Hi, I'm Luife, an indie game developer. In this devlog, I'm going to show you how I teach players the controls of my game without overwhelming them. I'm going to take Peter La Giraffe as an example, a game I created in two weeks for #TuJuegoAJuicioJam. 

To begin with, if your game does not have an options menu, the player would not know which buttons to use to move the character. The most used controls are WASD or arrows for movement so we can assume the player has this knowledge. It is a bit overwhelming to put all the controls on the screen from the beginning, so it is best to show them little by little. 

For example, in my game, the first button you have to press is "X", an action button that is important in the game since it serves to stretch the neck.

 Being on the left side of the keyboard, the player will use their left hand to perform this mechanic. 

I made the player press the up and down arrows to move the neck, and since the player already has their left hand on the keyboard the player will intuitively use their right hand to do this.

 Finally to interact, I use the "Z" a button which is close to the "X" and easy to press with the left hand.

 With that, I don't need to directly tell the player that you walk with the left and right arrows, and although you can also jump with space, it is not necessary to use it in the game, because there are no obstacles that you must overcome by jumping. But in case that the jump is an important mechanic, I would add a first obstacle that you had to jump necessarily.

Advice:

 -Put the controls inside the game. Usually for not knowing how to put the controls in the game, there are developers who usually put it in the description of the games. This is not very intuitive and more because few people usually read the description of the games. 

-Put them little by little so as not to overwhelm the player. 

-Use intuitive controls that are easy to press. 

-Avoid putting a lot of text, use little text or create small pictures / animations to show you how to use them

-Remember to teach the player little by little by forcing him to have to use the buttons

That is all. If you have other advice on how to teach players the controls of your game in a simple way, you can leave me a comment, so we can learn more about this topic :)

 if you want to try this and my other games you can do it from https://luife.itch.io/

Thanks for your time