We found that many players would come in and half no idea what to do, although the download instructions pointed them to the key settings.
So we added help tips that pop up when you start the game. If you were to read them for 30 seconds, you’d know how to play. However, many users still didn’t do this.
So we then added big red messages such as “Arrow Keys to move, Ctrl to shoot” the first time the game ran. Despite this, some users STILL asked how to move and shoot.
On top of this, many new users are blown up instantly. After 10 or so deaths in 10 minutes they quit and I never see them again.
So we’re adding a tutorial which will automatically run the first time you start the game. The plan is that we lead them through the basics of moving and shooting, not allowing them to progress in the tutorial until the do the prior step. There is very little time left but this seems to be one of those things that is important enough to cause us to lose or gain players, so it’s even more expensive not to do it.
Originally, I thought this would be a week-long headache, but actually with some thought I was able to setup the fundamentals in only a few hours.
3 replies on “Adding tutorial”
That’s interesting. What’s the average age of your players so far? The game style seems like it would attract an older, more experienced audience, reducing the need for (somewhat annoying) tutorials like what you’re having to implement. Of course, I could also be wrong.
This kind of game appeals to more mature players. But the tutorial only runs once and if it keeps 10% of the players from quitting it’s worthwhile.
You could alternatively provide an all-around quick reference in-game, similar to SubSpace/Continuum’s F1 (or many other games that utilize F1 in order to launch help tutorials). — Or, you could always have a ‘practice arena’, where only you could enter (or a ‘play offline’ arena).