Thoughts on how to make a better, hidden tutorial

[onpon4]

The opening tutorial for the Empyrean Campaign right now is a basic text dump and I think would be worth replacing with a better "hidden tutorial". Some thoughts on how that could go:

• Starting with reading a note on a skeleton is a good start, but rather than being an omniscient voice telling you the controls, it could instead be presented as a note written by an exiled who tried to survive. It could use that backdrop to explain how to move and interact with things, and then leave another note a few steps away (something to the effect of, "I'm going to press the WASD keys to go to that chest to the north and then press Space to open it." (Or maybe you would say "click on the chest", not sure which is better instruction. I always use Space.)
• When player does open the chest (have a chest where the note says there's a chest), make it have their class's starting weapon, the starting potions, and a journal, maybe the player character says to themself "I should open my inventory with I and use the journal by right-clicking it."
• Journal would show more details of the exiled's struggle through entries (make good world-building), make it talk about how the other exiled tried to use the weapon to fight off zombies with the attack button (name-drop the attack button here) but they were overwhelming, so the other exiled built a barricade to the south to keep the zombies out but is now running out of food, then have the journal continue making entries until it suddenly ends (implying that the exiled died of starvation hiding from the zombies).
• At the south, have an actual barricade (like in that one place in the Underworld that is destroyed by weapons, maybe made of something different though), trust the player to put 2 and 2 together that they can use the attack button on the barricade, maybe combine this with a very simple lever puzzle.

That would teach all the basics in a more streamlined and engaging way. :3 Player would then go out and face the zombies knowing how to fight them, would know how to pick up the stuff they drop when you kill them, and then when they get to Perdition Harbor would know how to interact with the NPCs, and at the same time would help establish the sort of apocalyptic theme of the game in a natural way.

🕷️