To make your game more user-friendly, its a good idea to have help files, as it can be very daunting for new signups to see the multitude of links around your site, and they may not understand some of the lingo the regular players use.

However, it can also be just as daunting as a game designer to think that you'll have to write explanations for all of your game, and then maybe even some kind of system to put all that information within just a few clicks of whoever is searching for it.

Argh!

But, what with technology these days, theres a new answer. Using a wiki as a help system is a great idea for several reasons:

1. Little effort on your part!
It sounds lazy, but it is a good reason. Writing help files is a pretty good waste of time, given the skills you may have to write other things, and the creativity you have to design interesting and unique features.

2. Very user-friendly
When you've spent months designing the game in your head, and then spent nights writing it all yourself, you'll have a pretty good idea of how your game works. However, telling new players things such as 'go to preferences then choose player options then just toggle it' will mean a lot less to them than it will to you. Having other players write the help files, who've had to learn everything themselves, will make everything more comprehensive and generally better

3. Snazzy
Some wikis look pretty nice! For my game, buskerwars, I use mediawiki, the software behind wikipedia. Some professional PHP coders have spent a long time designing and refining the system, and so there are features there which are probably better than some flat HTML files. Not to mention of course, that you can skin them to match the design of your website and create a pretty visually stunning product.

4. Extensible
Well, this is pretty much an extension of point 1, but its still something to bear in mind At some point, you're going to have an *amazing* idea and implement it into your game whilst happily thinking of what praise you'll get from your admiring players. This optimism may well fade when you realise you'll have to then explain to everyone how it works - wikis maintain and update themselves leaving you more time to do anything you feel like

One thing I would have to point out as a security-minded person is that there is always a risk in using 3rd-party software. If you have ANY other modules or software on your site, maybe phpBB, a wiki or even an image gallery on your screenshots page, then it would be a good idea to stay abreast of new exploits. Visiting critical security, milw0rm or something every now and then will probably do, but it would be a shame to let something as minor as a flaw in someone elses work let your site be vandalised by kids.