Retroaction & what to communicate to the player(s)

Add basic retroaction early

It is highly recommended that you include basic retroaction for the main mechanics of your game as early as you can in your prototype. Creating a proper polished feedback can take time, but not having any can come in the way when trying to validate that a mechanic works. For a first version, you can use a simple shift in color, a camera shake or any other simple tool already accessible to do so.

Retroaction helps understand the result of an action and its consequences even without having final assets, etc.

Example: If you create a platformer where you can get hit by spikes; make sure to add feedback when getting hit by a spike, make the character blink red for example, to make sure everyone can understand what is happening.

What to feedback

Feedbacking everything in your game will muddle everyone’s understanding of it. Focus instead on a few critical elements first.

Ask yourself “does the player need to have this information? If so, what can they do with it?”. If you can answer those questions and that the answer fits with the core of your experience, you probably need to feedback it in some ways!

Not everything should be on the UI, diegetic effects (like sound effects, visual effects, animations, etc.) are as efficient and have the merit of keeping your UI easy to understand and not too encumbered.