Homeworld: Vast Reaches
Tutorial Design
From ____ to ____ I was part of a __ person team at FarBridge creating Homeworld: Vast Reaches in partnership with Gearbox Software. I was the solo UX / UI designer and was responsible for the in-game and menu UI, along with designing multiple gameplay interaction systems.
For about 6 weeks toward the end of the project, I spearheaded efforts to improve the game’s tutorial experience based on feedback gathered in collaboration with Meta’s UXR team. I synthesized this playtest data, designed new features and lessons to address the observed pain points, and worked with a level designer and engineer to implement the updates.
The initial series of playtests revealed a consistent trend:
During campaign missions, players were not able to effectively utilize game mechanics that had been presented to them in the tutorial
This resulted in the majority of players not completing the two campaign missions that were included in the playtest, either because they weren’t able to sufficiently deal with the challenges presented in the missions or because they grew too frustrated to even attempt the second mission. Through observation and questioning, I narrowed in on three primary pain points…
Pain Point 1:
The tutorial presented too much information to the player all at once
The tutorial was split into three sections that took over 20 minutes to complete and introduced complex mechanics while players were still getting a hold of the basic controls.
Pain Point 2:
The existing dialogue system was insufficient for tutorial lessons
Instructions given via long audio and text descriptions were not the ideal medium to teach the game’s mechanics, and players had difficulty comprehending the lessons on first listen.
Pain Point 3:
Players would progress through tutorial steps without understanding
In some cases, this was done intentionally out of impatience with the issues described in previous bullets, but it also occurred accidentally while players experimented with controls.
Final Product
(Video to come)