Players didn’t understand the game, so we built them a camp

Tainted Ground asks a lot of you in the first few minutes. There’s a generator, there are lights that can fail, there are events in the cabin with their own countermeasures, and none of it is explained by a big tutorial screen. In early tests, that was too much: players simply didn’t understand what the game wanted from them.

The lobby became a place

Instead of a menu, the lobby is now a camp in the forest with four tents, one for each player. While everyone gets ready, you can walk around and try small things for real: a generator that lights a few bulbs, and notes that explain the basic ideas.

Nothing there can hurt you. It’s a safe version of what’s waiting outside, so the first time you touch the generator isn’t the moment the lights go out.

Then the real camp

When everyone is ready, the match starts in a similar camp, by day, in the middle of the forest. The first job is to find the cabin before night comes. Because the lobby already looked like this, the jump feels natural: same kind of place, only now it counts.

We still want Tainted Ground to be a game you figure out together. The camp just makes sure you start with the basics instead of a blank stare.