this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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Game Development
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I've read the description and watched the gameplay video 3 times and still have literally no idea what the gameplay is ๐
That was certainly not the first piece of feedback I was expecting to get, but it is one that's good to take into account! I forgot that what seems obvious to me might not be obvious to people who've never seen the game before. I'd like it if players could learn the full game without resorting to textual tutorials, so I'll have to find ways to teach things more clearly, but for now I've updated the README to hopefully make things more clear. Thanks for the feedback!
It's definitely something that could be tutorialized with visuals instead of text (in the final game, of course).
The first thought that comes into my head is watching a quick, scripted example of failure - a quick flash and a Grey hex explodes and loses, another spawns and dodges once or twice before losing, then it's your turn.
Or not, I'm kinda high and just spitballing.
...Interesting idea. (And also interesting lore implications? Not that the game has any...)
My main thinking right now is: on startup, have the player on an empty field and force them to move (on both inner and outer "axes") onto a specially marked square (and press spacebar) to enter the main menu. (Controls and what they do will be explained in text.) This gets them accustomed to moving around and pressing the CONFIRM key for menuing.
Then have a special tutorial level to introduce the actual gameplay -- similar to the "real" levels, but much slower BPM and attacks are scripted instead of randomly chosen. I don't want to force anyone to complete the tutorial before entering the actual levels, but it would be the menu item that the player first lands on (aside from maybe the one for changing the controls to something less strange than A/D/J/L).
The tutorial level would require some more code, but at this point that might be worth it. (And also it would add another option for user-made custom levels if somehow people decide to edit those in.)
...Honestly, the one thing I'm most concerned about at the moment is getting players to read text, especially if it's off to the side to avoid covering the playfield.