DEV BLOG #4 - Tutorials

Nobody likes tutorials but they are a necessary evil in order to teach the players how to play the game. Tutorials are also infamous for being tough to design and for a UI-heavy strategy game doing an "invisible tutorial" (ex: Half-Life 2 and Super Mario Bros 1-1) just doesn't work.

One of the most important design philosophies in Goblin Colony is that it should be as intuitive and clear as possible. I've taken much care when designing icons and made sure to include tooltips and non-intrusive explanatory texts whenever possible. By doing this I'm hoping to have a less heavy-handed approach for teaching how to play. That said, the game is relatively complex and still needs tutorials.

Personally I don't like when tutorials include quirky characters that drag things out with "flavor text". With that in mind I intended for my tutorials to be as quick and to the point as possible. However, my first attempt ended up being very dry and boring so in the end I backtracked some and chose a middle ground. Now it's quick and to the point but there's also a few story elements with custom events to spice things up. I'm very happy with how it turned out and hopefully it will be a good introduction to the game.

Goblin portrait used in dialogue.

The tutorial is of course an important part of the upcoming demo. Almost there! :) As always, thank you for your support! Until next time.