I wanted to talk a little bit today about a game called Spook by Spook. This game was printed in Spielbox 2010 #3. Spook by Psook is a 1-4 player game where players are ghost hunters cooperating to free Baron von Hagen's manor house of haunting ghosts. If you want to learn more about the game you can check it out on BGG.
I sat down to play this with Capps and his wife (who draws me for the site by the way) and while we gave this a play through and it was even a bit fun, this game had one HUGE flaw with it's rules and not in a way you would expect. There were no issues with grammar and I didn't find anything horribly confusing. The problem with the rules was that they were printed on the back of the board so that whenever you needed to check the rules you would have to upend the entire board by flipping the page to look at them.
This was more horrifying then any ghost this game could have thrown at us. It was horrible trying to keep track of the game and board whenever we wanted to make sure we were playing right. It was incredibly frustrating!
I sat down to play this with Capps and his wife (who draws me for the site by the way) and while we gave this a play through and it was even a bit fun, this game had one HUGE flaw with it's rules and not in a way you would expect. There were no issues with grammar and I didn't find anything horribly confusing. The problem with the rules was that they were printed on the back of the board so that whenever you needed to check the rules you would have to upend the entire board by flipping the page to look at them.
This was more horrifying then any ghost this game could have thrown at us. It was horrible trying to keep track of the game and board whenever we wanted to make sure we were playing right. It was incredibly frustrating!
Now unless you are making a game specifically for a magazine (and if you are that's seriously awesome) you might be wondering how this is applicable to your rulebook.
While you may not be in a magazine, you might have information that you want easy to find, and placement is seriously important. If you have something you know players are going to want to reference often, try to keep it on one page so they won't be forced to constantly flip pages to find what they need.
A great example is a summary page like the one from Sushi Go! over there. It's placed on the very back of the rulebook so players can just set it on the table and have easy access. That same diagram could have been in the center of the rulebook where players would then be forced to flip to the page or set something on the rulebook to keep it open.
While you may not be in a magazine, you might have information that you want easy to find, and placement is seriously important. If you have something you know players are going to want to reference often, try to keep it on one page so they won't be forced to constantly flip pages to find what they need.
A great example is a summary page like the one from Sushi Go! over there. It's placed on the very back of the rulebook so players can just set it on the table and have easy access. That same diagram could have been in the center of the rulebook where players would then be forced to flip to the page or set something on the rulebook to keep it open.
Now Spook by Spook isn't ALL bad, they actually did something to this effect as well by placing which suites of cards got rid of which ghosts on the cover where you could see it for easy reference.
So if you have some something that has a big chance of needing to be referenced quite a bit, think carefully about where you place it. If you're wondering how the rules were for Spook by Spook... Look forward to our next post! Until next time: Every Game Deserves A Good Rulebook.
So if you have some something that has a big chance of needing to be referenced quite a bit, think carefully about where you place it. If you're wondering how the rules were for Spook by Spook... Look forward to our next post! Until next time: Every Game Deserves A Good Rulebook.