Gameplay Features: Tutorials

There are two kinds of tutorials that we really don't like; tutorials that use popups full of text, and the ones that force the player to take actions with things like bouncing arrows. Although our goal is to build intuitive gameplay systems and UIs, tutorials are still needed to remove unnecessary friction and to support accessibility which is important to us and our community.

We've designed our tutorials to be contextual; they only appear when the player may need the information, based on their actions. Like harvesting berries.

Harvesting Tutorial

Another goal is to use the least amount of text possible.

Tutorial designs 1 and 2, and final version in-game.

We went through a few iterations before landing on what we have now. Not only did we have more text, we also triggered it as a call to action, which meant it appeared on screen once the player could see it and didn't go away until the action was taken. But as you can see, we only show the tutorial when the player is near the object.

Icons are also an important part of accessibility.

We decided to use animated icons that describe the action, rather than just showing the button. This works in WoA for a few reasons,

1. Interactions ALWAYS use the same button.

2. There are many different types of interactions in the game, so it makes more sense to let the player know what will happen if they press the button.

Some examples of animated icons are open doors, open containers, read, harvest, sit or mount... and all of these interactions use the same button.

This icon animation may seem redundant, because you can see the door open, but there are situations where a door can be obscured by something like a roof. This is why we added an outline to all interactable objects and always show the icon.

Animated icons are also more fun to look at. 😉

Anyways, back to the tutorials...

The first area in WoA has a number of harvestables, containers and items to pick up, and in most cases the player won't trigger them until they approach something. However some tutorials are more complicated and require multiple steps to complete.

Here’s a look at our Tutorial Manager. In this tutorial, the player is asked to collect a torch which is in a container.

Here's how that looks in game.

Here's another example of the player switching between abilities during the "Ignite Torch" tutorial.

Lastly, some tutorial beats can be completely avoided if the player has already figured it out. For example, there’s a tutorial for extinguishing the torch when the sun comes up, but the player is given the chance to take the action on their own before the tutorial triggers.

Let us know what you think about our approach to tutorials!