Shut up and write down the criticism

Before launching Steam Defense we showed it to independent testers. They tore the tutorial apart.

The tempting answer was “it’s an alpha”. We decided instead that the right move was to nod silently and write down every piece of criticism. Then we rebuilt the tutorial: no dialogues, tasks shown with pictures instead of text, and the focus moved to the economy — the part players actually needed to understand.

The lesson: when people tell you your product is confusing, they’re right about the confusion even if they’re wrong about the fix. Don’t argue — record, then redesign.