The Mad, Mad World of Editing

[kyrasantae]

I received this direct from Finnish Lapland last week. It's a very, um, complex board game reminiscent of Dungeons & Dragons and a bit of Warrior Knights. It's based on a fantasy RPG setting, so the resemblance is intentional and appropriate. In fact, it felt a little weird to be reminded of fantasy RPGs, given the role that D&D played (no pun intended) in my personal history.

It is a brand new copy given to me by the designer, Timo Multamäki, in exchange for a small used game from my collection, which I can't even send to him until Easter. Makes little sense, since he sells these for 39€ - that's almost as much as I paid for my Finnish Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries game. He seemed, perhaps, just a little desperate to find playtesters outside of Finland. I had, after all, only made a silly comment about the game on BoardGameGeek, saying "it's Finnish :o".

There were so many little pieces in the box that the first thing I did was to sleeve the cards (they're pretty good-quality, and glossy) and spend 6 hours measuring and making foamboard trays for all of the parts. I totally lost track of time there and worked until approx. 4AM. I originally had the trays all along the entire interior of the box, but then I realized that almost all of the wells were far too deep for the number of pieces in them. So I salvaged what I had made and transformed most of the trays to half-height, which meant that I could have two layers of trays in the box. And that I wouldn't have to push and shove the trays out of shape just to get them in there.

There were also some random "Finnish materials" placed in the box for me (a donation tax form and a pizza/kebab menu flyer from some business in Sodankylä - do they deliver across the Arctic Ocean?), but they officially line the bottom of the box now, since I have otherwise no official place for random Finnish papers.

Figure 1. Itty-bitty tokens	Figure 2. Foamboard trays

There are some more of my photos of the contents and trays here

Being manufactured in China, the game has the distinctive smell of a box made in China - in fact, the same smell as my Pandemic box, also made in China. Some people complain about smells, and then complain about Chinese manufacturing in general. I don't. It's a very unique smell.

This is not to say that there shouldn't be any complaints. Especially for independent designers and self-publishers like Mr. Multamäki, printing in China is usually the only affordable option, and resulting manufacturing quality (or lack thereof) is just a consequence that one just has to work with. (Although I should mention that after a disastrous shipment like this, one has no shortage of replacement parts for people emailing in about missing or damaged pieces.)

Unfortunately it could be an indefinite amount of time before I find a group of nerdy fantasy RPG-type people and a few hours to try out the game with - and I have discovered that, as it stands right now, one thing that could be a huge barrier to a wider market for the game is not its target audience, but that the rulebook definitely can use some improvement. I believe the rules were written in English first, but a Finnish translation exists and I reckon that it probably reads more smoothly.

I feel that the game has been gifted to me, and in light of my unlikelihood of being able to play and provide feedback on gameplay, I have taken it upon myself (with permission) to, in my "spare" time, make revisions to the rulebook to make it easier to read. I don't know how long it will take, nor exactly how much my time is worth, but that's inconsequential. I just want to help make the game as accessible as it can be, so that he can see a better return on his investment. Anything to help my people.

At first I thought that I could just rewrite any problematic sentences into fluent English, but then studying the problem deeper, I realized that changes may also need to be made in the order that the material is presented. Right now I can make sense of the rulebook in its separate sections, but there are places where I have to flip back and forth between pages in order to make sense of how the game is put together from those sections.

So I'm not sure how to proceed. He wants to print a revision of the rules in a few weeks. Do I prioritize revising sentences for grammar now, and then try to work with him on the organization after that (which may entail further sentence revision)?