Hi there, thank you for your feedback! I've adjusted a few things in the PDF (now updated). To your points:
- Players are forced to play all of the cards in their hands, even the cards they cannot or do not want to play on a turn. I've edited the "Personal decks" section for clarity and it now reads, "Cards may go unused on a turn but are still discarded."
- The personal decks section now reads, "You will draw cards from your evolving personal deck and discard to your personal discard pile."
- I made a couple additions like the one above and included your suggestion in the diagram, thanks!
- I adjusted the wording in the example "Salmon plays each card in her hand" which should hopefully clarify things with the change from 1 above.
- I've adjusted the "School's in session" variant in a couple of ways. The diamonds bonus is an extra level of strategy that parallels the suit bonuses, so I think it makes sense to remove it in this variant. I agree Jokers are also not necessary in this context, and have updated the variant to remove them as well. I also added "(see “Variants” for a first playthrough)" at the beginning of the rules.
Thank you again for playing and providing feedback. I hope these adjustments clarify things for you and other folks in the future!