mda-framework

mda-framework is a skill for Claude Code from GoogilyBoogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools. It costs 46 tokens per session (979 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A reference guide to the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics framework, a way to connect game rules to player behavior and the feelings a game creates. It includes the framework's three parts, common aesthetic types, and a validation method.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to analyze game mechanics, predict resulting player behavior, and check whether the design supports its intended emotional experience.
Why use it?
It gives designers a shared way to reason about how a rule may affect play and the player's experience.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: model in frontmatter.

Part of the game-design-bible plugin — 28 skills, 1 agent shipped together

Good fit Use it to analyze game mechanics, predict resulting player behavior, and check whether the design supports its intended emotional experience.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/googilyboogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools/mda-framework
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 GoogilyBoogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools --skill mda-framework
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GoogilyBoogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install game-design-bible, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 28 skills, 1 agent.

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 mda-framework

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/googilyboogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools/mda-framework/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/googilyboogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools/mda-framework)
Your own site
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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 mda-framework

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/googilyboogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools/mda-framework"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/googilyboogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools/mda-framework.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 46 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 979 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.
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 $0.00046 $0.00979
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.00490
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00196
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00098

Measured 9d ago against content hash 19f35e55752a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

mda-framework 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 9d 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.

plugins/game-design-bible/skills/mda-framework/SKILL.md · 85 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 85 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

MDA Framework Reference

The Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics framework (Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek, 2004) is the foundational lens for game design analysis. It describes games as systems where designers create Mechanics that produce Dynamics that generate Aesthetics (emotional experiences).

The Causal Chain

Designer's View (build from left):     Mechanics → Dynamics → Aesthetics
Player's View (experience from right): Aesthetics ← Dynamics ← Mechanics
  • Mechanics: The rules, components, and systems (health points, inventory limits, jump height)
  • Dynamics: The behaviors that emerge when players interact with mechanics (resource hoarding, speedrunning, griefing)
  • Aesthetics: The emotional responses the game evokes (challenge, fellowship, discovery)

The 8 Aesthetic Types

Aesthetic Description Example Games
Sensation Game as sense-pleasure Journey, Flower, Tetris Effect
Fantasy Game as make-believe Skyrim, The Sims, Animal Crossing
Narrative Game as drama The Last of Us, Disco Elysium
Challenge Game as obstacle course Dark Souls, Celeste, Super Meat Boy
Fellowship Game as social framework Among Us, Mario Party, MMOs
Discovery Game as uncharted territory Outer Wilds, Breath of the Wild
Expression Game as self-discovery Minecraft, Dreams, Mario Maker
Submission Game as pastime/comfort Stardew Valley, Cookie Clicker

Most games target 2-3 primary aesthetics. Trying to serve all 8 dilutes the experience.

Design Validation Method

Use MDA to validate your design bible by reasoning backward from desired aesthetics:

Step 1: Identify Target Aesthetics (Pick 2-3)

"What emotions should players feel?"

Step 2: Define Required Dynamics

"What player behaviors would produce those emotions?"

  • Challenge → Players must face meaningful failure states
  • Discovery → Players must encounter surprises they couldn't predict
  • Fellowship → Players must depend on each other

Read the full file on GitHub · 85 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. 9d ago First seen · 85 lines · 46 tokens per session scan A 19f35e55752a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

mda-framework is a skill published in the GitHub repository GoogilyBoogily/googilyboogily-claude-power-tools (2 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 46 tokens to every session and 979 once invoked, about $0.0002 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 2026-09-03.

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