game-design

game-design is a skill for Claude Code from DDS-Solutions/AI-TadPole-OS. It costs 18 tokens per session (747 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide to designing games, covering the repeating gameplay loop, game systems, player progress, and the structure of a game design document.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps plan the core action-feedback-reward loop, describe mechanics and progression, and document art and audio direction.
Why use it?
It gives developers and designers a way to organize gameplay ideas and check whether the main activity is clear, rewarding, and repeatable.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Good fit It helps plan the core action-feedback-reward loop, describe mechanics and progression, and document art and audio direction.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/dds-solutions/ai-tadpole-os/game-design
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add DDS-Solutions/AI-TadPole-OS --skill game-design
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/DDS-Solutions/AI-TadPole-OS

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for game-design

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dds-solutions/ai-tadpole-os/game-design/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/dds-solutions/ai-tadpole-os/game-design)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dds-solutions/ai-tadpole-os/game-design"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dds-solutions/ai-tadpole-os/game-design/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for game-design

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/dds-solutions/ai-tadpole-os/game-design"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/dds-solutions/ai-tadpole-os/game-design.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 18 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 747 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector pass 7 Sept 2026
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00018 $0.00747
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00374
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00149
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00075

Measured 10d ago against content hash 1aa2636912db, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

game-design scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 10d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.agent/skills/game-development/game-design/SKILL.md · 137 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 137 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

[!IMPORTANT] AI Context & Knowledge Heritage

  • Subsystem: Agent Skills Registry / game-development
  • Architecture: @docs ARCHITECTURE:Documentation
  • Failure Path: Information drift, legacy terminology, or documentation mismatch.
  • Observability: Traceability via execution/parity_guard.py ([SKILL])

Game Design Principles

Design thinking for engaging games.


1. Core Loop Design

The 30-Second Test

Every game needs a fun 30-second loop:
1. ACTION → Player does something
2. FEEDBACK → Game responds
3. REWARD → Player feels good
4. REPEAT

Loop Examples

Genre Core Loop
Platformer Run → Jump → Land → Collect
Shooter Aim → Shoot → Kill → Loot
Puzzle Observe → Think → Solve → Advance
RPG Explore → Fight → Level → Gear

2. Game Design Document (GDD)

Essential Sections

Section Content
Pitch One-sentence description
Core Loop 30-second gameplay
Mechanics How systems work
Progression How player advances
Art Style Visual direction
Audio Sound direction

Principles

  • Keep it living (update regularly)
  • Visuals help communicate
  • Less is more (start small)

3. Player Psychology

Motivation Types

Type Driven By
Achiever Goals, completion
Explorer Discovery, secrets
Socializer Interaction, community
Killer Competition, dominance

Reward Schedules

Schedule Effect Use
Fixed Predictable Milestone rewards
Variable Addictive Loot drops
Ratio Effort-based Grind games

4. Difficulty Balancing

Flow State

Too Hard → Frustration → Quit
Too Easy → Boredom → Quit
Just Right → Flow → Engagement

Balancing Strategies

Strategy How
Dynamic Adjust to player skill
Selection Let player choose
Accessibility Options for all

Read the full file on GitHub · 137 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 10d ago First seen · 137 lines · 18 tokens per session scan A 1aa2636912db

Subscribe to this mod's changes

game-design is a skill published in the GitHub repository DDS-Solutions/AI-TadPole-OS (8 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 18 tokens to every session and 747 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.