What automation is
Automation lets you wire up gameplay actions so they happen automatically. Some triggers fire when a player interacts with a piece (pressing a button, starting a timer). Others -- reactive triggers -- fire automatically when game state changes, such as a piece entering a space, a card being added to a stack, or a counter crossing a threshold.
The system has three layers:
- Triggers connect pieces and game events to one or more sequences. Manual triggers fire when a player interacts with a piece (like a button or timer). Reactive triggers fire automatically when game state changes (pieces moving between spaces, stacks, bowls, or bags; counters crossing thresholds; dice being rolled; pieces being flipped).
- Sequences are ordered lists of steps that execute top to bottom. Each sequence is a reusable unit of automation.
- Steps are the individual actions inside a sequence. Each step does one thing: draw a tile, adjust a counter, roll a die, prompt a player, and so on.
How the pieces fit together
A button piece has a trigger. The trigger has one or more cases, each pointing to a sequence. When a player clicks the button, the trigger finds the matching case and runs the sequence. The sequence walks through its steps in order, performing each action against the table.
Sequences can call other sequences (using the Run Sequence step), so you can compose complex behaviors from small reusable parts.
When to use automation
Automation is most useful for:
- game setup (deal cards, place tokens, reset counters)
- recurring player actions (draw a card and adjust a score)
- conditional logic (do different things based on a die roll or counter value)
- chaining multiple actions behind a single button press
- automatic reactions to game state changes (score when a piece enters a space, reshuffle when a deck empties, reveal when a piece is drawn from a bag)