Tutorials, Arcade & Roguelite

I love to explore, to learn things on my own. I also think that certain things have to be explained or told straight away. Like the controls or some very basic concepts.

At the same time, I am not a big fan of tutorials that stop the game. The best ones should introduce the player to the given topic, allow performing the thing and also do it in a more or less controlled environment.

Some tutorials will make it clear that you are going to learn something. While the others will make you try doing the thing.

I tried the latter but it doesn't work so well. At least yet.

Note that here I will be talking about Arcade mode (as it is recommended and most of the players start with it).

In the introduction, all your energy is taken away. As well as your guns are damaged. And you have no idea how to navigate. Oh, and the view pulsates (to show how will it look like when you have low health).

You then enter a set of corridors and rooms. You can't wander off the path as it is linear. If you go in the wrong direction, you will go back to the starting room. You should be able to notice that there is a flashing symbol that appears only above one of the doors/hallways. After a few twists, another symbol should appear there, either a red cross or a blue bolt.

If you follow it, you should enter a room with a closed door, so you can't proceed and a device. From what I've seen, people have no problems with using the device. But some of them did not notice that the device is used to fill the energy (ammo or health). Especially that the door opens almost immediately when they start to use the device. The first thing that I changed was to only open the door when the energy storages are full. Then, the suit tells that the shield/energy is full. This should help with learning what the devices are (energy source).

Another problem is the navigation. Many people were confused with the map. But the truth is that for the arcade mode it is not required to learn to use it. And if it is not required, why should it be there? The second change: I removed the map from Arcade mode (you can switch it back on via gameplay options). How to navigate then? By following the flashing dot above the doors.

What if someone hasn't noticed that symbol? There was even no mention of it anywhere. The third change: I added information about the symbol right when you enter the first junction. The player should look around guessing which door to choose. If they have this bit of information, they make connect the dots and learn how to get to the objective.

But what if that fails or they will get lost? The good news is that you can't get lost. The symbols will appear everywhere. The only problem remains with forgetting about this. Here comes the fourth change: If the player walks in the wrong direction for a while, a prompt appears to tell where they should go. The game allows going towards health/ammo dispensers if we should replenish them, though. And also, if we're low on health/ammo, the game will suggest following the right symbol.

All those bits should help a bit with navigating, getting more health/ammo.

Why all of that? Showing something once might be not enough - that's how our brains work. And with VR there is another problem - some of the information we are easy to learn when we may focus on it. But in VR, even in a controlled environment (like the energy dispenser with a closed door), our brain may have lots of stimuli to process - the brain may eventually switch just to being in one world but for a while it will be having a bit contradictory signals, knowing where the player is in the real world but also processing signals that indicate that they are in the game world.

It seems that sometimes it is a bit harder to learn or understand things in VR. At least, if they are not based on the real world. Doing it a few times and having a way to remember it, might help.

There is another problem that is there, in the game for a while now. Players have no idea how to change weapons. It is easy to do but there's no explanation. And it's not so obvious that you have to grab the gun off your forearm. There was also another thing - people didn't even want to get new weapons. As the ones they had were good enough at getting rid of the enemies. I thought that I will make your starting weapons damaged (in Roguelite you may repair them by replacing the core) and I will add a prompt telling you how to do it.

Did it help? Partially. There are still people who will just walk around with that prompt constantly in front of their eyes. I did another change: now the damaged weapon and the hand that should be used to remove it is highlighted. It only appears when you hold a good weapon in your hand and there's a damaged one on your forearm. It says which hand to use and what to do. I hope it will be helpful as I don't want to add another door that opens only when you discard damaged weapons.

Most of those changes are for Arcade, although the weapon swapping also appears for Roguelite. There's also a notion for Roguelite that should help a bit with understanding the map. But the way I want to have the game is that Roguelite, while it explains the basics, all the stuff that would be new and unknown to the protagonist, should be new and unknown to the player; and Arcade that is easy to approach, explains all you need and should take you straight through the adventure.

I just don't want Arcade to be completely linear with all the pickups and stuff right on your path - I want the world to feel large and open. No artificial walls, no straight paths. If you want to wander in a random direction, do so. And Roguelite shouldn't be just Arcade + "when you die, you start all over".