• How to Create a Progression-Focused Core Loop
• Inspiration for Creating Shareable Worlds

How to Create a Progression-Focused Core Loop

Creating engaging worlds on Meta Horizon on mobile requires careful consideration of how to engage users over time. This guidance provides recommendations for designing worlds that encourage users to progress, share their experiences, and interact with others in order to encourage users to play and retain. 

Provide Clear Goals and Objectives

It’s important to establish clear goals and objectives for users to work towards. Objectives can include collecting items, completing challenges, or achieving specific milestones. It can be helpful to think about objectives in milestones.What do you want your players to accomplish in the first week? What should they accomplish on day 14, 30, 100, and beyond? Consider incorporating analytics to verify that players are able to accomplish these objectives and that the difficulty balance is appropriately designed.

When thinking about objectives, ensure that:

• Players can quickly understand what the world is about and why they should stick around. In particular, players who join on mobile may have sound off and aren’t likely to stay for long if they can’t find where the action is.
• Quests can be completed in a short amount of time, ideally within a few minutes, at least initially. This encourages daily engagement without overwhelming the player. This is especially important for mobile gameplay, where sessions tend to be shorter overall.
• Actions are accessible to players of all skill levels. Especially on mobile, requiring specialized skills or a high amount of precision for initial progression to occur can be frustrating for new players and lead to dropoff.
• Objectives are repeatable and enjoyable.

Use Quests to Help Players Onboard

Using quests in onboarding can be a great way to teach how they can interact with your world. 

• Game Worlds: use incrementally more challenging quests to help new players onboard to the mechanics and features of a world. These challenges could include resource gathering or using combat mechanics in low-stakes environments. 
• Social Worlds: use quests to direct new players to socially motivating activities and places where players have opportunities to collaborate, compete, or engage with one another. On mobile, consider ways to do this without the need for voice chat.
• For both Game and Social Worlds: give new players frequent reminders of quest objectives and player progress to help players remember the end goal and build confidence in their actions. 

Use Quests/PVARS to measure progression

While there are many ways to create engaging and replayable worlds with deep progression systems, we recommend utilizing Persistent Variables (PVARS) in your world to track, manage, and reward players for their engagement. Persistent variables (or PVARs) enable the storage and retrieval of player-specific data during gameplay, which persists across the worlds that players explore. For example, you can use PVARs for tracking the total number of items collected, rounds/games played, and more. 

You should aim to implement and track as many relevant PVARS as you can for your world. Below is an example of various types of actions you could track depending on the type of world/game you’re building.

You will likely have many things similar to the above list that apply to your world, and many things unique to your world that can fit this kind of approach. Do not limit yourself to just the above recommendations! 

For a quick guide on implementing PVARS in your world, please refer to the guide here: 

https://developers.meta.com/horizon-worlds/learn/documentation/typescript/getting-started/persistent-variables-v2

Please note that the Horizon Quest system currently works best when utilizing PVARS with a Number Type when possible, and when tracking values that only go up in value. 

Tracking Total Actions vs Total Values

For some things where the values changed are variable and not always going up by one for each action, you may want to consider tracking total actions that can be repeated and incremented, and also tracking the total value increases by individual actions.

Ex:

• Collect Coins 10 Times - Count the # of times you collect a resource. Increment the value by 1 each time the user collects a specific resource. Always increases by 1.
• Collect 500 Coins - Count the total value of resources that you collect across any number of actions. Increments by the total amount of resources collected in a given action. Increases a variable amount each time. 

Both of these types of PVARS can be valuable to track and build quests around. When in doubt, track both! (Ex: “totalCoinCollections” for # of actions & “totalCoinsCollected” for values)

Thing to avoid with Quests: 

• Tracking specific values done a total number of times.
  Ex: Collect 50 Coins 5 times
  This type of nested tracking that would only increment the count after each time you’ve collected 50 coins is going to add an unnecessary amount of confusion to your quests (and your players). 

• Tracking User State/Balances
  For managing user state (inventory, current stats, etc..) it can often make sense to use Object type PVARS to manage resource balances/numbers that will go up and down when earned/spent or gained/lost during gameplay. These generally are not things you would want to set up as a quest.

Offer Visual and Auditory Feedback Mechanisms

Providing feedback mechanisms that inform users of their progress, such as progress bars, XP, notifications, leaderboards, avatar animations, or audio cues allows players to measure their progress over time and encourages them to continue. Ensure that leaderboards are easily accessible and visible for users to find and track scores/ranks (i.e. viewable after completing a round, putting the gizmo in the lobby). Make sure that leaderboards are legible as small text is difficult to read on mobile, such as focusing the camera on leaderboards. Remember that darker games/experiences may be harder to see on mobile, so consider using contrasting colors that are easy to view on a smaller 2D screen. When possible, avoid signage with lots of words and opt for more creative options for conveying progression, such as symbols, icons, colors, and audio cues.

Implement a Compelling Rewards System

A reward system that acknowledges user progress and achievements through badges, power ups, upgraded equipment, or exclusive content helps players to know they are on the right track and motivates them to continue. In order for the rewards system to be most effective, rewards should be compelling, fresh, and aesthetically pleasing.

• Compelling: players are more motivated by exclusive rewards that feel premium and differentiated. For example, special colors or abilities differentiate premium rewards by making them feel rare and special, particularly when the visual customization is controlled by the player.
• Fresh: Rewards do not maintain their impact forever, as users will eventually acquire the rewards you offer. To maintain engagement, it's crucial to consistently offer fresh rewards that feel novel and exciting. A recent case study illustrates this point: when a world on Meta Horizon introduced a new gun skin, in-world purchases surged. However, within a month, this lift returned to baseline as the content became stale. This highlights the importance of regularly refreshing rewards (~ monthly) to sustain user interest and drive continued engagement. 
• Aesthetically pleasing: visually appealing rewards encourage users to want to collect them and show them off to others. 
  
  

Consider Progression that Unlocks Opportunities for Expression

Players are interested in features that allow them to personally or creatively express themselves (e.g. avatars, gamer profiles). Offering progression rewards that double as opportunities for self expression serves multiple player interests.

Integrate Analytics to Measure the Success of a Progression System

After you have implemented a progression-focused core loop, you can collect data in order to understand how well or not well the system is working. By integrating player analytics into the world, such as TURBO, you can identify the most and least appealing aspects of the core loop, allowing you to fine-tune worlds and create a more engaging experience for players. Analytics can play a vital role in finding the perfect balance between ease and challenge by measuring key metrics such as completion rates, time-to-complete, drop offs, and understanding where players are spending the most time. Striking the challenge balance is essential to keeping players engaged and motivated without getting discouraged. A well-balanced progression system can lead to a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, while an unbalanced one can result in frustration and abandonment.

Inspiration for Creating Shareable Worlds

Provide Intentional Moments for Capturing Content

In virtual worlds, players often seek to capture and share memorable moments that evoke emotions, showcase achievements, or highlight unique experiences. Research shows that when it is easy to create “social media worthy content”, players are more likely to share game moments on other platforms, which over time creates a fandom community and generates hype. Players may be more likely to take screenshots and share them when they encounter visually stunning environments, interact with friends, or are provided with photo-worth opportunities after receiving an award for a challenging task.

To encourage capture opportunities, consider design cues such as:

• Scenic overlooks or vistas
• Interactive props or objects that can be used in creative ways
• Special effects or lighting that enhance the visual appeal of a scene
• Avatar animations that heighten player immersion or offer comedic value
• Areas with high player traffic, where social interactions are more likely to occur
• Landmarks or iconic locations that players will want to remember
• Visually appealing rewards
• Humorous or meme-worthy objects
  
  

Offer More Challenging Quests

Research shows that despite choosing quests that felt doable and easy to complete, players find challenging and hard-won quests are more memorable and therefore share-worthy. On the flip side, players are less likely to share their accomplishments if they do not feel like they are challenging enough or if the rewards are not unique enough to share.

Include Humor and Randomness 

Humor is a powerful tool in mobile games, capable of transforming an ordinary experience into a memorable and shareable one. What makes something funny often comes down to clever writing, silly visuals, unexpected twists, and relatable situations. For instance, in the popular mobile game "Plants vs. Zombies," the quirky character designs and silly animations add a comedic touch. Similarly, in "Clash Royale," the over-the-top reactions of defeated characters provide a humorous release of tension, making players more likely to share their victories on social media. Games involving “shenanigans”, or “chaos play” often lend to meme-able moments and are considered worthy of sharing via social media. 

Evoke Nostalgic Feelings in Groups

Mobile games and experiences that evoke feelings of nostalgia, such as board game mechanics similar to “Family Game Night” games or shared activities like mini-golf, are more likely to be shared because they are familiar and may be tied to existing memories with others. Providing a new and creative twist on throw-back themes may encourage more sharing.

Incorporate Collaborative, Cooperative, and/or Competitive Gameplay 

Incorporating collaborative and competitive gameplay elements can be an effective way to encourage players to share the game with friends outside of the platform. By creating a sense of community and teamwork, players may be more likely to want to play with their friends and invite them to join them in the game, increasing word-of-mouth referrals. 

Caveat: Not all mobile players will want to use voice chat, so consider mechanics like voting or gifting that make it easy for players to interact without the need for words. And although worlds are better when played with others, many players may initially play alone and prefer to try things out before inviting friends. Creating multiple game modes (like solo and multiplayer) can help ensure a world is fun in different contexts.