Loop

Balancing loop

You might say: pressure that pulls back

Negative feedback counters a change and tends to move the system toward an equilibrium or bounded range.

What it does

Protects decisions from runaway growth, dead ends and unbounded inflation.

Ask

What signal rises, and what response reduces it?

Parts

• Pressure and countermeasure: A pressure raises a cost, threat or scarcity signal; a countermeasure supplies negative feedback that reduces its effect or changes the available choice.
• Settled range: A settled range is the equilibrium band toward which a negative-feedback loop moves while meaningful choices remain.

Loop: balancing

Pressure and countermeasure → Settled range ↺

Sources

1. Michael Sellers, Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach, ch. 7, p. 250Balancing systems are sometimes described as being resilient or brittle: within a certain range of change, the ecology can rebalance itself.
2. Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans, Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design, ch. 6, pp. 113–117: negative feedback stabilizes differencesnegative feedback stabilizes the differ- ence
3. Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans, Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design, ch. 4, pp. 66–70The point at which the system stabilizes is called the equilibrium
4. Ian Schreiber, Level 10: Final Boss, “Trading”; “Inflation”; “money sinks”Trading mechanics usually serve as a negative-feedback loop, especially within a closed economy.
5. Ian Schreiber, Game Design Concepts, Level 5: Mechanics and Dynamics, Feedback Loops: negative feedback and stabilizing playA negative feedback loop is a balancing relationship.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Balancing loop" (balancing-loop) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/game-design/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

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