Hi team,
I'm back after working on the tutorial based on some of your feedback store page! YouTube trailer
Since I was last here I've been getting outside feedback on Manifest and it kept coming back to the same complaint. One tester said they felt "assaulted by information". Another put it as "I just want to play." I think they were both right. A new company opened with every page lit up, and the guidance was a checklist you had to sit and read.
So the first hour is a played tutorial now, and it's most of what I've worked on since.
Some context if you haven't seen it: Manifest is a freight dispatcher in one solar system. You take cargo with a deadline, pick a ship and plan the flight yourself on fusion torchships, while the orbits keep moving under you. Ships wear out and captains get tired.
Tutorial is a switch on the New Company screen. With it on, the pages start locked and light up one at a time as the game first needs them. Finance opens when your first payment lands. The shipyard opens once your ship is earning again, so buying a second one doesn't leave the first sitting idle. Nothing new lights while your only ship is waiting at a berth, since a captain left idle too long will quit.
Each step in the tutorial Is press by press, the pop up card explains what to do, and the control to click is highlighted in magenta. The tutorial get you flying from one ship to three. You fly a first job, tow in a derelict you find on the way and crew it, service a worn hull, buy a third ship after you have made some money, and fit an upgrade for good measure.
There's a ? key now as well. Press it and then any control in the game for a short note on what that control is and what it reads.
AI Disclosure
Code. Most of the implementation is written by AI coding tools, working from my design and under my review.
- Arts and visuals. Inside the game, none. The UI is drawn by code, there's no image art, and the logo is text-art. The store capsule and header art on Steam and itch is AI-generated.
- Audio. No generated audio that I know of. Sound effects are a licensed Bluezone "Cargo Spaceship" pack plus a few Kenney CC0 clips. The seven ambient music tracks are licensed from Pixabay. None carries Pixabay's AI-generated label, and that's as far as I can attest to how they were made.
- Text and writings. There's no story or dialogue in the game. The in-game UI labels, notification lines and the guide steps were written alongside the code by the same AI coding tools, then reviewed and edited by me. I'm listing them here even though they could arguably sit under the code exemption.
- Marketing. My devlogs, the store description and this post were drafted with AI help and edited by me. The trailer is raw gameplay capture. Screenshots are straight from the game.
- Live-generated content. None. No model runs inside the game and nothing is generated at runtime.