Selected models

The game economies topic follows a currency from where it is earned to where it is spent: a cooking game's coin and upgrade loop, a wood-and-stone crafting basics model, a card battler's shop economy, a survival city's coal, wood and food, and a 700-component system of crafting, dismantling, shops and combat. Use these to see how sources and sinks balance.

The reward systems topic collects the diagrams where chance and thresholds decide when a player is paid: gacha pulls, loot drops, character leveling, the points needed for three stars on a puzzle level, a fighting-game match reward and a rating model for service providers. They show how a drop rate or a threshold changes how long players wait.

The feedback loops topic gathers diagrams where an output returns to its own input: a 451-component game loop, an endless runner's gameplay and monetization loop, an exploration game's repeating loop, a rock-paper-scissors triangle, two fighting-game models of negative feedback and multiple loops, and a population that grows and presses on its environment.

A diagram appears on these pages only if its author gave it a real name and a written description, and if it models something specific: a currency loop, a gacha, a population, a fighting-game comeback mechanic. Untitled drafts, copies and test models are left out, however many components they have.

Every diagram stays a public Community diagram with its own page, its author's name and a Play link. The name, the author and the size shown here were saved when each page was written, so a later edit by the author cannot silently change what the page says about the diagram. Some diagrams are fan models of published games, built by Community members from public information; they show how a system is structured, not a studio's own data.

A Machinations diagram is made of a few kinds of node joined by arrows that carry resources. Sources create resources, Pools hold them, Drains remove them, Converters and Traders exchange one resource for another, Gates add chance, and Registers calculate values such as a price or a score. When you press Play the resources move step by step, so you can watch a currency pile up, run out or settle.

To understand an example, find where its resources are created, follow them to where they are spent, then look for a flow that feeds back into its own source. That return path is a feedback loop, and it is usually what decides whether the system stays in balance or runs away. Charting the one pool you care about turns that behavior into a line you can read.

In the docs: Sources, Pools, Drains, Gates, Charts.

In Learn: Guided lessons that build a model step by step.

In the glossary: Game design and systems terms.

Open a diagram from its topic page, press Play, and change one number at a time: a drop rate, a price, a cost. Remix the diagram when you want to keep your changes; the original stays as its author left it. If you are weighing Machinations against other tools for the same job, the comparison pages set out where each one fits, and the solutions pages show how teams in games, finance and education use diagrams like these.

More: Compare Machinations with other tools, Solutions by industry, use case and role, Articles on game economy design.