About design-action-combat
A development skill for designing action combat around explicit state machines, authoritative contact outcomes, and deterministic tests. It is intended for game developers who need readable timing and verifiable combat behavior.
Key features
- 01Define timing, costs, hit shapes, and outcomes for every action
- 02Resolve outcomes from authoritative contact events
- 03Make defense options serve distinct purposes
- 04Test timing, direction, range, interruption, and state changes
- 05Verify feedback at realistic frame rates and camera distances
Use cases
- 01Specify player and enemy combat actions
- 02Find bugs in hit, block, and parry resolution
- 03Tune defensive choices and punish windows
- 04Check combat feedback and accessibility before release
Install
Copy the command and run it in a terminal.
npx skills add https:/After installing, type/design-action-combatin Claude Code to confirm it loaded.
Bundled filesagents/openai.yaml
Details
From the project READMEDesign Action Combat
Treat combat as explicit state machines with visible, testable timing rather than animation-driven guesses.
Specify every combat verb
For each player or enemy action, define: startup, active window, recovery, cancellation rules, resource cost, contact shape, damage/posture outcome, cooldown, and feedback. Make telegraph, danger, contact, and recovery readable at normal camera distance.
Use authoritative outcomes
- Drive hits, blocks, parries, and interrupts from authoritative collision/contact events.
- Require direction, range, phase, and state validity before resolving an outcome.
- Apply each contact once using stable action and target identifiers.
- Keep visuals downstream of resolved simulation events.
Tune for decisions
Give each defense a distinct purpose: spacing, dodge, timed guard, interruption, or resource trade. Avoid unpunishable attacks, recovery loops, unavoidable damage, and dominant spam. Boss phases must alter decision pressure without invalidating learned timing.
Test combat deterministically
Cover early/late timing, wrong direction, out-of-range contact, multiple targets, interrupted actions, phase changes, cooldown boundaries, pause/frame step, equip swaps, and repeated inputs. Use seeded or queryable review scenarios instead of requiring long campaign playthroughs.
Verify in play
Test at realistic frame rate and camera distance. Confirm that player intent, contact feedback, health/posture changes, sound/VFX, and target state agree. Check reduced motion and input alternatives before release.