Featuring Joe Beard from Example of Play
This week’s guest is Joe Beard, the creator of Example of Play, a YouTube channel that fixes a problem developers still haven’t worked out: teaching people how to actually play their strategy games.
Joe’s not in it for clickbait or glory. He makes clear, no-nonsense tutorials for complex games, especially the ones with terrible or non-existent tutorials. Think obscure war games and overcomplicated 4X systems that launch with a PDF manual and a shrug. Joe steps in where the developer gave up.
The YouTube Channel Filling in the Gaps
Joe’s content focuses on strategy and war games that assume you’ve got a PhD in interface archaeology. Titles like Advanced Tactics Gold, Distant Worlds 2, and Shadow Empire come up a lot. Games with depth, but barely a surface-level explanation. His approach: show the game, show how it works, and cut the menu screens down to 15 seconds or less. You learn by doing. No waffle. No 45-minute preambles. Just straight to action.
The videos aren’t about being good at the game. They’re about helping you understand the game, so you can decide whether it’s worth sinking your time into it. And that’s not a small thing in a genre where the barrier to entry can be a hundred-page PDF and a Steam review section full of people asking what the hell a ZOC is.
Developers, Manuals, and the Missing Tutorials
The discussion cuts into a real issue: why are indie strategy games so often released without tutorials? Joe’s take is simple. Small teams don’t have the time or budget to build good onboarding. Fair enough. But it still leaves new players in the dark, and the burden lands on creators like him.
The worst offenders? Shadow Empire gets called out directly. A deep, rewarding game buried under an interface that feels like it was designed in a vacuum. Joe wants to crack it and build a proper video series, but it’s a mountain. One made taller by an obtuse manual and a playerbase that’s already accepted the pain.
He also praises titles that get it right, like the original Rome: Total War, which dropped you into a small battle, showed you the ropes without lecturing, and scaled up gently. Tutorials that build confidence instead of resentment. It’s not hard. It’s just rare.
Learning from the Audience
Joe’s videos are shaped by viewer comments, Reddit threads, and Discord chat. If someone’s confused, he makes a note. If a guide exists but misses something, he’ll cover it. The end result is practical content with an actual purpose: helping people play games they’ve already bought and bounced off.
He admits he’s not aiming for optimal play. He’s not a min-maxer. He’s the guy who figured it out the night before and now he’s walking you through it. It’s honest, useful, and much more effective than some overproduced voiceover reading out a tooltip.
Menace, EU5, and What’s Next
Joe’s looking ahead to Europa Universalis V and Menace. One is the latest Paradox spreadsheet sim, promising more systems and complexity than Crusader Kings III. The other is a sci-fi tactical RPG from the Battle Brothers devs, with squad-based combat, persistent characters, and enough mechanical depth to justify a full playlist on Example of Play.
He’s also finishing up a few ongoing series – Proud and the Few, Poland 39, Dominions 6 – while phasing out the juggling act of running multiple series in parallel. It’s a pain to keep three different game systems in your head at once. The plan now is to finish, refocus, and go deeper.
Manuals, Demos, and Design Lessons
The conversation ends with a reminder that, once upon a time, manuals mattered. Big-box games came with chunky books that taught you systems, lore, and mechanics. Now? You’re lucky to get a tooltip. Joe doesn’t miss the paper so much as the effort behind it.
He also shares an idea from the devs of Sanctuary: Shattered Sun, who are building their demo to be the tutorial. No post-launch patchwork, no guesswork. It’s a smarter approach, and a clear sign of respect for the player.
Joe’s YouTube channel isn’t glamorous. It’s useful. If you’ve ever bought a strategy game, bounced off it, and thought, “I want to like this but I don’t know what I’m doing,” go watch Example of Play. You’ll learn something, you’ll probably enjoy yourself, and you won’t have to sit through 20 minutes of someone waffling at the main menu.
You’ll find Joe on our Discord too. Ask him questions. He’ll probably answer.
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