S2 Finale: Loopsville
I will replay all seven days of this week until I learn how to prevent a murder, even if it kills me.
"Neighborhood" by arbyreed is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
Each season of Play Kaizen includes six posts. Five posts cover One Cool Thing from five different video games. The sixth - which is today’s post - is a new game pitch that incorporates all of the One Cool Things. Some call these posts Five Cool Things*. If you missed any of the entries this season, you can catch up using the links below.
The Forgotten City: Tiny Open World
Chorus: Challenging Cheating
Firewatch: Constantly Changing World
Grand Theft Auto V: Three Main Characters
Deathloop: Clockwork Repetition
I will also share the five games about which I’m writing in Season 3 of Play Kaizen at the end.
The Fictional Pitch
I wake up late Tuesday morning as Holly, because Holly loves to sleep in. I don’t like missing so much of the day, but this is who Holly is - who I am, at least temporarily - and I decide to make the most of it.
I walk to the corner store, which is only two blocks away. I could drive, but if my memory serves me correctly, the delivery truck headed to the corner store always runs the red light. I do not want Holly driving in the intersection when the truck runs the light.
I say hello to Mayor Robins just before he intends to say so to me, which catches him off guard. While he is confused I deftly steal his wallet, as Holly has no money and I need to buy some things from the corner store.
Right on time, the delivery truck runs the red light. Holly isn’t driving, which means she isn’t on the road to be t-boned by the negligent truck driver. The truck driver skids into the parking lot amid the furious honks of other motorists. Swear words are exchanged. Always the same, colorful barbs laced with curious flavors of the local dialect.
Some mornings I let the truck crash into Holly. Really, it depends on what I am up to that day and what problems I am trying to solve.
I enter the store, head straight to the cooler to grab a large water bottle, then walk to the front to purchase a lottery ticket and some cigarettes.
“Think today is your lucky day?” asks Ben from behind the register. “Oh, I know it is,” I hear Holly respond. She’s right. She’s going to win it all tomorrow night. She wins every Wednesday. “Thanks for the smokes.”
A tough kid from the local high school rolls up on his bike. I offer him one of the new cigarettes. I’m playing as Holly, currently, but once when I was playing as Aaron I observed the teenager bragging that he smoked a half pack each day. This information is useful. All information in this town can be spent like a currency.
“Yeah, sure.” He takes one cigarette and lights up. I grin at the choreography of him lighting a cigarette illegally right as the officer pulls up. The kid swears, tosses the cigarette, and bolts. The cop chases. Nobody sees me pick up the kid’s bike and ride away.
I need to ride four blocks to the high school, where another character, Aaron, has just been wounded. I learned to bring the water last time to clean up the blood. I hope I’m in time to learn who did it, or this coming Wednesday will be just as unfortunately fatal as the last.
But, that’s for the next version of Holly to worry about. She can only worry about one day at a time. It is a good state of mind when you’ve lived the same Tuesday 762 times.
The Simple Pitch
Loopsville is an adventure game / walking simulator played from the first person perspective. You control Aaron, Holly, and Rose from the moment they wake up until the moment they fall asleep - or die - in a week that you play over-and-over again in a loop.
The goal is the solve the murder of their friend. Aaron, Holly, and Rose were connected as close friends before the loop. Until they solve the murder, each of them is stuck. They might not all emerge…
The controls are simple. You move your character around a small neighborhood on foot, via a bicycle, or sometimes driving a car. You choose dialog options quickly. Sometimes, you have contextual environmental interaction, such as purchasing items, climbing onto surfaces, or robbing folks. These choices are often tied to things you have learned, or items you have obtained.
The world is always the same, but who you play as, can change. The neighborhood also changes each day. The only thing that is persistent each day is your knowledge of the world, which is critical for solving the puzzles and preventing the murder.
Your main choice are deciding where to go, what to say, and what circumstances to combine to change the simulation.
I see this as a relatively short experience: 5-8 hours. I see this game being just as fun to play on a console or a PC.
The Deep Dive
To iterate slightly from the Season One Finale, I want to tie the pitch more tightly to the One Cool Things from Season Two. The five articles I’m referencing are shared at the top of this post.
Tiny Open World: This inspiration is such a natural fit and serves Loopsville almost identically to The Forgotten City.
The setting for this game is one slice of a suburban neighborhood. I’m actually channeling the neighborhood in which I grew up outside of Houston. The game features a few cul-de-sacs, each with a handful of houses. There is a dingy corner store where one can buy snacks or fill the car with gas. There is a local school with a playground, a community pool, and some tennis courts. I’m modernizing these into a skate park.
Offices were involved.
I navigated this neighborhood freely on my bike from the 3rd grade onward and it was simple to do so. That’s the same freedom and familiarity granted to the player. By keeping the neighborhood small, there is no need for a complex navigation system. Furthermore, there’s no need for fast travel, because skipping a few streets over is just a matter of minutes. Plus, because the player is actually navigating the space, the game can be filled with moments and characters to observe and interact with.
Three Main Characters: The neighborhood is always the same, but playing as Aaron, Holly, or Rose will change when you wake up, where you wake up, what resources you have (such as money), and potentially even desires they have.
There are a few ways the choice of character can take place:
The character is randomly chosen.
The characters rotate in a predictable sequence.
One of the above, but there is eventually a way for the player to choose which character to use.
Other characters should respond to these three differently. For example, Ben might have a crush on Holly, which reveals different dialog and behaviors. But, Ben and Aaron might loathe each other, which makes going to the corner store with Aaron a bit dicey…but also interesting.
Each character should have different choices. Holly can pickpocket the Mayor’s wallet, whereas Rose might lie about a favor her mom wants the Mayor to do, which can alter the Mayor’s path.
The goal is that waking up should dictate how you play and approach that day. Each should feel different. If we do our job, the choices and style of the character should convey a different emotional experience.
Clockwork Repetition: Every Tuesday is the same and it is filled with moments. Some examples from the story above:
Mayor Robins is always on the sidewalk near the corner store. He has money.
Ben is always working at the corner store.
The delivery truck always runs the red light. This can kill Holly.
The kid loves to smoke.
The kid arrives at the corner store on a bicycle.
The police officer shows up at the corner store.
You have to figure out how to take advantage of these facts to modify the chain of events, manipulate events to learn new secrets, or simply to survive as Holly, Aaron, or Rose for a longer period of time.
Constantly Changing World: Firewatch really impressed me with how dramatically the world shifted with each chapter. Above I describe how the behaviors on each Tuesday, for example, are the same. But! Tuesday and Saturday are very different days.
Some examples:
There is a string of robberies on Monday night.
There is a school board meeting on Tuesday night.
It always rains on Wednesday and that is when the lottery results are announced. Only Holly knows the correct numbers.
There is a party on Thursday at the pool.
There is a fire down the street from Rose on Fridays.
There is a parade on Saturday morning.
These events make the days different, help you bookmark where you are in the loop, and force different choices upon you.
The formula of the simulation is essentially:
Different Character x Routine Behaviors x Day Changes = Interesting Puzzle Sandbox
Challenging Cheating: This is the odd-one-out for this season, but I think it might also be the “secret sauce” of this pitch. Everything above works very cohesively for a small, clockwork simulation. You can say in many ways I’m exploring the ground laid by The Forgotten City and Firewatch, and you’d be correct.
But, this is where the cheating comes in.
The idea, is that you have an incredibly limited ability to fundamentally break the simulation each week. What if once per week, you could…
Remove a character from the simulation. Goodbye Ben, you don’t exist. What is the “butterfly effect?” Might be an interesting space for narrative, surprise, and puzzles.
Skip one event. The fire will not actually happen today.
Re-arrange the events. If the fire happens on Monday instead, what does that mean?
I haven’t thought through this fully, but can we break the fourth wall? Is there a way for you to speak to Holly? What would you say?
I am going to dig into the “skip one event” above. The game takes place over the course of one week. For the sake of example, what if each day had two skippable events (14 Total). It might take time to actually discover each of these, but once you do, they are clearly presented as skippable events.
Perhaps the player is given three skips each run. That means the player can skip three of the fourteen events. Each skip has a consequence. There is a butterfly effect, or in this case, the inverse, as you are removing a ripple from the sequence. Based on the specific goal (ex: I need Character A to be in Place B at Moment C), you need to ascertain when to use your skips.
This is a space where a more brilliant designer can wreak havoc in the most beautiful way. This is a classic case of defining a rigid rule structure, then giving the player a hammer and inviting them to smash it.
If you get to break the rules in a rigid simulation, where do you start? The development team would need to think through the possibility space and ensure there are correct and interesting reactions and consequences due to your choices. If you can break literally everything, there needs to be an organic, simulating space. I am not sure that level of depth is needed. Therefore, the cheat needs to be constrained and lead to consequences.
Parting Thoughts
I think the pitch for Season One was a bit more ambitious, but the pitch for Season Two is a bit more realistic. Game development is a constant tension between the imagined and the possible and many studios do not fully consider how to execute their grand vision.
I like the cocktail proposed for Loopsville.
A small, detailed neighborhood you can learn like the back of your hand.
Predictable characters and dramatic events you can bend and twist to your needs.
Puzzles and dialog that drive decisions. Not violence. Anyone can play this game.
A big, delightful, delicious, game breaking choice.
This idea is not without its challenges. You need to find that careful balance of laying out a possibility space that is intuitive, without spelling it out for players. After all, the satisfaction comes from the player figuring it out, not just doing what you tell them to do.
Repetition is good, but it does get, well, repetitive. There needs to be a great deal of thought put into making the experience fresh, and compelling, even on the tenth experience of the week. I think the three characters help, but it doesn’t solve the problem entirely.
Finally, and you’ll notice I avoided this avenue entirely, the story needs to have a satisfying conclusion. There is a mystery here, a puzzle, and it cannot feel cheap, lazy, or obvious. That’s a tall order and most studios cannot hire Rian Johnson.
I have some questions for you. I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
What are your best ideas for a game breaking power?
What aspects of the neighborhood would you swap in, and why? Would you get rid of the skate park to add a fire station?
What are your ideas for the three characters? Who are they? What are their motivations?
I did not get into the relationship between the three protagonists. What are your ideas for that?
I cannot wait to hear your thoughts!
Coming up for Season 3 (2023)
Season 3 will include five new games, each of which will have one cool thing and a lot of musings to boot. I won’t yet share the headline, but the five games for Season 3 include:
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
What Remains of Edith Finch
Tales of Arise
Olli Olli World
Wolfenstein: The New Colossus
I look forward to sharing these in early 2023. As I noted in a previous post, I’m going to write and edit these as a collective set so that I can release them in a short time frame. I hope to write about my 2022 plays and a few other bonus topics in the meantime.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Edited by Joshua Buergel
*Nobody calls them Five Cool Things.
This season’s pitch reminds me of the Hitman games. I played a lot of Hitman 2, and really enjoyed the way that it presented a limited open world full of characters going about the business.
As Agent 42, the player is tasked with executing one or more of these NPCs and can find a number of ways to do so, ranging from a pedestrian strangling to an absurd launch from an ejector seat.
The fun comes from repeating each level and trying to find all of the patterns that reveal each potential approach, or from figuring out the best way to elegantly move through the world and accomplish your goals as quickly as possible.
Sadly, I found the game’s overarching narrative somewhat lacking and at times incomprehensible, but the individual slices of life presented by each mission are a blast to puzzle through.