In 1975, musician and producer Brian Eno and artist Peter Schmidt published Oblique Strategies, a deck of more than 100 cards which offer short, gnomic sentences intended to inspire artists suffering from creative block. One of these often springs to my mind while gaming. It reads: “Repetition is a form of change”.

Repetition is employed in a great deal of art, ranging from the minimalist compositions of Philip Glass to the catchy choruses of pop songs, from TV procedurals to poetry. Yet it takes on a different aspect in video games, where you’re not simply witnessing something repeating, but are actively performing it. Repetition is foundational to the design of every game, yet paradoxically it is often wielded as a criticism: “I got bored of that game, it was too repetitive.”

A key term in game design is the “gameplay loop”: the central action performed repeatedly during gameplay. You might be in new environments or holding a different weapon, but you’re still pressing the attack button, then the block button, killing enemies and earning loot. In certain casual games, such as Tetris or Candy Crush Saga, the basic gameplay loop is so satisfying that it can keep some players engaged indefinitely with no need for substantial variation. So a successful game does not avoid repetition; it simply employs it in a considered way.