# Idealloy — mix and match game mechanics

> A free tool for choosing game mechanics. 84 playable mechanics grouped by what the
> player actually does, so a mix can be assembled, read back, and compared against
> other mixes.

An alloy is what elements become once you combine them. Idealloy applies that to game
design: pick up to five mechanics, see which behaviour groups the mix covers, then park
competing ideas side by side and judge them.

## The twelve groups

Mechanics are filed by the player's action, not by genre or theme.

- **Spot** — what the player looks for. Spot the difference, hidden object, odd one out, memory, word search, find & tap, zoom reveal.
- **Sort** — what the player puts in order. Match-3, bubble shooter, colour sort, bin sort, merge, jigsaw, slide & unblock.
- **Aim** — the one shot the player takes. Aim & shoot, slingshot, pull the pin, cut the rope, roll, toss, knife hit.
- **Time** — the instant the player has to hit. Tap timing, stack, rhythm, reaction test, perfect slice, hold & release, keep it up.
- **Steer** — the thing the player keeps control of. Endless runner, swerve, rise & fall, dodge, snake, helix drop, draw the path.
- **Grow** — what the player is trying to outgrow. Absorb, swallow, crowd runner, territory capture, feed & evolve, outgrow, roll & gather.
- **Shape** — the material the player changes. Carve, slice, paint, clean, squeeze, pour, fold. Needs 3D.
- **Traverse** — the space the player moves through. First-person look, parkour, flight, drift, park, climb, swing. Needs 3D.
- **Build** — what the player leaves behind. Drag & place, customise, decorate, tycoon, idle, assemble, bridge build.
- **Know** — what the player has to know. Quiz, guess the word, word scramble, personality quiz, nonogram, escape room, logic grid.
- **Chance** — what the player cannot control. Spin the wheel, scratch to reveal, mystery box, slot, pick a door, claw, dice & board.
- **Scan** — what the player brings in from the real world. Face filter, try-on, marker scan, world place, geo hunt, photo-in, pose & body. Needs 3D or a camera.

## How mixing works

Mechanics from different groups tend to stack, because each one is answering a different
question. Two from the same group often do one job twice, which is worth a second look
before building.

3D is not a mechanic, it is a weight class. Most of the table works flat or in 3D at
different cost. Three groups — Shape, Traverse and Scan — need 3D or a camera and cannot
exist flat.

## Scope

Mechanic names come from published hyper-casual, playable-ad and browser-game taxonomies.
The grouping, the mixing heuristic and the flat/3D split are Maziminds' own — rules of
thumb for picking a direction, not research findings. Points, badges, streaks and tiers
are deliberately excluded: those are layers that sit on top of any mechanic here rather
than mechanics themselves. Multiplayer is the same kind of layer, so a saved idea carries
it as a yes/no flag in Compare instead of taking a place in the table.

Use it at https://maziminds.com/idealloy/.