A five-step course for anyone in Australia opening their first desktop role-playing game

The five steps below take about forty minutes to read from beginning to end, and each one can be read on its own evening without losing the thread. Nothing here needs to be done quickly, and nothing here needs to be bought.

The course, in order

1. Step 1 — What a collection role-playing game actually is: the shape of the genre, the words it uses, and what it asks of you.
2. Step 2 — Working out whether your computer is the right one: reading system requirements without guessing, on Windows, macOS and Linux.
3. Step 3 — Classification, in-game purchases and randomised rewards: what the Australian Classification Board publishes and what a paid chance costs.
4. Step 4 — Registering, installing and the first hour: what you hand over at sign-up and how to install from the vendor and nowhere else.
5. Step 5 — Living with it afterwards: time, money, account safety, and leaving a game cleanly when you are done.

Every step ends with a checklist you can work through on your own. The All checklists page gathers the five of them in one printable sheet, so you can keep a copy beside the computer instead of scrolling back.

Who this course is for, and who it is not for

This workbook is written for an adult in Australia who has a desktop or laptop computer, has heard of this kind of game from a relative or an advertisement, and would like to understand the thing before installing it. You do not need to have played anything before. You do not need to know what a patch is, or a gacha, or a stat line; each term is explained the first time it turns up.

It is not written for someone who already plays several of these games and wants tactics, team-building advice or a comparison of individual titles. There is a large hobbyist literature for that, and it is better at it than we would be. It is also not written for people who intend to play on a phone. The particular game discussed in the course is promoted for desktop computers only, and most of the practical advice in Steps 2 and 4 assumes a machine with a keyboard, a folder structure and an installer file.

If someone under sixteen is going to be at the keyboard, the course is still useful, but read Step 3 first rather than last. It is the step that deals with classification, with purchases inside a game, and with the kind of randomised reward that is worth understanding before a card is anywhere near the computer.

What you will be able to do when you finish

Courses often promise a transformation. This one promises five small, checkable abilities, and nothing more. After Step 1 you will be able to read a game's own description and say which parts are gameplay and which parts are sales copy. After Step 2 you will be able to open the system information panel on your own computer and compare three numbers against a vendor's published requirements. After Step 3 you will be able to look up a title in the national classification database and read what it actually says.

After Step 4 you will be able to register for a game account without handing over more than the sign-up genuinely needs, and to download an installer from the vendor's own address rather than from a search result that resembles it. After Step 5 you will have a plan for the ordinary afterwards: what you will spend in a month, if anything, how you will know when you have stopped enjoying it, and how to close the account down if that day comes.

The one checklist to do before anything else

Before Step 1, and before you install anything at all, four minutes with the computer in front of you is worth more than an hour of reading.

A worked example running through the course

To keep the steps concrete, the course follows one hypothetical household — an invented example, not a real family, and not anybody's account of their own experience. Two adults share a six-year-old laptop in a flat in Adelaide. One of them saw an advertisement for a fantasy game during a video and was curious enough to look it up; the other mainly wants to know whether it will slow the laptop down and whether it will quietly cost money.

The example household appears again in each step, working through the same questions you will be working through. They never report results, never say a product was good or bad, and never recommend anything. They exist only to show what the checklists look like when someone fills them in.

What you can do without spending anything

A large part of this course costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Checking your computer's specifications costs nothing. Reading a classification entry costs nothing. Reading a vendor's privacy notice and refund terms before you register costs nothing. Deciding a monthly limit in advance costs nothing, and it is the single most useful thing in the whole workbook.

Many titles in this category use a business model in which the download and the early hours carry no charge, and the money comes later from optional purchases inside the game. Whether any particular title works that way, and on what terms, is something only that vendor's own site and store page can tell you, and those terms change. The course teaches you where to look rather than quoting figures that will be out of date by the time you read them.

Where Raid: Shadow Legends appears in the course, and why

One title is named repeatedly in this workbook: Raid: Shadow Legends. It is named because Hidden Assets s.r.o. has a commercial relationship with the affiliate network that promotes it, and it would be dishonest to discuss the category while hiding the one product that pays for the site. It is not named because we have tested it, ranked it or found it better than anything else; we have done none of those things, and the course makes no claim about how good it is.

What the course can tell you about that title is limited on purpose to what the vendor and the network state: it is promoted for desktop computers running Windows, macOS or Linux, and the affiliate commission is earned when a reader registers on the landing page, installs the game and launches the tutorial. Anything beyond that — pricing, content, features, how it runs on your particular machine — is for the vendor's own site to answer, and Step 1 explains how to read that site critically.

The link in the next sentence is a paid affiliate link; opening it may earn Hidden Assets s.r.o. a commission at no extra cost to you. If you would like to see the vendor's own description while you read, you can visit the Raid: Shadow Legends website and come back.

Official Australian help

Several Australian bodies publish free material that is more authoritative than anything a site like this one can offer, and the steps link to them where they are relevant.

• Australian Classification Board — the body that classifies films, games and some publications in Australia, and publishes a searchable database of its decisions.
• eSafety Commissioner — the national online safety regulator, with guidance for adults and for families about online games and conduct.
• Scamwatch — the ACCC service that collects reports of scams and publishes descriptions of how they work.
• ACCC — the national competition and consumer regulator, which administers the Australian Consumer Law.
• OAIC — the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the privacy regulator.
• Australian Cyber Security Centre — part of the Australian Signals Directorate, publishing plain guidance on securing personal devices and accounts.

How this course is written and kept current

The five steps were drafted in order, each one assuming only what the steps before it explained, and each one ending in a checklist that can be done without reading anything else. Where a step states something general about Australian classification, consumer rights or privacy, it links to the government body responsible rather than asking you to take our word for it. Where a step says something about a particular product, it is limited to what that product's vendor or network states.

The whole workbook is reviewed at least twice a year, and whenever an Australian regulator changes guidance we have linked to. The date of the last review appears in the footer of every page, including this one. The course has no enrolment, no account and no record of who has read what; there is nothing to sign up for, and nothing on this site collects your details. The About page describes the editorial method in full, including the commercial relationship behind the one product the course names.

Short questions

Do I have to read the steps in order?

No, but they are written to be read in order, and Steps 4 and 5 assume the vocabulary introduced in Step 1. If you are short of time, read Step 3 on its own; it is the one with the most consequence attached.

Does this course cost anything, or require signing up?

No. There is no account, no form and no email list on this site. You can read every page and print every checklist without giving us anything.

Is this an official site for any game?

No. Slowspan is published by Hidden Assets s.r.o. and has no relationship with any game publisher beyond the paid affiliate links described in the disclosure. No vendor has reviewed, approved or endorsed this course.

Can I finish the course without installing or buying anything?

Yes. Every checklist can be completed with nothing installed. Four of the five steps involve no software at all.