Board Game: Photosynthesis
Jul. 9th, 2018 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThe latest (and penultimate?) big game in the game crate was one Rachel and I had both separately been somewhat interested in, Photosynthesis.
It is so gorgeous, it's positively dripping with luscious flavour. There is a hexagonal board, a sun that travels between the six vertices, and players plant seeds and trees in the hexes.
Trees collect sun points. Players spend sun points to buy new seeds and trees.
There are three sizes of tree. You spend more to grow a big tree, but trees directly behind other trees are shaded and collect no sun, and bigger trees shadow more hexes behind them, but are not themselves shaded by smaller trees.
The largest-size trees can be harvested to produce victory points, you get more if the tree is closer to the middle of the board (but those can more easily end up shaded on all sides and not producing as much sun).
Ideally you spend a round and a half planting more trees to get more sun, and then a round and a half slowly growing big trees and harvesting them. But I'm not sure of the specifics, where it's best to plant, when it's best to try for more small trees and when it's best to play for big trees, etc.
Aside on rules clarity
It's amazing how hard it is to produce unambiguous rules. Again and again I find a clarification I or someone else makes seems to actually muddle an existing understanding, for instance the "they spelled it out in this case, does that mean it doesn't apply in other situations?" effect.
In this case, the intended rule is that you can have multiple actions in a turn, but "growing a tree", "harvesting a tree", "planting a seed from a tree", or "planting a seed in a hex" can only be done once in each hex.
But the way this was explained put big emphasis on planting a seed activating the tree it was planted from, and not being able to grow a tree twice, and not being able to activate the same tree twice, but didn't explicitly say what the designers found obvious, that planting a seed 'activated' the hex it was planted into AS WELL, not instead, as the tree it was planted from.
That's certainly how I expected it to work, but the fact that the rules stated in bolt print that it activated the tree it was planted by, made me think it didn't activate the hex it was planted into, but apparently that wasn't the implication, just that they wanted people to remember the other half of the rule.
FWIW, the "activating a hex" terminology is what I got from reading a discussion on board game geek, the original rules described it a bit differently.
I think it's partly, however well you understand something, it's really hard to explain so someone else 'gets it'. And partly, likely, translation issues. And partly, squelching one misinterpretation can produce more unless you review the changes as a whole.
I remember recently reading an impassioned essay by a Spiel des Jahres judge saying there was quite a lot of games they loved, but they were firm in only accepting games where the rules were written to a certain standard, because they wanted games that anyone could enjoy, not only people who were adept as inferring what the rules should be.
Aside to aside
I possibly should trust myself more at inferring what the rules probably *meant*, even when it looks clear what they *say*.
It is so gorgeous, it's positively dripping with luscious flavour. There is a hexagonal board, a sun that travels between the six vertices, and players plant seeds and trees in the hexes.
Trees collect sun points. Players spend sun points to buy new seeds and trees.
There are three sizes of tree. You spend more to grow a big tree, but trees directly behind other trees are shaded and collect no sun, and bigger trees shadow more hexes behind them, but are not themselves shaded by smaller trees.
The largest-size trees can be harvested to produce victory points, you get more if the tree is closer to the middle of the board (but those can more easily end up shaded on all sides and not producing as much sun).
Ideally you spend a round and a half planting more trees to get more sun, and then a round and a half slowly growing big trees and harvesting them. But I'm not sure of the specifics, where it's best to plant, when it's best to try for more small trees and when it's best to play for big trees, etc.
Aside on rules clarity
It's amazing how hard it is to produce unambiguous rules. Again and again I find a clarification I or someone else makes seems to actually muddle an existing understanding, for instance the "they spelled it out in this case, does that mean it doesn't apply in other situations?" effect.
In this case, the intended rule is that you can have multiple actions in a turn, but "growing a tree", "harvesting a tree", "planting a seed from a tree", or "planting a seed in a hex" can only be done once in each hex.
But the way this was explained put big emphasis on planting a seed activating the tree it was planted from, and not being able to grow a tree twice, and not being able to activate the same tree twice, but didn't explicitly say what the designers found obvious, that planting a seed 'activated' the hex it was planted into AS WELL, not instead, as the tree it was planted from.
That's certainly how I expected it to work, but the fact that the rules stated in bolt print that it activated the tree it was planted by, made me think it didn't activate the hex it was planted into, but apparently that wasn't the implication, just that they wanted people to remember the other half of the rule.
FWIW, the "activating a hex" terminology is what I got from reading a discussion on board game geek, the original rules described it a bit differently.
I think it's partly, however well you understand something, it's really hard to explain so someone else 'gets it'. And partly, likely, translation issues. And partly, squelching one misinterpretation can produce more unless you review the changes as a whole.
I remember recently reading an impassioned essay by a Spiel des Jahres judge saying there was quite a lot of games they loved, but they were firm in only accepting games where the rules were written to a certain standard, because they wanted games that anyone could enjoy, not only people who were adept as inferring what the rules should be.
Aside to aside
I possibly should trust myself more at inferring what the rules probably *meant*, even when it looks clear what they *say*.