game-feel

name game-feel description Game feel ("juice") for Apple apps — celebration choreography, haptic vocabulary design, sound-effect layers, and the event×channel feedback audit. Use when big moments fall flat, when designing haptics or SFX, or when auditing whether every meaningful event actually reaches the user. allowed-tools ["Read","Glob","Grep"] last_verified 2026-07-18T00:00:00.000Z review_by 2027-06-22T00:00:00.000Z os_version iOS 26 / macOS 26 Game Feel (Juice) Makes an app's meaningful moments land — through coordinated motion, haptics, and sound. Animation technique lives in design/animation-patterns ; confetti/badge generation lives in generators/milestone-celebration . This skill is the discipline layer : which events deserve feedback, on which channels, and how to verify nothing important is silent. When This Skill Activates Use this skill when the user: Says the app feels flat , lifeless , or "lacks juice/polish/delight" Wants celebrations designed (winners, streaks, reveals, score changes) Asks to design or review haptics (vocabulary, Core Haptics, .sensoryFeedback ) Asks about sound effects , buzzers, countdown ticks, or fanfares Wants a feedback audit — do the right events fire the right channels? Is building a party/group game where the phone is shared, passed, or watched at a distance Core Principles 1. Channels have different reach — match the channel to the audience Channel Who perceives it Haptics Only the person holding the device Screen motion Whoever is looking at the screen Audio The whole room Torch / flash The whole room, even in noise A single-user utility can lean on haptics. A shared-phone or room-facing app (party games, kitchen timers, presentations) must put its signature moments on a room-scale channel. The most common juice failure: all feedback is haptic, and the phone is lying on a table. 2. Feedback scales with rarity Tick < action confirmed < success < round complete < winner . If the rarest event (winning) fires the same pattern as a routine one (round end), the app has no climax. Reserve the biggest pattern, the confetti burst, and the fanfare for the rarest event. 3. Escalation must agree across channels If the timer's ring turns amber at 10s and red at 5s, the haptic tier and any audio tick must escalate at the same thresholds. Cross-channel disagreement reads as broken, not layered. 4. Single-owner rule Exactly one code layer fires feedback for a given event. When an engine and a view-store both react to "music stopped", the user gets a double-buzz. Decide the owner (usually the layer closest to the state machine) and make the other layer silent. 5. Juice amplifies meaning — it never decorates Every effect must be attached to an event the user cares about. Ambient/always-on effects (background particles, looping glows) are texture , not feedback — keep them static or slow, and never let them compete with event feedback. 6. Every channel needs an accessibility story Motion → gate large-scale motion on Reduce Motion, with a static equivalent Haptics → user-facing toggle (the system provides no global haptics setting for Core Haptics) Sound → mute toggle independent of system volume; a deliberate, documented silent-switch policy Decision Tree What do you need? │ ├─ Which events should have feedback, and on which channels? │ └─ → feedback-audit.md (event×channel matrix + three-lens audit) │ ├─ Design or review haptics (vocabulary, service architecture, APIs) │ └─ → haptic-design.md │ ├─ Add a sound-effect layer (assets, latency, AVAudioSession coexistence) │ └─ → sound-design.md │ ├─ HOW to animate a celebration/transition you've already decided on │ └─ → design/animation-patterns (springs, transitions, symbol effects) │ ├─ Generate confetti / badge / milestone UI code │ └─ → generators/milestone-celebration │ └─ Animated SF Symbols for feedback moments └─ → design/sf-symbols (preset vocabulary) Review Checklist When reviewing an app's game feel, verify: Signature moments hit ≥2 channels (e.g. winner = motion + haptic + sound) Room-facing events use a room-scale channel (audio, display-size motion, torch) Rarity gradient exists — the rarest event has visibly/audibly the biggest feedback No channel disagreement — escalation thresholds match across visual/haptic/audio Single owner per event — no double-fire from two layers Score/number changes animate ( .contentTransition(.numericText()) ) — values never teleport State changes transition — no hard cuts between phases of a flow Reduce Motion parity — every gated effect has a static equivalent conveying the same information User controls exist — haptics toggle; mute toggle if there's an SFX layer Loading/waiting states have anticipation — determinate progress or a live effect, not a bare spinner at a climactic moment Reference Files File Content feedback-audit.md Event×channel matrix method, three-lens audit (runnable subagent prompts), scoring rubric, output format haptic-design.md API decision table, semantic-vocabulary service architecture, pattern design rules, lifecycle, pitfalls sound-design.md Minimal SFX kit, asset formats and latency, AVAudioSession coexistence with music, silent-switch policy, pitfalls Related Skills design/animation-patterns — the how of every motion technique design/sf-symbols — symbol effect vocabulary for feedback glyphs generators/milestone-celebration — production confetti/badge/celebration code ios/accessibility-audit — Reduce Motion and assistive-tech verification References Human Interface Guidelines — Playing haptics Human Interface Guidelines — Playing audio Human Interface Guidelines — Motion Core Haptics