After playing with it a little I am reminded of a lesson that holds true for many Web apps as well. Assume the user has zero patience to learn about your app. They have a zillion other tabs opening and the moment they get a little frustrated they will simply close your app and move on to another thing to do/play with. So focusing on first-time users is a very important investment, just because every user has to be first-time once, by definition.
In this particular game, I think the UI & communication with the user can be improved quite a bit. In Mafia Wars and almost all of the top-hit games, first-time players can easily find out how to do important things in the game, like fighting a given enemy. Here, when I click on the enemy, I see a button which says 'continue', which does not say much. It seems like sometimes 'continue' does nothing, sometimes it starts a fight.
Try looking closely at the new tutorial for Mafia Wars (or other top games), it hand-holds the user through all the key steps to understand the basic game mechanics. Also, all their wordings are chosen carefully and have clear meanings to any newbie.
Another key idea: give the new player the sense of victory and other positive reinforcements as often as possible. People play game to enjoy the experience: if you fail to defeat your opponent too many times at first, you wouldn't bother to come back. It might also be useful to clearly lead the user to how he can increase the chance of defeating him next time.
Comments
After playing with it a little I am reminded of a lesson that holds true for many Web apps as well. Assume the user has zero patience to learn about your app. They have a zillion other tabs opening and the moment they get a little frustrated they will simply close your app and move on to another thing to do/play with. So focusing on first-time users is a very important investment, just because every user has to be first-time once, by definition.
In this particular game, I think the UI & communication with the user can be improved quite a bit. In Mafia Wars and almost all of the top-hit games, first-time players can easily find out how to do important things in the game, like fighting a given enemy. Here, when I click on the enemy, I see a button which says 'continue', which does not say much. It seems like sometimes 'continue' does nothing, sometimes it starts a fight.
Try looking closely at the new tutorial for Mafia Wars (or other top games), it hand-holds the user through all the key steps to understand the basic game mechanics. Also, all their wordings are chosen carefully and have clear meanings to any newbie.
Another key idea: give the new player the sense of victory and other positive reinforcements as often as possible. People play game to enjoy the experience: if you fail to defeat your opponent too many times at first, you wouldn't bother to come back. It might also be useful to clearly lead the user to how he can increase the chance of defeating him next time.