Do NOT make this MISTAKE with your Games!

A common mistake indie game developers make is assuming players share their deep familiarity with the game. After hundreds of hours of development, mechanics that seem obvious to the creator are often completely invisible to new players. The solution is rigorous playtesting with real players — watching them play without intervening — and using those observations to improve tutorials, add contextual warnings, and make key mechanics unmissable. Real examples from the author's own games (Ding Guardians, Battleground Tycoon, Blueprint Tycoon) illustrate how streamers missed obvious mechanics, and how those observations led to concrete improvements. The key takeaway: tutorials should be almost excessively obvious, and developers should never assume players will figure things out on their own.