The Game Design Platform
design, balance & handoff game systems

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API Integrations

Open API Export / Import to Google Sheets Embed in Miro Embed in Confluence Unity Plugin
Coming soon
Coming soon
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Used by 2500+ game studios all over the world

Design
Prototype
Handoff

Craft flawless game design

Map your game design in an interactive diagram, using a visual, Turing-complete language composed of 9 atomic Nodes and 2 types of Connections.

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Lay out systems

Get your exact vision across with a standardised, visual language

Communicate complexity

Define abstract concepts and get the entire team on the same page

Leverage experience

Start with hundreds of ready-made deconstructions and prefabs

Calibrate player experience

Hit Run and watch any system come to life, interactively. Click-to-edit parameters and run Monte Carlo simulations until you find the perfect balance.

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Reduce guesswork

Back up gut feeling with science and iron out any kinks

Predict player progression

Simulate emergence and balance player journeys

Spot flaws

Isolate and solve roadblocks in player journeys

All on 1 diagram

Empower your team with a single point of truth for game design and reduce time spent chasing outdated, static GDDs and sheets.

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Align visions

Input/output with developers, analysts, producers

Update instantly

No, really. Our API pushes values real-time over-the-air

Design collaboratively

Share and edit real-time co-op like it's the 21st century

Play Pac-Man

Take it for a spin and watch the meta unfold. Or add it to your account and hack it.

Spreadsheets reimagined

Combine machine and human analysis through visualization

Complexity mastered

Simulate emergence and forecast the butterfly effect

Balancing solved

Your game is a unit, treat it holistically

Don’t take our word for it

Just wanted to let you know that I got around to plot my first Machinations graph! :D Dove right into it and skipped all tutorials... as you do, took me a while to understand logic and resource lines [...] I looked at some of the [library] examples and it took me about an hour to achieve my goal [...]

Olle Lundahl

COO

Presenting a feature becomes interesting. I was doing Machinations and René looked over my shoulder: “You should stop playing games :)”. If it’s a spreadsheet, nobody cares, Machinations grabs everyone's attention.

Laurids Binderup

Lead Game Developer

Machinations is a place for all the real-life data points to land and verify our assumptions and/or change the model.

Maja From Andersen

Data Analyst

Join a community 25,000+ strong

Some of the best game designers, developers and academia all over the World use Machinations in their day to day work

Emil Kjaehr

Product Manager & Partner

Aarhus, Denmark

Kyle Bardiau

Game Designer

Orange County, California

Julia K

Lead Game Designer

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Andreas Pizsa

Studio Technical Director

Hamburg, Germany

Atilla Kabakcıoğlu

Game Designer

Istanbul, Turkey

Daniel Jones

CEO & Co-Founder

London, United Kingdom

Johanna (Jacob) Janiszewski

Founder & CEO

Berlin, Germany

Andreas Diktyopoulos

Lead Developer & Creative Director

Athens, Greece

Todd English

Co-Founder & COO

Karlsruhe, Germany

Mayu Polo Wieja

Monetization Director

Hilversum, Netherlands

Jamie Smith

Lead Game Designer

Sheffield, United Kingdom

Ole Goethe

Associate Professor

Oslo, Norway

Michael Prokofyev

Unity Developer

Saint Petersburg, Russia

Patrick Davis

Technical Game Designer

Tokyo, Japan

Alan Jack

Game Design Lecturer

Breda, Netherlands

Jeffrey Feenstra

LiveOps Producer

Vancouver, Canada

Mariusz Lesniewski

Creative Director

Warsaw, Poland

Himanshu Agarwal

Game Designer

Pune, India

Samüel Buraud

Game Economy Designer

Barcelona, Spain

Jordan M. Blackman

Design & Monetization Consultant

San Francisco, California

Evangelos Leivaditis

Lead Game Designer

London, United Kingdom

Thais Weiller

Game Designer & Producer

Curitiba, Brazil

Jakub Remiar

Head of Game Design

Bratislava, Slovakia

Elad Drory

Senior Game Designer

Stockholm, Sweden

Isaac Boldarini

Game Designer

Mellieha, Malta

Hugues Pedreno

Formateur Level Design

Montpellier, France

Kuba Pałyska

Head of Design

Warsaw, Poland

Brandon Ramirez

Co-founder & Research Lead

Oakland, California

Anders Howard

Systems Designer

Cary, North Carolina

Ionut-Gabriel Solomon

Creative Director

Bucharest, Romania

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Foundation

Machinations was originally created by PhD Joris Dormans (co-founder) at the University of Amsterdam.

His thesis “Engineering emergence: applied theory for game design” (2012) is the cornerstone of the Machinations language and framework.

Together with Ernest Adams, Joris co-authored “Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design” and we strongly recommend you get a copy.

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350+ universities & academic institutions use Machinations

Ready to start?

Some of the best game designers, developers and academia all over the World use Machinations in their day to day work

Create Free Public Account Book a Demo

Used by 2500+ game studios all over the world

350+ universities & academic institutions use Machinations

Create a Free Public Account Book a Demo

Features

Roles

Templates

Pricing

Resources

Company

All Rights Reserved © Machinations S.àr.l

8217, Mamer, Luxembourg, accounts at BGL BNP PARIBAS, VAT number: LU30464284

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