Monday Musings #46 – Tutorializing Trail of Fire
Happy Monday!
Today I want to talk through a unique opportunity that presented itself when it came to tutorializing MoteMancer. MoteMancer is going to get two tutorial paths. It is not something I would typically do, much less advise, but there are some very MoteMancer-specific reasons for it. The question is always how to make a game the best version of itself that it can be, and sometimes that means doing something you normally wouldn’t.
[h3]Why Fire?[/h3]
I had always imagined Life being the starting plane because of its access to conveyor-like Streamways from Water, familiar chests from Earth, and an intuitive fuel to solar power path via Life. There's a lot of intuition building you get for free, especially in a game that has little real-world language to latch onto. Mana Roots as the power distribution method were a large hurdle for some to overcome though.
A significant strength of MoteMancer is the unique identity of each element and how they play, so removing roots as part of Life didn't feel like the right solution. Growing your own tree of power is a wonderful fantasy when you embrace it.
Fire, on the other hand, gives the ultimate freedom of power distribution with crackling wires that tower above your base, leaving you much freer to build beneath. The cost here comes from the power generation itself, which needs to be carefully managed - fire power consistently needs fuel and will never throttle itself for demand. Modular Lava Generators are extremely flexible and have plenty of vectors for creativity, but are much more attention intensive than Life's solar engine.
One other feature of Fire is you do not have access to the logistics power of a double-lane belt from Water's Streamways (opposite elements are strictly forbidden from placement, even if you could find a Mote of Water in the scorching lands of the Fire Plane). You do get access to the enigmatic Ichor Slick though, which has been described as a 'paintable chest'. Ichor Slick is among the more unique contributions to the automation space - it can only hold one entity type at a time, but its throughput is effectively infinite.
Fire reduces spatial friction at the cost of resource friction, and that trade is easier to teach. The learning curve is not harder than Life, but is orthogonal in a very healthy way. Fire as a tutorial path also mirrors the spirit of Foundations - not easier or harder, but a differently shaped challenge.
[h3]The Contract of Choice[/h3]
I've designed many systems where players choose their path - class selection is an obvious example. Class selection is a contract with the player. You are giving them an imaginary fantasy that appeals to their emotional core, and once they select it, you need to make good on that promise to further earn their trust.
MoteMancer's Elements are all designed to synergize and weave with each other, but stand alone in their identity. Choosing the Trail of Fire or Tree of Life is as much emotional as mechanical. You’ll master every element eventually, but choosing your home gives you a meaningful foothold.
There's an important bit about emotional design as well - players will invest more in a character that feels like it is their own. It's one of the reasons so many games have character customization (and MoteMancer likely will have a little bit too in the future). But unlike an rpg, in an automation game, your base is your character. Your base and the elemental tools you use to build it are just as much a reflection of you as the armor you wear or hairstyle you choose.
[h3]Elemental Structure[/h3]
MoteMancer is a very deep game with a lot to learn, and the elemental structure of the world itself takes time to unfold. There are many places I can help teach that, and the tutorial selection screen is one of them. When you choose either path, the element and its adjacent sisters will highlight, seeding their relationship with each other and the world.
It's not important that you fully understand the implications in the moment, but highlighting adjacent elements reinforces the shape of the world early. Even if players can’t select all six planes for the tutorial, it foreshadows that broader freedom once tutorials are disabled.
Which leads us to another benefit of this selection. I've curated a handful of useful early Foundations (with a dedicated devlog here) that not only give you tools to cater your playthrough, but also seeds the larger system you will graduate into.
[h3]Tipping the Scales[/h3]
Maintaining two tutorials is quite challenging as a developer. Splitting attention for the player that doesn't know anything about the game yet is a risk. Overwhelming the player with information is generally not a good idea.
That said, this design provides an abundance of agency, emotional anchoring, mechanical framing, and a window into the systemic depth on offer.
It’s not a conventional choice, but neither is MoteMancer. One of the challenges (that I love) about design is that there isn't really a playbook to follow. Each game is unique and carries with it unique obstacles and opportunities. Always learn as much as you can, but make sure to leave enough room to chart your own path.
[h3]And the Demo?[/h3]
I plan on leaving MoteMancer's demo up for the foreseeable future, but maintaining both paths in the demo is probably a bridge too far. Just this morning I received feedback from someone that spent 30 hours playing the demo. I'm happy to provide that experience to them, as they'll likely find hundreds more hours in the full game, but allowing travel to planes beyond life will remain part of the full-featured experience.
I also plan on enabling Twinseed for the demo as soon as the Foundations update rolls out. I always hesitate to list any Foundation as the default, but Twinseed greases the wheels just enough for a demo that I'll let it slide.
And with that, I've got work to go getting Foundations out the door :) Huge shoutout to all the players actively giving feedback and helping find bugs in the experimental build. The fruits of your labor shall be ripe soon.
Back to the Lab 🌿
~CyanAvatar
Today I want to talk through a unique opportunity that presented itself when it came to tutorializing MoteMancer. MoteMancer is going to get two tutorial paths. It is not something I would typically do, much less advise, but there are some very MoteMancer-specific reasons for it. The question is always how to make a game the best version of itself that it can be, and sometimes that means doing something you normally wouldn’t.
[h3]Why Fire?[/h3]
I had always imagined Life being the starting plane because of its access to conveyor-like Streamways from Water, familiar chests from Earth, and an intuitive fuel to solar power path via Life. There's a lot of intuition building you get for free, especially in a game that has little real-world language to latch onto. Mana Roots as the power distribution method were a large hurdle for some to overcome though.
A significant strength of MoteMancer is the unique identity of each element and how they play, so removing roots as part of Life didn't feel like the right solution. Growing your own tree of power is a wonderful fantasy when you embrace it.
Fire, on the other hand, gives the ultimate freedom of power distribution with crackling wires that tower above your base, leaving you much freer to build beneath. The cost here comes from the power generation itself, which needs to be carefully managed - fire power consistently needs fuel and will never throttle itself for demand. Modular Lava Generators are extremely flexible and have plenty of vectors for creativity, but are much more attention intensive than Life's solar engine.
One other feature of Fire is you do not have access to the logistics power of a double-lane belt from Water's Streamways (opposite elements are strictly forbidden from placement, even if you could find a Mote of Water in the scorching lands of the Fire Plane). You do get access to the enigmatic Ichor Slick though, which has been described as a 'paintable chest'. Ichor Slick is among the more unique contributions to the automation space - it can only hold one entity type at a time, but its throughput is effectively infinite.
Fire reduces spatial friction at the cost of resource friction, and that trade is easier to teach. The learning curve is not harder than Life, but is orthogonal in a very healthy way. Fire as a tutorial path also mirrors the spirit of Foundations - not easier or harder, but a differently shaped challenge.
[h3]The Contract of Choice[/h3]
I've designed many systems where players choose their path - class selection is an obvious example. Class selection is a contract with the player. You are giving them an imaginary fantasy that appeals to their emotional core, and once they select it, you need to make good on that promise to further earn their trust.
MoteMancer's Elements are all designed to synergize and weave with each other, but stand alone in their identity. Choosing the Trail of Fire or Tree of Life is as much emotional as mechanical. You’ll master every element eventually, but choosing your home gives you a meaningful foothold.
There's an important bit about emotional design as well - players will invest more in a character that feels like it is their own. It's one of the reasons so many games have character customization (and MoteMancer likely will have a little bit too in the future). But unlike an rpg, in an automation game, your base is your character. Your base and the elemental tools you use to build it are just as much a reflection of you as the armor you wear or hairstyle you choose.
[h3]Elemental Structure[/h3]
MoteMancer is a very deep game with a lot to learn, and the elemental structure of the world itself takes time to unfold. There are many places I can help teach that, and the tutorial selection screen is one of them. When you choose either path, the element and its adjacent sisters will highlight, seeding their relationship with each other and the world.
It's not important that you fully understand the implications in the moment, but highlighting adjacent elements reinforces the shape of the world early. Even if players can’t select all six planes for the tutorial, it foreshadows that broader freedom once tutorials are disabled.
Which leads us to another benefit of this selection. I've curated a handful of useful early Foundations (with a dedicated devlog here) that not only give you tools to cater your playthrough, but also seeds the larger system you will graduate into.
[h3]Tipping the Scales[/h3]
Maintaining two tutorials is quite challenging as a developer. Splitting attention for the player that doesn't know anything about the game yet is a risk. Overwhelming the player with information is generally not a good idea.
That said, this design provides an abundance of agency, emotional anchoring, mechanical framing, and a window into the systemic depth on offer.
It’s not a conventional choice, but neither is MoteMancer. One of the challenges (that I love) about design is that there isn't really a playbook to follow. Each game is unique and carries with it unique obstacles and opportunities. Always learn as much as you can, but make sure to leave enough room to chart your own path.
[h3]And the Demo?[/h3]
I plan on leaving MoteMancer's demo up for the foreseeable future, but maintaining both paths in the demo is probably a bridge too far. Just this morning I received feedback from someone that spent 30 hours playing the demo. I'm happy to provide that experience to them, as they'll likely find hundreds more hours in the full game, but allowing travel to planes beyond life will remain part of the full-featured experience.
I also plan on enabling Twinseed for the demo as soon as the Foundations update rolls out. I always hesitate to list any Foundation as the default, but Twinseed greases the wheels just enough for a demo that I'll let it slide.
And with that, I've got work to go getting Foundations out the door :) Huge shoutout to all the players actively giving feedback and helping find bugs in the experimental build. The fruits of your labor shall be ripe soon.
Back to the Lab 🌿
~CyanAvatar