How Games Use Feedback Loops | Game Maker’s Toolkit

Playing Pyre over Christmas got me thinking about feedback loops: the reward structures in games that can reinforce or balance out winners and losers. In this episode I’ll explain what this all means, and talk about the design of Pyre’s positive and negative loops.

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Sources

Solving XCOM’s Snowball Problem | Pentadact


Git along there, little doggies | Team Fortress 2


Find Out More

Level 4.4: Feedback Loops | Canvas


Designer's Notebook: Positive Feedback | Gamasutra


[PPT] Feedback Systems and the Dramatic Structure of Competition | Mark LeBlanc


Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance)

Bastion (Supergiant Games, 2011)
Transistor (Supergiant Games, 2014)
Pyre (Supergiant Games, 2017)
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (Infinity Ward, 2016)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward, 2007)
Chess Ultra (Ripstone Ltd., 2017)
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 2017)
Tekken 7 (Bandai Namco, 2017)
Splatoon (Nintendo, 2015)
Forza Horizon 3 (Playground Games, 2016)
Titanfall 2 (Respawn Entertainment, 2016)
Team Fortress 2 (Valve Corporation, 2007)
Arms (Nintendo, 2017)
XCOM 2 (Firaxis, 2016)
Battlefield 4 (EA DICE, 2013)
SteamWorld Dig 2 (Image and Form, 2017)
Final Fantasy XV (Square Enix, 2016)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt, 2015)
Resident Evil 4 (Capcom Production Studio 4, 2005)
NBA 2K18 (Visual Concepts, 2017)
Civilization V (Firaxis Games, 2010)
Dark Souls (From Software, 2011)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Infinity Ward, 2009)
Call of Duty: Black Ops (Treyarch, 2010)
Devil May Cry (Capcom, 2001)
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Retro Studios, 2014)

Music used in this episode

00:00 - Surviving Exile (Pyre, Darren Korb)
00:58 - Strange Voyage (Pyre, Darren Korb)
04:05 - The Blackwagon (Pyre, Darren Korb)
06:10 - Path to Glory (Pyre, Darren Korb)
07:11 - Moon-Touched (Pyre, Darren Korb)
07:49 - Path to Glory (Pyre, Darren Korb)
08:16 - To the Stars (Pyre, Darren Korb)
10:54 - Surviving Exile (Pyre, Darren Korb)
12:25 - Surviving Exile, Acoustic (Pyre, Darren Korb)
12:47 - k. Part 2 - 01 untitled 1, animeistrash

Other credits

MW2 - 6 KILLS WITH ONE PREDATOR MISSILE | Volound


TACTICAL NUKE with AKIMBO Model 1887 - Modern Warfare 2 | TheKoreanSavage