It’s another Friday, and you already know it’s time for the latest development update on our progress.
We will be discussing the work the team is doing around the tutorial system today. But, before we get into that, just incase you missed it, we announced our demo date in this tease trailer:
Now, to the tutorial system. 🙈
Design Challenges
Designing a strategy game’s tutorial system isn’t the most straightforward task, especially when trying to cater to the needs of both Achievers and Explorers, two prominent types of strategy gamers.
Achievers often appreciate structured guidance and clear objectives. Meanwhile, Explorers enjoy discovering game mechanics on their own with little or no handholding.
To balance these preferences, we divided our tutorial into two parts consisting of a navigational guide and gameplay discovery.
Navigational Guide
The first part is a skippable navigational guide that introduces you to the game’s interface. It highlights essential areas such as the top bar, play controls, and more.
Why is this important? Strategy game UIs are notorious for being overwhelming for new players. For instance, the first time I saw the UI for Stellaris or Civilization, I felt quite lost.
While the game is on a much smaller scale than those examples, playtests have revealed that there is a real potential for the UI to be slightly overwhelming.
By offering a navigational guide, we hope to help players quickly understand where everything is, reducing frustration and making the game more accessible.
However, recognizing that some players might find this unnecessary, we made it skippable from the very first playthrough.
Gameplay Discovery
The second part of the tutorial is more hands-on and interactive. Instead of handholding you through each mechanic, we set mini-goals and provide tips that help you discover the game’s mechanics by doing.
As you complete these challenges, you gain experience points, which can be used to unlock items in the research tree.
This tutorial style allows players to retain information better because they are actively involved in the process.
We believe this method works exceptionally well for tycoon and management game players, as it mirrors the decision-making and strategic planning that are core to the gameplay.
Core Considerations
While designing the tutorial, the following considerations are front and center in our minds:
- Player Autonomy: Giving players the freedom to skip or tackle things at their own pace.
- Reward System: Making the entire experience rewarding. Linking tutorial completion to experience points and research tree progression is an example of this. We’d love to hear your ideas for more ways to improve this.
- Clarity and Simplicity: Ensuring that all aspects of the tutorial are clear and straightforward with minimal cognitive load.
Work in Progress
As usual, the system is still in development. Some variation in the final version is to be expected.
Overall, our goal for the system is to provide essential guidance while respecting your autonomy. We hope this dual approach will allow players to discover the game mechanics efficiently without feeling overwhelmed or constrained.
And that’s a wrap for today!
Your feedback is crucial; we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can improve the tutorial system.
Cheers 🥂
Don’t forget to Wishlist the game if you haven’t: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1429080/
Live Long and Prosper 👋,
Kunal & team
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