The Constructal Law

[abculatter_2]

So, I started reading a book recently, which proposes a law (The Constructal Law) that applies to all things which have any form of movement. This law states that all things which have movement (which I will henceforth call 'flow systems', as you can consider movement to be the flow of energy/mass through a system/thing) will, over time, inevitably evolve to facilitate additional and/or more efficient movement. While it is of course not the only example, a good example that the book repeats often is the flowing of a river across the landscape; Over time, the river erodes the soil, increasing its flow rate and shaping itself to increase the efficiency of its flow in its given situation.

Then I started playing BTW, and it got me thinking about how the above law might apply to game design and, tangentially, to human happiness in general, and I came up with a hypothesis;

Happiness evolved in humans primarily to facilitate their flow across their environment/their lives, via providing incentives to increase this flow's rate and/or efficiency. Therefore, it would make sense that the things which are more likely to make us the most happy, are the things which give us a sense of flow, or movement.

Additionally, as the Constructal Law is a law to which thermodynamics applies, this means that the laws of thermodynamics can be applied usefully to game design, and in particular one can think of games as a flow system which, over time and, in particular, in the time that the game is played, will accumulate some form of entropy, which means that one can apply the toolset of entropy minimization to make useful predictions and decisions in design.

I'm not sure how much this makes sense, or how well I expressed what I was trying to convey, but I figured you guys might find this idea interesting.

For those interested, the book I have been reading is 'Design in Nature', by Adrian Bejan and J. Peder Zane.

[Zhil]

Interesting post. What's interesting is that you are saying it's not the satisfaction of having a well-flowing, easy life that brings happiness, it's the rate at which you are improving the flow (the derivative of flow if you will) that brings happiness. This explains the recent post about the BTW mid-game bringing a lull. The fun of btw is the rate at which you are improving your flow (building automated farms), the fun is not in having automated farms. Thus, being stuck in the early game is not fun, as you just do the same thing and die all over, but being stuck in the middle game, where you don't do those things isn't fun either. The fun comes from slowly improving upon your previous situation.

There's several levels of entropy in BTW. The HCS range being fixed around spawn creates some sort of closed system, as traveling further outwards from spawn creates an increasing tension, it takes more and more effort to travel further, as dying will undo your work. This means that you slowly deplete finite resources around spawn, until after a while, HCS range isn't even a viable, survivable place, but you rely instead on roads and knowledge of the area to go to the sole place that still harbors you.

There's also a level of entropy that is simply familiarity decay. Eventually, everyone gets bored with the mod I reckon (might take another decade for some of us, but it'll come), so the more you play the mod, the less fun it will become. This ties in to "perpetual early access" games, where small content updates become part of the game in a sense, to combat this issue. The tech tree in BTW further ties into that, by gradually releasing new tools to tackle repetitive tasks, instead of offering most features at once like most mods.

Another form of entropy ties in to all the other things discussed and this is probably the most interesting one to contemplate. As content, player interest and in-game resources aren't infinite, it's impossible to keep improving your flow. Each step of improvement increases entropy, lessens the options open to you (I don't have the option to go out and find breeding pairs anymore, because I already have those). This is a system of true entropy, as you can't really fix this from inside the system. If you add a mechanic that sporadically destroys your breeding pairs and slowly adds more animals to the world, content still stays the same (the action of finding them is the same each time) and player interest still decreases.

So yes, trying to minimize the entropy of these systems at all times would probably also be good game design, but I'm not familiar enough with entropy minimization models to see a way to harness this. This is probably also an example of instinctive skills, with good game designers already minimizing this entropy, without realizing the theory behind it.

[devak]

I have never heard anyone call it "construct law", i think it's just entropy

[Wafflewaffle]

@Gil my mind went straight to the incremental cookie games we had a topic on. If you think about it the whole game is based on making the flow go faster.

@DevakI may be wrong but isnt entropy the destruction of complex interactions forcing a system to a "Status Quo"? The way i understood this constructal law is a self feeding system that result in more energy. The difference between a star's supernova turning into a white dwarf or a blackhole kinda deal.

Nah im wrong it appears that entropy is part of the Constructal Law under the propperty of irrevesibility.

[abculatter_2]

Yes, entropy is a part of and affects the Constructal Law, but is not the law itself. Rather, the law states that, basically, a system through which there is a flow (regardless of what it is that is flowing) will inevitably, given enough time, evolve into a state that more efficiently allows this flow.

To quote the book's definition;

"For a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to live), its configuration must evolve in such a way that provides easier access to currents that flow through it."

[Zhil]

I just realized this ties into how neurons and thus your brain works.

[devak]

[snip]