Re: [piecepack] MG Design Contest winner

["Ron Hale-Evans" <rwhe@...>]

On 8/9/06, Jorge Arroyo Gonzalez <trozo@...> wrote:
> On Aug 10, 2006, at 4:01 AM, Ron Hale-Evans wrote:
>
> > Something like this was actually a rule at one point in the design
> > process, but it was hard to enforce.
>
> Can you explain? I don't understand... When you finish the game it is
> easy to prove your letterbox was found (you've got to have at least
> one of your own cards missing in addition to the other 3 from the
> other players) Maybe I'm missing something...

Sorry for being unclear. What I meant was that a rule stating you had
to make your clue easy was hard to enforce and didn't help the play.
People would *try* to make their letterboxes easy to find, but
wouldn't really understand that their clues were hard, or how to make
an easy clue, until they saw people guessing and failing over and
over. They were really disappointed at the end of the game because
they had no chance to win with such a hard clue.

Conversely, many playtesters complained because they wanted to try the
strategy of writing a hard clue but were prevented by the rules, which
they thought was unfair and unfun. So now, if you think you're smart
enough to guess everyone else's letterbox first, you can make your
clue as hard as you want. You won't be completely prevented from
winning the game, nor will anyone else.

Anyway, giving people one point for everyone who finds their letterbox
is a much more "analog" way of limiting how hard people's clues are,
as opposed to the "binary" way of only letting people with easy clues
win.

Ron

--
   Ron Hale-Evans ... rwhe@... ... http://ron.ludism.org/
Mind Performance Hacks book: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mindperfhks/
	   Center for Ludic Synergy: http://www.ludism.org/
(revilous life proving aye the death of ronaldses when winpower wine has
		   bucked the kick on poor won man)