Appreciation post: That indie developer who called out my game's tutorial as garbage

At a tiny booth at PAX South last year, a stranger told me my 10-page intro was making players quit before the fun started, so I cut it to 3 slides and downloads jumped 40% - anyone else get brutal honesty from a random person at a convention that saved their project?

3 comments

3 Comments

scott.drew16d ago

Oh man, I used to be a "my tutorial is fine, they're just impatient" guy. But I went to a local game jam showcase and this one dude just flat out told me my controls screen looked like a tax form. I was annoyed at first but I actually tried his suggestion of a simple 2-image overlay instead of the wall of text. Cut my drop-off in the first minute by like 25%. Random strangers at these things have no reason to lie to you, they just tell you what they see. Hard to hear but usually right.

davis.adam16d ago

That tax form comparison is brutal, but it forced a real change.

johnson.paul16d ago

Actually took me three different people saying the same thing before I finally listened. First guy gave me feedback on my game's menu system, I shrugged it off. Then a second person mentioned it at a different event, still didn't change anything. It wasn't until a third person, a stranger at a coffee shop who saw me working on it, pointed out exactly what they found confusing that I finally sat down and rewrote the whole thing. Now I constantly ask random people to try my stuff and just watch where they get stuck, saved me from making a lot of dumb mistakes.