Bootcamp is twenty levels long, and it's the front door to everything else in Droning On. Puzzle Mode is behind it. Endurance Mode is behind it. So are the feature unlocks — collections, interactables, hazard detection, functions, classes — which the game hands you one chapter at a time as you earn them.
That's the right structure for someone learning to code. It is a wall for someone who already can. If you write software for a living, being asked to demonstrate a while loop before the game will let you into the more exciting modes. That's not fun; we want fun.
So Bootcamp now has a skip button.
The skip isn't one button that eats the whole tutorial. Bootcamp is split into eight chapters — Movement Basics, Detection and Timing, Energy Management, Loops and Patterns, Collections and Scanning, Interactables, Hazards, and Final Integration — and each one has its own skip control on its header.
It works sequentially. A chapter's button only becomes active once everything before it is finished, whether you finished it by playing or by skipping. So you can take the first three chapters at a walk, decide you know exactly how energy budgeting is going to go, skip that one, and keep playing from there. Skipping the entire tutorial is possible; it's eight deliberate clicks, in order, and each one asks you to confirm.
Skipping a chapter still grants everything that chapter teaches. The syntax and functions it would have unlocked get unlocked, and the game shows you the same unlock screen you'd have gotten by earning them, because arriving in Puzzle Mode without the tools the tutorial hands out would make the skip a trap rather than a shortcut.
This is the part I spent the most time on, because a skip that costs nothing is just a cheat code.
A skipped level is marked complete with deliberately worst-case stats: the slowest possible time, and no energy left over. It counts for progression and nothing else. You didn't beat my developer-best targets, so those payouts stay unclaimed. And critically, a skipped level's time never touches the leaderboards. That's not a display filter; the level carries a flag that says it was skipped, and the upload path refuses it.
Replay a skipped level for real, and the flag clears, the genuine time is recorded, and it uploads like any other run. Since a skip records the worst possible result, any real attempt is an improvement. Nothing is permanently forfeited by skipping — it just stays unearned until you earn it.
This one I went back and forth on: should skipping the whole tutorial award the "beat Bootcamp" achievement?
I landed on yes. The achievement marks a gate you've passed, and a player who skipped Bootcamp has genuinely passed it; the entire premise of the feature is that they didn't need it. Being stingy here would mean an experienced player carries a permanent gap in their achievement list as punishment for already knowing the material, which is precisely the audience the feature exists for.
The separate achievement for beating my own developer times on Bootcamp is a different story. That one requires actually being faster than me, and worst-case stats will never clear that bar. Skip all you want; that one still has to be played.
Chapter skipping is a full-game feature. The demo is Bootcamp levels 1 through 10, the tutorial is the demo, and a skip button in it would be a button that skips the demo product. In demo builds, the control simply isn't there.
Bootcamp exists because most people who buy this game want to be taught. Some don't. Both of those are fine, and I want the game to be inviting to all who want to code.
Thanks for reading. As always, your feedback is welcome. If you haven't already, drop a wishlist and come hang out in the Discord. It's the best place to share feedback, follow development, and engage.