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Better Tutorial Phase


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I feel like, with any game, there should be a super-easy, guided (i.e. step-by-step) tutorial phase.

I know that there's supposed to be this vibe of "you've been dumped here, you don't know where you are, or why you're here" with a somewhat helpful "so maybe you should start digging?"  It's funny but....

I feel like I was lost in the beginning.  Tutorial stuff should be big on the screen. With arrows pointing to stuff. And maybe guided to the point where it gets things somewhat established?

For example: telling me that I don't have enough oxygen is cool, I guess, but showing me how to install a low-level oxygen generator (or how to mine for oxygen?) would be better.

Another example: "your people need to go to the bathroom!" is fine, but, again, show not tell, I would appreciate the game helping to guide me in the priorities. I'm a brand-new player.  Everyone else will be a brand-new player too.  Making things easier for brand-new players will mean fewer folks putting the game up on the shelf (forever), asking Steam (or whichever outlet) for a refund, and/or giving bad reviews because the game is too confusing.

Yes, I agree that games should be complex. I also agree that finding the perfect balance of complexity in a game and story is what makes or breaks the long-term playability.  However, if you throw a gamer into the deep end without a tutorial phase, most gamers will throw up their hands and quit.

Having said all that, I know that the game is in pre-alpha phase or whatever, and I paid to see the game the way it is. This is a post in a Suggestions & Feedback forum, not an official review or complaint.  I'd reserve those for the fully-released game.

You could absolutely ask the beginning player (i.e. a player that has never played the game before, has no save-games, etc.) if they wanted an in-depth tutorial.  "We see that you may not have played this game before! Would you like a tutorial?"

The tutorial could be in-world, or it could be in a specific tutorial-world, so you can still have the "new world smell" after the tutorial. The benefit of a pre-world tutorial is that you could have a pre-built tutorial world that works 100% with the step-by-step lessons.  You could even have pre-built dupes that do very specific things, so you could explain why it's a good idea to have a +7 Vomiter or whatever.  :)

But, yeah, larger text for the tutorial, arrows pointing to stuff to mine, and a step-by-step "this is how you build your first outhouse!"  It wasn't at all intuitive. Honestly, if the game is all about digging, I think digging should be something I don't have to use a shortcut key for. It should just be the default.  Or perhaps I could click on a dupe, and then right-click, and select "dig" to put them into "dig mode." Then when I click them and drag them to something to dig, they just dig.

I played the game once, couldn't even figure out how to get the electricity going, and everyone died.  Had there been a decent tutorial, I might have at least got the lights on.

Hope this is helpful?

Thanks!

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As an aside, I've played the Civilization series of games for decades.  The way they guide you through setting up your first settlement is perfection. It's probably one of the reasons why so many people like the game. Also, every game I've played in the past few decades (Skyrim, Deus Ex, Fallout, Mass Effect, Borderlands) all have massive tutorial sections/segments/acts, where you're guided to learn how to walk, talk, jump, shoot, crouch. The best tutorials don't tell you what to do - they put you into the action and when you hit an obstacle, it tells you "Press X to crouch" or "Press A to vomit" and you are forced to do it in order to continue the game. In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, after talking with your boss, he gives you a keycode to enter his private elevator.  You have do that before you can more forward. Then there's crouching, opening vents, and eventually combat. All explained in loving detail.  I'm thinking this game needs something like that.

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Going furher in the saltiness of the day, I personally think that tutorials are the most boring stuff in modern videogames. The total lack of it is the most enjoyable thing i found in DS and ONI.

The style of both games is about trial and error. And again, i can't love it more the way it is.

Please don't take this as a personal attack, I woke up as a cynic and molest person today.

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3 hours ago, DuraLex said:

Going furher in the saltiness of the day, I personally think that tutorials are the most boring stuff in modern videogames. The total lack of it is the most enjoyable thing i found in DS and ONI.

I'm guessing you're young, underemployed, living in your parents' basement, with plenty of time on your hands?  :)  (Please don't take this as a personal attack.)

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4 hours ago, Amarand said:

I'm guessing you're young, underemployed, living in your parents' basement, with plenty of time on your hands?  

 

I'm none of those things and just find the lack of tutorial and having to figure things out on my own to be one of the fun parts of the game.  To each their own.

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22 hours ago, DuraLex said:

Going furher in the saltiness of the day, I personally think that tutorials are the most boring stuff in modern videogames. The total lack of it is the most enjoyable thing i found in DS and ONI.

The style of both games is about trial and error. And again, i can't love it more the way it is.

Please don't take this as a personal attack, I woke up as a cynic and molest person today.

my least favorite things in online games today is people spamming chat with questions on how to do things covered in the tutorial. these are the same people who think that tutorials are lame and don't help then proceed to spend 150times the amount of time it would have taken to go through the tutorial or read a wiki to spam idiotic questions at people and then get mad when people call them noobs and tell them to use the tutorial

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19 hours ago, Amarand said:

I'm guessing you're young, underemployed, living in your parents' basement, with plenty of time on your hands?  :)  (Please don't take this as a personal attack.)

Which clearly is. But being the bigger boy ain't an easy role.

Moving on, I admit I didn't express my opinion in the finest way. It has been a long time since I last joined a forum, so I may actually have lost some of the netiquette required.

Then, I'm gonna spend my very limited free time by writing an appropriate answer instead of playing a game I've fallen in love with.

 

Which is part of the love, I guess.

 

On 6/3/2017 at 6:59 PM, Amarand said:

I feel like, with any game, there should be a super-easy, guided (i.e. step-by-step) tutorial phase.

I simply do not agree, especially on the "with any game" part.

Don't Starve, which is another astonishing game from Klei that I strongly encourage you playing, comprehends two line of tutorial.

Briefly, "Get up, and go get some food. Night will be dangerous". They don't actually tell you that night part if not vaguely, but still it's something you can't avoid learning as soon as the night comes.

On 6/3/2017 at 6:59 PM, Amarand said:

I know that there's supposed to be this vibe of "you've been dumped here, you don't know where you are, or why you're here" with a somewhat helpful "so maybe you should start digging?"  It's funny but....

Well, the little room you start in is really small, you can't avoid but agreeing on that. So that is kinda the very first thing you should consider doing.

I admit it, on the very first run there are a LOT of options, but still, how can you avoid noticing the Dig command, which is the first (and only) thing they suggested you MIGHT want to do? Even after furiously smashing every single keyboard digit and mouse button, ANYBODY would have come to this elementary board, which, spoiler alert, allows you to give your Duplicants stuff to do.2017-03-07 19_10_10-Oxygen Not Included.png

On 6/3/2017 at 6:59 PM, Amarand said:

I feel like I was lost in the beginning.

You are lost. That's the whole point of the game. You are on a far far away asteroid, and you dont even know how did you get there. For being such a tutorial fan, flame alert ,you really don't gather infos when they are proposed, uh?

On 6/3/2017 at 6:59 PM, Amarand said:

Tutorial stuff should be big on the screen. With arrows pointing to stuff. And maybe guided to the point where it gets things somewhat established?

Yeah, that's what tutorials usually do. I still consider the lack of it a way to encourage any age people to play the game the way they want, with the discovery steps one is first attracted to. It is the final form of videoludic freedom, especially when we speak of "things somewhat established". It's a videogame. Leave my head free of how do you (not you, Amarand, but the hypothetical videogame developer stuffing the first 45 minutes of my experience with careful advices about how should I press the "A" button in whatever situation I'm in. The action will be context-dependent anyways. This whole intro could have been a way cooler CG scene.) think things would be established. I'll establish things the very way they are more pleasant to me.

On 6/3/2017 at 6:59 PM, Amarand said:

For example: telling me that I don't have enough oxygen is cool, I guess, but showing me how to install a low-level oxygen generator (or how to mine for oxygen?) would be better.

2017-03-07 20_10_20-Oxygen Not Included.png

And you seriously didn't even take an educated guess?

On 6/3/2017 at 6:59 PM, Amarand said:

 I'm a brand-new player.  Everyone else will be a brand-new player too.  Making things easier for brand-new players will mean fewer folks putting the game up on the shelf (forever), asking Steam (or whichever outlet) for a refund, and/or giving bad reviews because the game is too confusing.

I think that, subtle flame alert, the game would be clear for any brand-new reader.

On 6/3/2017 at 6:59 PM, Amarand said:

 However, if you throw a gamer into the deep end without a tutorial phase, most gamers will throw up their hands and quit.

Laughable opinion. Just saying.

 

On 6/3/2017 at 6:59 PM, Amarand said:

I played the game once

I lost any interest in quoting further more as soon as I noticed this particular sentence. I will just flag your idea of videogames as the saddest one I've ever witnessed, and be a more sad person myself.

I had tons of examples, I actually had an essay in mind. You simply killed it.

I didn't even cover the  civilization thing, and rejoyce for their tutorial being the main reason people love that game so much. There is actually not that much on the table, beside the anachronism of Gandhi being a warlord. That tutorial must be gold.

 

@tehMugwump I've failed you once again. I submit to the mercy of the court.

If I might have one last wish, please let me still post in the bug tracker.

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5 hours ago, DuraLex said:

2017-03-07 20_10_20-Oxygen Not Included.png

 

And you seriously didn't even take an educated guess?

I think that, subtle flame alert, the game would be clear for any brand-new reader.

Laughable opinion. Just saying.

It wasn't apparent the first time I played the game that Oxygen was the first priority and now that I've spun up a second game, I can see that I can roll over the tiles and easily find enough kg of Raw Metal close to the starting point to build an Algae Deoxidizer. But you would think - and perhaps I'm not alone in this assertion - that a game would have a tutorial that would basically step you through the basics of the game.  Not just "Dig!" but "Here are some priorities.  Perhaps you should focus on X first?"  Again, I have played a lot of games over the decades, and I can tell you that the games that I've enjoyed have stepped me through the interface, the world, and the basics.

 

5 hours ago, DuraLex said:

I didn't even cover the  civilization thing, and rejoyce for their tutorial being the main reason people love that game so much. There is actually not that much on the table, beside the anachronism of Gandhi being a warlord. That tutorial must be gold.

@tehMugwump

All I know is, Civilization is one of the most wildly acclaimed games, ever. With several sequels and a rabid fan base.  Each game starts with a fantastic, and very useful, tutorial.  (Cite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(video_game)#Legacy )

I'm not saying that your way is wrong.  Some people love to explore, with zero up-front information.  I'm also not claiming that the game currently offers zero information up-front, nor that it doesn't offer any form of tutorial.  I think any tutorial should be offered (with the option to decline) to any first-time player.  That way, folks who prefer to fly by the seat of their pants may do so, and those who prefer a little more information before diving into the deep end can get a little training.

There are as many styles of game play as there are game players. I do not assert that any one style of game play is right or wrong. But I do feel that as a player, my preference is to have a quick walkthrough/training. I do not enjoy playing, then dying. Then playing again, and dying less.  Then playing a third time, and perhaps giving up out of frustration.

You see, it's not just the Oxygen icon that's the problem. It's the fact that there's a huge wall of information and UI scattered into four corners of the heads up display, and I have literally no idea where my attention should be at any given time. Not to mention, I start out with three critters that I have to personally control in the center, and it's not clearly obvious how to make them do things.

Yes, I eventually figured out some of it, but it felt uncomfortable. Maybe games are supposed to make us feel uncomfortable? But I always thought that games were supposed to be enjoyable, and my day job was supposed to be the hard part?

Seriously, though, let's talk empirical evidence: how many popular games can you name that don't have some sort of tutorial portion in Act One? I'm not talking about 20 minutes of forced cut scenes in Gear Metal before you can control your guy.  I'm talking about a little exposition, mixed with metered game interface exploration, and perhaps interaction with other characters?

I've read a few books over the years on game design and story. I feel like I have a little bit of experience with games. Because this game is in alpha, and this board is for "Suggestions and Feedback," creating a topic requesting a "Better Tutorial Phase" seems both germane and helpful.

Will I be a little sad if the game releases without a better tutorial?  Sure.  If it succeeds, I'll be super happy.

I also don't want to be a jerk.  I played Don't Starve on and off for a few weeks.  But instead of giving my opinion, I will cite Wikipedia again:

"Critics universally acknowledged, but gave mixed opinions on, the game's high level of difficulty."

(Cite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Starve )

I felt that game's high level of difficulty over, and over, and over again. It was frustrating.  I can tell you that I spent six hours playing that game, I removed it from my PC, and it hasn't been installed since.  There are so many things to love about the game, but it was so difficult, I decided it wasn't worth investing additional time to master.

Take the other, AAA games that I've played over the years, and which I've completed multiple times.  These had adjustable difficulty levels. I usually play FPS RPGs on "Normal" settings or higher, because the tutorial/lead up is enough for me. But if a game is really challenging, or lacks a proper tutorial, knowing I can back off the difficulty makes a game better for people like me.

I think it's in the developer's best interest - for any game really - to consider the game's widest audience.  If they can spend some resources building a good tutorial, and perhaps allowing users to select a difficulty level (I'd start by setting it to "Easy" for sure, just until I got the hang of it), that'd be great.

Life is about Flow. Games, jobs, vacations, hobbies. If things are too easy, we get bored. If they are too challenging, we get frustrated and give up. This is human nature. There's a perfect psychological balance between "too easy" and "too hard" where players just eat the game up, devoting hundreds or thousands of hours worth of immersive game play, taken away from the crappy world that many of us can't control, and are dropped into a similarly crappy world we -can- control.

With this post, I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm trying to be helpful, give feedback, and receive my own.

I apologize for the slight.  That was uncalled for.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

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On 3/6/2017 at 6:35 PM, tehMugwump said:

@Amarand, thanks for the post.  I'd guess we'll see some kind of tutorial down the road (if nothing else, there's always youtube!).

 

I've been finding myself using Youtube more, recently, whenever I get really stuck in a game. However, opening up another window pulls folks out of immersion, which might not be the best thing?

 

On 3/6/2017 at 6:35 PM, tehMugwump said:

Good thing about tutorials that some may find boring: You can skip them. ;)

Yup! In most games, you can totally skip them. Sometimes it's as simple as the player intentionally ignoring the tutorial beasts and doing your own thing (like in Fallout 4) or it's just a simple pop-up that asks if you want to play the tutorial or dive straight in. With most games, I always assume the tutorial is useful (it usually is the first time 'round), but I'm glad when I can just ignore it.

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12 hours ago, Amarand said:

It wasn't apparent the first time I played the game that Oxygen was the first priority...

  Not just "Dig!" but "Here are some priorities.  Perhaps you should focus on X first?" 

W-w-wait. Y-you can't be serious. The game is literally called "Oxygen not included".

 

12 hours ago, Amarand said:

I also don't want to be a jerk.  I played Don't Starve on and off for a few weeks.  But instead of giving my opinion, I will cite Wikipedia again:

"Critics universally acknowledged, but gave mixed opinions on, the game's high level of difficulty."

(Cite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Starve )

And by the same page:

Most notably, at one point during development, Klei wanted to add quests to the existing open gameplay. Klei shelved this idea when they realized that "having external goals is extremely counter to what is fun about the game." Nevertheless, Klei co-founder Jamie Cheng has emphasized that Klei values the freedom to try different approaches that being tied to a major publisher would not afford them.

I admit I was wrong about comparing ONI and DS, by the mean that, always from the Wikipedia page:

[Sliva said] Don't Starve will never, ever hold your hand, and I both love it and hate it for that.

In ONI, every item has a description of what resource do you need to build, what does it need to work, what effects the item will have and what output it will produce, plus a serious and a hyronic description. Cmon, that's more than enough hand holding.

Plus, the game will have a huuuuuuge over-detailed wiki anyway, I don't think I'm wrong about it. Developing a tutorial after designing such an informative UI and knowing the user love for wikis is just a waste of resources.

 

12 hours ago, Amarand said:

I think it's in the developer's best interest - for any game really - to consider the game's widest audience.  If they can spend some resources building a good tutorial, and perhaps allowing users to select a difficulty level (I'd start by setting it to "Easy" for sure, just until I got the hang of it), that'd be great.

The game will most likely have some world generation settings, to let everyone customize respurces and stuff on their own asteroid.

 

12 hours ago, Amarand said:

Also, I used alt-tab to switch over to this post, and all of my critters died. I wonder if the game should pause when it's not in the foreground?

The game shouldn't do anything on its own. You are the chief of everything in here.

 

12 hours ago, Amarand said:

 I do not enjoy playing, then dying. Then playing again, and dying less.  Then playing a third time, and perhaps giving up out of frustration.

This is like joining on a Tetris forum saying "Yo what's all this hype about square-shaped blocks? I don't see the point. What about some balls instead?".

Just play Puzzle Bubble.

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1 hour ago, Masterpintsman said:

That was a funny video.  A good example of the oversimplification fallacy:

https://www.thoughtco.com/oversimplification-and-exaggeration-fallacies-3968441

What I'm asking for is a skippable tutorial mode, which familiarizes the player with a game play system which is non-standard. The fact that it's skippable means that every single one of the players here who are saying "I don't want a tutorial!!! LOL!" (or something to that effect) can easily press "No thank you!" and they will never be bothered by that again.

I don't need hand-holding in a FPS/RPG because these game genres have a history of standardization (standardized controls, conventions for inventory control, picking up items, running), and because the games' "languages" are similar, a user can pick up the game and know where they need to be, what they need to do, at any given time. You're given way points and, if enabled, hints.  NPCs will guide you along your way. Task and objective markers show up in the world and on the map. In some of these games, setting the difficulty to "hard" disables maps, way points, and tips.  If you want the game to be challenging, change it to a more challenging setting. I've already recommended that the game have that.  But for a new game, one that is brand new, without a lot of common conventions in use, a new UI, different controls, and especially with the time factor involved, I think a lot of players - the -average- player - is going to want to slow things down a bit for the first playthrough until they get the hang of it.

Again: if you make anything too challenging for the individual player, they will get frustrated and give up, asking for a refund. If you make it too easy for the player, they will get bored, stop playing, and ask for a refund. This is why the best way to find flow in any situation is to start off easy, and ramp up on the difficulty level until you reach that peak challenge.

I don't think anyone can claim that ONI is fully intuitive out of the box. I assert that without a tutorial, non-intuitive might mean that the average player could quickly become frustrated, and give up, potentially give a bad review of the game, and telling their friends not to bother buying and/or playing. A bad review (or word of mouth), especially in the beginning of the game's sales cycle, might mean people skipping over it, even if the deficiency is resolved/met in a future version. It's critical, therefore, to get it right before release, otherwise, your game will be plagued by people talking crap about how hard the game is, even if they bolt on a tutorial and make an easy mode later on. The damage has been done. There are rarely do-overs in this marketplace.  It's very hard for a game to overcome a series of bad first impressions/reviews.

Indie games are great. They aren't AAA games, and I understand that there's a sense of "we can do whatever we want!" And that's true, to some extent, especially if the developer doesn't care if the game sells.  Some folks are out simply for the art of it all. I don't sense Klei wants to develop a game that is viewed as "too hard" by the majority of customers.  If you get enough bad reviews by Steam, a professional game reviewer, or word-of-mouth, you'll be dead in the water.

As I've mentioned before, there are many ways to handle a tutorial: you can:

1) Have tutorial worlds (that could be as simple for the user as a check-mark box or a "Would you like to try the tutorial world first, just to figure things out?")

2) Include a tutorial "section" at the beginning of Act One, where you simply show the person what to do, step-by-step, guiding the new player in how to get started, what the people need, how to give it to them.  Again, this could be a simple option that an advanced player (or a player seeking an additional challenge) could simply skip.

3) Include an easier section at the beginning of every game which may or may not explain things step-by-step, but which gives you enough time and resources to figure things out.  Most of the extremely popular AAA games use this option, where it's not all exposition, and you feel like you're playing the game, but you're really just taking a guided, FUN tutorial.  NPCs will take you out back, and have you shoot at bottles on the fence (Fallout: New Vegas), the doctor will have you walk around to make sure your legs are still working (same game), or you may have an easy beginner's mission where someone sends you from point A to point B to flip a switch, killing maybe one or two low-powered critters along the way.

Personally, I think ONI would be best served by a tutorial, which shows you what you need to do, until you get a livable situation with the three critters you have.  Game designers clearly have a hierarchy of needs for their player characters.  Yes, "Oxygen" is right there in the name, so you'd think that would be the number one, first priority. But then there's food, and sleep, and water, and what happens when you hit some poisonous air, and then where do you put the dirt, and so on, and so forth. This game starts out too challenging, as it stands.  I've already mentioned a few times that I realize the game is in alpha, and that I'm sure there will be tweaks between now and full release. However, if the tutorial isn't being designed into the game, it will end up potentially feeling "bolted on" and artificial, which will be a complaint by end users and reviewers.

The best tutorials don't feel like tutorials.

I wonder why this is such a polarizing opinion/request?

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6 hours ago, DuraLex said:

This is like joining on a Tetris forum saying "Yo what's all this hype about square-shaped blocks? I don't see the point. What about some balls instead?".

Just play Puzzle Bubble.

I love Tetris. There is nothing ambiguous about the game Tetris. It's simple, with seven pieces, that move downward from the top. When you create a line of tiles across the screen, that line disappears, giving you more space to play. Difficulty is controlled by the game by increasing the pace at which the pieces fall.  Aside from graphic frippery, sound effects, music and "unplayable" areas of the screen to make things more challenging, that's pretty much the extent of Tetris.  Yet it's super addictive and fun to play. Everyone I know has, at one point, loved Tetris and many people still do.

Comparing Tetris' game play to ONI's game play is like comparing floating a boat in your tub and commanding an actual battleship on the ocean. Not that ONI is as complex as commanding a battleship, mind you, but the comparison still stands.  ONI is not an easy game, and I think that for new players, "easy" should be an available option.  (I'm also saying that "dump me into the deep end" should also be an available option for those who would like an extreme challenge.)

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6 hours ago, DuraLex said:

The game shouldn't do anything on its own. You are the chief of everything in here.

I don't think there's a single game on the market that I know of that doesn't stop/pause whenever you alt-tab away from it.  There's no value in having a game run full-screen minimized in the background. Especially a survival game, where time + ignoring the UI = death.

True, playing windowed mode like a Tamagotchi might be cool.  But if you alt-tab away from a game in full-screen mode, that game should pause game play. Or that should be the default behavior, with the option to allow for blind minimized play. Not even sure why someone would want that.

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1 hour ago, Amarand said:

I don't think there's a single game on the market that I know of that doesn't stop/pause whenever you alt-tab away from it.  There's no value in having a game run full-screen minimized in the background. Especially a survival game, where time + ignoring the UI = death.

True, playing windowed mode like a Tamagotchi might be cool.  But if you alt-tab away from a game in full-screen mode, that game should pause game play. Or that should be the default behavior, with the option to allow for blind minimized play. Not even sure why someone would want that.

Press space to pause the game before you alt-tab. That's your own fault there.

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I eventually got around to reading this PDF by the developers:

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=101050

Here's a quote that caught my eye (regarding Don't Starve):

We just present you with a prominent, navigable list of crafting recipes, and we kill you if you get caught outside for too long without a light source. Oh, and we also delete your saved game, because we’re kinda mean.

Eek.  Now I realize why I felt so unhappy while playing Don't Starve and eventually gave up playing the game.  It was designed in an apparently openly player-hostile way. Wow....

I worry that too much of this player-hostile attitude might be applied to ONI, leaving a certain subset of your future customers just as frustrated.  Am I wrong?  Way off base?  I still feel that games should be fun, and that they should ease you into game play, especially in the beginning.  If anything starts off too difficult, people will feel uncomfortable, and not have fun.

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On 3/8/2017 at 6:37 PM, Kael_Rus said:

Press space to pause the game before you alt-tab. That's your own fault there.

Games know when they are no longer in the foreground. Although it's trivial to set a "pause when in background" switch in options, it's the default behavior in most (all?) games I've ever played.  I think it's a valid point to consider. I shouldn't have to click pause or press space bar before I alt-tab away.

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