A player uses extreme actions which will indirectly affect the advance or decline of the game state which trends in one direction or the other due to its own momentum.
It will work much like a person running around on a heavy platform which is balanced in the middle. The platform starts to tip, so the player has to run over to the high side to reverse the action. As it starts heading back down, the momentum will carry it too far, so the player has to run over to the other side to bring it back. This continues with the player running back and forth, making smaller and smaller corrections until a state of equilibrium is almost accomplished. Random events occasionally occur which result in the player having to run toward the edge, starting the whole thing over again. Speed and timing is critical to keep the platform from tipping over.
This can be accomplished in an economic game where the players actions create advances and declines in the market. The market momentum will carry the market toward either extreme.
Feast or famine can also be simulated this way, with the players creating surpluses or deficits to try and correct the trends. These corrections can be extreme, while the over abundances and shortages can be slow and very hard to stop.
An adept player could instigate severe shifts to take full advantage of either extreme, but if they push things too far, or their timing is a little off, it could end in disaster.
I wanted to implement this in my Arachnid board game, but I couldn’t fit in in. The game was much too complex and plodding to incorporate this whiplash effect between abundance and starvation. Sadly, It ended up on the editing room floor. I hope to use it someday in another game, perhaps a stock market day-trading game. Done right, it could add a lot of tension to a game, where the players are constantly on the verge of losing control.
Keep posted, this wonkey idea might become a reality some day.
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