops sound like the fundament for a healthy breakfast.

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.)

Music at 4:30 is from where? It sounds so familiar to me but I can't put my finger on it.

Hello there, thanks for the dose. I'm currently working on planning stage for my first commercial videogame, well I started about 2months ago and I thought that I planned enough but I ended up on the dead end and depressed since about a month ago. At least I got solid ideas for my worldbuilding so it won't be much of a problem in the story side and contents, but I got the problem about my core system, well core loop as you said. The problem is I don't know where to go, I only knew that I want an action game that feel shroom shroom bang bang with ideas about theme of story which is different thing here. I couldn't decide which pace I want my game to be, I played many videogames but I still don't know what I really like. Each game has their own flaws, And I don't know where should I go. That's why I'm stuck. Now I feels like I can do it, not so sure about how it would come out but I can feels the pace in my heart. If you read this Miste...ahem Adam Millard, please wish me luck.

Love the Bobby Kotick cosplay you put on your avatar. XD

this looked almost like an episode of Game makers toolkit

Subbed as soon as I heard the overworld music from Final Fantasy VI

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

Finally, someone like me who played through the whole story of Destiny 2 and the first DLC and then I decided I actually hate it.

have you tried embarking on an exotic quest in destiny 2? i've found for many of the exotics i earned i had to either change my play style drastically to suit requirements, be faced with a challenging puzzle, or super challenging mob rooms i honestly needed to get friends for. the most engaging exotic quest i filled the requirements for was for lumina. if you look carefully at the gun you may notice how quest requirements for it actually teach you how to use it.

Yo thx for helping me figure out why I couldn't help playing destiny 2 but wasn't enjoying it at the same time

I played destiny 2 for about 1000 hrs throughout the years, and I loved the story and all that... but the only thing retaining me past when I finished the newest campaign or whatever was that time period they give you to get the best loot that’s just long enough so I can get my new loot before the next story is released but not too long that I can go take a break. And if you can’t take a break from destiny it gets really boring

I keep my backlog really small. One way of doing this is by not playing games in Early Access. Because they keep upading you spend much more time with them - but in the worst case you will never even play it once it's out of Early Access. I finish every game I play unless it's really bad and don't start another one while doing so! And yes, I have a lot of spare time! :D

I find it funny, how when you mentioned about the long gameplay loops you shown the RPG section of The Hex, which is definetly seen as maybe the longest, yet somewhat streteched out for the true feeling of how RPGs can go. Was it intentional?

I've never been able to enjoy the core loop of MMOs.

"Just... make sure they aren't stealing from you" *proceeds to promote his patreon*

I think this video should have a follow up on story focused RPG-s. I wanted to replay both Legends of heroes trails in the sky and Dragon Age Origins but I never got around to finish them even though my first playthrough was a blast on both occasions. Yet I still see some people going around and starting their 40th replay and I never understand it.

People getting lost or not knowing what to do next is probably on top of reasons why people put game away. People need some directions and goal, otherwise they don't see a point to do anything. Despite thinking that Pokemon is very open world, it basically has same simple gameplay loop as other games: Catch new pokemon Train them to be strong enough to beat next opponent (usually Gym Leader) Beat strong opponent Repeat Usually there are some obstacles that force us to explore and get stronger like Gym Leader not being inside the building or you needing to learn how to cut through bush before accessing the Gym or learning how to smash rocks, swim, dive. All of it is part of the loop and we love loops. We love patterns and we love stories. As long as we have something to learn from it, it's challenging but not too hard to feel helpless, it should be fun. Graphics don't matter too much, I still had fun playing Pokemon Blue/Red like 2 years ago. As long is style is consistent, somehow appealing and graphics tell what you need to know, you are good to go.

On my 1000th lap on this video working as our game dev head. Ha ha Good work 😂

Idk I’m always switching to games but I actually come back to them. I always am going through a cycle of playing 3 or 4 games at once to fulfill different experiences I enjoy. Maybe I’ll play final fantasy then a shooter to a platformer ect.

I would like to ask you what contacts you tackled on destiny because there are so many things to do that it’s very hard to get stuck in a game play loop

I totally agree with your statement of Destiny 2, it felt like a grind fest and unfortunately, it made itself apparent. It felt exhausting reading the requirements. Kill x amount of enemies. It felt like a chore. It's requirements weren't unique but created and designed by a lazy designer. Rather than follow a quest or complete it, it tasks you to do the same things you have always done but be more conscious about it which triggered me. I played the hell out if Destiny 1, but Destiny 2 doesn't disguise itself well enough that I would forget the menial tasks ahead of me, rather it makes me more conscious about it. Destiny 2 could have been designed better, but it isn't sadly. I got bored and moved on to other games. The progression doesn't feel meaningful enough.

Liked this video. There's a lot of games I love but the initial gameplay loop is offputting or a slog so I don't end up playing them. Examples include death stranding, they are billions, the long dark, sekiro, prey and even destiny 1 and 2 back when I had them. These all have either long gameplay loops or setup phases or lack of meaningful progress within a session that means that I can't do much and so get put off from even playing them. For all its negatives skyrim Is such an easy game to dip into. I haven't got outer worlds but it doesn't seem like the gameplay loop is very satisfying, it's more about the story and choices that keep people interested and not the do anything any time you want thing. Similarly I played a demo for dishonored 2 and atleast the initial bits it doesn't feel like you can do that much. I don't know if this is to do with my depression or just generally the gameplay loops not fitting with how I am but it is worth thinking about. Great Vid Adam

Well you see, it's called a loop for a reason...

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.

This explains playing Civ5 on and off for years.

I’m working on a semi open world RPG with a heavy focus on a feedback loop of exploring to find dungeons to get weapons to find more dungeons to get more weapons to prepare for main dungeons to up the world level and progress the story to get more weapons Most of the systems feed back into encouraging the player to explore to find new dungeons for more unique weapons.

Thanks !!

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.

The more I think about gameplay loops the harder of a time I have trying to fit them into RPG games like Outer Worlds... I can get as far as "Get Quest -> Do It -> Repeat" but that just feels so ambiguous to fit every RPG game ever. Do RPGs just rely on being a disorganized mess to distract you from the simple quest-grind loop? Do I have any idea of what I am talking about?

Did anyone even noticed that He pats the dog?

On the topic of gameplay loops, could you do a video on clicker games? But, if I may get greedy, specifically on one called Potion Maker. It is to this day the only clicker I've enjoyed, and it doesn't feel like a clicker at all, but it is! And I don't understand why ; n ; Keep up the good work! Love your vids