I chose to look at Jesse Schell’s Lens of action from “The Art of Game Design, 3rd Edition 2003” which is about the actions that the player can and cannot do in the game. I will be looking at Dead by Daylight (Behaviour Interactive (2016), Dead by Daylight [Video Game], Behaviour Interactive)
This game is split into two sides with 1 killer and 4 survivors. Survivors have to escape and the killer has to stop them. The basic actions the survivors can perform is; moving, sprinting and repairing generators, these actions allow the player to run away from killers and work on the objective of the match (escaping by powering generators). The basic actions for killers are; moving and attack, these actions are purely for finding and chasing survivors which is the only goal for the killer.
The strategic actions that the survivors can perform are; vaulting windows and pallets, throwing down pallets and various perk actions that can slow down being caught, all of these actions are designed to slow and prevent the survivors from being chased or caught and to allow them to traverse obstacles faster than the killer can.
The strategic actions that the killer can perform are; vaulting windows, breaking pallets, the killers actions are fewer and simpler but this is because the killer instigates the chases and is faster than the survivors. The survivors are given a variety of tools to escape the killer because without many tools their actions would be more predictable and would make the killer’s objective easier
I believe that the ratio for actions is well balanced for the games goals and objectives, it leads to varied and interesting gameplay and has a high skill ceiling for players to work towards