Topic

Bloated text in initial onboarding

So much text!  Text is boring!  Don't want to read, want to explore and start interacting.  Should be so simple that don't need the text, or very minimal text.  Was interesting to see a 9 year old play video games the other day... he just clicked through all prompts without reading, couldn't be bothered to read because it wasn't fun.  Then when the game grew difficult, he didn't know what to do.  Glitch should avoid this problem by ramping the user up with simple interactions and remove all barriers to exploration. The text just slows things down, is boring, and should be rendered unnecessary through interaction.

Posted 16 months ago by green lantern horn Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • If the Devs decide to market the game towards 9 year olds with low attention spans anytime soon, that'll be a great idea :)
    Of course if they ever do market the game to 9 year olds with no attention spans, they may well loose a large portion of their current userbase. 

    Personally I don't find text boring and I don't find reading boring. 
    I strongly believe that all games should not cater for the lowest common denominator. Personally I'd rather people were encouraged to drag themselves up instead of feeling pushed down. Anyhow, that's just me.  
    Posted 16 months ago by Ebil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Then when the game grew difficult, he didn't know what to do.

    Yep, that would create problems here on Glitch.  Perhaps it's just as well that people who don't want to read text find out early on that it's a big part of Glitch. 

    Glitch is an adult game, according to the developers and the company behind Glitch.
    Posted 16 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Should be so simple that don't need the text, or very minimal text.

    Yeah, no thanks. I don't want this to be a "Walk around! Make new friends! Use minimal brain energy!" kind of game, and I think most of the current userbase would agree.
    Posted 16 months ago by Cupcake Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's an interesting thought, though.  While I think having the minimum patience to read dialog boxes and notes is pretty important to getting Glitch, I've seen some good tutorials that minimize stop-and-read-before-you-do-anything. 

    But the ones I've seen -- they do it by invoking an audio conversation (accompanied by subtitle text if you miss anything) with a companion character.  So there's still words involved. You have a choice as to whether you want to listen, read, or both.

    We could digress here into a long-winded discussion of learning styles (visual, auditory, tactile) which might explain why audio + text is effective. 
    Posted 16 months ago by Lelu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's not clear from the anecdote whether the 9-year-old was even playing Glitch.
    Posted 16 months ago by MacGuffin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Part of what makes Glitch "Glitch" is the very well written, clever text. You are missing out if you aren't reading it.
    Posted 16 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink