Game-Design Strategies: Location vs. Time
Important
To architect robust and optimized spatial experiences, developers must understand a fundamental architectural boundary of the Spatial Experience SDK: The Elastic Graph is strictly location-dependent and is entirely time-blind.
Any runtime movement, tick routines, or time-dependent behaviors (such as moving NPCs, ticking waypoint pathing, or loading different level regions) cannot be processed inside the graph itself. Instead, you must attach C# scripts directly to your spawned prefabs and query the graph's map output programmatically inside their Update() loops.
Note
Spatial Evaluation Rules:
For a detailed walkthrough of the physical spatial rules governing cell recalculations (including recalculation thresholds and the Parked/Idle Car Scenario), refer to our The Spatial Evaluation Rule section inside the World Creation track.
Handling the Time-Blind Constraint
To construct engaging, dynamic gameplay loops while honoring the graph's time-blind spatial boundaries, developers use three core game-design strategies:
- Spawning vs. Object Motion – Learn how to decouple static spawning from runtime motion, using programmatic Map Sampling inside your update loops to make NPCs or traffic walk cleanly on the terrain.
- The Candidate Spawning Strategy – Harness invisible placeholder coordinates inside the graph, registering them to a central, time-dependent manager to dynamically activate finish lines or checkpoints.
- Swapping Scenes (Faking a Journey) – Package distinct graphs and environmental assets into separate Unity Scenes, swapping them additively in the background behind visual fades to fake a massive thematic journey.