Concept
Choice space
You might say: the alternatives
The set of actions that are legal, understandable and worth comparing in the current state.
- What it does
- Creates agency by making alternatives carry different risks, costs or opportunities.
- Ask
- Why choose this action instead of the others?
Sources
- Michael Sellers, Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach, ch. 7, p. 225
If there are only a few viable paths through the game world, then the probability space for game is narrow; the player has few if any meaningful decisions to make.
- Daniel Cook, Building Tight Game Systems of Cause and Effect, Option Complexity: meaningful options and reducing overload
Fewer options are available to consider.
- Ian Schreiber, Game Design Concepts, Level 5: Mechanics and Dynamics, Mechanics, Dynamics and Complexity; The Process of Play; Homeplay
How do players interact with one another?
- Tynan Sylvester, Decision-Based Gameplay Design, Decisions; Difficult Decisions; Decision Recognition, Evaluation, and Design
Each decision always offers at least two strongly competing options, which makes it difficult, and thus, interesting.
Use it on your project
teardown-apply: hold "Choice space" (choice-space) 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