There are plenty of video guides an youtube... in game you can read the manual , and figure it out... ;)

And by plenty you mean like 6 videos in the last few weeks?

Originally posted by Andrei FR-EN:

And by plenty you mean like 6 videos in the last few weeks?

How many do you need I only needed 1

The tutorial is a series of tooltips and popups that doesn't give you nearly enough information to either move your city or start a battle. Apparently it's like this by design.

Originally posted by sEver:

The tutorial is a series of tooltips and popups that doesn't give you nearly enough information to either move your city or start a battle. Apparently it's like this by design.

True and true.

I feel like a mild tutorial that tell you to equip your first mech and how to send it to battle would help a lot to attract more players.

There are tutorials out on steam and youtube that should get one ready to play the game in 20-30 min.

To be fair, I feel like most players are either willing to try stuff out on their own, but more likely, are willing to look some stuff up sooner or later anyways. Be it a tutorial, lets play, wiki or whatever.

So does it really hurt that much to invest 20 minutes in a video and try out the demo afterwards?

Originally posted by sercher:

Originally posted by sEver:

The tutorial is a series of tooltips and popups that doesn't give you nearly enough information to either move your city or start a battle. Apparently it's like this by design.

True and true.

I feel like a mild tutorial that tell you to equip your first mech and how to send it to battle would help a lot to attract more players.

There are tutorials out on steam and youtube that should get one ready to play the game in 20-30 min.

To be fair, I feel like most players are either willing to try stuff out on their own, but more likely, are willing to look some stuff up sooner or later anyways. Be it a tutorial, lets play, wiki or whatever.

So does it really hurt that much to invest 20 minutes in a video and try out the demo afterwards?

The game already does that indirectly by giving you 3 unassembled mechs at the start so if you want to get them going you have to assemble them and there's no time pressure.

Yeah but I feel like the start of a new game was so overwhelming, that a general idea of the gameplay loop was missing. Or some pointers to the different buttons you have to press.
It is hard to think back on what it is exactly...

Something like: equip your mech, put a pilot in it, click on the map, put mech in squad, Fight.
I know most of the info on how and what to do is in the manual, but its hard reading this much text without having a feel for the game.

One plays a game to play a game, not to study on youtube for half an hour how to play a game.
The information still needs to be provided, and it should be provided in-game.

It's industry standard to have a step-by-step in-game tutorial. I've seen ME on some instagram ad from Microprose and the general vibe of the UI and the shooting mayhem felt great, but once I started up the demo, I had a hard time figuring out what to do.

Why is there a switch in the Calendar tab?
Why is the city map like that?
Why can't I upgrade a thing?
The "no hand holding" sentence is just another words for "the dev doesn't know how to effectively share information".

I hope it gets better with time, cause I'm going to play it, but at this time, this is a really nice game with a surprisingly unhelpful UI and a lacking tutorial.

Originally posted by Mr.Psyker:

I just figured out how to see the code language or whatever. To me games are survival tools. If I am not getting something useful out of it, its not a real game. This game has inspired me to learn to mod. The complaining has fueled my drive. Anyone else interested in moding PM me. I am just getting started so any help would be great!

Sounds great!
You should join the discord channel if you haven't already, as there is a mods discussion channel where the dev tries to help out.

Originally posted by sEver:

One plays a game to play a game, not to study on youtube for half an hour how to play a game.

How do you want to play the game not knowing the rules? How do you want to learn the rules other than reading the manual or learning them from someone else? Is this the first game you ever played in your life or something?

It's industry standard to have a step-by-step in-game tutorial.

No, it's triple-A schlock standard to have a step-by-step in-game tutorial. You're welcome to go back to playing that if you cannot read or even listen.

Gotta say that I've just played my first battle and the guiding is good enough. Popup window at the beginning literally tells you to assemble the mechs, assign pilots to them and go into battle then there is a mention of guide book that provides more details. So I did what popups told me to do, consulting the book on how to do it and it all worked out.

The book text is pretty dry, sometimes unclear and could use some more illustrations but it's enough as is.

I believe the dev intended mechanics discovery to be a part of the game instead of being laid out, so that's why there is no and probably will not be any hand holding. It's a genre which I like very much

There's a manual if you click the question mark in the top left.

I found it incomprehensible and refunded it after just a few minutes. Even the tutorial and pop-up buttons themselves didn't make sense. When there weren't pop-ups or tutorials in my first game I tried a new game with the levers in the other position. There weren't any tutorials or pop-ups no matter which way the levers for them were toggled in either of the games.

And then I just have a window saying something is approaching a city. Which city? What is approaching? Just based on the position on the map it doesn't look like it's coming towards the base location that I picked. Why do I care, what is even happening? So I click on the window, and there's another window with a big red battle button. It feels a bit early to be in a battle, but okay I assume I have to click that... nothing happened. Oh wait there's a picture of a mouse with the right mouse button showing, maybe I need to right click the red battle button instead of left click. No... still nothing. Apparently the big red button just does nothing.

Okay on the left side of the screen I see I have 3 guys, and there are two outlines next to them. Maybe I need to drag them over onto the outlines... but no, that doesn't do anything either. Even though I don't know why I'm doing anything, it would have been nice if something at least worked or gave any kind of feedback.

I find it hard to believe there's even a game here.

Originally posted by Devoras:

I find it hard to believe there's even a game here.

The game works pretty well, acrually.

It is probably best that you refunded it. I get the distinct feeling that the game is a poor fit for you.

However, for the sake of argument, there are many examples of youtube videos on how to start a campaign and the basics of the game.

Edit: Links seem to not work for me....

Do you guys self-combust when you try to play a boardgame? Obviously in-game tutorials are good but putting in a little time to learn how to play is hardly a crime against gaming.