My biggest time sinks are, amusingly, idle games. They usually don't let you control time, but they do often let you choose how actively you play. More active play means faster progress but also more decisions.
Hi Andrew. I stumbled upon your channel few days ago. Really great and interesting content! Please keep it up. Recently been playing Frostpunk 2 a lot. Fits the theme of this video perfectly. Just "one more turn" :)
Core Keeper. I can start that game and suddenly the day is gone. It has the same intensity swap with combat and exploration vs base building and gardening
While this isn't really what you talk about, it reminds me of open world games I play like Arkham, Assassin's Creed, or Just Cause. They have tons of missions/quests/tasks to progress, but each one "could" be done in 10 minutes. After building up momentum of playing, I see the list of tasks and say, "Oh, I can do that one real quick, it's nearby/simple/should be easy." Sometimes increasing difficulty increases or interactive systems cause chaos, making it take far longer. But even if not, the resulting gratification of progress and momentum keeps me in this cycle of doing more and more until I spend lots of time. Non-games and apps do this too, so I can see this not (directly) game design related. Although the self-imposed breaks of an open world and not overwhelming help. But definitely something I've been thinking about.
Descision Intensity isn't what is fun. On the contrary players can feel overwhelmed by having too much to manage at once. As popular as RTS (Starcraft) and management sim games (Drillcore) are these are not what most players enjoy and that alone tells us that the entertainment value appeals to only a very niche demographic. What is fun is learning and applying what you learned. You can see this principle applied across all genres where any developer knows that it is vital to clearly communicate mechanics and their results to thev player. Poorly communicated mechanics cause frustration as players cannot learn or apply their understanding while well communicated mechanics but poorly communicated results cause a lack of satisfaction. You see this in even simple ways like FPS players saying that firing a gun "feels satisfying" and that is entirely rooted in the result of pulling the trigger clearly communicating what the weapon does and is meeting expectations. The "flow" phenomanon you describe is when players are caught up in this process of learning and applying knowledge so it is as much about the variety of things to learn as it is the ways to apply that understanding. We see players prefer the latter because they unknowingly call this "gameplay depth" when in reality it is more like "gameplay bredth". This means 4X, RTS and sim games initially satisfy this need but fall into a niche audience as the variety of things to learn is often far greater than the bredth of their application which combined with the rising intensity of systems to juggle evenutally ruins the fun for most players past a certain tolerance point.
Thanks! Would love more videos analyzing core loops. I'm on year 3 of full-time game dev. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. Designing a good loop is the hardest task imo. It sounds simple but actually goes so deep. And I think only senior designers like you can appreciate and analyze the complexity and nuance.
Actually the reading of this game phases is the other way around. The fact that you are doing less at night it's only because there are two distinct levels of playing style. Actually at night you have to focus on both the hordes of bugs and on your drillers and keep them away of the worms while continuing to mine. The overal fluctuation of the intensity you are talking about it's correct, but inverted.
