Knob

Action availability

You might say: can I do it right now?

Availability rules decide which actions the current state permits: required resource, target, position, cooldown or prerequisite. Set those conditions explicitly; a disabled action is not a viable alternative at this moment.

What it does

Controls the live option set without confusing it with every action the game contains.

Ask

What exact condition enables each action, and can the player see why it is unavailable?

Typical

Author a per-action condition such as ammo > 0, cooldown = 0, target in range or resource >= cost.

Trouble

The player plans around an action that is silently illegal, or all interesting alternatives are gated out together.

What to look for

1. Actions enabled by a required resource
2. A target in range
3. A cooldown or prerequisite blocking an action

Connections

• Made by: Rule
• Controls: Choice space

Sources

1. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, ch. 3, excerpt PDF p. 3: choices within a game-systemAll of this activity occurs within a game-system designed to support meaningful kinds of choice-making.

Unverified: The ammo predicates are an authored illustration, not rules quoted from the book.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Action availability" (choice-availability) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/game-design/ against my project

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

An AI agent wrote this map with the teardown skill. It can contain errors: check the sources before you rely on a part. About and legal