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Card games

Shape Up! variant scoring tariffs

I’m not sure which is the clearest and most concise/elegant way to convey the scoring tariff in the Shape Up! game. If you’ve got a moment or two, please do take a look at these three examples: http://www.holkar.net/wording_choices.png and see what you think. (And see here for a description of the game (slightly out-of-date but basically OK), if you’re going ‘eh what?’ at this point.) Or if you’ve got a suggestion that’s better than all three of these, that would be even nicer of course.

The idea is that you have one of these nine example cards with you during the game as a scoring summary reminder: it is not the actual scoring explanation (which you will have already seen / been told). So it doesn’t have to fully explain how scoring is done – it just to clearly communicate the bases on which your own personal score will be calculated.

The game is a bit ambivalent at the moment, in that I’ve designed it to be in theory playable by people down to age 8 or so, but all my testing has been on adults who are also at least casual gamers. If any of you have any thoughts about the different text/layout approaches needed for a kid-friendly version, do please say!

6 replies on “Shape Up! variant scoring tariffs”

Of the three you have at the moment I like the top row best, but I think the middle row maybe has the potential to be better with minor changes…

I’d do this:

* Invent a custom way to write a number which means “this number is some number of points”. Given your game is colour-based already, I recommend a black numeral against a yellow disc-shaped background (hopefully looking a little like a coin or a medal, both of which suggest score). Modify the first three lines of text to use this representation.
* Reword the bottom line, because the current wording is ugly (and maybe confusing – I can’t tell for sure because I already know what it’s trying to say). I tentatively propose: “Longer rows score +1 // for each extra card.” (where ‘//’ is the line break). Again, the “this is some points” notation described above should be used.

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