That's only a bonus if you can switch packages without a semicolon.

Oh yeah. Well, no bonus, but it still makes it more readable.

I'm surprised this works.

Me too, but it makes sense. It allows for

our $state = $next_states{$state};
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Unfortunally, it's not a general technique.

Oops! Just replace the and op with a list op or replace the sassign op with an aassign op.

(local our $n = shift), ...
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or

(local (our $n) = shift) && ...
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The former is simpler. The latter has the advantage that it doesn't affect the return value in list context.