Write the controls introduction new players walk through on their first minute in your world.
Player Onboarding
A new player lands in your world and does not yet know that clicking the ground walks, that right-click attacks, or that the bag is a key away. The controls intro is the short sequence of cards that tells them — in your wording, pointing at your HUD, showing the keys your world actually uses.
It runs once, on its own, a few seconds after a player's first spawn. Change nothing and your game ships a sensible five-step intro: move, interact, use an ability, open your bag, find the map.
Where to author it
UI Editor → Onboarding.
The tab has three parts: a live preview of the selected step over the real HUD at the top, the step list on the left, and the selected step's fields on the right. Below those sit the card's look, its behaviour and your wording.
Setting it up
1. Open UI Editor → Onboarding and leave Show the controls intro on. 2. Click a step in the list to select it. The preview above shows that step exactly as a player will see it, with your unsaved changes. 3. Write the step's Title and What it says. Add Phone wording if the mouse wording won't do on a touch screen — leave it empty and the mouse wording is used for everyone. 4. Choose Points at if the card should sit beside a HUD element. The card attaches itself to your real hotbar, top bar or minimap, wherever you have moved them, with a little pointer aimed at it. 5. Choose Key hint — an action, not a key. The card shows whatever that action is currently bound to, and follows a player who rebinds it. 6. Choose Finished when — the moment that completes the step. Pick Next button only for a step that is pure information. 7. Use ↑ / ↓ to reorder, + to add a step and the bin to remove one. Up to 12 steps run. 8. Set the card's look, the behaviour and the button wording underneath, then Save. Saving publishes: connected players get the new intro without reconnecting.
Switch the preview between desktop and touch (phone wording) with the dropdown above it, or turn it off entirely with HUD only.
Step fields
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Title | The step's heading, above the wording. Up to 60 characters. Leave both this and the wording empty and the step is skipped entirely. |
| What it says | The body a mouse-and-keyboard player reads. Up to 280 characters. |
| Phone wording | Used instead of the above while the touch controls are up. Empty = the same wording for everyone. |
| Points at | A HUD element the card attaches to — the hotbar, the top bar, the minimap, anything in your layout. Empty = the card floats at the position you set below. If the element is hidden in your world, the card quietly floats instead. |
| Key hint | An action from Controls → Actions. The card shows that action's live binding. On a phone it shows the on-screen button instead, when your world has one for it. |
| Finished when | The moment that completes the step — see the table below. |
| Which panel | Only for Opened a panel: which window the player has to open. |
| Player can skip this step | Off holds Next until the step is actually completed. Use it sparingly — a player who cannot work out what you want is stuck. |
Finished when
| Option | Completes when |
|---|---|
| Next button only | Nothing but the Next button. Use it for a welcome card or a piece of story. |
| Player moved | The hero walks anywhere. |
| Player interacted | The player talks to an NPC, opens a chest or a shop, or uses a world object. |
| Used an ability | Any ability is cast. |
| Opened the map | The world map opens, whether by button, key or a click on the minimap. |
| Opened a panel | The window you chose opens — by its button, its key, a custom menu entry or an event. |
The card's look
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Header | Sigil, bar, banner, minimal, or no header at all — the same treatments your other windows use. |
| Ornaments | On matches your premium panel chrome. |
| Accent | The colour of the pointer, progress dot and key outline. Empty = your theme's accent. |
| Card width | 240–560 px. It shrinks on narrow screens on its own. |
| Card position | Where a step with no Points at sits. Bottom-center clears the hotbar. |
| Progress dots | The "Step 2 of 5" line and the dot row. |
Behaviour and wording
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Show it | First login only — once per player, per world. Every new character — once for each hero they make. Until dismissed — every session until they press Skip or the last button. |
| Appears after | How long after spawn the first card arrives, up to 15 seconds. Long enough that it lands on the world and not on the loading screen. |
| Advance automatically | On moves to the next card a moment after a step is completed. Off leaves the player to press Next. |
| Dim the world | Darkens everything behind the card and cuts a spotlight around the element the step points at. The dim never blocks clicks — the player can still do what you're asking. |
| Players can replay it | Whether replaying is permitted at all. There is no in-game control that triggers a replay yet, so this has no effect on players today — leave it on. |
| Card heading / Next / Back / Skip / Last button | Your wording for every control on the card. |
Gotchas
- Feature flag. The whole intro is gated behind Player Onboarding in Feature Flags. Off = players spawn straight into the world. Your steps are kept.
- Never write a key into a step. Say "open your bag", not "press I". The key hint reads the live binding, so a player who rebinds the bag sees their own key — a letter typed into the wording will not.
- An empty step is dropped. A step with neither a title nor wording never appears in game. Only the first 12 steps run.
- A step that points at a hidden element floats instead. If your world has no minimap, a step anchored to it still shows, at the card position.
- A panel you switched off never fires its trigger. If Finished when waits on a window your world doesn't have, the step can only be finished with Next — leave it skippable.
- Progress lives in the player's browser, per world. Clearing site data, or a different browser, brings the intro back. Players who had already dismissed the old first-run tips are not shown it again.
- Reset to default on the step list drops your steps and restores the shipped five. There is no undo — it clears your authored list.
- Save is publish. Like the rest of the UI editor, saving live-syncs to the running server.