Best way to show a user some help files?

Hey all!

I think I’m close to releasing my first MonoGame app, which will be a 3D game on Android. One of the little items I want to check off my list, though, is the help files/tutorials for my game, and how best to do them.

There’s quite a lot of information to convey, so ideally I’d like to write a PDF or HTML file which I can display when the user chooses ‘help’ from the main menu. I’d be very surprised if it’s possible to show these things in-game, but perhaps there’s a way I can launch them from my Game class?

Or perhaps you can think of a cleverer way to put help files into a game? I guess I could set up a website and just say ‘please visit our homepage’, or I could use SpriteFonts and screenshots to convey the info, but I really don’t know what the best option is since this isn’t something I’ve done before!

Cheers :slight_smile:

The best way for the user is basically an interactive tutorial inside the game.

I have also worked with text overlays in the past (overlaying default controls over the game view, which is easy and fast) but I guess the most used approach beside interactive is to open a website or a youtube video or something (just an intent on android). You may also benefit of an additional way of user feedback that way

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Thanks for the reply! I like the idea of starting a browser using an intent. If possible, to show a local HTML file using an overlay window without actually leaving the game. I’ll try and work it out in a few days.

Also, all my game’s UI is custom, rendered in-game with sprites and fonts. The only Android code I have is the auto-generated activity where I construct my game and call ‘Run()’. Would you recommend passing Android context stuff into my Game constructor so I can launch intents from my custom UI? I haven’t done much Android so I don’t know if this would be considered bad practice or not!

Thanks :slight_smile: