Players don’t like tutorials. Developers don’t like tutorials. Game publishers don’t like tutorials. Why? Because teaching game mechanics is often a very boring activity, and during it you have to lead the player by the handle, patiently explaining how the gameplay works. However, in games you can’t get away from this. Let’s figure out how the correct tutorials work.
At first glance, everything is simple: the tutorial is a training level at the beginning of the game. However, back in the 1990s, games became so complicated that one level alone at the beginning was no longer enough. Then the developers began to instruct the player in stages: first, tell him about the main game mechanics, and then, during the game, about everyone else.
In modern game development, a tutorial is any interactive element that introduces the player to the basics of gameplay.
Game instructions, control schemes, tooltips, tips in the speech of characters and in game diaries, cut scenes and even the design of enemies and locations – all these are elements of the tutorial.
Not all of these elements are equally useful. To figure out which of them can be saved, and which are better to throw away, you should remember how the tutorials are arranged.
Why don’t we like tutorials?
The author of the mobile hit “Threes!” Asher Volmer lists three goals that the developer wants to achieve through the tutorial: to teach the player, create a comfort zone for him and keep him interested.
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At this stage, the player will feel that he is being led by the handle – not the best solution for space horror. Many blockbuster games suffer from this ailment, only in a more severe form.
At the start of Far Cry 3, you go through a stealth section for a quarter of an hour, during which you are forced to follow the other character and are bombarded with prompts. In Fallout 4 and Assassin’s Creed, the linear intro stretches for half an hour, and it hardly introduces the game mechanics. And Overwatch and Fallout 3 teach you how to walk and jump at all – these are basic actions that clearly do not need a detailed explanation.
Due to distrust of the player’s intelligence – or just a rush – developers use a variety of “game design crutches”. The founder of the indie studio These Awesome Guys, Nikolai Berbeche, lists them in his lecture.
Popup windows
They are often used as an analogue of full-fledged training. The main drawback is that they slow down the pace of the game and prevent immersion in its world.
Such hints are very difficult to immerse in the game.
Control schemes
They evoke the same reaction as long paragraphs in school textbooks – the player feels information overload and does not remember a single key.
Making training in a fighting game or simulator is not an easy task, but many developers choose the worst from all available options
Walls of text
Game designers are very fond of explaining game mechanics and how things work with detailed descriptions. The effect is predictable: the “walls” of the text are rather annoying and do not allow you to really understand what is written.
In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, a special level was allocated for training, but “text canvases” still could not be avoided
Markers and arrows
Sometimes developers of large RPGs and shooters in the open world use markers that show the way to locations, quests, and even just to exit the level. Ubisoft and Rockstar, creators of the Assassin’s Creed and Grand Theft Auto series, respectively, are particularly persistent in this regard.
These clues, while making life easier for level designers, train the player to look at the arrow in the corner (or top) of the screen instead of peering into the world around him. This often inevitably ruins the gaming experience.
Key illumination
The disadvantage of so many mobile games. Since projects in this market are designed primarily for a casual audience, the developers try to patronize the player as much as possible – and sometimes they get too carried away.
Some tutorials look useful, but in reality they rarely really teach anything: the user just does what he is told and forgets about everything immediately after completing the training.
Really without such a clue in Plants vs. Zombies nobody would have figured out what to do?
All of the above “crutches” are the result of the dismissive attitude of game designers to tutorials. But there is also another, more competent approach.
Discreet learning
In his video about game tutorials, Mark Brown versus horrorDead Space mentions Half-Life 2. The fantastic shooter released by Valve in 2004 embodies the philosophy of “The best tutorial is the one the player doesn’t notice.”
At the famous level “We Don’t Go to Ravenholm”, the player can chop zombies with circular saw blades. How does Half-Life 2 talk about it?
The game first shows severed legs suspended from a tree. Then you come across a zombie body with a blade sticking out of its belly. Finally, with the help of a gravity gun, you pull out such a blade from the wall – and a zombie immediately appears in the nearest doorway.
You instinctively press the shot button, the monster is cut in two – and just like this, in a few seconds, without a word, Half-Life 2 introduces you to the new game mechanics.
Half-life 2
The creators of the game are constantly doing this trick. They first show a new element of gameplay in a safe environment, and then let the player try it out.
For example, before letting you in to the barnacle, the game shows how a monster catches a bird with its sticky stick and eats it. And you learn the principle of the gravity gun by playing a ball with a huge mechanical dog.
Nikolay Berbeche characterizes this approach as “gradual learning through experience”.
In the same way, albeit a little rougher, Alan Wake serves up his basic mechanics. In the introduction, the protagonist is locked on the lawn with an enemy possessed by “darkness”, and a lantern is left on the nearest tree stump. You grab it, direct it at the enemy – and the dark veil around it dissipates.
The game prompts: “Now the darkness no longer protects him. But he is still a threat. ” And after that, a revolver appears on the stump.
Also, we must not forget about the “manuscript” of Alan Wake, which describes the events that await the hero in the future. With their help, the game warns you about the dangers – and at the same time tells you how to cope with them.
Alan wake
Tutorials like this are one of the many reasons Half-Life 2 and Alan Wake retain their cult status. Their authors manage to quietly acquaint the player with the gameplay and at the same time entertain him in the process.
Principles of a good tutorial
Of course, not every game can teach gameplay as invisibly as Half-Life 2. However, there are several principles that game designers advise to adhere to in order to make a competent tutorial.
Respect the intelligence of your audience
To the three main goals of the tutorial, which Asher Volmer calls – to teach, interest and create a comfort zone, he adds a fourth: to respect the player.
Therefore, if the mechanics in your game boil down to shooting limbs at monsters, it is not worth a detailed explanation. Better to leave the player with a couple of tips and let him put the puzzle together. This approach is noticeable not only in AAA hits like Half-Life 2, but also in small mobile games.
“Threes!”, For example, often explains the rules using clues. Another mobile project, Mini Metro, completely introduces the basic principles of its work, and the player understands all the nuances himself.
Mini metro
Respect your audience’s time
Example Threes! and Mini Metro also shows that the tutorial needs to be fast. And also so that it leads to the main game – and it is desirable to do it imperceptibly. The latter is especially true for mobile projects.
Anyone who started playing “The Witcher” by gritting his teeth will break through the training level, because he paid sixty dollars for the game. In the mobile market, where most games are shareware, developers cannot hope for the same. The player needs to be interested from the doorway – otherwise, in a couple of minutes he will be distracted by something else and close the game.
Teach the player through the environment
In his lecture, Nikolai Berbeche notes that level design can also act as a tutorial. Take, for example, the first encounter with a distraught peasant in Resident Evil 4.
After shooting an enemy in his house, you try to go outside, but the front door is barricaded. You run up the stairs and see a window on the second floor. Approach it – and a prompt with the “Jump out” button immediately appears on the screen. Now you know about the mechanics that will save your life more than once in the future.
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
A story campaign can be a tutorial too
In some games, the gameplay is too complex – so much so that the developers train the players gradually. And some – for example, the authors of “sandboxes” and strategies – turn into a tutorial a significant part of the story campaign.
So, at the beginning of No Man’s Sky, the player finds himself on an uninhabited planet next to a disabled spaceship. Following the prompts, he fixes it, gets acquainted with how the equipment works, and then flies off the planet – and this is where the plot begins.
You become a participant in events affecting the past of the character and the fate of the missing interstellar expedition, and the only way to find answers is to go to the center of the galaxy.
At each stage of the campaign, No Man’s Sky introduces the player to one of the gameplay elements – a ground base, orbital stations, space anomalies, portals, and so on.
At the same time, at (almost) any moment you can abandon the plot and simply explore new worlds – however, the intrigue encourages you to return to the main story over and over again and move forward, mastering the gameplay better and better.
No Man’s Sky
The tutorial is usually taken as a mandatory convention. However, this is an extremely important part of any game. A learning snippet is not only needed to help a new player get comfortable, it is also an opportunity to make a good first impression. And this opportunity, as we know, occurs only once.
