Yeah, I actually completely agree. While it's not something I prioritized during development, perhaps it should be something I prioritize now. I tried to minimize the friction by not requiring any email verification but I realize that's something that's a deterrent to some players.

The ultracheap way to do this is just have a 2min gameplay video where you describe how a turn works.

I think a quick gameplay video is a great idea.

For something like a strategy game, it's nice to see if the game even appeals to you at all before you invest in a tutorial.

Check out Tag Pro's homepage: http://tagpro.koalabeast.com

As someone said upstream, as a content-creator, I feel like I should just try the game someone spent many hours of their life building. But as a content-consumer, I'm irrational with my attention span for some reason.

What about some login with Google/Facebook/etc? Might be a bit less friction, I know I would prefer it.

So because my game is hosted on Heroku, there are some banned IPs that facebook has blacklisted that Heroku uses. I did give it a shot earlier in development but perhaps I can get it working with google login! :)

I'm aware of the proxy services that heroku provides but it wound up being a lot of setup for something that I could probably replace with something like google logins if I wanted. Sounds like people would like it!

Yes! I have been looking for a strategy game to try... and signing up was still too much friction for me.

As a content-maker, I would feel that attitude is incredible unreasonable, it's "only a sign up." As a content-consumer, that's just where I am.

Same here, not going to invest the time and create an account unless I have a good idea that the result is going to be worth it.

The Try link goes to the same place as the Create Account link.