Perk Choices

Perk choices put a small hand of different upgrades in front of the player at every level-up, and the player keeps exactly one. The hand is drawn by weight from a pool. Upgrades at their limit never show, some wait for another upgrade first, and a few rerolls let the player ask for a new hand.

Also called: Level-up choices, Upgrade cards, Pick one of three, Perk draft.

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Copy it into Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT. It already has good values and the usual mistakes in it.

Add "Perk Choices" to my game.

What it should do: Perk choices make every level-up a small decision instead of a gift. Because the hand is partly luck, no two runs build the same character, and the player has to work with what shows up.

Build it exactly as this state machine. First check that it fits my game, then build it like this:

```mermaid
stateDiagram-v2
  [*] --> idle
  idle: No choice open
  choosing: Hand shown
  waiting: Choice waiting
  full: Nothing left
  idle --> choosing: level up
  choosing --> idle: pick or skip
  choosing --> waiting: pick, more are owed
  choosing --> full: last upgrade taken
  waiting --> choosing: next hand opens
  full --> [*]
```

Use these starting values:
- offerSize: 3 items
- startingRerolls: 2 uses
- skipRerolls: 1 uses

Watch out for these common mistakes:
- Maxed upgrades keep showing: Tell your AI: before drawing a hand, remove every upgrade that has reached its limit.
- A locked upgrade shows up too early: Tell your AI: only offer an upgrade once the one it needs has been taken at least once.
- Fewer upgrades than cards: Tell your AI: show as many different cards as are left, never a blank and never a repeat.
- Nothing left, but a choice opens: Tell your AI: when nothing can be offered, skip the choice, still count the level, and clear any choices that were waiting.
- The last pick leaves a choice waiting: Tell your AI: after every pick, check whether anything is left to offer, and if not, clear the waiting choices.
- A reroll shows the same hand: Tell your AI: a reroll draws only from cards that are not in the hand, and if there are none, it refuses and costs nothing.
- A reroll shrinks the hand: Tell your AI: fill the hand up with cards from the old hand, so a reroll never shows fewer cards.
- A bad random number breaks the draw: Tell your AI: treat a missing or broken random number as zero and keep the others inside the range.

Do not change anything else in the game. Do not claim anything without proof: model what it takes, and show me what your solution rests on and how I can see that it works. If you cannot show something, say you do not know. When you are done, tell me in plain words how to try it.

Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP

What it does

Perk choices make every level-up a small decision instead of a gift. Because the hand is partly luck, no two runs build the same character, and the player has to work with what shows up.

How it runs, as a diagram

Everything it can be in, and what moves it on. Your AI builds from exactly this.

Good starting values

What usually goes wrong

How to check it works

• A new game with a pool of seven upgrades and a hand size of 3. the player levels up: a hand of 3 different upgrades opens, the level is 1 and one choice is owed.
• Two games in the same position. both level up with the same random numbers: both show the same hand in the same order.
• Four upgrades that may be offered, with weights 10, 10, 8 and 4. 320 evenly spaced random numbers each draw a single card: the cards come up 100, 100, 80 and 40 times.
• A hand of three upgrades is open. the player picks one: that upgrade counts once, the other two are gone, the hand closes and no choice is owed.
• An upgrade with a limit of 1 has been taken. the player levels up with a hand size of 6: that upgrade is not in the hand.
• An upgrade that needs another one, and the player does not have that one. the player levels up with a hand size of 6: the locked upgrade is not offered, and it is offered once the needed one is taken.
• Only two upgrades can still be offered and the hand size is 3. the player levels up: the hand has those two cards, no blank and no repeat.
• A hand is open. the player levels up twice more and then picks: 3 choices are owed first, the pick leaves 2, the hand closes, and the next hand opens only when asked.
• A hand is open and the player has 2 rerolls. the player rerolls: all three cards are replaced by cards that were not in the hand, and 1 reroll is left.
• A hand already shows every upgrade that can be offered, or the player has no rerolls. the player rerolls: the reroll is refused, the hand stays and no reroll is spent.
• A hand is open and the player has 2 rerolls. the player skips it: nothing is taken, the hand closes and the player has 3 rerolls.
• A hand is open, or no hand is open. the player picks an upgrade that is not in the hand: nothing changes except that the game notes the click did nothing.

Works well with

• Skill Tree: A tree lets the player plan, a hand makes the player adapt. Many games use both: the tree for the long plan, the hand for the small twists each level. Give the points to the tree first, then use the hand for the surprises on top.
• Loot Table: Both draw by weight from a list, so the same drawing code can serve both. The difference is that a hand has no repeats and is filtered by what the player already has.

Common questions

Where it comes from

We could not find a reliable origin for this one yet.

Where this mechanic comes from has not been researched yet.

Games are named only as references. Names and marks belong to their owners, and nothing here is endorsed by them.

What was checked

• 24 tests pass on the reference code.
• The state diagram was checked against the code, at the default values and at every listed low and high value.

This is what separates the blueprint from a catalogue entry: the values on this page come from code that runs.

Your AI gets the code

Tested example code comes through the Spielerando connection, so your AI can use it right away. How to connect it