Game mechanics blueprints
113 blueprints for things that make a game feel good, explained in plain words, each with a text to paste to your AI.
Search
What should happen in your game?
World
Grid Building Placement
Placement turns a click into a choice about space: where to put the farm, how to leave room to walk, what to squeeze in. The preview tells the player the answer before they commit.
Movement
Ground Pound
A slam gives the player a heavy, committed move: a short wait, a fast drop and a landing with weight. It trades a moment of safety for force and a way to hit what is below.
Resources
Health and Damage
Health tells the player how much more they can take. It turns every enemy and hazard into a price and gives healing a value.
Resources
Health Regeneration
Self-healing lets the player take a risk, retreat and recover, instead of hunting for medical kits. It rewards stepping out of the fight, and the wait stops it from making every hit free.
Combat
Hitbox and Hurtbox
Fights feel fair when what hurts matches what the player sees. Keeping the shape of an attack apart from the shape of a body lets you tune each without changing how the characters look.
Inventory
Hotbar
A hotbar gives the player instant access to a handful of things without opening the bag. It must feel the same every time: the same key always picks the same slot, and the wheel never lands somewhere surprising.
Resources
Hunger and Thirst
Hunger and thirst give the world a clock and make food and water worth finding. They push the player to leave safe ground and plan the trip.
Progression
Idle Income
Money that grows while the player sleeps gives them something to come back to, and each return feels like opening a small gift.
Inventory
Inventory System
A place for what the player carries, with limits that force choices and rules that never lose or copy an item.
Combat
Invincibility Frames
Protection after a hit gives the player time to get away, and it stops a character standing in a hazard from losing all its health in a fraction of a second. Done wrong it is either too short to matter or so long that danger stops feeling real.
Inventory
Item Durability
Durability gives items a life. The player has to decide when to use a favourite tool, when to save it, and when to pay for a repair.
Inventory
Item Rarity
Rare items give the player something to hope for, and a clear ladder of tiers lets them see at a glance how good a drop is and what it is worth.