So you start pressing random keys to figure out the controls and after a dozen deaths you know all buttons and can finally start playing for real.
I know that feeling very well and it is not fun.
Many users might even just give up very quick, attention span is short on the internet.
Who wants to lose potential players before they have even started playing? But I think many game makers accidently do that.
So please, put instructions into your game. Ingame, not in a readme or on a website.
Do it even if it is your very first project and not a serious game anyway.
Actually, the worse the game is the more clear the controls have to be displayed because players will spend less time trying to figure them out.
Do it even if you think the controls are obvious.
Do it even if it is just a techdemo.
Especially do it in a techdemo: Sometimes those are so abstract, users will not even know what kind of inputs to search for.
It takes lots of effort to polish a game to be fully userfriendly. But this literally just one line like:
Code: Select all
love.graphics.print("Use asd to move. R to restart.", 20, 20)
in Lua we Löve