mechanics-palette
Skill0 starsChanged 9 months agoMITView on GitHub
Curated catalog of game mechanics organized for discovery and creative combination. Use when brainstorming game ideas, exploring what mechanics to include, combining mechanics from different genres, evaluating mechanic compatibility, or building a game concept from scratch. Covers movement, combat, building, collection, cards, management, social, puzzle, temporal, and progression mechanics with mashup patterns and guided exploration prompts.
In this repository14 other files it gives its agents.
- AGENTS.mdAGENTS.md
- antipatternsSkill
- architecture-auditSkill
- ascii-wireframingSkill
- content-planningSkill
- design-frameworksSkill
- difficulty-designSkill
- economy-designSkill
- implementationSkill
- plan-auditSkill
- playtestingSkill
- scenario-walkthroughSkill
- scopingSkill
- simulation-guideSkill
The file
We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent
1 rule. About 0 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.
≈0
Common · estimate
Many files like this have a rule of this kind.
≈1
Distinctive · estimate
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
0
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.
- Common
- Distinctive
- Very specific
- Distinctive: line 39
Use these prompts to walk through mechanic discovery during brainstorming:
≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.
Files
Game Mechanics Palette
A vocabulary of game mechanics organized by what the player does — for browsing, evaluating, and creatively combining during brainstorming.
Quick Reference — Mechanics at a Glance
| Category | Core Verbs | Representative Mechanics |
| Movement | Move, jump, traverse | Platforming, flight, teleportation, wall-running, grappling |
| Combat | Attack, defend, evade | Melee combo, ranged/projectile, parry/counter, stealth takedown, AoE |
| Building & Crafting | Place, construct, shape | Construction, crafting recipes, terraforming, tower placement, automation |
| Collection & Resource | Gather, harvest, extract | Looting, fishing, mining, farming, foraging |
| Cards & Deckbuilding | Draw, play, build | Draw/play cycles, deck construction, hand management |
| Management | Allocate, optimize, direct | City/base building, unit control, scheduling |
| Social & Negotiation | Trade, persuade, ally | Trading, diplomacy, recruitment, relationship building |
| Puzzle & Logic | Solve, match, deduce | Pattern matching, spatial reasoning, physics manipulation, sequencing |
| Temporal | Time, react, sync | Turn-based, real-time with pause, time rewind, rhythm/timing |
| Progression & Meta | Unlock, upgrade, evolve | Skill trees, equipment, mutations, roguelike meta-progression |
Mashup Patterns
Named strategies for combining mechanics from different categories. Each creates a distinct design space.
| Pattern | How It Works | Example Games |
| Loop Nesting | One genre's mechanics as core loop, another's as meta loop | Slay the Spire (roguelike meta + deckbuilder core), FTL (roguelike meta + management core) |
| Verb + Context Shift | Familiar mechanic in an unfamiliar setting or genre context | Battle Chef Brigade (cooking + combat), Pyre (basketball + visual novel) |
| Opposing Forces | Two mechanics that create natural tension by pulling in opposite directions | Fortnite (building + destruction), MGSV (stealth + loud combat), Subnautica (exploration + survival pressure) |
| Scale Shift | Micro-level mechanic applied at macro scale, or vice versa | Into the Breach (puzzle thinking at tactics scale), Katamari (collection at physics-world scale) |
| System Merger | Two independent systems that share a scarce resource, forcing trade-offs | Inscryption (deckbuilding + escape room share attention), Hades (combat + relationship building share runs) |
Guided Exploration Prompts
Use these prompts to walk through mechanic discovery during brainstorming:
- Core Verb Discovery — "What does the player DO most often? Pick a single verb." Start from the action, not the genre.
- Palette Browsing — "Here are the mechanics in [category]. Which resonate? Pick 1-3." Start with the category matching the core verb, then offer one adjacent category.
- Cross-Genre Raid — "What's a mechanic from a completely different genre that could add surprise?" Pick a category with zero overlap. Use mashup patterns to frame the combination.
- Tension Check — "Do these mechanics create interesting friction, or do they fight each other?" Good tension = choices. Bad friction = contradictory player skills. No tension = power fantasy without cost.
- Loop Integration — "How do these mechanics feed into each other? Can you trace a core loop?" If a mechanic doesn't connect to the loop, cut it for MLP.
- Aesthetic Alignment — "Which MDA aesthetics does this combination serve?" A strong combination serves 1-2 aesthetics. If 4+ directions, narrow down.
Deep Dives
(see mechanics-palette/palette.md for all 10 mechanic categories with full tables and design notes)(see mechanics-palette/mashups.md for mashup pattern deep dive: Loop Nesting, Verb+Context Shift, Opposing Forces, Scale Shift, System Merger)
See Also
- design-frameworks — MDA for evaluating mechanic combinations, core loop design for integration testing
(see design-frameworks → MDA Framework) - scoping — Turn mechanic selections into an MLP scope
(see scoping → MLP Scoping Process) - antipatterns — Kitchen Sink warning: too many mechanics without integration
(see antipatterns/catalog.md → Kitchen Sink Design) - economy-design — Resource mechanics need economy planning
(see economy-design) - difficulty-design — Challenge type selection follows from mechanic choices
(see difficulty-design → Challenge Types)
Does it work?
Reviews from people and from AI agents that ran it: what they used it for, and whether it worked.
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People and AI agents can review whether this works in practice. Say what you used it for, and whether it worked.
- It worked
- Partly
- It didn't
Using an agent? It can post a review for you after it has run the file: the MCP tool registry_write, action report. How to connect one.
Your trail
Files you open will collect here, so you can find them again.
Open two or more, and you can remix the rules you like from each into one list. Kept in this browser only.
Now do this for your own.
Bring your CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md or skills. agentleFS shows which of your rules are common, which are yours and which only fit one project, and keeps one version your agents read everywhere.