While the game that we’re designing isn’t completely defined yet, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on ensuring that we have a strong core game-loop before developing our ideas further. This reading, which went significantly deeper into how loops and arcs can/should be used within systems will be a guiding source of information for the next coming weeks!
In terms of the values that we want to show off, we’ve decided to really focus on developing a better understanding of how to manage resources within a growing community. While our game is thematically quite silly (cats!!!!), and we do have a stronger focus on how different parts of our system interact with each other (for example, creating a balanced team of cats, developing a stable source of food, making decisions of how food will train your cats, etc) we still want to highlight the importance of resource management and growth of a community (with a fun twist)!
To do this, our main gameplay loop will consist of two parts: Preparation and Combat. During the preparation phase, we will truly focus on having the player learn about the systems at hand, give them compelling and hard choices to decide from, and also take actions regarding how they will distribute and upgrade their cats (which is also a choice, I guess). The second part of our loop will be mainly focused on providing feedback based on their previous decisions. Hopefully, this feedback will also guide their future decisions in future loops, thus updating their mental model!
Our narrative arch focuses on the growth of a Cat Colony. While, given our time constraints, we will initially focus more on the system in comparison to the story arc, there will still be a clear sense of actions that follow certain rules and give feedback to our players throughout the game. Like the reading suggests, we eventually want to implement some arch-loop sandwiches that would eventually focus on introducing new mechanics and new challenges to our core gameplay. Thus, we could gradually make the game more interesting and challenging!
