TutorialsGraveyard birds isn't a super complicated game - the puzzles are interesting and deep, but the mechanics by which you interact with them are fairly simple. That being said, the player does need to learn how to play when they start! Ideally the player can learn by playing - for instance, in Super Mario Bros Level 1-1 teaches the player everything that they need to know about the game.
We've tried to keep the learning curve fairly shallow - each level introduces no more than one new mechanic, and future levels build on them, until you're quickly combining them with all the other mechanics you've learned thus far. To make this effective, though, we need the levels where you learn the mechanics to be
very clear about what you're learning. To this point, we have two things we need to communicate - The controls (how the player interacts with the game) and the game elements (how the character interacts with the world). We'll start with the latter.
Illustrating objectivesEspecially in the early game, the player has to learn a few ideas - get to the exit to finish a level, shoot switches to trigger them, pick up buddies to progress. The first time any of these elements show up, we draw attention to it with a big ol' arrow. This makes it clear that it's important and they should probably try to interact with it. For example, on the second level, we'll guide the player to recharge their ammo, and to hit the switch, and then get to the exit.
This is pretty on the head guidance, but we make sure to never slow down the players actions to show them "LOOK AT THIS" - we just point it out as the player does their thing. Furthermore, this is only the case in a couple of levels - after that, we've shown them what they need to know, and they're on their own!
Teaching controlsBut for the player to be able to interact with those arrows, we'll need them to be able to control the character! The controls in Graveyard birds are fairly simple - WASD to move, Left and Right Mouse to move/drop buddies. Additionally, for QoL you can use Q to rotate your current buddies, and R to restart a level. It might be OK to assume the player will figure out how to move the character - WASD is fairly standard. However, we can't assume the player will realize they need to use the mouse as well. We need to teach the player the controls. The best way to do this, like with objectives earlier, is something non-obtrusive - if they know the controls, or can figure them out, they're free to ignore it. If they don't know what to do, we'll tell them what buttons to try - but it'll still be up to them to put together exactly what it does!
However, we're not totally sure how to present this - do the controls show up in the HUD area if you don't do the right thing after some time? Are they just written in the level, somewhere? We've got a couple of ideas, but we're interested what you all think is the best solution!
Should we just highlight the controls if you don't discover them on your own?
This makes sense for the first level, but might be frustrating when we introduce other actions later on...
Or do we post the controls on a billboard in the level, and let the player find them for themselves?
What do you all think? Let us know! Cheers!
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