Reflector Monthly Update - December 2020

Tutorial Incoming

This month, I finished everything I want for the Alpha 2.1 release, except I've decided to add one more thing: an interactive tutorial. I'm not currently collecting any metrics, but from the feedback I have, it seems like many potential players are bouncing off because of the lack of a tutorial. This has been on my to-do list though originally just in the "before I call this game complete" category. It has gradually become higher and higher priority. First, getting schedules for Alpha 4, then Alpha 3, and now finally Alpha 2.1.

So, what will this tutorial actually look like? I'm still figuring out the details, but the plan is for it to take the in-game assistant form. So instead of a separate tutorial level, you will start an actual game and various triggers will tips about controls and mechanics, which can then be manually dismissed or automatically dismissed by player actions. This style of tutorial can be seen in Frostpunk, RimWorld, Stellaris, and I'm sure many other games. This will be more work up front, but should require less maintenance than static tutorial levels or recorded videos.

With that said, Alpha 2.1 is probably a few weeks out. As always, if you want to try the bleeding edge version, you can do so at https://reflector-unstable.netlify.app. Feedback is much appreciated!

Enough talk about the future -- what did I get done this past month? Lots!