We changed our core loop after playtesting revealed a pacing problem. Looking for feedback from other GameMaker devs.
Hey everyone!
We’re developing A Cat in the Cangaço in GameMaker, a 2D action roguelite with survivorslike combat and deckbuilding.
We’ve recently made one of the biggest changes to the game’s core loop so far, based almost entirely on playtester feedback. I’d like to hear what other GameMaker developers think about the approach.
The old loop
DAY (1 min) → NIGHT (1 min) → PLANNING → DAY → NIGHT → PLANNING…
During Day, you play as a cat and fight enemies while collecting Aura.
During Night, you play as a human and do the same.
After each cycle, the game entered a Planning phase. You spent the Aura to improve both forms at the same time, with a trade-off: choosing a good card for one form meant taking a bad card for the other.
Some GIFs of the old system:
- Day: https://bragiestudios.com/press/GatoCangaco/imgs/gifs/Dia.gif
- Night: https://bragiestudios.com/press/GatoCangaco/imgs/gifs/EvolucaoNoite.gif
- Planning: https://bragiestudios.com/press/GatoCangaco/imgs/gifs/Planejamento.gif
We liked the system, but playtesters kept pointing out the same problem:
>The Planning phase was breaking the flow of the game.
Players would get into the rhythm of fighting enemies and then, every two minutes, the game would force them to stop and switch from action to buildcrafting.
Rather than trying to make Planning faster, we decided to remove it from the temporal loop entirely.
The new loop
DAY → NIGHT → DAY → NIGHT…
Instead, the player can encounter three NPCs during the run:
ARMORER: buy new weapons
MULE: get a passive item
FORTUNE TELLER: access the old Planning system and choose temporary effects and synergy cards for the Cat and Human builds
So we’re basically changing the interaction from:
>The game tells you when to stop and make a build decision.
to:
>You decide when you want to stop and make a build decision.
The new version feels much better from a combat-flow perspective, but we’re still unsure about the larger design trade-off.
We’re worried that making buildcrafting optional could make the system too easy to ignore. The old version had a very clear rhythm, while the new version gives the player much more freedom.
Would you keep the forced Planning phase, make it optional like we did, or try a third solution?
And if you’ve had a similar experience where playtesting convinced you to remove or move a major gameplay system, I’d be interested in hearing how you handled it.
If you want to try the game:
Current version:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3780630/
The current version is available through the open Steam Playtest.
Old version:
https://bragiestudios.com/PitacoLab/Builds/
You don’t need to play it to comment. I’m mainly interested in hearing how other developers think about the pacing and structure of this kind of loop.