{"id":97211,"date":"2019-07-24T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T21:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/347341"},"modified":"2019-07-24T21:50:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T21:50:00","slug":"dont-miss-the-art-of-the-tutorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/07\/24\/dont-miss-the-art-of-the-tutorial\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Miss: The art of the tutorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, my Twitter feed flared up briefly with complaints about the “hand-holdy” quality of tutorials in many modern games. It subsided pretty quickly, but I thought it raised some interesting questions: Who do you build tutorials for, exactly?<\/p>\n

How have developers changed their approach to tutorial design now that games which envelop players with barely any attempt at guidance — titles like Minecraft<\/em>, Dark Souls <\/em>and DayZ <\/em>— have become huge influences on the industry?<\/p>\n

And perhaps most importantly to developers — if you’re going to welcome players into your game with some level of tutorializing, how do you do it well?<\/p>\n

It’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently, and so I reached out to a handful of experienced developers from different corners of the industry to get their perspective on the best way to make people feel comfortable the first time they play your game.<\/p>\n

If you’re going to use a ramp, make sure it’s custom-built<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Veteran game designer Brenda Romero believes there isn\u2019t a \u201cone-fits-all\u201d answer to the question, or even a \u201cmany-fits-all\u201d approach. \u201cIt depends on the game, the audience and in some cases the publisher,\u201d she says. \u201cThe wider the audience, the younger the audience, the more gentle the ramp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romero acknowledges there are exceptions to this (and every) rule, suggesting Super Hexagon<\/em> and Minecraft <\/em>as superb examples of games with broad appeal and brutal welcome ramps.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinecraft<\/em>, for instance, drops you in. I love that about the game,\u201d says Romero. \u201cIts lack of \u2018welcome\u2019 and \u2018hand-holding\u2019 created a massive online community in which player helps player. It allowed me to explore and discover for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experienced designer and educator reminds other game makers that building overly gentle \u201cramps\u201d into your game risks annoying people who are already game-literate, and points to Insomniac as a studio that does an impressive job of designing good ramps. \u201cIn my opinion, they create some of the best \u2018welcomes\u2019 in the industry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Don’t let them see you hold their hands<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hyper Light Drifter<\/em> designer\/programmer Teddy Diefenbach agrees that the best way to welcome players to your game is ultimately up to you, but adds that he sees two ideal ways for developers to tutorialize players without turning them off.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst is a total avoidance of tutorializing, in games where exploring the systems of the game can become a sort of play in themselves,\u201d says Diefenbach. Hyper Light Drifter<\/em> is designed with this philosophy because \u201cwe like to trust that our players will experiment, and discover the nuances of our combat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diefenbach says doing so can give players a rewarding feeling of pride when they figure things out, something they can only earn when the developer affords them space to do so.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s not feasible for your game, Diefenbach recommends a sort of \u201cdecentralized\u201d approach to tutorial design that sees players gaining access to new abilities as they\u2019re required.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlock inputs a button at a time, so that you\u2019re introduced to each play mechanic as you find need for it,\u201d says the designer. \u201cYou get to begin your game immediately, and the designers give you the information you need, when you need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow indie designer Adrian Chmielarz concurs, but cautions that this sort of \u201clearn as you go\u201d approach can backfire if your game puts players through too much complex action too soon.<\/p>\n

He points to the first level of Mirror\u2019s Edge<\/em> as a prime example, noting that \u201cwhen the game quickly went from \u2018use the left stick to move\u2019 to \u2018use this insane combination of buttons and stick moves to make a triple somersault and a pirouette\u2019 I just dropped it and never returned to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re concerned about overwhelming your players with too much too fast, Chmielarz recommends checking out the <\/span>PENS (Player Experience of Need Satisfaction) motivational model<\/a> — which <\/span>Chmielarz and his fellow developers at The Astronauts consulted while creating The Vanishing of Ethan Carter<\/em> —<\/span> and trying to apply it to your own game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[PENS] says that a successful game allows the players to feel competent and autonomous, and to \u2018connect\u2019 to other human beings,\u201d says Chmielarz. With that in mind, The Astronauts axed any evidence of a tutorial segment from Ethan Carter <\/em>— the game opens only with a message that it \u201cwill not hold your hand\u201d — and found that players felt more autonomous and competent because they had to figure out everything for themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of tutorial made it possible for us to put the players in the state of mind that not only the game allowed them to feel autonomous and competent, but that it actually demanded these things from them,\u201d says Chmielarz. \u201cThat heightened their environmental and narrative awareness, which was a crucial element of the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leave room for players to discover things<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For Mohawk Games co-founder Soren Johnson, the trick to making players feel welcome in your game is neither explicit tutorials or complete abandonment, but rather subtle (but thorough) contextual help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important to provide space for player discovery in games,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cTutorials can take that discovery away from players by forcing them to learn everything all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonhson\u2019s experience as a strategy game designer (formerly on titles like Civilization IV<\/em>, now on Mohawk\u2019s upcoming Offworld Trading Company<\/em>) shines through in his penchant for tooltips over tutorials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would prefer to rely on thorough in-game mouseover help — which means that everything must have pop-up help rather than a handholding tutorial,\u201d Johnson tells Gamasutra, adding that other designers should look to Civilization V<\/em> for a good example of how to implement this sort of subtle guidance well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt only teaches you about the tech tree, for example, when you open up the tech tree,\u201d says Johnson. \u201c<\/span>Civ V<\/em> did an excellent job of providing \u2018just in time\u2019 tutorials depending on the game’s context.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson also speaks highly of Plants Vs. Zombies<\/em> designer George Fan\u2019s approach to tutorial design, an approach that rendered his strategic tower defense game accessible to a broad audience — including his own mother.<\/p>\n

Speaking at GDC 2012<\/a>, Fan offered the following timeless advice to his fellow developers designing tutorials: teach players without them ever realizing they’re being taught.<\/p>\n

“The weird thing is, games are kind of all about learning,” said Fan. “Humans like learning, and learning is inherently fun. But most humans don’t <\/span>know <\/em>they like learning, and that is why we must trick them.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, my Twitter feed flared up briefly with complaints about the “hand-holdy” quality of tutorials in many modern games. It subsided pretty quickly, but I thought it raised some interesting questions: Who do you build tutorials for, exactly? How have developers changed their approach to tutorial design now that games which envelop players with barely any attempt at guidance — titles like Minecraft, Dark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}