Katja's Abyss: tactics - development in layers

Follow on Itch.io: ​https://kiefjerky.itch.io/katjas-abyss-tactics

Katja's Abyss: Tactics is a strategy game using Minesweeper-style level design in tandem with tactical-rpg gameplay. ​Its conception began with me getting frustrated when I lost a game of Minesweeper. Frankly, the fact that in Minesweeper, guessing is sometimes necessary & one failure ends the game is poor design. It undermines the feeling of progression you get from chipping away at those walls. 

Layer 1: Core loop

I began, of course, by recreating Minesweeper. Not very exciting, but here we have one arm of the core loop: marking potential mines & "digging" safe tiles. In order to invest the player as a more direct part of the experience, I wanted to place characters in the map. Instead of clicking to dig tiles, the player directs an avatar to do so. 

The player begins with 2 units: one that digs and one that builds more units. This introduces the next part of the core loop: unit management. Instead of losing the game upon hitting a mine, the player only loses a unit or two. However, at this point, while there is a gameplay loop, resource sinks are insufficient. Aside from hitting a mine, there's no conflict to unit management. The game works, but is very boring.

Moving along, the intended core loop was becoming fully realized. Firstly, revealed tiles have glowing "energy" on them, which the player collects by moving a unit over it. The amount is based on nearby mines, blending elegantly with the existing level design mechanics. This energy is used to build more units. 

Also introducing: enemies & an area of vision. Monsters in the cave will attack the player's units, adding the resource sink that the loop desperately needed. Although not particularly balanced or polished, the core loop was effectively closed. 

To summarize, our core loop is something like this:

• Collect Energy
• Defend Against Monsters
• Dig Walls

Layer 2: Secondary progression

The game's title was originally less... original.

The first big step into creating a secondary loop was adding two separate game modes. The first was Infinite Mode, where the player gets a randomly generated level as normal, and when they complete the level, they move onto the next. The highest floor the player reaches without losing–which happens when all your units die–is recorded and displayed on the title screen. This way, there's a high-score that reflects the player's progress. It's not much of a secondary loop, but at least the game recognizes the player's success. 

More significantly, the game now has a Campaign Mode, where a character guides the player through a story connected by levels of the game. There is a level-select area, which has a loop of its own: move to next level > complete level (core game loop) > read dialogue. The core loop is embedded in this loop, which is how I'm classifying one as "core" and therefore the level-selection as "secondary."

The Campaign Mode quickly became the game's focus. Step by step, new features distinguished the campaign further from Infinite Mode. Each campaign level has an authored layout, rather than being generated completely randomly. Additionally, there were gimmicks to each one: in one stage you have to move your units to a target location, in another you have to survive for a certain number of turns. 

Layer 3: The good stuff

I feel compelled to mention that at this point, the game got a facelift. With the work of some very talented artists, my placeholder assets were systematically being moved into the "old" folder in the project. Although the game itself is no functionally different here, we are but fickle creatures. We want our games to look good, to feel good. 

Tertiary Loop 1: Achievements & Customization

Looking good is what makes the follow-ing tertiary loop mean anything. The player can unlock customizable palette swaps for their units by playing the game in Infinite or Campaign mode. This tertiary loop in particular hardly affects the core loop, but expression is worth-while, even if it's just choosing a preferred color. 

Each palette is unlocked via various achievements, like killing 100 monsters or winning a level in Infinite Mode on Deadly difficulty. I define this loop as tertiary, rather than secondary, because it's even further abstracted from the core loop. It has very little impact on the core loop and is essentially just icing on the cake. Who likes a cake without icing, though? 

Tertiary Loop 2: Artifacts & lore

Although these unlockables aren't directly re-lated to one another through gameplay, I'm grouping them together as lore/narrative elements. 

When the player digs a tile or kills a monster, there's a chance they will find an "artifact," which has some cryptic description about the world in which the game takes place. It contextualizes what the player is doing in these caves and why the ending occurs the way it does.

Similarly, the player can chat with Katja between levels. She has something new to say each time, giving insight into her motivations as a character. She provides details on the world from her own perspective.

In Conclusion

Hopefully it's clear at this point what Katja's Abyss's gameplay loops are and how they differ in hierarchy. It was my mission to design this game in order of that hierarchy, with each layer building upon the last. I started with a core loop, with Minesweeper. The secondary loops put that core loop into a context that gave it meaning through progression. The tertiary loops built a world into the game and further recognized the player's success and progress. 

If we work backwards, and strip these layers away, we can see how Katja's Abyss still functions down to the core loop, but it loses its identity with each outer layer gone. Without Katja talking to you and collecting artifacts in the caves, the core loop is just a (hopefully) somewhat satisfying strategy system. 

Conversely, if we remove layers from the inside-out, the game falls apart much more quickly. Without the core loop, there's no way to collect the artifacts, and there's no point. Without the core, there's no game, just an interactive menu of items that tell a vague story.

What does this mean about the relationship between core, secondary, and tertiary loops? Beyond the obvious, I don't know. Core loops can be fun, but they lack identity, or at least retention. Tertiary loops are what keep us engaged as players, but aren't fundamentally vital to the game's functionality. I've learned a lot while developing Katja's Abyss: Tactics but it's generated a lot of unanswered questions as well. I hope my experiences can help someone work through their own head-scratchers someday.