Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design

Chapter 6. Common Mechanisms

In the previous chapter, we introduced the Machinations framework and showed how you can use Machinations diagrams to model the internal economy of games. In this chapter, we introduce some advanced features of the Machinations framework that will permit you to simulate and study more complex economies. We also discuss how feedback structures can be read from a Machinations diagram. As we discussed in Chapter 3, “Complex Systems and the Structure of Emergence,” feedback plays an important role in the creation of emergent behavior, and in this chapter we outline seven important characteristics of feedback structures. Finally, we address ways you can use randomness to add unpredictability and variation to the behavior ...