Echoes of Tomorrow Typology

Bonus Activity: Building a Player Typology for Echoes of Tomorrow

Tutorials for Echoes of Tomorrow must support players who think and play in very different ways. The game blends exploration, ethical decision making, and system level consequences, so a generic player typology does not fully capture the motivations of your intended audience. Inspired by Kimberly Voll’s approach to designing custom player types, this activity creates a typology tailored specifically to Echoes of Tomorrow and connects it to your planned tutorial design.

Step 1: Identify the Core Experiences in Echoes of Tomorrow

Start by listing the primary experiences your game provides. These experiences form the foundation of how players interact with the world across the Past, Present, and Future levels.

• Investigating environments for clues and resource data
• Making ethical decisions with long term consequences
• Observing visual and environmental changes in response to choices
• Balancing progress, sustainability, and community well being

These experiences become the anchors for defining your player types.

Step 2: Draft Player Types for Echoes of Tomorrow

Using the experiences above, create player types that reflect the ways learners might approach your game. Below are examples that fit the design of Echoes of Tomorrow.

• The Ethical Analyst cares about the moral and environmental consequences of every decision. Reads prompts carefully and values seeing how small choices ripple into future levels.
• The Fast Optimizer focuses on progress meters and resource efficiency. Wants clear goals, fast feedback, and mechanics that can be mastered quickly.
• The World Explorer enjoys investigating environments for clues about the past and future. Notices visual storytelling details and appreciates optional interactions.
• The Pattern Seeker looks for cause and effect relationships. Tries different decision paths to test how the system responds.

Step 3: Map Tutorial Elements to Player Types

Next, map each planned tutorial element in Echoes of Tomorrow to the player types above. Ask the following questions for each type:

• Which tutorial elements support this player the most
• Which elements might they skip or ignore
• Which parts could confuse or overwhelm them

Here is an example you can expand in your blog:

Player Type	Tutorial Support	Potential Problem
The Ethical Analyst	Reflection prompts and visual consequence previews	May want deeper explanations than the tutorial provides
The Fast Optimizer	Clear goals and simple progress indicators	May skip narrative context and miss important clues
The World Explorer	Optional hints and environmental storytelling	May overlook core mechanics if they explore too quickly
The Pattern Seeker	Replayable early decisions and visible feedback changes	May need more explicit guidance in the early stages

Step 4: Adjust Your Tutorial Strategy

Based on your table, identify one or two small changes that make your tutorial more inclusive for all player types. For example:

• Offer optional deeper explanations for players who want context
• Make each tutorial element replayable at any time
• Add small indicators that show where exploration actions are required
• Keep feedback visible long enough for all players to process

You can implement some of these features in Construct 3 now. Others may be documented as future design notes for a more advanced prototype.

Reflection Questions

You can add a final reflection section in your blog using the questions below:

• Which player type is easiest to support in your tutorial design
• Which type presents the most challenge and why
• How does your custom typology change the way you approach tutorials
• Which tutorial adjustments are most practical in Construct 3 at this stage
• How does this typology help you think about balancing novices and experts

Creating a custom player typology for Echoes of Tomorrow helps shape tutorials that respect the learning process and motivations of each player. This makes the tutorial a more meaningful part of your overall design and supports the long term goals of the game.