Core Gameplay Loop

In Coral Island, the player is an agent of change. To accomplish this, Coral Island creates a positive feedback loop where most everything feeds into everything else.

To describe the core gameplay loop, it’s best to first dissect our primary, secondary and tertiary loops. For the purpose of this document, the primary loop is defined as doing things now for an instant payoff, the secondary loop is defined as doing things now for a later payoff, and lastly, the tertiary loop is the "why" behind what the player does, and or the overall goal.

The primary loops in Coral Island include clearing farm debris, finding a beacon while diving, finding a way down in the mines, catching a bug/fish, participating in festivals, and foraging the island for forageables. These all have a payoff that will typically occur within the same day.

The secondary loop in the game includes watering crops for ‘n’ days to eventually harvest them later, caring for animals for ‘n’ days until they can produce items, talking with NPC or giving them gifts to eventually gain heart levels with them, leveling up various mastery’s to unlock skills, to name a few. These all typically have players repeatedly do actions over ‘n’ days until the payoff is ready.

The tertiary loop in the game is a blend of goals the game provides and goals driven by the players themselves. The game uses quests to onboard and ease players into a routine of their own primary/secondary loops. From a story point of view, the main goal is to kick antagonist Pufferfish out of the island by reaching “Town Rank A”. The player is able to increase their town rank by engaging in various game systems. Player-driven goals we consider to be the most valuable “why”, and will vary from person to person. Coral Island is built such that a player can engage in as much or as little of the game’s systems, and should still find enjoyment out of it. For example, a player might be motivated to marry an NPC and have kids, or perhaps they just want to decorate their farm and build a chicken army. Others might just want to figure out the way to earn the most amount of money, we call these min-maxers.

All of the above blend together to create Coral Island’s core game loop: players have to manage their time and stamina (both a finite resource), deciding each day what primary, secondary, and or tertiary loops to engage in. Typically, we expect players to start their day engaging in farm work (secondary loop), and then engage in other activities (primary loop).

Regardless of what the player decides to do or focus on, through the Town Rank system, everything feeds into everything else. For example, mining benefits farming which helps you engage in the temple offerings to increase Town Rank. Diving benefits farming but you can also come across sunken artifacts to donate to the museum to increase Town Rank. There are 4 primary ways to increase town rank: donate to the museum, make offerings at the temple, upgrade/renovate the town and plant super coral in the oceans.