A five-step course for Australians who have never played a collection role-playing game on a desktop computer
Each step takes about eight to twelve minutes to read, so the whole course is a little under an hour if you read it in one sitting. Most people do not, and nothing here expects you to: the steps are numbered so you can leave off at the end of one and come back a week later without losing the thread.
How this site is paid for. Macrofacet is published by ABAJ CZ s.r.o. Some links on this site point to a game vendor through a paid affiliate link. If you follow one of those links, register on the vendor's landing page, install the game and start the tutorial, the publisher of this site is paid a commission by the affiliate network that operates the link. You pay nothing extra, and the commission plays no part in deciding what the course says or which products it names. You can read all five steps, use every checklist and finish the course without following a single one of those links.
- Step 1 — What a battle collection RPG is, and what it asks of you
The vocabulary, the basic loop of play, and the difference between a game you buy once and a game that is free to begin. - Step 2 — Working out whether your desktop computer can run one
How to find out what is inside the machine you already own, on Windows, macOS or Linux, without installing anything. - Step 3 — Classification ratings, randomised rewards and what things cost
Reading an Australian classification, understanding randomised in-game items, and setting a spending position before you start. - Step 4 — Registering, installing and getting through a first session
Account details, where a download should come from, what a launcher is, and what a tutorial is actually doing. - Step 5 — Settling in: accounts, updates, time and knowing when to stop
Keeping an account recoverable, handling updates, watching the hours, and leaving cleanly if you decide it is not for you.
Every step finishes with a checklist you can work through on your own. The All checklists page gathers the five of them on one sheet that prints cleanly, so you can sit with a pen beside the computer rather than reading from a screen while you work.
Who this course is for, and who it is not for
This course is written for an adult in Australia who owns a desktop or laptop computer, has heard about this kind of game from a friend, a relative or an advertisement, and wants to understand it before clicking anything. You might be doing this for yourself. You might be doing it because a teenager in the house has asked for a game and you would like to know what you are agreeing to.
It is not for you if you are an experienced player looking for tactics or progression advice. The course stops where a reasonable beginner can judge the rest for themselves. It is also not a games magazine, a review site or a ranking of titles. It names few products, and it says plainly where its money comes from.
What you will be able to do when you finish
After Step 1, you will be able to read a game's own description and tell whether it is a one-off purchase, a subscription, or free to begin with optional spending inside it. After Step 2, you will know the make and model of the processor and graphics hardware in your own machine, and how to compare those against a published requirements list.
After Step 3, you will be able to find a game's Australian classification and consumer advice, and explain to someone else what a randomised in-game reward is and why it is treated carefully where minors are concerned. After Step 4, you will be able to register an account, verify where a download has come from and complete a first session without agreeing to anything you have not read.
After Step 5, you will have a recoverable account, an update habit, a view of how much time the game is taking, and a method for stopping if you want to. There is no test, no certificate and no record of your progress anywhere, because this site stores nothing about anybody.
The one checklist to do before anything else
If you only do one thing from this course today, do this. It takes about ten minutes and it makes the rest of the steps far easier.
Before you read any further
- Write down which computer you intend to use, and whether it runs Windows, macOS or a Linux distribution.
- Find out roughly how old that computer is. The purchase receipt, the original box or the model year in the system information screen will all do.
- Check how much free space is left on the drive the computer starts from. Games of this kind are commonly several gigabytes.
- Decide now, in writing, the maximum amount in Australian dollars you are willing to spend on any game in a month. Writing zero is a complete answer.
- If a person under 18 will play, note their age. You will need it in Step 3 when you look up the classification.
- Agree with yourself on when you will read Step 1. A specific evening works better than "sometime".
A worked example you can follow through the course
Throughout the five steps we follow one hypothetical household. It is an invented example used to make the steps concrete; it is not a real family, no one in it is named, and it reports no results from any product.
The household is two adults and a 15-year-old in a suburb of Adelaide. The 15-year-old has asked for a game a school friend plays. One adult uses a six-year-old Windows laptop for work; the other has a more recent desktop. Nobody in the household has installed a game before. They have one shared card for online purchases and a rule that nothing is bought on it without both adults knowing.
At each step you will see what this household did, what they found and what they decided. Their decisions are not recommendations. They are there so you can see the shape of a decision before you make your own.
What you can do without spending anything
Everything in this course is free to do. Finding out what hardware is in your computer needs no software and no payment. Looking up a classification costs nothing either: the Australian Classification Board publishes its database for anyone to search. A game that is free to begin can be registered, installed, played and abandoned without payment details ever being entered, and the course does not treat spending as an expected next step.
Where a named product appears in the course, and why
One product is named in this course: Raid: Shadow Legends, a battle collection role-playing game. It appears in Step 1 as an example of the category, and in Step 4 where the steps of registering and installing are easier to follow against a concrete case. Links to it are paid affiliate links, marked as such every time.
It is named because the publisher of this site has a commercial relationship with the affiliate network that operates the link, and the honest thing is to say so in the same breath as the name. According to that network, the game runs on desktop computers — Mac, Windows and Linux — and the vendor pays a commission when a reader registers on its landing page, installs the game and launches the tutorial. Everything the course says about the product comes from that description. Where the vendor does not state something, the course says that rather than guessing.
The steps themselves are written for the whole category. Nothing in them depends on choosing that product, and a reader who finishes the course and installs something else entirely has used it correctly.
Australian organisations worth knowing
Several Australian bodies publish free material that is useful here, and the steps link to them where they help. The Australian Classification Board classifies games and publishes the consumer advice attached to each rating. The eSafety Commissioner covers online safety, Scamwatch current scams, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission consumer law, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner privacy, and the Australian Cyber Security Centre account security and software updates.
How this course is written and kept current
The course is written and maintained by the ABAJ CZ s.r.o. editorial team. There is no individual author credited, because none of it is a personal account. It is reviewed in full at least twice a year, and sooner if an Australian source it links to changes materially. The date of the last review is in the footer of every page, and the full editorial method is on the About page.
Short questions, short answers
Do I need an account on this site?
No. There is no sign-up, login or newsletter. The site collects nothing beyond the ordinary access log the hosting provider keeps, which the Privacy Policy describes.
Do the checklists remember what I have ticked?
No. They are printed boxes, not controls. The site sets no cookies and uses no browser storage, which is why the All checklists page has a print button.
Is this the official site of any game?
No. Macrofacet is an independent publication. No game vendor has any involvement in it, has reviewed it or has endorsed it.
Can I read the steps out of order?
You can, but Step 3 assumes Step 1's vocabulary and Step 4 assumes Step 2's hardware check.
Begin with Step 1, or look at all five checklists first if you prefer to see where the course ends up.