One of the most difficult aspects of developing a magic trick is the final stage - writing a tutorial. No matter how clear you attempt to be things can very quickly become confusing. Every tutorial has two strands, first what the audience should see and secondly the secret moves that create the illusion. Even the simplest 'sleight of hand' can be incredibly difficult to describe - imagine trying to write a tutorial on clicking your fingers, it very quickly becomes nonsensical.

As my apps become more ambitious written instructions just aren't effective enough. Today I would like to introduce my solution - the 'Welcome Instructions'.

The Welcome Instructions slides down when you launch the app and include a short written description of the effect and two buttons. Tapping the first button 'Learn' will start a performance/tutorial video. The video will first demonstrate the effect as is should be seen, then a step-by-step tutorial will play explaining every aspect of the illusion.

The second button 'Perform' will hide the Welcome instructions allowing the trick to be free of non-essencial buttons.

Once you've learned the secret you can turn the Welcome Instructions off in the iPhone settings menu.

Hopefully the Welcome Instructions will make learning Alakazapps apps a breeze. The first app to come with the Welcome Instructions is Magic Tattoo due out in the next few days. All my other apps will be updated to include the Welcome Screen and obviously all future releases will include it too.

Tags: magic explained, magic tutorials, alakazapps video tutorials, welcome screen