Week 6 Session: Momentum

A value that survives between presses, and drains on its own when you stop

29 March 2027

Every primitive so far resets between gestures. This week’s doesn’t: momentum is a value that accumulates across repeated presses and drains when you stop, so the history of your presses matters, not just the current one. It builds directly on week 4’s rhythm — well-timed presses are what feed it — and is the first thing this semester that has memory.

Before the session#

Bring your week 4 rhythm prototype.

In the session#

Demo of a resource that climbs with steady tempo and bleeds away the moment you stop, then build time.

Studio exercise#

Add a resource to your rhythm prototype that rises while you keep good tempo and decays on its own the instant you stop pressing. Make the decay visible, and make stopping cost something a player can feel, not just see.

By the end#

You can distinguish a value that resets every gesture (hold-duration, week 2) from one that persists across gestures (momentum), and say why the second kind opens up strategy the first kind can’t.