Why doesn't my fiancée understand how the Plus rule works in Triple Triad?

A good relationship is like cards. It needs passion and energy; it needs a healthy amount of give and take; it generally needs two or more players.

And rules. Any good relationship has a set of agreed-upon ground rules to make sure everyone is comfortable, happy, and doesn't feel as if their boundaries are being crossed. All parties should understand what other expect out of the relationship. Cards on the table, so to speak. That's why I'm not allowed to talk about the Plus rule from popular Final Fantasy card game Triple Triad anymore.

But it's simple, really. Okay, so you know that the core mechanic is flipping the cards of your opponent by having a larger number on matching sides of parallel cards? Of course you do. Now the Plus rule ignores that and introduces the idea that the sum of the numbers on matching sides needs to match up with the sum of the matched sides on another side. Like, if you put down a purple clown chocobo card with a 3/5/7/3 next to a slimy worm with an A/7/9/8 where the chocobo 3 and the worm 7 matched, and at the same time there was a sexy bunny girl (sunglasses) with a 2/4/6/5 on the other side, matching the chocobo 5 with the bunny girl 5, both of those add up to 10. They're both 10! That means they flip! Get it?!

My partner—let's call her Lucy, since that's her name—loves Triple Triad. This is my fault. Final Fantasy VIII is one of my favourites, and she agreed to play it as a result of an elaborate contract wherein each of us would trade favourite Final Fantasies and then wax intellectual in dueling essays about each game.

Look, it's not important. Obviously we're both very cool people.

I'd estimate Lucy spent 60-70% of her time in Final Fantasy VIII playing cards. Chasing children around Balamb's School For Baby Soldiers for card-based revenge. Interrupting traumatised civilians to ask them for a game. Following the Queen of Cards herself around the world map for a bee's dick of a percentile chance at abolishing the Random rule. Learning everything there is to know about the game of Triple Triad. Except f-

The same thing happened in Final Fantasy XIV—the online one, with the catgirls. Hours sunk into the card mechanics alone, travelling across the lands of Eorzea looking for more cards to bolster the collection. In FFXIV it's even worse for us card fans, the broad nature of an MMO opening up even more opportunities to avoid engaging with the main story. And there are a few more rules than FFVIII, including mechanics for ascending and descending the value of cards based on other factors, rules for switching the highest values, and rules controlling how cards are chosen on each turn.

She understands all of these, having beaten dozens of NPCs and collected hundreds of cards. So why can't she figure out Plus rules? Could the Plus rule itself be an unintuitive mess? No, it's the children who are wrong.

Same was a problem that we overcame in the end. The Same rule means that if you put down a card and the numbers match against two different cards on different adjacent sides, it flips both of those cards. She got this one, eventually, with a few diagrams. Plus is just Same with a different hat on. Cards are really fun. Cards are so fun.

Please pay attention this time. When you put two cards next to one another, the two sides that touch will add up to a number. If another side of the same card you played also touches a different card and those numbers add up to the same number as the first number then those numbers PLUS to the same result and both cards flip. No, it doesn't matter if your number was higher; no, they don't have to both be your opponent's cards. Yes, if the numbers on the flipped card do the number thing on the numbers of the cards on the other side that weren't your new card then they also do the flip, because of the numbers. The numbers.

Okay, I admit it. You fucking got me. Plus doesn't make any sense at all, even if it does make sense in a technical, mechanical, on-paper kind of way. The issue, I think, lies in the disconnect between Triple Triad as a (fictional) physical game, with affordances, and Triple Triad as a collection of rules that make it function as a concept of a balanced, complex game.

My number is bigger than your number, that tracks; we can associate that with something real, the visualisation of one object bigger than another. Rules like ascension and descension, again, the human brain can easily link that with something true and visual. Sudden Death is familiar to anyone who has played or watched sport, Order is grokable if you've been under the thumb of authority. These all only need one or two leaps of logic from "you are playing cards" to "this rule needs to change how you play cards." Even the Same rule can be conceptualised as two matching symbols.

But Plus is a few steps further out. You have to understand that there are cards, then there are numbers, then there are rules about numbers that are bigger winning over smaller numbers, then you need to understand that multiple sides of the cards can be in play at once, then you need to realise that the numbers aren't just symbolic of a value but that they can be used in mathematical formula. It's the formula that tells you whether the Plus rule activates, not the cards.

The cards aren't even involved.

Think of it like this: if you were holding 20 dollars in one hand and 5 dollars in the other, and you punched two different people—one with each hand—stealing the 10 and 25 dollars they were carrying, respectively, both of your hands would now contain 30 dollars. And then their cards would flip over because they have no money. Just listen to all the numbers I'm giving you!

It makes you realise how hard game designers work to make sure we effortlessly understand how all the little rotating pieces and juddering widgets of a video game function to bring us a simple experience. Hundreds of tweaks and tricks, user interfaces, tutorials, environmental touches, yellow paint, sight lines, audio cues, lore dumps, throwaway NPC voice lines, art assets, all keeping players safe and supported. Crafting the real immersive experience, the one where I'm never forced to think about the man behind the curtain.

Then a Plus rule comes along and says no, just figure it out. I'm not helping. If number plus number equals number plus number then man win card feel good. It's basic maths. Your fiancée doesn't understand what we have, she's just jealous. You could marry Triple Triad instead.

Anyway, would you like to play some cards? I'm just going to go try explaining it to her one more time.