v 0.4.7 (tutorials)

Tutorials are now available in Tea For God.

It's been a while, though.

Initially, I wanted to break it into two updates with a set of tutorials for moving, shooting, etc. And another for loadouts and upgrades. But as I progressed and had a few personal misadventures, I decided to push a bit more and make it a single update.

To get the tutorials in, I had to add a few things. One is the tutorial system itself, of course. I wanted to hardcode each tutorial but it would slow down the whole development. And I know that I will need some simple scripting anyway. So I had to add a simple script to the game. This, of course, is going to find a use in the game.

To communicate things to the player, I needed an overlay system. This is another thing that will be useful - subtitles, HUD etc.

And I needed input prompts. I wanted to create some simple graphics for each controller but it didn't look that well and was a bit slow. That's why I added simple meshes with a system that highlights buttons (and does simple animations on them).

I wanted to have one more thing. Tutorials right now are not integrated into the levels/runs. I want to have a separate mode to work partially as a huge tutorial. And I want to allow people to discover stuff on their own and at their own pace. That's why there's a list of all tutorials available that can be explored at any time. Completed tutorials are marked accordingly (but that's tracked only if they are played after selecting a profile). But I don't want the players to spend time while playing tutorials and then forget, what did they learn. Pushing too much knowledge in a single batch doesn't work.

That's why I encourage to just try the "introduction" tutorial and then just play the game.

After you die you will get a list of suggested tutorials with a few words of explanation why those tutorials were proposed. For example, if you die because your reactor got depleted, the game knows that and suggest a tutorial about the reactor. After a tutorial is completed a few times, it is less likely to appear on the list. But that may still happen. The tutorials appear in order of their importance, when they were played and if they were played at all.

Mind that the tutorials, as they are now, may (read: most likely will) change. And there will be more tutorials. That's why I am grateful for any feedback about them or requests for more tutorials.

What's next?

Weapon crafting and finally different types of weapons.