An Insight Into Game Development:
Learning How To Play The Game
Even if a game is part of a popular series or uses a well-known game formula, new players will want to know how to interact with the game. The same goes for many experienced players as well, since many mechanical details differ between games even in the same series. That is why it is important to give the player some sort of tutorial. Or – as the case is with Emotions: A Day In A Life – a “how to play” image gallery.
Since there are very few controls in the game and the time for a normal playthrough is about 5 minutes, it’s a bit of an overkill to force the player to learn the controls in-game. Besides, implementing a playable tutorial would take too much time away from developing other parts of the game. But players still need to know how to play the game and what different things on the screen means. That’s why it seemed appropriate to implement an image gallery that explains the general controls and gameplay elements.
There are two types of “how to play”-images. The first type conveys more detailed information via text, as the following image shows.
The second type explains controls via images of the buttons used to perform a certain action. The following image illustrates that. Please note that the following image does not have the correct accompanying picture, that’s supposed to help the player understand when to use the controls, and that the completely white square is a placeholder.
Hopefully, this image gallery will be enough to teach unsure players all of the necessary controls and gameplay mechanics, without taking up time for players who feel like they can do without an explanation.
Thank you for reading this post and following the development of Emotions: A Day In A Life. It’s not long before release and the game is coming together nicely. As soon as we have some backgrounds in place and proper character sprites, we will share screenshots of actual gameplay. For now, please look forward to another character introduction later in the week!