- 01Read an opening
- 02Pay the attack cost
- 03Reserve escape capacity
- 04Disengage and recover
Keeping a defensive reserve
Attacks, movement or defense share a recovering resource. Repeated attacks also spend the ability to escape the next danger.
The player's decision
One more hit may finish the fight, but will enough resource remain for a retreat?
Original scenario
Original setup: five stamina, two per attack and two per dodge. Two attacks leave only one, so stopping after the first preserves a response to the telegraphed strike.
Start with this prototype
Build one fixed-pattern duel. Attack and dodge share five stamina; waiting restores it. Defeat the enemy in three hits, with restart and visible costs/recovery. Omit an equipment catalog.
Change one variable
Tune recovery delay before changing capacity, costs and enemy speed together.
What to observe in a playtest
Do players deliberately stop attacking, and can they distinguish insufficient stamina from mistimed evasion?
Take the full design card
Includes rules, scope, tuning questions and sources for further planning. It does not create a project automatically.
Original analysis · version 1
Common pitfall
Free defense at zero resource removes the reserve decision. Explain when an action cannot be afforded.
Observations and sources
Cases refer to public documentation. Developers and community wikis are credited separately; document review is not a claim of hands-on testing.
- Elden Ring
The official combat guide discusses action commitment, queued inputs and stamina costs for movement.
- Monster Hunter Generations
Bow charging continuously drains stamina, a ranged comparison for sustained offense consuming a shared resource.
Brief for the studio
Opens the AI studio with the brief below in the input. You can edit it. Nothing starts automatically.
Build one fixed-pattern duel. Attack and dodge share five stamina; waiting restores it. Defeat the enemy in three hits, with restart and visible costs/recovery. Omit an equipment catalog.
Covers are original AI-generated style illustrations. Game names reference publicly visible design choices and remain the property of their owners. This atlas does not supply screenshots or assets from those games. Prompts and combinations are original drafts for new games.