The Perfect LOOP
A cozy puzzle game developed for GMTK Game Jam 2025 using Unity, playable in browser. Featured on the official GMTK Jam livestream.
About the Game
The Perfect LOOP is a minimalist puzzle game about building a single continuous path, based on the theme "Loop". Each tile gives you a clue about how many of its edges belong to the loop, and it’s up to the player to place and adjust pieces until everything connects perfectly. Without relying on text, the game communicates through its environment clues, ambient sound, and satisfying visuals.
Design Goals
The core goal behind The Perfect LOOP was to explore the theme of “loop” through puzzles. My starting inspiration came from the image of river flowing through land, bringing life to its surroundings. The more trees there were, the more water was needed, which naturally translated into a puzzle mechanic where certain areas required more sides of the loop to be covered.
From there, the concept turned into creating new themes such as cities and Mars colonies, allowing players to feel a sense of progression as they advanced through the levels.
I sketched out the early level to introduce players to the mechanic on a 3x3 grid, then layered in complexity by combining clue types and expanding grid size. Each level had to be tested to make sure there's only one unique solution.
Due to time constraints, I wasn’t able to implement a fully dynamic grid checker. Instead, I created a hardcoded solution system where vertical and horizontal lines were separated into two grid maps, and I manually defined the correct solution by editing coordinates for each level. While less scalable than a dynamic system, this approach allowed me to validate solutions reliably and complete the prototype within the project deadline.
Challenges
The biggest challenge during development was creating a tutorial. I initially wanted the game to teach itself without any text, relying only on visuals and discovery. However, I soon realized that with the game’s complexity, this wasn’t practical.
During the playtesting period, most players reported that the game felt too difficult at the start and lacked a proper tutorial. Some also felt the level design could be improved to introduce mechanics more gradually, with an easier first level that serves as a guided introduction level rather than dropping them right into a challenge. During the official GMTK livestream, a bug in the first level was also found that allowed multiple solutions. I soon fixed these problems in another update, it made me realize the importance of player feedback in game development, looking at the game from a different point of view and helping me create a better game.
