Game Prototyping Hand-ins 5. Game Loops (not very interesting)

Our fifth assignment for Game Prototyping class was about analyzing the loops of a game, and show how they work together to create a whole. We had to make a game, or choose an existing game, and then split that game into the actions that make up its core loop and show how those actions work and interact, by prototyping each action separately.

Allotted time: 1 week
# of people: 4

Instead of making a new game from scratch, we chose to dissect the very popular Ubisoft game ‘Hungry Shark World’, because we were interested in how casual games keep players interested, and how they make people spend money on them. Exposing the core loop can be really helpful in that regard.

The game has two actions which make up its core loop: swim and upgrade. Both of these actions are also sub-loops of the core loop. You do the swim sub-loop until you have enough resources to do something in the upgrade sub-loop.

The menu of our prototype is set up as a side-by-side view of the two actions of the core loop and shows the sub-loops of both actions. You can click on whichever action you want to explore in the sub-loops, and you will be thrown into a small demo scene, where you can play just that action.

Enjoy!

Controls:
Left-click and drag to steer the shark.
Space-key = speed boost (especially useful during the “Survive” action).
ESC = return to the main menu.

Downloads:
Windows Version
WebGL Build

WebGL NOTE: The WebGL version can be played on all platforms with compatible browsers, in at least Firefox, Opera, Safari and Microsoft Edge; it does not work in Chrome unless you do this trick. Just open the “index.html” file in your browser.

My contributions to this project:

I was sick around the time we did this, but I still did these things: