Concept

Viable alternatives

You might say: what I could do instead

Alternatives are actions the player can actually take and has a reason to compare in this state. A large menu is not the same as a large set of worthwhile choices.

What it does

Gives the decision competing courses of action rather than decorative buttons.

Ask

Which alternatives are legal now, and in what situation would each be worth choosing?

Trouble

Many actions are listed, but only one is affordable, discoverable or useful.

Parts

• Action availability: Availability rules decide which actions the current state permits: required resource, target, position, cooldown or prerequisite.
• Dominance check: Compare each action's costs and consequences across representative states and player goals.

Connections

• See also: Choice space
• See also: Unlock gates

Sources

1. Daniel Cook, Building Tight Game Systems of Cause and Effect, Option Complexity; DiscretenessFewer options are available to consider.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Viable alternatives" (choice-options) 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