Loose Ties: Scores and Wagers

This is the first in a series of small post-jam updates to Loose Ties that are intended to help realise some aspect of the design that I wasn’t able to complete during the jam. As usual, all of the great ideas come flooding in right after you hit submit!

This update is primarily concerned with simplifying the resources in the game and building towards a more compelling macro-loop.

In the jam version, players managed two resources throughout a run: their “social battery” and their “bad vibe tolerance”. Social battery was consumed and restored by incorrect/correct deduction. Bad vibe tolerance decreased with every action the player took. This has been collapsed to a single social battery resource that is fed into by deductions, player actions, and bad vibes within the room. The intention is increase the level of interaction between the individual rooms and the run as a whole.

The jam version also limited players to 4 rooms per run, assigning a score based on correct deductions and total good vibes. Scores are now only assigned from the good vibes accrued over a run. Runs are no longer limited to 4 rooms, but can be indefinite as long as the player maintains their social battery (a couple of frictions prevent them from being indefinite in practice). Players must choose to opt out of their run to cash in their score, creating a push your luck dynamic between rooms. This change serves many purposes, but its primary role is to increase the players agency in how they approach a room. Because runs are no longer capped to four rooms, it is more feasible to leave rooms early in the hopes of saving your resources for later rooms.

This version also adds a small leaderboard that persists your scores locally, offering a ladder of escalating challenge to climb.

In the next update, I’d like to spend some more time working on the moment to moment movement within rooms. Maximising hearts within a run usually leads to some pretty boring tactics which I think can be patched up with some small changes to the ruleset.