design

Women will be acutely aware of this phenomena but men do not follow instructions. I’d argue that this is because the male mind is hard wired to problem solve, we get a big kick out it. This means that when faced with a new toy the last thing we will ever do is read a manual.

It would be disingenuous of me to say that “Gamers” also do not follow instruction. For example there are a great deal of female gamers who in my experience will pour over the manual for a game before they even install it. Gamers are also very good at following tutorials because they are a form of interactive feedback loop.

The “How to Play” screen is the Indie games equivalent of a manual. They are incredibly important but they never get read by the majority of players.

Let’s play Geometry Wars 2 (This isn’t me playing FYI).

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