Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Day 3: FotLC through the 113 lenses from The Art of Game Design

Day 3 - Lense 28: The Lense of The State Machine
To use this lens, think about what information changes during your game. Ask yourself these questions:

What are the objects in my game?


  • The Board
  • The City
  • The Player Pawn
  • The Soldiers of each Tribe
  • The Citizens of the City
  • The Heads of the City
  • The Bases
  • The Paths
  • Ally Tokens
  • Challenge Tokens
  • Tribe bags
  • Graveyard bags

What are the attributes of the objects?

  • Bases, paths, warriors, and pawns have a position attribute. Bases and paths on the board, players on paths or bases and warriors on bases or in players hands, or bags.
  • Ally tokens have a possessor attribute.
  • Challenge tokens have a ally or fight state.
  • Warriors can be in the graveyard (out of play) or on the board, part of a basses defense, or in the Tribe bag, available for challenges or placement.

What are the possible states for each attribute?

  • Bases and paths can be on or off of the board and in different locations.
  • Bases can be empty, occupied by a pawn, and or occupied by warriors.
  • The City can have from 180 citizens to none in it.
  • The City Foundation can have from 18 Heads to none on it.
  • Ally tokens can be possessed by their owner or another player.
  • Tribe bags can be empty or have up to 20 warriors in them
  • Graveyard bags can be empty or have up to 20 guards in them
  • Player hands! They can have a challenge token in them with an ally or fight state. They can have some number of guards concealed in them.


What triggers the state changes for each attribute? 



  • The board is the primary object and represents all of the public information in the game. All the pieces act on the board or other pieces that have been placed on the board.
  • The city in the center of the board represents the available resources in the game and also the time remaining in the game. It is acted on by players using the recruit action or resolving an ally outcome of a challenge action.
  • The placement of ally tokens represents both the state of alliances between the players, their potential movement and part of their end game victory progress. They are triggered by an alliance action or by a player violating an alliance.
  • Bags are acted on by players recruiting, picking up or placing guards or readying for a challenge.

Note on Components:
Social components are washers, smooth and round. The player, his warriors and the citizens he can recruit are nuts, hexagonal and jagged, except the players' pawn which sits on top of a washer combining the symbols.

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