message 0556

• "Starchase": Rules discussion

>From: Jo Jaquinta <jaymin@maths.tcd.ie>
>Subject: Cherryhlist/Starchase
>Date: Tue, 21 Sep 93 8:36:59 BST

	Having read the earlier articles I, too, sat and thought out
rules for the game. When they are more complete, if ever, I might post
them. For the moment I have a few observations:

	1) You are getting too convoluted. Formula and special forms
are (sometimes) OK for a role-playing game but aren't workable in a
children's game. It is not that it can't be complex. Monopoly is complex
and is still a children's game. It just has to be straight forward without
intricate turn sequences or computation.

	2) We're talking Union here. Where's the Political Agenda?
	Given the general level of psycological awareness and engineering
I doubt that something like a mass-market children's game would be free
from Union-educational undertones. The game is not to be designed to
be a vaguely realistic simulation of the political events in and around
the formation of Union-Alliance but rather an object lesson in why things
happened the way they did. Whatever way the rules are constructed the
best strategy will probably be that historically (or what is now recorded
as historical) taken by Union.

				Jo Grant