Progression rules guide allow you to guide the order in which new game content (i.e. progression elements) may be introduced to the player over time.
These rules are basically chains of dependencies where you set out what the player needs to know or master in order for you to be sure they are ready to face given element (for example a challenge, a story beat, etc.) at a given moment of the game.
This can be especially useful when designing a game’s onboarding.
Progression rules are specified in the form of prerequisites, where one element is defined as a prerequisite (or co-requisite) of another element.
Progression rules are defined in the progression rules editor. To open the editor, click on the "Progression rules editor" button in the button bar at the top of the screen.
The progression rules editor allows you create progression rules by designating progression elements as prerequisites and co-requisites (logical disjunction (“or”) relationships) of other progression elements.
The matrix interface works in a similar way to logic puzzles.
Click a cell on the grid to specify that an element in a column is a prerequisite of an element in a row. Click again to undo the rule. These prequisites specified by you are coloured dark blue.
Any (transitive) prerequisites that are automatically deduced are visualised in light blue. e.g. if you specify that the player needs a chicken before they can have eggs and that they need eggs before they can make an omelette, then Progressimo will deduce that the player should have a chicken before they are expected to make an omelette.
<aside> 💡 The idea for the matrix-based progression rules editor, and indeed the concept of creating design tools for progression design, comes from a University of Washington project, and Eric Butler in particular. See https://games.soe.ucsc.edu/project/refraction-level-generation
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When you select a moment in the plan, the progression elements list will show you which progression state elements on the list are unlocked and "eligible" for you to use (i.e. satisfy progression rules).