Expanded Gameplay Idea
About this model
This diagram models a gameplay mechanic involving character movement abilities such as jumping and crouching to overcome obstacles, inspired by mechanics observed in games like Half-Life. It conceptualizes a scenario where players must utilize a combination of jumps and crouches to successfully navigate terrain with varying obstacle heights. The diagram includes sources that trigger the ability to jump or crouch, pools representing the actions (Crouch, Jump) and the obstacle heights, and a register calculating momentum based on these actions. Another register evaluates whether the obstacle can be surmounted based on the jumped height compared to the obstacle's height.
The interactive nature of the pools for 'Crouch' and 'Jump' simulates player inputs, and the connections between these pools and the sources illustrate the cyclical process of engaging these actions. The 'Momentum' register, influenced by whether a crouch or a jump has been performed, reflects how these actions contribute to overcoming obstacles. The 'Can Jump on It?' register dynamically evaluates if the height achieved through jumping is sufficient to clear the obstacle height, representing real-time decision-making in gameplay. This system captures the complexity and interactivity of movement mechanics, illustrating how a combination of player skills and game mechanics determine success in navigating game environments.
“Expanded Gameplay Idea” is a public Machinations diagram by Anıl Akhan, shared in the Machinations Community.
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.