I swear that these will be my last changes to Prolix
by Gil Hova
Yes, I made two more Prolix tweaks. I swear that these will be my last!
The first is straightforward. I’m changing the order of the columns on the board to go 4-4-3-2 instead of 4-3-4-2.
The main reason behind the change is in the 1- and 2-player games. In those games, letters move two columns every round instead of one. With a 4-3-4-2 board, the letters in the first column will automatically be 4 points in the third column. The 4-4-3-2 layout keeps things interesting. As a bonus, players in the 3-5 player game find it more intuitive. Win-win all around!
The second change was a tougher decision. It applies to the four-player game only. Under the old rules, at the end of a 4p game, each player crossed out one regular word for each interrupt he or she made. Now, each player crosses out one fewer word than the number of interrupts he or she made. So if a player interrupted 3 times, she will cross out two words.
Alert readers will recognize this as the 5-player variant. I decided to copy it to the 4-player game because I noticed too many 4p games dragging.
Players want to interrupt. Why deprive them of the chance?
Formal Ferret Games 
“Players want to interrupt. Why deprive them of the chance?”
Yep. Figure out what people like to do, and make sure they get to do it. Always a good design plan.
Sounds fine to me too. You’re very meticulous about your play testing, so I would trust your instincts and not worry about the changes being too much. They’re fine at this stage. On a somewhat contradictory note, I am working on the third edition of the rules to 4th Corner now, because of feedback from customers and reviewers, so it is an ongoing process.
I think it should be named Maximum Verbosity. It can catch the nostalgic ear of Zorkdom and makes more sense than Prolix to me.
CONGRATS!!! Zev is very cool. I hope it does well.