PREDICTION/PLANNING PHASE
A distinct phase where players plan against previewed information — seeing enemy intentions before committing moves, programming actions that execute simultaneously, planning turns that resolve later.
- SOLO-DEV COST MEDIUM
- TIMING TURN-BASED
- COMMON IN TACTICS · STRATEGY · AUTO-BATTLER · TOWER-DEFENSE
Into the Breach is the purest form (every enemy attack fully telegraphed, the turn is a solvable puzzle of prevention), Frozen Synapse and simultaneous-turn wargames run plan-then-execute rounds where both sides commit blind, auto-battlers split shopping/placement phases from hands-off combat, and tower defense's between-wave building is the phase structure at genre scale. Designers separate planning from execution because it purifies the decision: with intentions visible, failure can't be blamed on hidden information or reflexes — Into the Breach's designers called it 'making the player feel smart when they win and responsible when they lose'. The structure also enables simultaneity (both sides plan, plans collide, chaos ensues — Frozen Synapse's comedy and drama live in the collision) and depth without time pressure, welcoming players who think slowly but deeply. The phase boundary itself becomes the tension point: commitment is the moment plans stop being revisable. Key decisions: how much is previewed (full enemy intentions make puzzles; partial intentions make gambles), whether execution is interruptible or fully committed (mid-execution adjustments soften but dilute), and phase pacing — planning phases that outlast the player's decision produce dead air. Pitfall: preview information that lies — if the telegraphed attack changes targets after commitment, or edge-case interactions resolve differently than the preview implied, the entire contract collapses; a planning-phase game lives and dies on the preview's total honesty, because the player's plan is only as meaningful as the information it was built on.
SEEN IN
- INTO THE BREACH
- FROZEN SYNAPSE
- TEAMFIGHT TACTICS