visual communication and learning curve in video games

I like the reading about learning faster to play better. One one hand this came across as an over-simplified way that people learn something, but on the other hand, there are some really good ideas that are applicable to the games we are currently working on (at least for me). Using analogies is one strategy that stood out to me - it's easier to understand something if it's related to something we already know. I think this is especially true with sequels. For example, when I was doing the game analysis of Assassin's Creed II, I struggled with moving around and jumping from building to building. My cousin on the other hand could do all that easily and smoothly, but he'd previously played all the other Assassin's Creed games. In terms of the game I'm designing right now, it has some similarities to chess, so I may have to further exploit that sort of analogy.

The reading about visually directing a player seemed a bit obvious to me, but it raises a good point that "players need a reinforcement for their goals" and "the want to feel like they have solved something". So you can't directly tell players what to do throughout a game, but you can use visuals to accomplish the same thing. Lighting, Hotspots, Animation, and Contextual Trails were the four main forms of Nuernberger covered. These are all important visual cues, but I feel like he neglected to talk about color, which can be a very important and effective visual cue. For example, he always talked about how he needed to get players to pick up certain object to solve a puzzle, so he would use things like lighting and animation to draw players to it, but the same could be done with contrasting colors. For example, in Skyrim, the words for "shouts" are always in a bright glowing color on a gray wall, so it stands out and it's clear where to go to learn the word. When designing games, especially highly immersive ones, I think it boils down to not "telling" players what to do, but "showing" them.