Endless Games Part II

Ok, so I took a long break from designing games and gaming in general. And now that m back designing games, I thought I might as well finish this topic. Firstly, we have a genre that seems to have been saturated with all the ideas. This genre has been done so many times and in so many ways that it is very hard to expand or even dare to think of any improvement possibilities. But you can carry on reading and decide if anything does make any sense after all. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF ENDLESS GAMES

Before we dive into the possibilities let's try to figure out why the endless games matter. By the way, if you like game designs then you should definitely read this book by James P. Carse. Unlike finite games, which is driven by a define set of goal and eventually a conclusion to the game, infinite games are played for experience. These endless games have horizon instead of outcomes. Players are looking for an experience rather than a result. One way of looking at it is that the player is playing to die. A game that says you will be killed eventually and that's the only way to end the game. But still people play it. The player is always looking for surprise, or a drama, instead of an ultimate winner. Endless games are like soap operas, where the audience is looking for a twist or a surprise and they don't want it to end. The best way to describe the genre is to think of a progressive gameplay that is stripped down to mere bones. As the Canabalt creator, Adam Saltsman, described the motivation, "I love minimalism in games anyway, but this was a good excuse to push it further. Canabalt uses six shades of gray and one button and is still pretty exciting." 

STORY AND PROGRESSION 

Games have evolved to become a good story telling medium. There are games that have rich story telling, however, endless games aren't that kind. The best way to describe an endless game is like the movie, Groundhog Day. It doesn't matter what you do, everything reset back to the same game. But even in Groundhog Day, we see that Bill Murray doesn't respond the same way to the same problem everyday. And that should be the underlying goal of the game. Just because its an endless game, that does not mean it has to be the same thing over and over. Granted that endless games take their queue from arcade games, having simple game mechanics. However, that doesn't mean the game can't be story driven. For example, endless runner are the best example of showing slow but never ending process of growth. Every run is a learning lesson, every run can lead to a new enemy. Now of-course, there can't be a new enemy every run. But it doesn't have to be the same enemy all the time. The player is always looking for a surprise and an experience. These stories may or may not have linear storyline. They can be about different characters and the world they have to survive in. Like Mario, you have these strong, defined characters. And all of them have a strong back story. Bowser and Mario are never friends, Princess Peach is abducted and Mario is always finding way to save her. But when you play the game, it is about level design and gameplay mechanics. So although, we are still playing a game that doesn't have any specific storyline implemented in the gameplay, but because of an established storyline, we all know why Mario( or the player) is going through all the pain. 

SHOWING THE PROGRESS BETTER

Progress in endless games haven't been explored too much. Yes, you have customisation, yes you have highest score but that's about it. What if the endless games have progression in form of not just difficulty settings but as the game progresses, you get new enemies with different mechanics. I understand that the core idea of such games is to have shorter gameplay sessions, but you can still have those. What if the character progresses with greater abilities and that results to new enemies. This will let the players experience something new and they will play it, looking forward to new challenges. Again, what better example than Mario. You have defined levels and every level teaches you a mechanics and when you clear it, it test you with a boss fight. Then the whole thing repeats again with new mechanics. I understand that this might stray away from the original idea of minimalism, but we are talking about expanding the game. So in that regards, I think it is acceptable. Progression in endless runners can be considered as candy crush take on the match 3 gameplay.  

DAILY GOALS/BRANCHING

One thing that endless games do best is achievements. Specially games like jetpack joyride. They have daily goals and overall achievement system that keeps the player interested all the time. But what if we use daily goals and side missions to expand on game mechanics. What if the game has a storyline that explains the enemies. Those storylines are a part of endless games. It introduces different worlds. And as you play those side missions, with the visual feedback, players get to understand the world of those enemies. Maybe even take a break from the repetitive gameplay and explore other, or certain aspects of, game mechanics. This way daily goals won't be just an aid to the usual grind but also a good reason/opportunity to showcase different game mechanics. 

CONTROLS AND MECHANICS

Yes, endless runner, by its name, a runner. But that's not exactly a justifiable definition. In my opinion, endless runners are games that progress all the time. There isn't going back, rather a game that keeps moving forward. This means that by introducing new game mechanics, we can not only let the player just run but keep them moving forward. Temple run is basically, Indiana Jones running for his life. Having said that Indiana Jones was not always running, he was jumping, balancing, stopping only to escape his death. That is what we need to do more. Now while we talk about all these, next obvious question will be, then what about the pacing of the game? Can we still maintain the rhythm of the game? This is where the game design skills come in. Once, we understand what we want, game pacing can be achieved with iteration and polishing. 

PROGRESSIVE VS EMERGENT GAMEPLAY

This last point is very abstract, or maybe even bizarre, but lets just explore it anyway. So progressive gameplay is gameplay that has level designs or a story structure and everything happens in a linear progressive fashion, e.g. Mario or any game with story line etc. Emergent gameplay is when you define a set of rules and the game evolves as the player performs the actions based on those rules. The simple way of explaining emergent gameplay is chess.  
What if we take this theory even further. What if we have a gameplay that is kind of hybrid of these two. Say, your game has a structure but as the player is given an ability, it changes the gameplay to something different. Those abilities are randomly given and the player is given a choice to pick it or leave it. With each selection, the player is presented with a gameplay that supports/works with that ability. The possibilities and the combinations will make that game deep and the scope of the game can become huge. 

CONCLUSION

The idea of this post is to explore and discuss the possibilities that hasn't been talked about. I'm not saying any of these would make any sense or if that would change the genre to something else. But personally, I no longer play any endless runner because there isn't anything new happening in that genre anymore. Having said that I strongly feel that this genre has a lot to offer than just a cloning of already said games in the last post. 

Endless Games Part I

Endless runner has been a huge success on mobile. I can't think of any other platform that could be more fitting for endless runners, than mobile phones. It is easy to learn and it is endless. But how far can you take a simple mechanism? Will endless runner always be like this? Can there be more possibilities of how to improve the already perfect game genre? Lets try to explore the idea.

Before we start talking about what can be done, lets break this article into two parts. First part, we will talk about what are the milestones, according to me, in this genre and then we'll see what are the possibilities.

Helicopter Game by David McCandless (1999/2000)

David McCandless and a programmer friend created the first endless game. Helicopter game introduced a gameplay that is now the core of any endless runner these days. Endless runner has three distinctive features, 1. very basic controls, usually a tap/click/swipe. 2. The game gradually increases the difficulty level but never ends. 3. You score based on how far you can go.
They made the game within days. David played and wrote a lot about games, so he had an idea what addictive gameplay can be.

Canabalt (August 31, 2009)

If David McCandless' Helicopter Game created the first endless game, Canabalt created the first endless runner. The game is 2d parkour style runner. After 10 year since Helicopter, Canabalt truly understood the 'fun' part of the game mechanics. Although, Canabalt creator, Adam Saltsman, never credited Helicopter game, as his influence. But you can see the similarities with the gameplay. Here's what he said:
"Adam: Canabalt was created for the Experimental Gameplay Project, a cool monthly activity organized by some of the greatest minds in indie games. The idea is you have seven days to create a game around a specific theme; the month that I made Canabalt, the theme was ‘bare minimum’, which had a big impact on the game.
I love minimalism in games anyway, but this was a good excuse to push it further. Canabalt uses six shades of gray and one button and is still pretty exciting. A shotgun list of influences would include Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog, District 9, District B13, Mirror’s Edge, Half-Life 2, and Flashback."

Lane splitter(Dec 7 2010):

This is probably the first endless game on iTunes, that I played. It had everything awesome about it. It was made by people who were trying to create this revolutionary game engine called Project Offset. AMD bought the company and basically used the team as guinea pigs to test their graphic cards. So the team quit and made this awesome game called Lane Splitter.
Lane splitter is about a biker on a highway. The game uses gyroscope, to move the bike across different lanes, while avoiding the cars. This game was not only one of the first of its kind,  but it was a very polished game.

Temple run(Aug 4, 2011)

Now this game took everyone by storm. This is the game that does give credit to Canabalt, as its influence. Temple run showed people what an endless runner game would look like in the near future. Endless runner is all about scoring. And with the Indiana Jones theme, this somehow became the first truly addictive game.

Jetpack joyride (Sept 1, 2011)

This game credits Canabalt and helicopter game as its influence. This game is a perfect example of how deep an endless runner can be. It is a very polished game with loads of features. Jetpack joyride has one of the most creative ideas in the game. For an endless runner, I have yet to see a game that implements features to that perfection.

Subway surfer (May 23, 2012)

Although this game has taken the queue from temple run, and other in the ilk, it showed how easing the difficulty level and having great visuals can be an effective approach as well. With the long list of characters, Subway surfer showed the importance of character/customization to unlock.

Punch quest (Oct 25, 2012)

Now this indie game needs to be talked about more than it has been. On the surface, it is an action packed endless runner. But if you dig deep, they have incorporated one of the most interesting ideas as far as the controls goes. Moving forward is also punch, jumping is also upper cut or smash and blocking is either both buttons or hold. In a world where every feature has its separate button, punch quest incorporated its features in a smart and neat way. While, other endless runners rely on a menu to upgrade the power-ups, Punch quest automates this whole process. This way nothing comes between you and ass-kicking actions in the game. This games flows like milk, and with awesome retro graphics, this game should be appreciated a lot more than it is.

Smash hit (Feb 25, 2014)

Last game in my list has opened my eyes to the possibilities of endless games. While everyone is busy creating clones of temple run and helicopter game, Smash hit took a different route. It is the single most innovative game, since helicopter game, that has come out in recent years. All you have to do is tap to break the glass, coming your way, that's it. And boy is it good! The game totally abandons the concept of character customization, power ups etc. You have to play it to really appreciate it's concept.

That ends up our part one of endless games. Although, I didn't get to talk a lot about game mechanics, however, one has to play these games to truly understand the mechanics. There are lots of endless games these days, some with great ideas. However, these games have been the milestones in the endless runner genre, in my opinion. And since, mobile games have been all about xerox, after xerox. These games are welcomed more, since they improve the genre even further. 

KILLING THE MONOTONY AND GAME CLONING

Let's just put this on the table, the most successful games were never the most original ones. They can be innovative, but never original. They might be new in that medium, but were borrowed from others. So my argument is not about how original the idea is but can you present it differently? Where is the innovation?

Let me explain this with 4 games: Bejeweled, Candy Crush, Dots and TwoDots.

Origin of this genre can be called Bejeweled, unless I'm not aware of any other older version of the game. Simple mechanics, match 3 and we are set. Most might call it perfection, but few saw opportunity. The core mechanics of the game is perfect. But if you dig deep, you might find few flaws. One of them being, sense of progress. The biggest problem with Bejeweled was that the 1st play, or 1000th, played exactly the same. There was never a sense of new challenging gameplay mechanics. Mastery of one core mechanics was all you needed, and then you had to rely on randomness of the jewel placement to provide you with any form of challenge.

King saw this problem and that led to  Candy crush. It's main selling point was the evolving gameplay mechanics. First they introduce a new game mechanics, then they let you get used to it, then a twist and lastly the mastery. Keep in mind that this genre defining feature was in no way original but borrowed from Super Mario Galaxy.

Candy crush also made the idea of visual progression system famous. You see where you were, and you know where you want to go and how many levels are on the way. Again, Mario did that already.

Dots was also an interesting idea. It didn't exactly copied candy crush or Bejeweled, but was kind of original. When we were young we played this game on paper with friends. The idea is, you make a square out of four same colored dots and that could remove all the dots with same color. You can however, connect 2, or more, dots for those dots to vanish. So kind of match making game like Bejeweled or candy crush, but that's not why I used Dots as the example. Dots is a game of match making that had very arcade-ish approach to it initially. You have a set time and you have to match as much as possible. No levels, just game modes. Bejeweled stage cleared. Now they had to figure out the gameplay evolution. This let to the concept of candy crush, level progression.

TwoDots was the answer. Now they had level design and with every level solution, a new mechanics was brought in. With the introduction of level progression, now the already solid game mechanics has become a mammoth game. You have levels afters levels, with after every few set of levels, a new twist is introduced. This makes the both challenging and intriguingly fun to play .

Game designing is a process of dissecting an idea. A game, to a player, is how does it feel or is it fun? Players don't have to see what goes behind it. However, for a game designer, they have to ask questions like why is it fun? What design decisions make it work so well and what design decisions will make it better. This is the key difference between Bejeweled clones and Candy Crush. While people were trying to copy Bejeweled, King dissected the Bejeweled gameplay. They figured out why the game is fun. They figured out what is missing in an already fun and almost perfect gameplay. Thereby, figured out the better version of the game.

Making a Better in-App Purchase Model

We won't be getting into the argument of whether iAP should only be in free-to-play or should premium games have them as well. We'll just focus of iAPs and what constitutes a good iAP design. 

UNLOCK GAME

Games that can not be advanced without an iAP isn't exactly a free-to-play game. And if you have paid for the game, it isn't fair to have something like that at all! On the other hand, not every game has the feature of iAP or microtransactions. The only games, that should have this feature, are games that might be premium game but can be downloaded for free. 

ALMOST THERE!

Ever played candy crush and missed the target with just 1-2 moves? This is a perfect motivation for an iAP. Why? Because, the player has invested too much time in it to quit easily. And the players know that spending on it isn't a bad investment. It's right there, if you like you can just purchase few more moves and reach the target. Or restart the whole thing again and start from zero. These are the moment that every designer should look for. Pin such moments in your game and see if you can give the players a little push to advance ahead.

DON'T RUIN MY GAME! 

Every game has a difficulty graph that has certain pacing to it. Which means, at a certain point the player should find the game difficult. When the player crosses a difficulty peak, the game should give rest to the player and then the graph goes higher to more difficult peak, and so on. Difficulty gives the player a sense of achievement. If an iAP lets the player to advance the whole game easily or most part of the game, than you failed as a designer. The joy of any game is in its challenges. By making it easier for the players, you not only broke the game design but you have basically ruined the whole game experience for that player. The above point, of giving a little push, is misused to become this. If you study candy crush you'll see that even with that little push, they aren't giving away the goal. The difficulty level remains the same, only few more chance. It's like giving hints to a riddle but not telling the answer. 

SELL CONVENIENCE, NOT POWER

One of the biggest mistakes while designing an iAP is when you sell power. Every game has a power against resource ratio. If a sniper costs 10 gold and a rocker launcher costs 50 gold, selling power means you are giving rocker launcher for 10 gold because the player spend real money in the game. It is the evil pay to win. The philosophy that paid customer should have more advantage, gameplay wise, is complete BS. As said in the above point, by making the player more powerful you jeopardize the game design.  Convenience, on the other hand, is the best way to propose an iAP to the player. Most games these days have down time, in form of time to build something or number of sessions you can have per day etc. These are the best examples of how to make people feel good about their iAP that makes it convenient for them to get an item faster but doesn't spoil the game all together. These iAP could make more sense to the player and the longevity of  him in that game. 

NEVER underestimate THE POWER OF CUSTOMIZATION 

There isn't much to say, the title says it all. League of legends and Dota does this perfectly. This isn't a power or convenience, it's just visual aesthetics. Players get it, and it is one of the most acceptable iAP. It just works!

IMPLEMENT iAP AS A PART OF CORE GAMEPLAY

iAP shouldn't be the last thing to do in a game dev cycle. It should be kept in mind while designing the game. Maybe the inception of an idea can be pure and innocent, focusing on just the fun of the game. And then, when designing the gameplay in detail, it can be implemented. I don't think iAP should ever be the inspiration of an idea, as in the core gameplay is designed around it. Which would explain people's hatred for Zynga games. Rather iAP should be wrapped tightly and all around the core gameplay. Say, you have to slay a dragon. To slay the dragon, you need armour and a golden sword. You got the armour but to get a golden sword you'll need 500 blood points. You can get it by killing 1000 boars, or 2000 eagles or $0.99 iAP. Once the fun of the game is discovered, you then start figuring out what is convenience, what are powers, what are the almost there moments, and what could kill the game. These would help decide you iAP design. 

DON'T DISCRIMINATE THE PLAYERS

Just because the player didn't do any iAP doesn't mean that they are stealing from you. Non paying players are the ones that make your game famous. Discriminating them or splitting them is the worst thing you can so. Non paying players are your blessings. They are your advertisers who bring their friends and maybe one of those friends is a paying customer or even a whale.

LET PLAYERS EARN THE CURRENCY AS WELL

Soft currencies are your friend. It basically means that you are making your players get used to economy. The flow of cash makes it easier for players to spend actual money in the game. On the other hand, it lets the non paying players interested in the game. Soft currencies reduces the impact of "the-evil-iAP". It basically lets the players know that they are not forced to spend money on the game. Ofcourse, it will take a lot more time to earn that much money to buy an item, which can be dramatically reduced by a simple iAP. Any game that gives you choice over payment walls are always welcomed by players. And may turn some into paid players as well!.

KEEP THE iAP THRESHOLD LOW

The first one is the most difficult. Once the player makes their first purchase, they are more likely to make another easily. Keeping the initial iAP to the lowest cost definitely help making their first purchase. Soft currencies also play an important role in helping with the threshold. 

IMPLEMENT METRICS IN YOUR GAME

Some people might not exactly like this one but boy it works! Any additive social game is the result of metrics, period! Whatever i have written isn't possible without metrics. What works and what doesn't, can only be known using metrics. There are great third party systems like flurry that does a great job. The only problem with metrics driven games is the misunderstanding and it's misusage. This can be another topic all together. But if done properly, it can be very lucrative. 

Conclusion

I think not every game should have iAP, just like not every game should be free to play. Having iAP does not guarantee revenue in profit. iAP works when done right. You can't get the iAP right in your first attempt. It's a process of iteration and refinement. And no, you can not just copy iAP model of one game to another, unless you copy the whole game. Every game has its own economy, iAP should be based on that economy. 

In my opinion, iAP designs are in its infancy. There are only handful of games and examples of good iAP. Most of them follow almost similar pattern. There might be better iAP models out there which are still unexplored. 

Why we do, what we do in a game.

While traveling back from India, from my friend's wedding, I got hold of a book by Rolf Dobelli called 'The Art of Thinking Clearly'. At first, it seemed like just any other book, however as I kept reading, I realized that it actually answered lots of questions of player's behavior in a game. Here are few of them that I'm sharing.

Social proof
Social proof states that an idea/action is more appropriate if it is performed by larger group of people. People tend to act in certain way just because they feel that a behavior is acceptable because more people are doing it. Which is complete nonsense. This would explains things like most popular products or restaurants, trends, viral youtubes, and flappy bird. Most advertisers use this behavior to sell their product because they know people tend to copy others around them, also known as the herd instinct. Popularity is the only reason why flappy bird was so successful.

Reciprocity
We live in a society with social obligations. These obligations comes from the fact that someone did something for you and you have to 'reciprocate'. Reciprocity is the back bone of social behavior, both good and bad. Good reciprocity would mean returning back a favor, whereas, bad reciprocity would mean revenge. Ever played a game where as soon as you start, it asks for iAP? What do you do? You delete that app! Why? Because you are not obligated or owe the app anything to give them back. Free to play model lives on this idea. They give you so many things for free that you end up feeling obligated. And so if you do an iAP you don't feel that bad! Same with gifting system, attack and revenge, and so on.

Authority bias
We are born to follow an authority. If you disobey God, you are rejected from heaven. Every authority wants us to feel that way. You have to follow your parents, doctors, teachers, boss, government etc. Authority bias is a behavior where you tend to do more things based on authority over things based on free will. Because it is so deeply rooted in our system, people are both following and desiring authority.
Authorities crave recognition, which explains doctors with white coat, uniforms and badges in Defense, separate cabins for bosses etc. Authority recognition is more evident now than ever, with employee of the month, badges, getting a interview in a local newspaper etc.
This craving for authority recognition is the reason why people spend hours in a game to be in top 10 of the leaderboards. Even a small, killing spree is a powerful recognition in a match of DoTA. Achievements, badges, hats they all come from authority bias.

Contrast effects
The word cheap or big or good is comparative word. These words only exist because there is something to compare with. Similar to childhood concept of hot and cold water bucket. An item is cheaper because something is more expensive. Contrast effects is such a powerful idea which basically explains the discount madness. Contrast effect forces you to believe that something is cheaper because it is under 75% discount. At this point, the player completely ignores the fact that s/he is still paying for that item. You might never buy an item or an app for $0.99 but you are likely to buy it for the same cost if it was on sale. 

Cost fallacies
Cost fallacy is when you think you have invested on something too much to quit it. This, from developer point of view, is a pitfall. I've worked on a project to see it grow bigger and bigger, and eventually fail, because cost of developing the application became too much  for the scope of the application. The only option left, from the management point of view, was to increase the scope of the application to recover the cost. This meant increasing the development cost and time. Eventually this became a cycle and you get the point.
This behavior is seen in players as well. Players invest so much of time and energy in a game, that they fall into cost fallacy. This results to them eventually doing an iAP to recover their 'lose'.
The right answer or solution to this problem is to not look at what is lost but to focus on what you have. Money gone isn't what you have control of, but focusing on the left expenditure and cutting cost at the right time might save your loses.

I'll be posting another discussion where I'll elaborate on these ideas but from iAP point of view. How to help players do an iAP and make them feel happy about it. 

USER INTERFACE FOR MOBILE

When I was given the task to design the GUI for my first game, I didn't really have much resource to look upon. And after lot of trials and errors we did come up with something decent. Same process went with all the other games. You try and then you fix. However, few things became more obvious and with every new project we had a more clear vision for the GUI. Here are few of the things that might make your GUI better. 

Micro UI vs Macro UI

Most of our games are mobile, and since we did all our GUI without any prior experience in GUI, we decided to hire a guy who had experience in UI. The problem with the new artist was that he was from PC background. His GUI looked great on PC but when you see it on mobile it looked too clustered. Too many things happening all over the place. We couldn't blame him completely, our game had tones of features. However, his approach to the problem was very PC. PC handles micro tasks very well. Games like World of Warcraft and League of Legends are best examples of micro tasks. On the other hand the most micro thing you could do, on a mobile, was dial numbers. Ofcourse, this was before smart phones came out. With the introduction of smart phones, people tend to think that mobiles can handle micro tasks as well. It can but not with ease. Mobiles are still macro tasking devices. Which means you should always have interface that does macro tasks. Macro interface will bigger and fewer buttons. The interface shouldn't let you handle micro tasks in form of thousands of buttons. It should be organized into multi-tasking buttons, eg, start button changes to next and next button changes to exit and so on. 

Feature supporting form

I have always been a supporter of form with purpose( feature over form). GUI is the medium to communicate between hardware/software and the user. So ofcourse, feature holds the most importance over design. However, since you have a new variable of micro vs macro, once the features are finalized, the design takes over. Based on the macro design, sometimes it's important to tweak the functionality. That does not mean you have to competely change/remove the feature, it just means to fit the feature based on the design. Maybe automate few system, or reduce few steps. Best example is an iPhone over old smart phones with stylus and keypad. iPhone had all the features, even more than any other old smart phone, but it understood the macro tasking concept. One button to rule them all. 

Flow of nature

GUI is nothing but natural flow. I feel like having a redbull. If I have to go out to get myself a redbull, I'll probably skip it. However, if I'm going home and I saw redbull in the store on my way, I'll probably buy it. The concept is simple. Every pop up and every button is a result of not just the need but should be in my way. I know I have to upgrade my weapon, but I will only upgrade it before the match. Maybe that's when I'll use premium currency to get the upgrade done sooner. 

I need it now and here

Players don't want to go inside a menu with thousands of click just to ask for some item from a friend. Everything that a player would need should be in front of him. The GUI should be smart enough to provide the player with everything s/he needs then. Most iAPs happen because it showed up when it was needed. 

This point should not be confused with the point above. This point is addressing the immediate need, if it's not present there then, it probably won't change the flow of the game. Like save me, or ask a friend or use power ups. Being available then can increase the frequency of the usage. The point above is for things that you'll do it eventually, however you'll wait for it till the very last if it's not in the path. 

Consistency 

This one is universal. Every button, every text, every color have to be consistent. If the player has to keep thinking what a certain button does all the time, you just lost his game experience. Best GUI are those that are almost invisible. If i don't have to think about my navigation throughout the game, that's the best GUI ever. 

Game Mechanics Part 1( Feedback Loops and Complex System)

In this post we'll get down and dirty with game mechanics explained in a fast forward manner. It touches some core game mechanics but are explained briefly. As always internet can provide you with these core mechanics in depth. 

Games, in general, are a series of events that respond to a change. So it is this flow of changes that guides the game. Based on this idea, what becomes the most important element in the equation is the connectivity. How well the events are connected with each other. Once you figure that out, you have a solid base to work with. So what do I mean by connectivity? The game design should be a chain of reaction. To get more army you need more money, which would require some resource, lets say, wood. To get more wood, you need more people. More people need more defense. More defense comes from more army. It is this loop that makes the game. So as a game designer, the job then is to find out the loopholes that are breaking the connectivity and fix the design to close the loop. 

So we just proved that the games, with respect to core game mechanics, are a system of loops. The idea is very simple,  the game stops  you from moving forward and you fight against the resistance. This kind of behavior is called feedback loop. There are two kinds of feedback loops, positive feedback loops and negative feedback loops. Let me break it down for you, feedback are basically reactions. Once you perform an action, you are given a feedback. Positive feedback will give you gain, like an amplifier. Sound goes into the amplifier, the amplifier makes the sound louder, that's positive feedback. This process happens in a loop. So if in any loop the action is amplified, the loop is considered as positive feedback loop. The Negative feedback loop is just the opposite of it. Good example of a negative feedback loop is thermo-stat. When the water boils to a certain temperature, the thermo-stat shuts down the power. And when the temperate drops down to a certain degree, the thermo-stat turns on the power. The other way of looking at the feedback loops is that, the negative feedback loops help stabilize a system and the positive feedback loops destabilizes the system. 

Game mechanics can also be defined as a complex system. A complex system can be defined as a system consisting of many, relatively easy to understand, rules that forms into a complex system that can display unpredictable behaviors. 

 British scientist Stephan Wolfram extensive study has revealed 3 critical qualities of systems that exhibit dynamic behavior: 

• They must consist of simple cells whose rules are defined locally. This means the system must consist of parts that can be describe relatively easily in isolation. 
• The system must allow for long-range communication. Changes in the state of a single part of the complex system must be able to cause changes in parts distant in space or time. 
• The level of activity of the cells is a good indicator for the complexity of the behavior of the system. In a system that has only a very few active cells, complex behavior is unlikely to emerge.
• A cell in Wolfram's study is from his system called automaton. You can Google to know more about Wolfram's automaton. In Wolfram's automaton, a cell is active when it changes from black to white or visa-versa. These three qualities are what you have to keep in kind when designing a complex system,ie, games. 

So these are the two main part of game mechanics that are essential while making a game design. Now, some people out there are just coping an exiting game design. If the game design of those referenced games have these core mechanics working properly then ofcourse one won't have to worry about the mechanics. However, to know why a certain feature is there in the game and why they are behaving in a certain way, having a certain value etc, is what these game mechanics help you to understand.