Congrats on your entry! I took a look and I was a bit confused by the instructions BUT - having a sample/example ready to go was the absolute right idea on your part. Once I saw how it would work I went, "OOOOH!!!" and it all made perfect sense. Because in my head I was...picturing something even more esoteric and you made it simple for me (and other potential players, especially groups) to grasp.
And your landing game page is perfect, to the point, a flourish of style. You thought it all through. But it also looks like you're well-versed in this type of thing.
Also - the concept is indeed very good and I think would be nice for a group setting. Maybe even a class project using old national geographics, fashion magazines, or newspapers. I see quite a few applications for this game.
Glad to hear I made the right choice by including an example and thank you very much for your kind words! Was there a particular section of the instructions that was unclear? I'm always looking to improve the clarity of my stuff!
I think that there's an element of formula to the game that I wasn't fully prepared for. Where you have substitutions and things you cannot use or have to avoid that made me have to stop and think, "Okay, I need to do this but not that..." and realistically, thinking about the instructions in a purely cerebral way isn't the way to understand your game. Your game is hands-on movement, visual, active, etc. and that's where it makes the most sense. Most of my confusion was very "duh" moments. For example, in the creation instructions you ask the group to find the first non-proper noun and that one stopped me in my tracks. I know what a noun is. I know what proper noun is. Do I REALLY know what a non-proper noun is? And of course I do, after thinking about it - but I did have to think about because I'd never heard it described that way before. If you'd asked me to find the first noun that isn't capitalized I would have gotten it right away. Oh, they want a noun that isn't proper <---but even saying it like that is confusing. "A noun that isn't proper" makes sense to me, but someone just getting off of a Jane Austen campaign might picture a saucy little noun that speaks its mind. And as a creator, it's almost impossible to plan for that. The key is that I think people eventually CAN understand it. Because if I didn't get it, I'd look for an example - and bam it's there. So you've made sure on your own that there'd be no confusion. You've done exactly what you need to do.
Thanks for the comprehensive response! I was struggling myself when writing that section to find a better way to put it but couldn't come up with anything that worked better, glad the example cleared up the problems you encountered!
Comments
Congrats on your entry! I took a look and I was a bit confused by the instructions BUT - having a sample/example ready to go was the absolute right idea on your part. Once I saw how it would work I went, "OOOOH!!!" and it all made perfect sense. Because in my head I was...picturing something even more esoteric and you made it simple for me (and other potential players, especially groups) to grasp.
And your landing game page is perfect, to the point, a flourish of style. You thought it all through. But it also looks like you're well-versed in this type of thing.
Also - the concept is indeed very good and I think would be nice for a group setting. Maybe even a class project using old national geographics, fashion magazines, or newspapers. I see quite a few applications for this game.
Glad to hear I made the right choice by including an example and thank you very much for your kind words! Was there a particular section of the instructions that was unclear? I'm always looking to improve the clarity of my stuff!
I think that there's an element of formula to the game that I wasn't fully prepared for. Where you have substitutions and things you cannot use or have to avoid that made me have to stop and think, "Okay, I need to do this but not that..." and realistically, thinking about the instructions in a purely cerebral way isn't the way to understand your game. Your game is hands-on movement, visual, active, etc. and that's where it makes the most sense. Most of my confusion was very "duh" moments. For example, in the creation instructions you ask the group to find the first non-proper noun and that one stopped me in my tracks. I know what a noun is. I know what proper noun is. Do I REALLY know what a non-proper noun is? And of course I do, after thinking about it - but I did have to think about because I'd never heard it described that way before. If you'd asked me to find the first noun that isn't capitalized I would have gotten it right away. Oh, they want a noun that isn't proper <---but even saying it like that is confusing. "A noun that isn't proper" makes sense to me, but someone just getting off of a Jane Austen campaign might picture a saucy little noun that speaks its mind. And as a creator, it's almost impossible to plan for that. The key is that I think people eventually CAN understand it. Because if I didn't get it, I'd look for an example - and bam it's there. So you've made sure on your own that there'd be no confusion. You've done exactly what you need to do.
Thanks for the comprehensive response! I was struggling myself when writing that section to find a better way to put it but couldn't come up with anything that worked better, glad the example cleared up the problems you encountered!