Variety within a game loop

 Players desire basic things like a variety in game loops. What variety in a game loop means the core game mechanics having many different ways to interact with the given objects of the game.

These can be anything, mech upgrades, new enemy types, etc.

The type of variety you add is based on the game loop itself.

Enemy types

In PVE to 2D platformers the spice of different challenging foes to overcome are important to keep up in a unique and interesting way, even the most simple enemy types like the ones from League of Legends are important to spice up gameplay wise.

You need enemies that do shock attacks, wide swinging enemies, etc. Not just "oh this enemy big, this enemy got big HP bar"

Dead Cells did this quite well with giving a unique combination of enemy types and no this doesn't mean overwhelm the player with so many different enemy types it makes their head spin but you have to have a variety.

League of Legends sticks to a simple 3 type unit creeps to spice things up and the game would be boring if each creep was the same stats wise, style wise, etc.

Pokémon; this has many different aspects of creatures randomized that makes sense to an RPG game with different HP amount for creatures, different stat types, different move sets, typing advantage, typing disadvantages, etc. I could go on and on! However, you get my point.

For an RPG game a spice of enemies matter.

Puzzle pieces

Yes a puzzle from it's level design to the pieces you give the player matter in creating a fun and engaging game for people wanting to enjoy the game, otherwise you bore people with your game and the type of game you make.

Game loop flow

The game loop should have flow; A should interact with B, you should need to use your skills with A and B to overcome challenge 1, then 2, a combination of 1 and 2, etc.

Depth

Each part of the game loop must have depth, not just simple interactions. You can have a lot of food items on a plate but if those food items have no calories; then people will stop eating at your restaurant. Yes I wrote this when I was hungry but gets the point across.

A game that does this horrible?

Exoprimal; a simple, little to no content game loop system with lackluster results given to the players for the gameplay to enjoy the game. It had a great idea going but failed to go in depth with it's content.

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