Emergence

About this model

This diagram represents a system designed to simulate random encounters within a game environment, reminiscent of the mechanics found in Fallout 3, where encounters vary each playthrough, adding to the game's emergent narrative and challenge. The system utilizes Source nodes to initiate the flow of resources, which are then distributed through a series of Pools and Gates, effectively modeling the randomness and variability of encounters. Registers play a critical role in this setup, as they are configured to generate random numbers, which influence the distribution of resources amongst the nodes, simulating the randomness of game encounters.

The interplay between Gates and State Connections fine-tunes the simulation, with specific conditions and ranges set to modify the flow of resources based on the random numbers generated by Registers. This complex network of nodes and connections ensures a dynamic and unpredictable gameplay experience, mimicking the unpredictability of encounters in an open-world game. The use of automatic Gates along with deterministic and random resource distribution simulates the way encounters can vary in intensity and type, reflecting the emergent gameplay mechanics intended by the diagram's design.

This public Machinations diagram, “Emergence”, was shared in the Machinations Community by Anıl Akhan.

You can open the original diagram in the Machinations app, press Play to watch how resources move through it, and change its values to see how the system responds. Machinations is a visual tool for designing, simulating and balancing game economies and other systems, where resources flow through sources, pools, drains, converters and gates. In a diagram, a source creates resources, a pool stores them, a drain removes them, a converter changes one resource into another and a gate decides where they go next.