This week has been extremely productive in a couple of ways. The top two, from a game-related standpoint are the release of the print-and-play alpha version of “King of Danger” (my Castle Danger themed trick-taking card game) and my polishing of the written rules for SharkBait.
As mentioned in a previous post, SharkBait is a family style dice game and I showed off some of the Chevee Dodd artwork I’ve had the pleasure of working with as I get this prototype into shape. My intention is to get this game tested and honed over the next couple of months, and to pitch it to game publishers that target the family game market. (I’ll pause here to give Mr. Dodd a big shout-out … because not only is he a skilled artist and game designer, he was also instrumental in getting me through this rule-writing process, which I often struggle with.)
So, getting the rules into a publishable format (I plan to use the saddle stitched booklets now available through TheGameCrafter.com) is a big step. I need to be able to send the game off to groups to “blind test” the game … and that requires the rules to be easy to follow without me around to answer any questions or to give any guidance.
If you’re interesting in reading through the rules (these are not a print-and-play copy of the game … just the rules), you can download a copy of them here: {original file had 11 downloads, 4 responses} … UPDATED FILE: SharkBait Rules Book (updated) (547 downloads)
I’d appreciate any feedback that you have. You can post a comment below, send me an e-mail, or post at me via Twitter or Facebook.
Arthur
I’m not a fan of the Impact-looking font you used for the section headings… it’s pretty hard to read.
In step 5a of the setup rules, you say to <> My immediate question was, “Should I stack them in numerical order, or randomly?” As it turns out, the order doesn’t matter at all; you’re just stacking them there to keep them out of the way during the round. So I might just change that rule to “stack the chosen tokens face-down”; it eliminates the question entirely.
Step 6 says <> instead of <>.
The rules are inconsistent in their capitalization of “Dice”, “Fish”, etc., but that’s not too bad. But I wouldn’t have expected “Pawn” or “Player” ever to be capitalized.
On page 4, “less than two” should be “fewer than two”.
Other than my brief confusion about the purpose of the “Hold” space, these look like good clear rules. Nice work!
Arthur
WordPress (or whatever) ate the <<>> quotations, but you can get the gist from what’s left. One last copyedit…
On page 2, “Getting Setup” should read “Getting Set Up”.
MattWorden
Thank you very much, Arthur … all very helpful! I will be sending you an e-mail to get your full name so that I can add it to the acknowledgements.
-Matt 🙂