This reading seems silly at times, with it’s examples of ridiculously bad rules. However, beyond the surface, these rules can be applied to improve even to rule sheets that are already playable and reasonable. For example, the section “Go Easy on the Eyes” in which Selinker says that he lowercased words that don’t need to be capitalized for clarity. This reminds me of my own rule sheet for “Animal Kingdom”, where I chose to capitalize words referring to game specific concepts. Perhaps it would be beneficial to go back and more carefully consider which words I am choosing to capitalize.
Additionally, the section of the reading titled “Make No More Work than Necessary”, in which Selinker pointed out the mistake of asking the player to role twice, was surprising to me. I hadn’t thought of tasks which could potentially be completed in a smaller number of or less complicated steps if the designer were to make small compromises. I would like to go back through the rules for Animal Kingdom during P4 to see if any of these changes can be made.
All in all, it was nice to finally read a formal discussion on writing great rules, especially after having been immersed in rule writing for so long. Now that I have a feeling of how to write rules which I developed independently. integrating these formal ideals will help me quickly build on my existing skills.
