Hello fello co-conspirators!
I’ve been spending this week working on a new type of tutorial. Sometimes I feel I’ve gone through a hundred versions of this, but honestly it’s one of the most important parts of any game. No matter how good your core, if people don’t get the game, they will just drop out.
Because the game can get very complicated, I used a very hand holdy tutorial during playtests. It was always meant to be replaced, but I am thinking that the style of tutorial itself is doing more harm than good; giving players way too much information too fast and overwhelming them.
Inspried by the most excellent game ‘Into the Breach‘ I’ve decided to try a completely different style of tutorial. Something more exploratory and piecemeal.
Basically instead of a list of steps, this tutorial will show a few panels at the beginning to get players going, but then will let them free. Every time they discover a new interaction or effect (say by clicking the end turn button) a new panel will appear explaining what happened and/or what they should do next.
The goal here is that by having a direct connection between free action and an explanation, they’ll control the pacing of their experience and retain better what was taught. The only problem is that it is a BIG system, that will take a few weeks of development. But hey, it’s one of the most important pieces of the game after all.
Happy conspiring!