Measure

Settled range

You might say: a live balance, not a dead stop

A settled range is the equilibrium band toward which a negative-feedback loop moves while meaningful choices remain.

What it does

Shows whether regulation preserves play rather than removing the variable entirely.

Ask

Where does the system settle, and are decisions still alive there?

Typical

target band rather than one fixed value

Sources

1. Michael Sellers, Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach, ch. 7, p. 248In an ecology, while the overall target is balance rather than unrestrained growth, this does not mean that the system approaches stagnation. As discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, a healthy ecology is in a state of metastability, also known as internal equilibrium or dynamic balance.
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”over time it should balance out.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Settled range" (settled-state) 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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