Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Way To Crown

Turn-based deck-builder, minimal visuals, focus on advanced strategies and builds. · By AlSoKnown

the tutorial

A topic by account to comment created 10 days ago Views: 18 Replies: 1
Viewing posts 1 to 2

I will say, this tutorial is a bit excessive. you can almost certainly guarantee that a player will be familiar with the basic concepts of this game (play your cards, defeat the enemies, get rewards) and such things do not require a tutorial, in fact, including such things can cause players to think the tutorial popups are just telling players info they already know, and skip past them, potentially missing important information that they don't know.

additionally, you have tooltips! even the tooltips themselves can serve as a tutorial. just by reading them, I was able to figure out that my cards cost hp. the only thing you really need to tutorialize are the things the player potentially won't understand, like how your arrow notation works.

as for the "interactive" part of the tutorial you could briefly explain how things like shield and card refill work, but if you do, you should do it after the player experiences these things, especially in a safe environment like a tutorial where any misunderstanding would not cause any meaningful amount of failure. ideally the visual and auditorial design of the game should communicate this without the need for a tutorial.

I personally think it would also be good if the info from the tutorial could be viewed at any time through a ? menu or something, if you think the game is complex enough to need extensive tutorial. think about what information you might put in such a menu, and try to limit the tutorial to explaining such info. allow the rest to be communicated through gameplay (and tooltips).

Developer (3 edits)

Thanks for your feedback. I hope to also hear your impression about the game itself.

Tutorial indeed explains very basic things, but there are subtle differences from the “normal” expectations of many players (e.g. persistent resources, “mixed” enemy targeting) which cause confusion for players who think they know how things work based on other games. This was actually the reason I added tutorial at all.

Can you point out some specific small improvements, to maybe give me a better idea of direction you suggest?

explain how things like shield … work … it after the player experiences these things

Hm. This is a novel idea. I am afraid this can be inconvenient since the player will miss the interaction and would be frustrated by the fact that game did not tell beforehand where to focus his attention. (I.e. “the defenca icon which just disappeared meant that some damage was prevented”)

it would also be good if the info from the tutorial could be viewed at any time through a ? menu or something

There is indeed “info” window accessible by clicking “?” on the right-side menu, and also “?” icon on rewards screen allows to repeat rewards tutorial (which may be useful since that tutorial changes as you unlock new gameplay mechanics). Although currently “info” windows does not directly repeat tutorial, it documents lots of other, more complex elements of gameplay. Do you think adding “Basic info” section there is worthwhile?