[60654]

Gamedev here. Slight correction: what they're describing is the smallest viable loop, not necessarily the core loop.

The core loop is the smallest engagement loop in the game, where the player goes through it inside a single session, and reaches some kind of a stopping point, but also wants to come back and go through it all over again (right away, or next time). It can be the smallest loop, maybe, sometimes, but usually isn't.

For example, in this article, they focus on the loop "player returns the ball <-> opponent returns the ball". This is the smallest loop for sure.

But the core loop here is on the point level: "Someone serves, players exchange the ball back and forth, someone finally misses, the other person scores points. Repeat." Or maybe game or set level, for more advanced players who are no longer challenged by point play.

Similarly in a racing game: the core loop would be a race, not a single lap, or a single pass of an opponent's car. Or in an RPG: hitting the enemy and having the enemy hit you is a tiny loop, but it's not the core loop: doing a quest and coming back for a reward is much closer to what we're looking for in a core loop.

[shoo]

I guess in some games there are many loops within loops within loops.

E.g. in "slay the spire", a game i am very fond of, the smallest loop could be "you draw a hand of cards from your deck and decide which card to play on what target" - usually taking a few seconds to decide or perhaps a few minutes if you are in a very tricky situation where you might win or lose unless you make a carefully considered move. The next loop up could be fighting an encounter, where you repeatedly draw and play cards until the encounter ends, and gain a small reward after completing the encounter successfully (improve your deck of cards). Then the next loop up could be charting a course through a short sequence of encounters & shopping opportunities & boss fights, where you're making a sequence of longer-term planning decisions to improve your deck according to a particular strategy you have in mind and also trying to best exploit the opportunities or unfortunate situations you are presented with. Then the next loop up would be a "run" taking a few minutes (for an early failure) to one or two hours (for a win) where you start the game with a new character and you repeatedly chart a course across 1-2-3 small levels until you either win the run or your character dies in an encounter ending the run -- but in both cases unlocking some meta progression reward. Then the next loop up being unlockable meta progression and actual skill/experienced-based progression repeatedly playing "runs" and losing or winning while unlocking content and also getting better at playing the game.

I'm not sure which of the loops above to think about as the core loop!

[60654]

All games have loops within loops within loops! :)

The best games have a layering of loops of different frequencies, which complement each other. That's what gives games that "one more turn" feeling, if at every turn you're confronted with multiple decision points with different result horizons. So at every point in time, some decisions ripen and are ready to collect, while others require attention but will have payoffs at very different times in the future.

Edit: for roguelites like STS I would count a single run as the core loop. Especially in the presence of metagame, the benefits gathered during any single run add up, and make the player that much more interested in coming back and giving it another try.

[Jarwain]

I haven't played slay the spire, but I've been enjoying monster train which is mostly the same game.

I would consider the core loop to be each encounter/game. This is a core loop that's shared across most card games whether that's gwent, hearthstone, magic, or Yu-Gi-Oh. It is the smallest self-contained unit of gameplay. The minimum viable loop would be each turn, but you can't really stop and pick up the game between turns, right?

All of the other loops, the build-play-build loop, the "finish a run" loop, the "cross-run-progress" loop, are all features that are enabled by/rely on the core loop of gameplay.

In analogy to tennis and the OP, each hit of the ball is the minimum viable loop, each point is the core loop. This is enhanced by the match loop and on top of that the "tournament" loop.

[airstrike]

I think this is a matter of semantics as the article does describe what you're saying.

> Part of that comes from the length of the higher-level game loop.

> If you recall Pico Tennis, the essential activity is hitting the ball back and forth. But the higher-level game loop is the rally.

[Johnjonjoan]

Thanks for explaining this so concisely

[60654]

Glad to hear it was useful!