An Attempt at Plain Style: The Game of Catan
One of your friends texts you and asks if you are free that night.
You are. You text him back. He replies quickly and asks if you want to come
over for a game night. He has this new game and wants to learn how to play it
with a few others. You’re down. He tells you his door opens at 6:30 pm. BYOB.
You’re excited. You love learning new board games. It’s a
fun way to share company and conversation while working toward a goal. You go
through the rest of your day anticipating the fun. You check your phone. It’s
6:15 PM. You head out to your friend’s place for the night. You stop by Kwik
Trip on your way to pick up a beverage and some chips to pass.
You knock on his door at 6:32 and are welcomed with open
arms. 3 of your other friends are sitting in the living room, and you strike up
a conversation as buddies do. You take a seat among them, open the chips, and
continue chatting. You notice a bright red box with large yellow writing on it
on the coffee table. Catan. Hmm… you’ve never played before.
“Is that the game we’re tackling tonight?” you ask.
“Yup! You played?” You one friend next to you asks. She
steals some chips from you.
“Nope.”
“Well, Johnny over there is teaching us cuz none of us have either.”
The host chimes in. And with that Johnny takes out the box and begins setting
up. The first thing he sees is the rule. He takes them out and sets them aside.
As he sets up the board, he explains the game.
The board game of Catan was created and released by Klaus Teuber
in 1995 (Germany) and 1996 (USA). According to a New Yorker article, Teuber was a dental
technician manufacturing dental prosthetics living in Darmstadt, Germany. He
was becoming unhappy with his job. His escape was creating intricate games in
his basement. This is where the idea for a game like Catan came to be. Though
this idea started in a basement in the middle of Germany, Catan is now a multi-million-dollar
business. The bright red box can be found in over 30 languages and there are
over 80 spin-offs and additional expansions or formats.
Every board game should have a set of instructions to
tell players how to play. A game with no instructions would render the game
obsolete. It is the most important aspect of the game. Catan’s instruction
manual is a 16-page document written mostly in plain style. This game is aimed
at people ages 10+. Therefore, the instruction should be aimed at the same level.
This makes sense, seeing as a typical template (created by fairway 3
games) for a game suggests writing in “short, declarative sentences.”
On the last page of Catan’s game instructions, there is a section
called “Game Overview.” It uses plain style devices to explain the game to new
players. It uses a bulleted list, simple language, pictures to aid the process,
and a conversational “you” point of view. While all of these strategies are
plain style, it still feels ill-formatted and quickly thrown together. So,
while plain style may be easier to understand and the most effective style for
the genre of instructions, it needs to be effectively formatted in order to be
helpful.
The most notable device is the list formatting of the
entire page. It is laid out into eleven different steps; each one is numbered.
The reader then would expect this document to be in chronological order, seeing
as games are processes. The government (not that this game is directly under
the jurisdiction of the government) even suggests that the processes be
organized in a logical order. The overview is not
effective in this device. The way to win is in step number 3, while step 11
discusses the strategy of placing settlements (which is something a player
should consider at the beginning). Steps 8 and 9 discuss the same process, and
step 5 begins with an italicized question when no other step does.
Another plain style device this document uses is simple
language. This document’s readability statistics put it about at a 10th-grade
reading level, which is consistent with plain style. That’s relatively
accessible since the age range is 10+, but if the average adult reads at a
7th-grade level, this set of directions may be a bit strenuous to get through.
It has to be accessible to most readers and aiming for a middle reading level
seems to be the most effective move. It doesn’t quite get there. This document
has concise sentences that tell the reader the point. Steps 3 and 4 (refer to
picture above) are examples of that. But it also has confusing sentences with
parentheticals. Step 7 is an example of that.
The overview also uses pictures along with the text to aid in the
explaining. Arabic numerals are used instead of writing out the names in the
text. This allows for quick recognition and goes along with the board game
pictured on the page, which has numbers on it. Pictures are nice because they
familiarize a new player with the board layout. Though, the pictures affect the
sentence format. Referring to the board, as it does in step 7, creates for a
lot of confusing eye movement back and forth between the text and the picture.
As helpful as it is to see the board, describing specific examples in the text
while referring to the picture could make the reader feel lost. I did. The use
of pictures for the specific hexes after Step 2, however, is more effective.
They don’t interrupt the flow of the sentences and create distracting eye
movements; they work along with the text underneath to help the reader
understand what they mean.
This document also uses a 2nd person “you” perspective. It stays
consistent throughout the piece as well, which is effective. Each bullet in the
list keeps the second-person perspective, which allows the reader to stay
engaged with the piece; to picture themselves playing the game.
But I don’t think it matters in the grand scheme of this document.
Plain style is point-blank, and it is the most effective style
when writing things that need to be clear, like instructions. But this overview
feels more conversational. The writers implement devices like a creative
opening and a rhetorical question to help explain the process of playing the
game. The inconsistency in organization and the style makes me wonder how
thought-through this document was.
How often this overview actually gets read in full? I don’t think
the writers anticipated a close examination of this document. It is located on
the back of the document, behind a 15-page in-depth explanation of the rules. I
think most people who play this game would be playing with people who already
know the game and can explain it to them. Situations similar to the anecdote
above come up frequently. I know from personal experience that I learned by
explanation. I’ve also taught people by explaining the rules I know and
disregarding the written instructions.
This document is really only a guide, so the poor organization and
floppy use of plain style in this document probably aren’t that big of a deal.
It doesn’t really matter because this document exists in a realm with so many
other tools. YouTube videos, online resources, the knowledge of other
players, and the 15 other pages before this document hold greater value to the
players than this one page does. This is not meant to exist alone. It’s not
organized well for those new players, but it doesn’t really need to be. It uses
plain language strategies because it is serving the general public and needs to
be accessible, but it’s not precise in the implementation of the
strategies.
The average sentence length in this overview is about 13
words. Plain style guidelines would want to cut those in half. Make them active
“who’s kicking whom” sentences. Cut down unnecessary words. But according to Dancing Giant Games, the introductions or
overviews should serve as a “background story/recap on what situation the
players are getting themselves into. It sets the scene (thematically, usually)
for the entire game.” This makes me wonder. If few people will read the
document, and the most important information is in the 15 previous
pages, what would this overview look like in a more creative style? What
would it look like if it used more rhetorical devices and vivid descriptions to
understand the world of Catan rather than the game of Catan?
Teuber created this game to escape the stressful reality of his job. This
document might be more effective as a hybrid style of plain and creative, so it
can effectively tell the reader the basic rules and components, while also
immersing them into the experience of the world around the game.
You brush the thought aside and tune into Johnny as he is explaining what the brightly colored hexagons, the numbered circles, the cards, and the gray pawn means.
“So, what color does everyone want?” Johnny asks.
Everyone picks. You’re left with orange, which is fine.
He passes out the tiny bags of mini colored blocks. Everyone pours them out
into a pile and looks inquisitively at everything that lies before them.
Everyone smiles and looks at Johnny.
“Alright, let’s roll to see who goes first.”
Emily Rux
Emily Rux
No comments:
Post a Comment