Please Explain

I still won't announce my next title just yet, as I want to have enough different and exciting screenshots to show you when I do. I'm comfortable being the jack-of-all-trades (with the exception of music), like I was with Bonded Realities, but there is one area that I should not do, no matter how good I may be at it: playtesting.

As I play this new game, I know the mechanics, and I know the level designs. And it feels great. I even add more stuff to keep up a challenge for myself (a frequent pitfall for starry-eyed designers). But how would someone who has never seen this game before react?

The main complaint was that they didn't know what to do. I designed a completely new mechanic that I know well, but I have no idea how I'm going to explain it. I did my best to streamline the UI and controls (not counting analog sticks, the game only ever uses 2 buttons), but explaining it to a newcomer provided an interesting problem for me.

There are many ways for a game to introduce itself. You can have walls of text along with a diagram of the controller. You can have tutorials.

Retro Super Mario games have been credited with allowing the player to just "get" the game when they start playing. I don't think that's correct, though, since they had the luxury of instruction booklets.

I know this post seems pointless without me revealing what this game actually is. Nonetheless, since this game doesn't really have a precedent like Bonded Realities did, I'm at a loss for a good method to explain the game mechanics. I don't like walls of text, and tutorials just slow down the pace of the game. What are some good examples of games explaining their mechanics?

Today, I removed a lot of enemies from the first level, and slowed down the pace of the game when you first start. This was another complaint from playtesting, was that the screen was overwhelming and fast-paced. Good for people who know the game inside-out, not so good for newcomers (and triallers deciding whether to spend MS points on your game)!