First let's just take a quick moment to be excited that the blog is back! Susan and I have both missed writing this for you and we're incredibly excited to be back. Hopefully the improvements we've made around here will be able to let us do everything we do better for you.
While we were working on the website we were still editing rulebooks and while editing one in particular we found ourselves with a serious insight that we wanted to share with you all.
First let me introduce you to the game. Phone Hacker is a game currently in design by Sir David Fryett that has you pitted against other phone hackers attempting to get their phone number first. He has a WIP thread you can check out for it here.
Now besides being a Sir which is pretty awesome, David has done some other incredible things from designing several swimming goggles, caps, and toys to making talking beer mats. However this was his first rulebook so he decided to have us help him.
As you can see from the WIP thread the game is at the very beginnings of design. After looking at his rulebook I had said it wasn't super easy to understand and could use visual examples. He told me that others were having the same problem and sent pictures to show an example of the game and asked how to add them into the rulebook.
While we were working on the website we were still editing rulebooks and while editing one in particular we found ourselves with a serious insight that we wanted to share with you all.
First let me introduce you to the game. Phone Hacker is a game currently in design by Sir David Fryett that has you pitted against other phone hackers attempting to get their phone number first. He has a WIP thread you can check out for it here.
Now besides being a Sir which is pretty awesome, David has done some other incredible things from designing several swimming goggles, caps, and toys to making talking beer mats. However this was his first rulebook so he decided to have us help him.
As you can see from the WIP thread the game is at the very beginnings of design. After looking at his rulebook I had said it wasn't super easy to understand and could use visual examples. He told me that others were having the same problem and sent pictures to show an example of the game and asked how to add them into the rulebook.
I was about to get into a complex explanation about formatting and picture presentation when I could have sworn I felt a light bulb materialize over my head and for a second was worried I'd been turned into a cartoon and was about to be a part of some Space Jam type of story.
When I first started Rulebook Review I wasn't sure how successful it would be. A blog and service related ONLY to rulebooks is a rather niche thing to attempt. So I recruited Susan to pose for my wife who drew him as best she could and used my meager skills to throw up a simple website to try and see if this would work.
Now today I know this is a pretty successful bit of service we provide here as we get usually at least one rulebook every single day and the to edit pile just keeps getting larger. Back then though had I commissioned art and payed some sort of web designer to work on the website from the beginning and it turned out to be a flop it would have been a huge waste of time and resources.
It was then I realized that I shouldn't be telling David how to make a perfectly gorgeous rulebook right now, I should be telling him how to make something that looks better then a blank sheet of paper with just text but isn't so much effort that if play testing shows the game isn't working it can be changed. I didn't want him wasting valuable time either.
When I first started Rulebook Review I wasn't sure how successful it would be. A blog and service related ONLY to rulebooks is a rather niche thing to attempt. So I recruited Susan to pose for my wife who drew him as best she could and used my meager skills to throw up a simple website to try and see if this would work.
Now today I know this is a pretty successful bit of service we provide here as we get usually at least one rulebook every single day and the to edit pile just keeps getting larger. Back then though had I commissioned art and payed some sort of web designer to work on the website from the beginning and it turned out to be a flop it would have been a huge waste of time and resources.
It was then I realized that I shouldn't be telling David how to make a perfectly gorgeous rulebook right now, I should be telling him how to make something that looks better then a blank sheet of paper with just text but isn't so much effort that if play testing shows the game isn't working it can be changed. I didn't want him wasting valuable time either.
Now this isn't me saying you shouldn't have good rulebooks! Every Game Deserves A Good Rulebook. You want to be able to explain the rules to your game in the best way you can but it isn't worth hiring some graphic artist to organize and use Photoshop to make your rules look perfect on the first playtest. However with a bit of time and some free software you can make your rules better then just that blank sheet of paper with just a few hours of time, free tools, and creativity without having art or computer skills.
Want to know how? We plan to show you! In our next article we'll take David's rulebook for Phone Hacker and spruce it up a bit, adding those pictures and making it a good playtesting tool. It wont look perfect and professional but it will be great for what he needs it to be right now.
So hopefully the experience we had can help you in designing your game and rulebook, have you ever been in a place designing a game where you ran into something similar? Let us know in the comments. If you currently in the starting stages of a game design and have some tips to leave for David in the comments I bet he would love to hear them as well.
Just don't forget to come back on Monday to watch us transform the Phone Hacker rulebook into something special. Don't forget: Every Game Deserves A Good Rulebook.
Want to know how? We plan to show you! In our next article we'll take David's rulebook for Phone Hacker and spruce it up a bit, adding those pictures and making it a good playtesting tool. It wont look perfect and professional but it will be great for what he needs it to be right now.
So hopefully the experience we had can help you in designing your game and rulebook, have you ever been in a place designing a game where you ran into something similar? Let us know in the comments. If you currently in the starting stages of a game design and have some tips to leave for David in the comments I bet he would love to hear them as well.
Just don't forget to come back on Monday to watch us transform the Phone Hacker rulebook into something special. Don't forget: Every Game Deserves A Good Rulebook.