displayed at the bottom of the screen. Below the distaff are a series of musical notes
that correspond to positions on the distaff: c, d, e, f, and so forth, up to a full octave.
When players hear the tones for the first time, these notes light up to show players
visually what the different notes are. Players must then remember this series of tones
(usually by writing it down), and then can repeat the tones in order to cast a particular
“draft” or spell on a different object. Players repeat the notes simply by clicking on dif-
ferent locations of the distaff, a beautifully intuitive interface.
If players play the game in the expert setting, the learning of drafts becomes signif-
icantly more difficult. The musical notation is no longer present on the screen, and now
players only hear the notes; they no longer flash on the distaff. This forces players to
“play it by ear” in order to succeed. This, coupled with the fact that the tones required
for a draft change with every game, gives the game significantly more replayability than
many other adventure games. The musical nature of the drafts and of the entire game is
a tremendous break from most other games that can be played with the sound com-
pletely off. Instead of just using music for sonic wallpaper,Loombeautifully makes the
music an integral part of the gameplay.
The order of the tones can also be reversed to cause the opposite effect of playing
the tones forward. The objects players double-click on to originally learn the tones all
correspond to the drafts they teach players: double-clicking on a blade teaches the
“sharpen” draft, double-clicking on water dripping out of a flask teaches the “empty-
ing” draft, double-clicking on a pot full of bubbling dye will teach the “dye” draft, and so
forth. Spinning drafts with the distaff is the primary method for performing actions on
objects in the game. Sometimes the draft learned is not entirely obvious, and some cre-
ative thinking is required of players in order to figure out which draft to use where.
Drafts that are learned for use in one application will turn out to have related but differ-
ent applications later. For instance, a draft that at first hatches an egg actually turns out
to be quite handy for opening doors. A draft that heals a human can also be used to heal a
rip in the fabric of the universe. All the connections are subtle yet logical. The manipu-
lation of these drafts makes up the primary source of puzzles in the game, and they are
232 Chapter 12: Game Analysis:Loom
If the player playsLoom
in the expert setting, the
musical notes on the
distaff disappear, making
the game significantly
harder.