OK, I'm making a few more tweaks...
1. "Tipped stacks separate" is kind of hard to parse-- "stacks" looks like a verb and "separate" looks like an adjective or adverb! How about "A tipped stack separates"? 2. "facing" should probably be "pointing".
Well, those don't fit. Space is really tight, and I don't want to make the font any smaller. But here's what I ended up with:
Knock over any upright piece or stack. If a stack, it separates, all pieces pointing one way.
3. "surfaces upright, in place, or at any spot" sounds like a list of three options. I'd delete the second comma or both.
OK. Actually, that helps, since it pulls "spot" up to the previous line and let's me turn "in" into "along" thusly:
A sideways piece tunnels down and surfaces upright in place or at any spot along the line in the direction it was pointing.
The new clause "On a Hop or Dig, pieces *may* be placed *between* others" seems to clarify some previous questions, but in a different way than I expected. To confirm, does this now mean that: 1. You can't Hop or Dig past the *end* of the line (only between or atop other pieces)?
I like using the word "along" as noted because I think it opens the door more to realizing that you *can* dig (or hop, for that matter) beyond the end of the line. But I don't think I can explicitly state this point on the tube, without risking causing more confusion than clarity. And I think that's OK... this is one of those finer points of the rules that isn't a problem if people get wrong for awhile. You can easily play and have fun with the game even if you find out later you were doing it "wrong" (or rather, that you didn't know you could do that one extra thing). But maybe the word "along" helps?
Anyway, thanks again for you input. Version 6 is coming soon... -- Andy