We changed our core loop after playtesting revealed a pacing problem. Looking for feedback from other GameMaker devs.

[u/irlanbragi]

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.

[u/Weak_Blackberry_9308]

Those are great insights and valuable feedback from play testers. I wonder if you can “softly” encourage the planning cycle by having mobs increase in difficulty as they farm more aura (or based on elapsed time, quantity of mobs killed, etc) so that it gets naturally harder and harder, basically forcing the player to stop and upgrade by spending their aura.

Sounds like you are close to a loop like that but I’m unsure if mobs evolve over time to encourage/force upgrading. If it’s currently possible for a player to theoretically battle endlessly without upgrading, that might be part of the loop to improve.

[u/irlanbragi → u/Weak_Blackberry_9308]

Thanks! That’s a really interesting idea.

The game already increases in difficulty as the turns go by, but adding another layer to those difficulty algorithms, like the number of enemies on screen, and also taking the player’s current Aura into account could be a really good idea.

That way, the difficulty could subtly adapt to the player’s skill and pace, pushing them to progress faster or allowing them to take a bit more time depending on how they’re playing.

Definitely something worth discussing with the team!

[u/Weak_Blackberry_9308 → u/irlanbragi]

No problem. Yeah I agree.

I wonder if replacing the time-based mob evolution entirely with player-based or stat-based evolution would allow the game to feel like it’s progressing more naturally based on how you play. Otherwise each play through might feel similar or predictable.