Firstly at the start I created a cube to block out other distractions for the player so they could get to speed with the game. Then after this I explained to the player through the text at the beginning that they will be going towards a planet. However after a number of play tests some of my thoughts were confirmed. The introduction at the beginning was way too long, it had the important information in there but it has too much back ground info in it. For example I would explain the federation of miners logo that is at the top of the screen.
To fix this I removed most of the text that contained background information and it tells the player there is a planet in the system and the player most ravel to it.
The second part was the ordering is objects in the scene. Initially the player goes to a planet and then they are told lots of information about how to mine the planet and a planet's mass drains over a period of time. When explaining this I was info dumping to the player where I should have gradually brought elements into the game.
I fixed this by re-ordering how the in game objects appear. After the introduction text appears and the player has read it, they can press the "Continue" button to remove the dialog intro text box.
The player can see the ship in the centre of the screen and there is a blue fuel bar in the bottom left corner of the screen. Also there is a planet in the distance of the players view that is glowing green and has a yellow arrow pointing at it.
After a few seconds some text appears above the ship quickly telling the player how to move. After the player has moved for a few seconds the text disappears, (unfortunately it is a bit delayed and some times it is not removed after the player does this but I'm working on the bug).
After after the player's fuel has drained so they have one third of it left, they are told their fuel is low and a purple trader ship appears. Four arrows around the trader ring ship also appear and they are pointing to it to help the player work our where they have to go.
When the player is refuelling they will freeze (in the tutorial only). The player must go into the force field in the middle and stay in order for the transaction to take place. When the fuel is going in blue particles from the trader ship move towards the player ship, the blue HUD fuel bar increases in size, and text appears above it saying, "You are now refuelling". This can been seen in the image below. As you can see in the the picture the bar pulses in opacity when being interacted with. Many players found this confusing because they didn't know if it was still relevant to the game since it nearly disappears. Due to this reason I will make sure the bar stays solid through out the game to avoid this confusion.
Once the player is fully refuelled and exits the ship through the other end, the ship and arrows disappear. Then the "player is refuelling" text is replaced with a message saying "You are fully refuelled, continue to planet". Many players like this feature because they are then aware their fuel tank has been fully refuelled, as well as it being show visually by the head up display fuel bar.
After this the player is told to continue to the next planet, also the arrow pointing to the planet is still there. This has made it easier for players because after the trader disappears it makes it clearer for the player where to go to because all of the unneeded stuff has been hidden away from the player so they will not be confused, like the trader after it has been used. With the arrow above the planet, originally I removed it after introducing the trader as to not clutter the screen. However due to this many players thought they didn't know if they still had to travel to the planet any more and became confused. In order to fix this I made the sure the arrow was visible and was animated above the planet (bobbing up and down to grab the player's attention), to show the player they still have to go there, as well as added the text in the picture below. This is like a little reminder for the player as to what the main objective after they have completed a mini task in the game.
I have also kept the text near the HUD bar so the player knows the information is related to said item.
When the player is near enough to the planet, this activates a trigger that starts the mining mechanic. The yellow arrow above the planet is removed because it's not needed any more since the player is at the planet any how.
When the player is mining the planet as particle system inside the planet activates firing green particles towards the player ship at a rapid pace. About half a second after this starts the green ship mass bar (above the blue fuel bar) appears. This demonstrates the mass cargo holding capacity of the player ship. Along with the bar appearing, some text also shows up, describing to the player, they are mining a planet. I made sure the delays between these two actions was about 0.5 seconds because firstly I don't want to show the player too many things going on at once. Secondly if the delay is two slow, many players did not see the connections between the two items. With this the player sees one action occurring and ask's "What is this?", then the player is quickly told what is going on just after said action is occurring. Along with this, the green bar increases in size as the player is ming the planet and the bar itself pulses, indicating the player is receiving something important grabbing the player's attention.
Another note: When an action is happening, I temporally prevent the player from turning the ship or moving. this is so the player knows what is going on and does not move away from an area when receiving instructions about it.
Another note: When I tested this mechanic on several players, any of them thought the mining process and any transactions the player performs (such as getting fuel from the trader) should be quick and snappy (no more than a few seconds). With this I increased the transfer rates of the trader ship and the planet mining mechanic. Both actions last no more then two seconds, and when play testing this, many players found it to be a nice improvement.
Arrow above planet bug in previous version (relating the both the picture and paragraph above):
Also in previous play test as a bug I accidentally left the arrow above the planet when the player was interacting with the planet in the tutorial (when they are mining a planet), and many player's were confused because they didn't know if they had completed the action of arriving to the planet correctly. Also some player's found the arrow distracting because it kept grabbing their attention whilst they were trying to concentrate on what the text was saying and the mining action in the game.
Planet recharging mechanic stage:
When the player has finished ming the planet, the glowing halo colour around the planet changes to a bright yellow and half a second later, the text above the green mass GUI bar reads "You have drained the planet of it's resources". Using these starkly different colours quickly and easily shows the player weather a planet has mass resources or not and can be mined. Many players liked this during play testing because it was very quick and simple, unlike having text above the planet. Therefore when the player is in the actual game, they can quickly see which planet's can be mined are full of mass resources with out wasting time going to the planet to find out.
This part of the tutorial I am happy with. About half a second after the player has been told they have mined the planet, the old text disappears. A new instruction text in the top left appears, telling the player to travel to the warp gate particle system. Because the
I speed up the creation process I decided to purchase an animated particle system form the unity asset store (ghdalstjr130@gmail.com. 12 Apr. 2014. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/13998). I found one
I thought was perfect and spherical, like from the TV show "Star Gate"(the image below was the visual effect of what I wanted, the blue watery part) (Stargate. 1994, Kurt Russell.). Because it is a bright blue colour and animated, it grabbed player's attention during play testing and every one likes it.
"GC14DBM The Stargate Mystery (Unknown Cache) in Setúbal, Portugal created by Blue Trekkers & Sand Trekker." Geocaching.com. N.p., 26 Feb. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2014. <http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC14DBM_the-stargate-mystery>.
The warp gate originally appeared right behind the planet, however many players found it difficult to find, even with a large yellow arrow point to it. I changed the positioning so it's to the left of the planet and not too far along the 'Z' axis so the player can actually see it when it appears. When the player enters the warp gate, they enter the actual game level straight away, this is so I can keep the player immersed in the game experience with out disrupting the player's flow.
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