¶ Introduction to the Loops Game
Loops! It will tie you up in knots!
¶ Game History and Naming
And welcome to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Loops is another one of those...
¶ Manual Issues and Final Verdict
puzzle based NES video games. And I say another one of those, but we don't get these too often, but we just kind of got one with pipe dream. And this isn't like that far off. It's weird. They're, they're made by two separate companies. Uh, so it's just like, bad timing, I guess, for one or the other, right? This is definitely pipe adjacent, if not straight up pipe. Yeah, they look kind of like we're laying pipe.
I was worried that we didn't get there again. I was worried that we weren't. So we got it out of the way in the first minute. Loops has nothing to do with pipes. It's actually just creating, hence the title, loops as you fit puzzle pieces to make closed loops on a kind of like... confined claustrophobic screen they don't really give you a a full space and it's not like you know how tetris is like a rectangle but it's a it's like a height heavy rectangle this is a height heavy rectangle
You know what I mean, right? The pieces are falling down on a rectangle that is standing upright like a monolith, whereas this...
We're looking down on a board now. Yes, this rectangle is like you're looking into a room or something from the top down. So it's not the way I'm used to looking at rectangles on my NES. And so everything just feels a bit... uh closed in and narrow here as you you know the goal of the game is that they give you uh different pieces you got straight pieces corners uh little like uh
squiggly lines. I guess they're like S's or whatever. Yeah, there really isn't a... I feel like Tetris had a cast. Yeah. And this game doesn't really have a cast. It's just like... whatever they want you to look at. I feel like it's a less recognizable cast, but there definitely are repeats that I get a lot. The one that looks like an unfolded staple. Sure, sure. I get that all the time at the worst times. There's no what? Joey?
There's no Joey. Joey from Tetris? Yeah, Joey, the long red line. That's what I was saying, yeah. The red line is not the long one. That's blue. Oh, I don't know. But you knew about Joey. Joey takes many forms. So you're given these pieces and you got to kind of just place them at what might seem like randomly, right? Like it's not like Pipe Dream where you had to.
connect from one source to uh to make a closed loop this is like just place them where you want and then uh make sure that you close them up on the way out so you can have a bunch of like half thought out ideas that like will eventually connect you can kind of like start something and be like nah you know what this one's getting out of control i'm not going to finish it i'm going to go work on something else and hope i can finish this later but once a loop is closed it disappears
gives you points, and frees up that space. So now you have more space to work on your other things because you're not getting the pieces in the order you necessarily want. And again, this is all like... Standard stuff for these puzzle games. But I ask you guys, straight off the bat, is loops different enough from these other puzzle games to keep you intrigued?
It's different enough to at least get me intrigued. Keeping me intrigued, I don't know, jury's out, we'll say, because I guess this is maybe like a little bit of a... spoiler but like i guess no like i wasn't intrigued for for super long um i think part of it is that you sort of are playing against yourself a lot here where there's not like
As long as you're putting pieces down, the time never runs out. The only way to lose is to lose. I don't think I've ever on this podcast advocated for a timer or a time limit. But I do feel like this game should end. Now, when I'm playing on like the easiest level, I could go forever. And then when I'm playing on the hardest level, yes, it is. It does go very quickly. But I think something about it just being like indefinite.
makes me kind of, like, lose interest after a while. It's like, alright, I'm just doing this. I don't know if that makes any sense. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so, first of all, I would say that this game does have a timer. Like, it's not... the timer but it is just a timer in which to place something right and after a long enough time frame like placing something does mean kind of breaking whatever you're working towards
So I will grant it that. I think what this game, what this puzzle, and not so much the game, is lacking is... Some amount of information like there's definitely a lot of randomness that gets jumped in here and it probably would work out better if There was a little bit more
Player information. I feel it needs to tell you what piece is coming next that is right exactly what I'm I was talking about and yeah, you're right like that That is what it needed like there needed to be some kind of Tetris like this is the next piece
And then you can work off that. Otherwise, you're just mostly trying not... You're only focused on not boxing yourself out. And that really isn't... conducive to feeling like you have laid a grand a grand plan yeah more often than not my plans are like I have I have one thing in one corner another thing in another corner and I'm always just like
all right, as soon as I get this piece, whenever that may be, I'll put it here. But yeah, after, over time, it's like, well, now I'm running out of places to put all these other pieces I'm getting that aren't the piece I need. So it would be, yeah, it would be nice to be able to plan, like, one step ahead.
and then that makes it more like yeah it gives you more agency in that way and i do think that the game achieves this idea of you know oh this is if you play on the very first level like joe was saying like oh this is a very easy game i'm i'm um
i'm in complete control and i just as long as i don't make a play something where it shouldn't be i'll always make loops and then it like as it gets faster or as you have less time to choose where the loops go or you get it too many pieces that are aren't completed loops on the board suddenly it's like well shit
I did screw up after all. It's kind of like any good puzzle game. It's something that if you're not staying on top of it, you're not constantly closing loops, you are going to be in trouble. Yeah, when you get to the point where you're just finding a place to put something and it has nothing to do with what your actual goal is, I think, like, you're kind of cooked, but...
I mean, it kind of works out. It kind of feels like the game has at least set a standard for what you should be working towards, and you know that you have not met that standard. you now have something to kind of work towards. And maybe that doesn't make a lot of sense, but it does in my brain at the moment. Well, yeah, and sometimes I do have like...
I find satisfaction that I wasn't looking for when I end up having to make a bunch of random junk on, you know, off of my plan. And then I loop that and I'm like, okay, well not. So like it, there is. I do like the satisfaction of, like, taking this negative thing and turning it into, like, a victory. When you can pull that off, it adds a little something to it. But then there's also plenty of times where...
I'm pretty much like every time I play I'm like I'm gonna make the biggest most convoluted loop I have it in my head exactly what I'm going to make. And then after like, after like a few, you know, placements, I'm like, okay, I'll make two big loops. And then after a while, I'm like, okay, I'm making five tiny loops that'll give me like a few points each.
So every single time, that's kind of my process. So it does kind of throw you for a loop depending on what you're planning. And the whole game presentationally is going for functional rather than flashy. You know, there's the monochromatic loop pieces, which are, you know, could use like, I feel like it wouldn't hurt if it had the Tetris thing of like, you know, some pieces are blue, some pieces are red, some pieces are purple, and it just like helps.
differentiate and make the you know add some color to the game but even the you know the grid background is like it's all solid green with like you know it's got something It's got some kind of texture thing going on, but it's designed to keep you focused in on your loops or whatever. The UI is... basically non-existent i you know there's a score on one side a timer in the middle a timer bar rather and um
what's that like how many pieces you've laid down on the left side yeah it's how many loops you've created how many loops you've created yeah so it's like you know they could have i feel like they could have jazzed this game up a little more because that's one thing that like pipe dream had over this is like pipe dream had like the concept of like uh you know the um the running water flus uh going from one end to the other right it had like a motif behind it
Tetris doesn't have a motif, but it also has like color and fun music. This game is missing like something fun about it and is more of like... i don't know like something i feel like i would experience on like a like a pc as a built-in game i almost feel like because we often like compare things to like a pc game an old pc game or even like a like a mobile game to me this feels even like maybe a step
a step away from that where this feels like a mobile game on like a Motorola flip phone. Doesn't it? No, I get it. I get it. I guess like my question is, and this is kind of the... direct opposite of what you guys are talking about, but I think it might, it might illuminate the same answers. Like, do you think that this game would be more fun if it had like, Tetris effect level particle shit going on? Every time you laid down a weird piece? Are we just looking for feedback?
Yeah, that kind of weird feedback? Or are you looking for something that will give you the maximum puzzle happiness? I think a little bit of both. I think before Mike said his piece, I was thinking more of... yeah like a little more a little maximum puzzle happiness as you put it but but i i think i do agree with mike too that like yeah they could be they could be spiced up visually i mean there's not much going on in this game so i feel like
you know maybe you can put a little more resources into making it look nice you know um because i mean just visually it's like yeah it's like it's like camouflage green and like a brownish beige Like, that's just, like, not, like, a bright, fun thing for a game where you're just placing lines. It's, like, already kind of, like, boring on paper. Spice it up a little bit. You know, give me some color. Give me some sound effects and stuff.
And if the game A is the standard mode where you're just dropped in and forming loops and whatever, game B and game C try to like... keep the same mechanics they don't change anything about it but now they've introduced uh you know uh game c has the memory mode where they show you a complete loop take it away and then you have to reconstruct it exactly the same pieces. That's not really a game. That's not fun at all. It is so obvious. It's literally, you know how this game is being solved.
You just remember where the pieces went because they're only giving you enough turns as because they show you every moment that they remove a piece. And I'm not saying that it's like that it's super like.
it's super simple or it's super obvious, but like you, you can use your big boy pants to figure out like, Oh, they took, they took this kind of piece away. And there's a, there's enough, uh, uh, like pattern uh uh what do you call it when it's it's the same on the same side it's the same on each side symmetrical symmetry symmetry is the word i'm looking
There's enough symmetry that it's kind of hard to fuck this up. So I just don't think that it's that great of a mode. The primary mode is much better than that. What's lacking with this mode for me, because I think this mode has...
Maybe not more potential, but it has potential. I think what's lacking to me is that, I guess, the fact that it is such a memory game kind of... trivializes the puzzle element of it where i wish that they did something similar to this but like could they do this where you start where you don't see the full thing and maybe there's an in some some indication maybe the same color somewhere so it's like this end has to connect
to this thing over here somehow well this has to connect so it doesn't show you what the shape looks like you have to you have to figure out like how can I get this over there you know yeah yeah and then that then then it feels like I'm solving a puzzle rather than trying to just remember exactly what piece was where and then game b is like similar to game a where you are given pieces and you have to make loops but the loops don't go away
Yeah, I wasn't entirely sure what the difference was here. I think it's like you have to create as many loops as possible, and then once you can't make any more... Then it then it like calculates your score because I was making complete loops and I was like, is it looking for a specific shape? Because they weren't going away. But then only once you once you like.
think that it's game over that's when it starts scoring off all your loops huh yeah that's interesting yeah when I when I was playing this one I was like I have no idea what the difference is With what we were doing before. And it just seemed to be scoring differently. And just let it do its thing. So I'm going to just trust your judgment on this one.
You know, there's one thing we haven't talked about when it comes to laying down the pieces. And that is that laying down the pieces. These are blocks. That is the ability to actually delete some, too. Granted, you need a specific.
You need the gear icon one for that, but you can delete an uncompleted loop that maybe you made like really long or something on purpose. This way you can delete all of it because you can't choose what you want to delete. You don't draw over the area you want to delete. You just.
on the line and it says okay that's all gone it's nice it's a good feature i i again it's just one of those things though too where it's like that's another piece that you have to kind of like bank on getting and there's no information on if it's coming i feel like you should just get like one or two of those per game and you just press you know like the select button or something and that brings it up instead
So now you have that, but it's like, be careful, because now you're out of those, you know? And just to clarify, because I don't think that I'm the smartest, like, puzzle person. I will say that there were moments where I thought I was just dumping a piece and just like, oh, I find a place for this piece fits. And then it would just complete a loop. And I did not know how I succeeded there.
And I think that that's like, that's like a really bad thing, if that happens. Like, did that happen to you guys at all? It's just like, oh, I thought I was just putting this where it fit. I feel like the reverse happened to me. I thought I was completing a loop, and it didn't. It did not happen. Okay. So I don't really know what this is a reflection of, if it's just us being dumb or...
Us not understanding the rules is almost definitely us not understanding the rules. But let's just pretend it isn't. Go on. If I'm understanding what you're saying, you put it somewhere not realizing that it does complete a loop. Yeah, because I have a very specific concept of what's a loop. And it would just be like, oh, this is kind of like a line that might intersect itself.
Oh, okay. So I thought you were saying you put it somewhere and you just didn't notice that it was going to be a loop. No, no, no. That was a loop. So you just don't know what it's defining as a loop. At certain points. Even now, as we usually watch a playthrough of the game, and I can recall a situation where I was doing this as well.
like there are certain situations where it is obviously like loop segments like if you were trying to if you were trying to create a circle these are just like these are just Circle segments and not actual circles that are that are actually completing these loops and it just I'm not really sure what the actual point of the game is at this point if that's if that like fits the criteria for the game to delete a piece that you're putting there. Yeah. I have no idea. That's so weird.
I don't know if I have an example of that, but you know, sometimes you need a little mystery in your games too, right? With the way that the game works. Not a game like this. The cover art for the game.
is is really just like the you know a picture of the video game being played but it's it's also like it gave it more room like they knew they gave more space on the box art for like potential loops to be drawn than like the confined space in the game so they even knew in the in the marketing they were like we didn't give these guys enough space we got to make it look like you have more room
and have a bigger area to work off of. But this is also a really inefficient player because look at all those uncompleted loops. No, those are loops. We just are defining loops differently than they are. They're going to be loops. Those are loop candidates. Now, if you're taking the comparison to the other puzzle games, we already talked about, like, you know, with Tetris having colors and everything, but I also think...
Loops is a little less frantic than Tetris. Tetris shows you the piece falling and you are like scared because it's eventually going to touch the bottom. The bar running out of time and then just. making it place the current block that you have down on loops. It doesn't have that same, like, you know, there's just a slower pace overall to this game when compared with Tetris. Yeah.
That's in Tetris' favor for sure, but just the perspectives will make that happen. But could loops have done anything to add more pressure, or is the bar the bar for what you can express in this game? Well, here's my thought is I think it is a lot slower than Tetris depending on what, you know, obviously what level you play on.
when i first played on like level zero or level one very slow i think like level three was really about like as far as i really want to ever go in this game because that's what i'm like okay this is like a decent you know challenge with a time limit
then i played like not even level nine i think i played like level seven or eight and i was like okay this is ridiculous sometimes i can't even get the piece across the board in time before the thing runs out i can't even imagine level nine like it not not that it doesn't give you enough time to think
It doesn't give you enough time to move your piece unless you're, like, starting moving it exactly as it appears. That could just be, you know, poor reflexes on my part. But I kind of wish that there was a mode in this game that... starts you at level zero and gradually ups the speed to level one level two as you're going and then you can slowly start to feel that pressure ramp up and i feel like that would be like okay now i can play this game
But I don't have to play it forever. It will start to get harder as I'm in the middle of it. Because you pick a difficulty and you're locked at that difficulty. So you mean like Tetris. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I get it. I get it. And then I said, you know, already with pipe dream, pipe dream requires or gives you a fixed start and you have to just change the flow path. Whereas loops is a self-initiated. loop that you have to create on your own.
But if you're thinking about just other puzzle games on the NES, a lot of them don't have, like, the Tetris or Pipe Dream thing. A lot of them are like, instead, it's a puzzle game, and it's The Adventures of Lolo, right? Yeah. Or Kickle Cubicle, where it's like... You know, there's a lot of character branding and visual flair. And I just wonder, like, is Loop something that an eight-year-old wants? Or is this something that, like, an eight-year-old...
dad somehow says, like, oh, video games are for me, too. Like, there's no way, right? Like, Tecmo Super Bowl is what an 8-year-old's dad says, oh, video games might be for me. Yeah, I mean, it depends on, you know, I think it comes down to how it's executed. Because... The idea, the type of game that loops is, like, any complaint I have about, like, you know, like, Adventures of Lolo has, like...
They add more elements to these puzzles and more things like it grow and evolve and Loops doesn't, but neither does Tetris. I think execution really makes the difference, but I do think that there's like a desire. at least at the time for like this type of puzzle game from, from adults. Yeah. It's because, because of Tetris, like Tetris proves that. Yes. But loops is too quiet. Um, music.
No, no, I know that. I know, I'm just kidding. I guess one thing that I would say about this game that I appreciate is that it is the equivalent of procedural, which... uh gives it the idea that this is entirely like you're mastering a system like you're mastering like this is how the uh this is just how like this puzzle is going to generate itself and at any point like you can master it and you can you can untangle any crazy knot that you you've put into the game space like
It's not just a bunch of puzzle levels that have a set solution. Like this is just what you can do with it. And so I get that and I appreciate that. And, but I think that. If that was what they were going for, they would have added a this is the one coming next. I don't know. I feel like there's a lot going on here that could have been different that would have made it.
the a better game for what we were expecting uh coming from there i don't know am i am i making any sense here yeah i think just like a theme or a motif would have helped and you know If Pipe Dream was plumbing, loops could be like closed circuits, right? Like you have to... You have like a computer chip that you have to close the circuits on to gain power. And then that power gets added to like some voltage thing. And once you have enough voltage, you clear the level, right?
I'm making that up on the fly, and that already sounds pretty fucking cool. But it sounds like something that doesn't need to be bespoke. It doesn't need to be Adventures of Lolo, and it could just be something that happens while you play. And that is what's happening here. But like you still need to have at least like some semblance of planning. Like planning is part of puzzles. Yes. Yeah. And we're playing so many, you know, action RPG shmup.
video games on this podcast that maybe it's just natural for me to rather than like enjoy the change of pace that loops is offering and like being getting a break from a shmup i'm kind of like You know, where's the fucking characters? Where's the theme? Where's the atmosphere? Where's Ms. Pac-Man? Could a modern mobile re-release make Loops a sleeper hit on the App Store? Oh, wow. I don't know.
I think I'm pretty out of touch with what people play on mobile. If it's anything based off the YouTube ads I'm seeing, it's always some kind of tower defense thing. Those games aren't real, right? They're not real, right? What's that game on the bridge about?
the game on the oh I know what you're talking about yeah when there's like all the things come like running across yeah you're the blue guys and they're the red guys it's like apparently that's not a real game but that's like every one of those types of games is like
This number is higher than that number and everything you eat makes your number higher and that means you'll beat this thing. I see that so many... Right, and it's called like Sushi Clan, you know? Yeah, it'll just be like, yeah, you have won. you know you have a guy with a two on him and someone else is one you beat him and now you have a three and now you beat a three and now you have a six you have to like always pick it's like always looks so easy but also it's clearly not a real game
It's like, but why isn't it a real game? You'll have me shook right now. I don't want to confuse Sean too much, so let me just break it down for you. There are apparently... targeted ads on YouTube for games that they show a game that could totally exist. It's not Grand Theft Auto 6. It's not open world. It's not crazy dragons that you're going to like. It's not open world. It's just like a tower defense game.
And all of a sudden, you're told to download the app or whatever, and I've never downloaded one. But from everything I can tell, apparently the actual game is like... half of what that game in the preview was and everybody's getting upset about this lately but like why isn't the obvious so you're saying that you're saying that the uh that the marketing atmosphere for mobile gaming is just 100% bull shots. Yeah, right now. A lot of it, yeah. Sean, have you never seen the ad of...
Like there's, there's like a little guy in a box and there's a barrier like blocking lava and you have to like pull a pin. Oh wow. Years ago. Like those aren't real either. Like I'm sure there is something really that now, but like.
The one that I get... I know that we're in a completely different sphere right now. I love it. The one that I get is that there's a game that is being marketed right now where it's like... you can either shoot at a thing and get like a very linear uh reaction um vis-a-vis uh If you shoot into this area, you get plus one something or other. But if you shoot into this area with less, you get times three XYZ. That's the bridge game. Is that the bridge game?
That's the bridge game I'm talking about. So what I've noticed with that is that they keep shouting at me. It's like, wow, the game finally exists. It's real now. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, was it hard to do this before? Right. It wasn't. But there is a game on Steam called, and I quote,
Yeah, you want those games, right? So here you go. Now let's see you clear them. And it is like somebody made all those games because they're all so easy to make and just put them in one giant collection. Wow, that sounds great. God bless him. All I know is that there's another trend going on, and this is all going to go back to the actual question, so it's fine that we're rambling everything, but there's another trend I'm noticing.
where they purposefully pick a fake streamer, somebody who doesn't have a Twitch profile, isn't well-known. A streamer who is purposefully annoying. and over explaining and doing like the e3 press conference style of like playing the game where like they were like nobody's talking like that when they're playing video games but they're doing it and
I got to be honest, it's kind of working. Like, I'm still hitting skip as soon as YouTube lets me skip. Oh, yeah. For those five seconds, I'm like, who the fuck is this guy? Why can't he play this game? It's easy. You know what it was? It was when they somehow recruited the guy that plays Homelander to do this shit.
does this make any sense oh my god you're right that's the one that's the one where yeah he's like he's like yeah they made this a game now it's not fake anymore and i'm like what are you fucking kidding me like they they made they made homelander do this it's crazy it's crazy go on
Anyway, so the way it gets back to the original question of would loops be a sleeper head on the app store now is no, of course not. People want gotcha games where numbers go up and they have to open up things daily and they have to complete. requests and they have to log into the app every hour and this is something that people don't want to hear but all these apps have really shitty ui and are and perform slowly on your phones on purpose
Because it then takes you longer to do the things that you want to do. And they're using your phone to take Bitcoin. They're farming Bitcoin on your phone. Listen to me. You know what I'm saying. I think that's actually happening, though. I'm not lying. Yeah, something's happening with that. Somebody's mining Bitcoin with some server, and I'm...
Wouldn't be surprised if that's like a DeNuvo thing or something. You know, that's what they're doing to stop piracy. They're mining Bitcoin on your phone. Oh, my God. They're like making the profit that way. They're like, yeah, people are going to pirate this game anyway, so let's mine from the people who buy it legally. Hell yeah, brother. And if it ever feels like Loops was a computer game, that's because it was.
It started there with the Amiga, Atari ST, all that bullshit. And the NES version is basically a direct adaptation. There's no changes other than necessary changes to get it over to the NES. There is no loop. Sirs or loops too or loops with a regular S. I should mention this game is spelled L-O-Z. Yeah, because it's cool to make these loops on like regular loops. 90s loops.
Yeah, maybe Loops could have been like a different game with an S, you know? It could have been like a skateboarding game or something, or a bicycle game. You go around in Loops. If this is Loops with a Z, I don't want to play Loops with an S. Yeah, for sure. I can't even imagine how much less colorful and exciting they could make it if they didn't have the Z. Loops. Loops. Loops.
That trend isn't dead. I feel like anybody can add a Z to something and it's cool, but it's definitely less prominent now. We're not throwing Zs on everything. Yeah, it's not 1998. This is 1990, but sure. I know what you're saying. I hear you loud and clear. And our listeners are about to hear us on the Essential Games list.
Yeah, I mean, it's got out of hand quickly, right? So clearly loops isn't essential. I actually asked that question like five minutes into the episode and Joe answered it. So I'm going to try and not do that next week. I'm going to try and... Just talk about the gameplay maybe for a little more before I start asking for opinions. But since Joe gave his, Joe, would you like to give it again? Well, I did have a whole thing to say about the Z.
And how that was like maybe going to be the one thing that pushed it over for me to being essential. But we already crossed that bridge too. So I'll just leave my vote as definitely not essential. Don't play it. Sean. Yeah, I feel like we got a little in the weeds here, but I feel like what they did here was very much just a...
They created a system for a game that shouldn't exist. Not into it. Not essential. A system being the NES? They created the NES for this game? Basically, they put a bunch of... it's literally just like a gameplay loop, but like they didn't really tell us how to interact with it. I don't know. Yeah, there's very little onboarding. You're right. The manual. The manual. The manual is the onboarding, but it's like really. You don't need to. You don't need to say how corporate we are every episode.
It's so dry, though. The manual has no pictures of the game. It's just one, two, three, four, five, five pages of text. Yeah. That's not good. That can't be good. The manual could have been a fun section to have the circuitry stuff. I got an idea to bring loops back with computer chips. Maybe you're like...
Tying it into, like, the NVIDIA GPU shortages. And you're like, you know, in this game, you're making new graphics cards. And the graphics get better every time you complete a level because you're upgrading your graphics card. Wow, this is some next level shit right now. This is what I can do with no thoughts. Imagine what I could do with time. It's like Batman with prep time. Imagine me making a video game with prep time. Thank you. . . .