Gnomoria (graphical DF-Less-Lite-Than-Towns-Like)

I had the same problem, "most intuitive system" or not. I'll have to watch some LPs or tutorial videos on YouTube, because the interface is not immediately self-evident at all.

I hope the release version of the game gets a robust tutorial section, it'll need it if it's going to appeal to players who aren't already DF veterans.

I guess it's to each his own, because I have zero experience in DF and picked up Gnomoria pretty quickly. The only thing I didn't get right off is the storage space (putting crates/bags down in storage areas) and I had a little trouble with materials crafting for a couple of minutes.

But everyone is different and a small tutorial is generally a good idea for almost any game.

I'll agree with Blackadar; I've found Gnomoria pretty intuitive, but isometric views can lead to confusion pretty easily, so YMMV.

One thing to keep in mind: it's easy to accidentally hit a few keys that reveal hidden blocks and make walls half-height (these default to E and F respectively). You may find things easier to comprehend toggled the other way, so try hitting them.

I think he needs to expand the use of tool tips. There should be one to tell you what things are stored in bags vs crates vs barrels. There should be a tooltip when you hover over any gnome or yak or stockpile with its name. There should be one one when you pause over a resource to tell you what it is. etc

The right click menus are also a bit jumbled. I don't like the fact that Build->Terrain is in the build menu. I think it should be Terrain->Build

Right, I mean broadly appeal to larger numbers of players. It's great that you 'got it' right off the bat; I found it disorienting to just be dropped into the world with little or no idea of what to do first or where to start. Dig a hole, I guess? I picked a likely hill next to my spawn point and tried to dig out an entranceway into what would become a larger underhill chamber, but I couldn't make sense of the wireframe boxes. Was I ordering one dude to do all this digging? Had I just selected a farmer? Maybe I need a miner for the digging. Which one's the miner? Do I have more than one? How do I issue orders to multiple gnomes at once? Why are they running all over, what are they doing? I haven't given any orders yet. Etc, etc.

This doesn't mean the game is bad, at all. I remain enthused about trying it out, and there were all sorts of other factors in play. (It was late, I was tired but just wanted to see the game a bit before bed, I'd done no sort of reading up or preparation beforehand, etc.) If the game is going to establish a broader appeal beyond "DF wannabe" I think it'd be helpful to have a series of optional tutorials that just walk you through the basics in scripted, controlled scenarios. Players who just want to jump right in and generate a world should have the option to do so, of course, but I'd like a brief tour of the interface and an overview of fundamental actions and basic concepts at least.

I agree with this. The positions of some things don't make sense.

I also don't like that there are separate orders for building wall or floor. Those are things that could go into one screen popup selection. The same could go for workshops, so instead of having to expand another menu to click on a workshop, you would just select it from a list in the popup.

Errr, at some point you should just be looking at the screen and seeing what's going on so that you can figure it out yourself. Your gnomes are moving because they're alive.

I think your first world in a game like this should be all your gnomes dying of thirst or hunger because you didn't know or didn't think to know about what to do about that. If you go through the menu and see what's available to build it should be apparent how to start the game. The menus aren't great but there is a system there.

This is the video series I watched to get an idea of how to play. The guy doing it is vaguely annoying but the first few videos give a decent idea of the first steps of playing the game.

I managed to get a decent start on the game with my only prior experience of DF-a-likes being from reading that Boatmurdered LP of Dwarf Fortress.

Also some of the random kingdom names are great.

What do you think I was looking at? My shoes? The wall? Porn? Of course I was looking at the screen. I saw what was going on: gnomes were moving. Why? Dunno, just to run around, I guess. My point is that when you're dropped into the game world with no orientation whatsoever - just a bunch of gnomes and a toolbar - you're up against a steeper learning curve than you need to be. Can I figure it out myself? Sure. But why should that be the only possible option?

What are you arguing against, here? You don't think a tutorial could help orient new players, smooth their entrance into the game and ultimately help them have a more enjoyable time, rather than quitting out of frustration like Eduardo did? That new player should have to watch videos, read LPs, and trawl through forums and other websites just to get a grip on basic concepts?

That's retarded. Why deliberately set your players up to fail? So you can weed out the "casuals?" That just reeks of the outdated player-punishing notion that a game has to be complicated and difficult to get 'old-school' cred or somehow be 'worthwhile' for the excessively nerdy. I'd love this game to find a wide audience when it does get released, and I don't see how an optional tutorial could possibly be a bad thing for anyone.

It's an indie alpha game at this point, Jay. It's not trivial to make a tutorial for any game that isn't programmed for scripted events. You have a dedicated userbase giving information via Wiki and YouTube, use it. I don't slam any game for not having a tutorial anymore because it's obvious to me now how scripting a tutorial takes away a lot of development time while providing very little benefit that isn't already gotten from internet sources.

As for "why" the gnomes are moving, click on them and find out. It will show you their task, which at the beginning of the game is most likely "idle," which means they sorta just walk around because they're on a strange new world with someone telling them to cut through dirt and rocks.

It's not a single player campaign game, it's a sandbox that guarantees you will lose in the long term. You learn a lot from experience because even if you know how to build a distillery you don't necessarily remember to do it. If you don't like that type of gameplay, don't fucking buy it.

Whether a player should be expected to watch LPs or gameplay/walkthrough videos is an issue we could debate, but the fact is that right now those videos are out there, and any new player feeling confused would be doing themselves a favor by watching them.

For the most part I figured the game out pretty quickly after the first few minutes of plinking about, but when I hit a brick wall I just popped over to Youtube (or the wiki) for a quick answer. Whether this is unreasonable or not didn't cross my mind, I was too determined to find an answer, and so far this has worked out for me.

If none of those other resources provided the answers I needed then I'd be fucked, and forced to set aside my need for instant gratification and go query a forum somewhere or something, but thankfully that hasn't been the case yet.

Where did I say that I expected it to have a tutorial right now? Oh right, I didn't. I said "I hope the release version of the game gets a robust tutorial" and explained why I felt that way.

I hope the release version doesn't get a robust tutorial, because it doesn't need one, and making one that's both robust and bug-free would take away a non-trivial amount of time from development of a game that is going to constantly evolve anyways, making tutorial changing and troubleshooting even more cumbersome.

The only requirement for watching or reading tutorials that anyone has is that they're afraid to fuck up. He doesn't need broad appeal, he's already making a living off the alpha and I suspect this will get as big as Towns has (the forums already seem to prove that).

The Towns tutorial looks like it was made about 45 minutes to make.

I think you are too enamoured Pogo, you are very familiar with this type of game while a lot of us are not. This game is quite clearly trying to capitalize on Dwarf Fortress' obvious appeal and attempting to bring something of that game to a larger audience and thus some kind of tutorial and un-questionably superior use of/expanded tool-tips are 100% necessary for this to be successful, I mean it would be relatively simple to code pop-up control info, hints and "Did you Know" boxes during the first month of spring that could be toggled on/off in the options menu.

I agree with quite a few of the points SuperJay made, having felt the same myself during my 3~ hour run with the game this afternoon.

Oh, is that what we're talking about? Sorry I thought someone said the words "robust tutorial."

And as a result teaches you... just about nothing in actually succeeding at the game. It doesn't make learning the intricacies of the interface any easier at all. You know what does? Playing the game.

Except that you're wrong. For me, it's not afraid to fail, it's a matter of time. I'd rather learn the game more quickly and get to the point where I'm enjoying it at a basic level of competence rather than starting over numerous times just because I need to prove my nerd cred. I don't see the point in learn-by-failing to an unnecessary extent. Obviously there's always some degree of trial-and-error in any game's learning process, but providing zero assistance at all just out of some outdated idea that games have to have a challenging learning curve? That's stupid.

It sounds like you're just coming back to the old grognard idea that I mentioned above - that we can't go assisting players in-game, because then the dreaded casuals might actually enjoy it without paying sufficient dues. That's a nice niche for Dwarf Fortress, but I don't think it has to extend to every DF-like game.

And the idea that Rob West wouldn't want his game to be as successful as possible is just silly.

I'll see if this works.

I gave up on Towns pretty quick, too, and just don't play the Fortress mode of DF anymore (but I am not really too scared of it) because it was just too cumbersome. Maybe I need to admit that, while I love these kind of games, I don't have the time and patience needed anymore.

You're so full of your own perception about why there is no tutorial that it's not even worth responding to your idea that it's because of nerd cred or outdated game ideas. Had you taken 10 minutes to figure out how to play, you would have seen that it's not actually easy to fail within the time limit of the demo. It's not trivial whatsoever to build a scripting engine in a game that has none just to poorly replicate information you can gain in minutes online.

I'm assuming you're clinging to that idea because you aren't offering up any other explanations, other than "omg tutorials take so much time!1!" By tutorial I don't even mean a huge endeavor, just some help. I'm willing to concede 'robust' tutorial was unnecessary and say hey - tips, helpful hints, hover text, even a basic to-do list is better than nothing at all. Hell, make 'em optional so people who want to learn by doing can do so.

Again, it's not about failure, it's what myself, McKnight, and Eduardo have already said: time and patience. You apparently have a lot of time and/or patience and/or experience with DF-like games - that's great! Congrats. I don't, and I think it's retarded to expect that having all of the above is the price of entry for a game like this.

BTW, I spent probably 20 minutes in the demo just last night. I intend to spend a lot longer with it soon. It wasn't OMG I FAILDED that was a turn-off, it was the meandering about without any direction, randomly poking things just trying to figure out what to do first and how to do it. You walked in knowing those things outright - again, that's fabulous, I applaud you - but because of that, as McKnight said, you're not in a position to assess how someone else's experience plays out when they come in cold, having never seen one of these games before.

Sorry, my point was that it is shite and there might as well not even be one (Which I realize my post really did not convey at all). They would have been better served not to spend 5 minutes on it. Maybe it is just a placeholder.

You came back firing about some shit about nerd cred and how I want to keep the plebeian gaming horde at bay. I already explained how a tutorial in a game like this is a waste of time and resources. Even a to-do list is crap, there's a to-do list in the internet forums of the game you just downloaded off the internet.

edit: I'd like to state again that I support tooltips, particularly to hover over gnomes to see their current task, or to see how many things are in a crate.

What I expect is that you perhaps seek out some information about the demo of a game that's in alpha and programmed by one guy before jumping into a thread talking about wanting tutorials.

I'm actually surprised at Eduardo because he enjoys resource management and city builder games like I do. There is a fine amount of information available before needing to get mad or annoyed at a game where an in-game tutorial wouldn't even be a substitute for getting used to the interface and how grid selection works. You'll understand how it works the first time you realize that you just ordered gnomes to build a floor that's in midair, or to mine out a section of wall they can't actually get to (which is why I prefer to look at the game with the layer filled option, press 'E')

Bullfrog/Muckyfoot/Lionhead managed to do it in all of their management sims. Theme Whatevers and Dungeon Keepers and Startopia were slightly less complex, but none of them just threw your ass into a blank world with zero direction or even hints in the beginning. And they were 9000% better for that courtesy to the player.

Just sayin

Startopia's was awful.

And the PC gaming scene is quite different now. Those games were all made during times when games were still sold in boxes and had little or no online support structure.

And they were all made by teams of people.

My view on this is that a tutorial would be a good idea, but only as like, the last thing implemented. Putting one in now is just asking for itself to be made obsolete by changes to the game, and Pogo's right that for a game in alpha, looking around for instructional guides on the web is not too much to ask.

The great thing is that the developer is actually really sensitive to UI and usability issues (it's his current development priority, in fact) and is generally incredibly courteous and engages well with feedback and the community, so it gives me a lot of faith that this game will in the fullness of time be truly great.

I can sort of see it from his POV as a fresh player of the genre. There have been loads of questions in here and I would rather try to help someone figure something out than argue about something. I have plenty of gripes with the game but I also know how unfinished it is in some of its mechanics. He's actually gone quite a far way to make the selection grid and UI a bit more usable (hint: you can right-click on a square that has a stockpile or workshop to go right to the edit screen).

NO NEED TO FIGHT, CHILDREN!

A good old fashioned manual might work. Or maybe how things are explained in CoE3 -- you can right click on variables and a tooltip pops up with info.

As far tutorials go -- I just watched 1 or 2 LPs. I hit some walls after a game or two since I didn't understand where golems came from or how to effectively combat goblins but I like tinkering so I just messed around until I got it. I get a bit confused on the isometric selecting when looking at multiple layers, some things you think would line up don't.

No, I don't expect it in the alpha - I think I said that explicitly, that I'm not pissed off that there isn't more help right now, in its current state. In a nutshell, I'm saying "This game looks fun and I want to enjoy it, and as a new player, having some orientation would help me enjoy it more easily." I'm aware of the realities of an early-stage indie game being developed by one person.

Plus, by day I help people learn how to use software, so being aware of the potential pitfalls in a new user's experience is a part of my brain that I can't turn off.

(EDIT: Nobody's fighting, and I'm sorry for the long tangent. I don't bear Pogo any ill-will, he's just got a different POV and different priorities than I do as a player. GG Pogo, I applaud you for not being an asshole during this.)

One of the issues is that wall digging is actually something that focuses on the topside (the roof) of the block you're pointing at. Every other command in the game uses the bottom of the block. So if you're trying to find out what an ore is that's covered up by other blocks, you have to try to click on the bottom of that block and it becomes confusing as to why it's not bringing up the info on the ore type.

The isometric view makes selection kind of hard. The solution he made was to sort of darken the gridlines that were lower on the block to try to make it evident, but it's still confusing if your eye perceives a larger grid as inverted. It's also not easy to see the green gridlines against the grass.

This issue becomes apparent if you're trying to dig into the side of a mountain. If you start the digging order while clicking on the grassy block in front of where you want your door to be, you'll actually end up digging one level lower than you intend.

I find it easier to use the mousewheel to first make sure I'm at the level I actually want to dig before clicking to start the wall digging order, and I usually start it from inside the mountain and dragging outward.

I thought the menu bar at the bottom would be a good thing, but unfortunately it's not very easy to navigate. IIRC it was an afterthought that Rob had put in at some point then taken out, and then put back in due to user request, and it's not something he's worked on for long.

I'm slightly leaning towards Pogo's view on tutorials here. Beyond the most basic of controls, these games are all about observation of AI and presenting a facsimile of a living, breathing world where you experiment just to see how it changes the game's ecosystem. Discovery of mechanics happens as a result of this.

And the whole "you should fail on your first attempt" is useful because it teaches you to expect failure cascades and death and plan accordingly.

So I started out a bit skeptical of Gnomoria precisely because of the issues some others have mentioned. When I tried the demo I died very quickly. I then played A Game of Dwarves for about 20 hours to scratch my digging+sims itch (more like a whole body rash).

At the time I said that I felt AGoD was "the better game" and when it comes to polish, ease of use, discoverability, and not crashing to desktop, AGoD is definitely the superior game at the moment. It's prettier and easier and it comes with a tutorial.

Here's the rub though, I have very firm expectations that Gnomoria is going to occupy me for a LOT longer than 20 hours over the next few months as he gets to beta/gold. I've already played Gnomoria for almost 20 hours despite the flaws and I can easily imagine playing it for another 100. I don't expect to revisit AGoD.

I have to agree with Pogo that Gnomoria simply occupies a different space. It's an indie game with a crowd-sourced QA department. If that's not your cup-o-tea then it's best avoided for now.

I guess my feeling is that the criticisms are "accurate but fake". :)

Yes there are problems, yes it's confusing, yes the monocles are on the wrong eye, but at the end of the day there just is no individual mandate for mining simulators: the government does not require you to purchase one.

So these issues seem "fake" to me in the sense that there is a 100% chance of avoiding them by abstignence. I understand the gamer body has a way to shut all this down when the game isn't a legitimate release.

It's rough right now but as soon as Calistas writes an O'Reilly book about it everything will be ok and I'm really looking forward to writing Gnomish fan fiction.

:D

You almost lost your "Like" when you made me look up "Abstignence" making me think it was a word I did not know.

Also, since it came up here, my Steam Key for Towns just arrived. I ordered Directly using BMT Micro.

I never made a Towns thread here, I think that was on Qt3.

Yeah. I posted in that one too.

However, I am tempted to buy Gnomoria and play it instead because of the vastly better interface.

Do eet!

There's basically no downside; your money is going straight to the developer.

I have done THINGS

- Dug a few holes
- harvested strawberries and apples and put them on the ground where i picked them
- Dug out a big chamber in a hill but its only 1 block high :(
- Made a sawmill and chopped some logs
- Named a few gnomes
- Made a huge mess with piles of dirt everywhere
- Survived 2 or 3 nights
- Removed the clock and pause/play buttons up top somehow
- Had some fun

Press TAB to get the top buttons and kingdom info back.

You can sort dirt into a stockpile but it takes a LOT of time in the beginning that's better spent elsewhere (unless you're playing on Peaceful, then you can just do whatever as long as gnomes are fed and drunk).

With the digging command you cannot set a command to dig multiple layers. Indeed this would never really work anyways because you need some way (stairs) to get to the next level. Gnomes will not dig above or below them UNLESS you're using the Terrain>Dig>Hole command, which will remove both the floor and the underlying block of the layer you're on.

Don't forget to set up some keybindings for common actions. I use SHIFT+W for wall digging and SHIFT+F for felling trees. I'm thinking I'll go SHIFT+O for foraging, maybe SHIFT+D for digging a hole (though I don't use that all that much). Actually I'll do SHIFT+D for Designating Stockpile and SHIFT+X for canceling action.

CTRL+number sets a "bookmark" on your view, while SHIFT+number goes back to that view, which is really helpful once you start digging deep and don't want to scroll through 20 levels just to give digging orders.

A BIG bug with this game right now is if you're running it in the background but it's nto minimized... your mouse button clicks may register in the game.

I'm someone who needs a bit of handholding in the beginning of a game, I'm not very good at working things out by myself.
Anyway, besides the youtube videos posted above I also found this:
http://www.gnomoriawiki.com/wiki/Getting_Started
It's not much, but at least it gets me started from that dreaded beginning where I just have a map and some gnomes and no clue what to do.

I hope as well that the completed version includes a tutorial map that guides you through the basics, more advanced players can just ignore that bit and dive right in.

Hrm, I just realized that's not a particularly good guide.

I would add that you should forage apples and make a food stockpile, size 2x2, and make two crates before making beds so that you have a central location for gnomes to grab food so that they don't walk back to the starting crate to grab bread or walk to the apple trees to grab foraged apples.

Also get your Rancher busy making milk by creating a pasture, about the size of 4x4 or 6x6, so that he can grab the two wandering yaks quickly.

Wheat farm should be started, 4x8 since you start with 32 seeds, since wheat grows slowly and you only get more seeds from harvesting.