Things that need a tutorial from Gary or else people won't understand

How about we collect things from other threads? Ahem . . .

"So it looks like you're having fun with all these adventures. If you want to go back to an old one and replay it for experience, I can dig the module back out of my pile. Just wait until . . . "

"Item cost in gold is based on . . . "

"Hey, that item has some pretty good cards on it! You can tell by the color of the title bar. Black is the weakest . . . " (Assuming they even continue using black.)

"This is a Step card: that's a Move and an Attack in one! But be careful, because once you start moving, you're committed to making the attack--even if the only target around is an ally!" (An aside: I think the destination overlay should just not show you squares where you are forced to attack an ally. A player could instead control-click on the card to open those options.)

"Hey, that character just got one too many effects attached to it, so I removed the oldest from play. I don't allow more than three attachments at one time."

What else?

 

These look great!

"Looks like you will have to discard your oldest card to play this one: remember, your hand is sorted on a new-to-old, left-to-right basis..." (i know, same old, but i'm not in yet so i'm making this up from other users' posts )

 

I would personally still like to see some kind of a resolve order tutorial both for ground effects attachments and both at the same time to make it clear.

 

I wholehartedly agree with pengw1n and considering its a browser game having a list of tutorials and then links to youtube shouldn't be hard.

 

There is technically a series of "Help" files in the game, but they need filling out.

Another thought for Gary:

"Awesome, you got your first bronze talent! You might not have seen what happened: when you leveled-up, I changed one of the clear talents on this character to a bronze talent. With it, you can . . . "

And I think this needs revision:

"Blocks get played automatically when the owner is attacked from any direction except behind."

This text, minus the modifier, appears automatically when you click a Block. It looks like it was copied from the text you get for Armor, lacking the italicized addition I put there.

 

Double post because I think I had a better idea:

"Blocks get played automatically when the owner is attacked from the front or side. Mouse over a figure to see what tiles the figure is facing: these appear in light green."

Related to that:

"You can't play this card because there are no targets in the owner's line of sight. Point at a card to see your options. You can plan your moves in advance by doing a similar thing for your target: point at a figure to see facing (light green) and line of sight in general (any green)."

But if there are unusual targets in range, a second tutorial tip might pop up afterward:

"You may override normal targeting and use this card on an ally/enemy [as appropriate] by holding the 'control' key when you click the card."

 

Not really a issue but i think you generally say mouse over not point at. I might also be misunderstanding you in which case i remove my correction.

 

No problem with using that. I swap back and forth between which I use: "mouse over" may be intuitive to me, but people with less computer literacy would rather hear a variant on "use the mouse to point at."

 

I'd say: Dual Ability Cards. I.e. cards like Bad Medicine or Misguided Heal.

Bad Medicine says it "heals 2, poisons 2", it's kind of hard to tell if it's both that will occur to you or if it's one of the two (with a 50% chance).

Are people just supposed to try them and find out for themselves?

 

I think that there's not much they could say to help. A list of instructions is, by default, implemented all the way through. And certainly with a card like Misguided Heal, the name alone gives you the intuition that something good AND something bad is going to happen.

And if that doesn't convince you, consider: what would Gary say, and when would he say it? "If a card tells you something is going to happen, then it's going to happen," popping up when you play your first card ever? I'm not really exaggerating with the "first card ever" thing, by the way, as there are single-color cards like Arcane Feedback that likewise are confusing if you don't read them literally.

(By the way: it may sound like I'm mocking your concern. I am not.)

 

Another one is " You can't stack the effect of the same card more that once" Example the burning effect of fire spray (I learn that for the hard way -,-")

 

Ooh, yes. Three attachments total, similar effects are okay, but no copies of the SAME card allowed. Probably best to give a summary the very first time something's attached.

 

This is a great thread and very helpful. I'm going to make a note of all these suggestions. Keep them coming!

 

Another is "if something is already attached to a terrain you can override the attachment with another one nullifying the first one" or somenthing like that

 

Right, right. I'd forgotten about the other type of attachment.

With that in mind, what other kinds of game mechanics are there? Anything that is explained (adequately) with a keyword on a card isn't a concern; neither is anything that's difficult now but supposedly will be improved (e.g., targeting a Spray attack).

I guess one thing that could help would be a note about Block cards and friendly fire. It would have to trigger in a specific circumstance, but might be valuable: "See how your card hurt your teammate even though there was a Block in hand? Blocks don't trigger on 'friendly fire.' Armor, however, triggers as usual."

I'm trying to figure out if there could/should be an equivalent statement for "beneficial cards played on the enemy trigger Blocks," but it's just not coming to me.

 

See the goblin over there hold control and press heal to cast heal on him... trust me. See how he blocked it? Your enemies don't know what magic you are throwing their way so they will try to block all of it good or bad.

 

Heh, you know, that sounds like Gary's got an attitude. And he likes to mess with the player. "Yeah, totally, cast Heal on one of my units! It'll be great!"

I don't know what they plan for Gary in the full release, but I hope he does some fun stuff.

 

Well i would personally find it funny if he sounded like he was tricking you and then was like nah just tricking you about tricking you double psyke!