To be told or to explore?

[max734734]

Similar to how Tutorials work, should games retain that sense of telling the player what to do? Or leave it to them to explore the world they've just entered. What do you guys think?

 

[tippy2k2]

I am 100% on board with the Tutorial and said tutorial should be optional somehow. Boom! Everyone is now happy.

Please send the checks to my house game developers for this fabulous idea.

Anywho, I want a tutorial because I have shit to do. If I'm wasting a bunch of my time trying to figure out how to play your video game, I am more likely to stop playing than I am to hammer my head into the wall to figure it out.

 

[Saelune]

Depends on the game. Simpler games need not need a blatant tutorial, more complicated ones do. But dont make it a chore. Being able to skip it, or making it fun are good suggestions. Or make it optional completely for some games.

But as Game Grumps has taught me, even simple and obvious things can be missed by idiots.

 

[American Tanker]

Give a simple tutorial that walks the player through the basic mechanics but is completely optional; and include an in-game system that reminds the player how to do things and also shows how to perform more advanced techniques.

 

[Saelune]

I'm beginning to feel like opening tutorials don't work. I forget, and then I can't go back. It also makes replaying a drag. I'd rather just have an organized appendix in the pause menu.

I hate games that feel impossible to return to later, cause you forget how to play, then you end up restarting the whole game, get back to where you were and lose interest again...

Vicious cycle.

 

[Recusant]

The appropriate course of action is very simple: are you making a game for toddlers? No? Then WTFM.

 

[Zhukov]

Tell me all the things.

Yeah, it's fun to discover stuff, but it's more annoying to miss things or realize that you could have been doing it better for the last ten hours.

 

[Bad Jim]

I believe the tried and true method is to introduce mechanics one by one over the first half of the game, each time forcing the player to use the new mechanic so they don't forget.

 

[DoPo]

I'm beginning to feel like opening tutorials don't work. I forget, and then I can't go back. It also makes replaying a drag. I'd rather just have an organized appendix in the pause menu.

I think even worse are the post opening tutorials. The games, or at least mostly AAA games (and the ones that strive to be ones) love starting you in medias res. That usually means "hey, here is a battle - go for it" but then teach you how to do battle AFTERWARDS - "press this button to attack" and so on. Uh. I mean, come on - I should have already picked up the basics already from you putting me right there and requiring me to use them. It's even worse if the story doesn't tie into it, either - you as an experienced fighter will be in a fight and then taught how to fight.

 

[max734734]

I'm beginning to feel like opening tutorials don't work. I forget, and then I can't go back. It also makes replaying a drag. I'd rather just have an organized appendix in the pause menu.

I hate games that feel impossible to return to later, cause you forget how to play, then you end up restarting the whole game, get back to where you were and lose interest again...

Vicious cycle.

This is how I feel about RTS in a nutshell. I still have C&C: Tiberium Wars installed though, and one day I'll make a point of memorizing all the damn hot keys needed to play efficiently/effectively.

 

[shrekfan246]

I like both to certain extents, but I'll admit that as I get older, I have less time and patience for games that just throw me in and expect me to decipher their moon-logic in order to progress.

Sometimes basic tutorials seem extraneous and unnecessary; for example, I recently started replaying Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the game has text popups for practically every menu screen when you open them for the first time. A lot of the information they provide about said menu screens is rudimentary at best, but that's coming from the perspective of someone who played the games a decade ago and has been playing games in general for over twenty years, so I have a bit of a skewed idea of what information is helpful.

 

[DoPo]

I'm beginning to feel like opening tutorials don't work. I forget, and then I can't go back. It also makes replaying a drag. I'd rather just have an organized appendix in the pause menu.

I think even worse are the post opening tutorials. The games, or at least mostly AAA games (and the ones that strive to be ones) love starting you in medias res. That usually means "hey, here is a battle - go for it" but then teach you how to do battle AFTERWARDS - "press this button to attack" and so on. Uh. I mean, come on - I should have already picked up the basics already from you putting me right there and requiring me to use them. It's even worse if the story doesn't tie into it, either - you as an experienced fighter will be in a fight and then taught how to fight.

I'd just put a little question mark in the corner of the picture whenever something new is introduced. Or an i, for info. Then you press key i and the game takes you to the appropriate part of the appendix. No interruption unless you want it, and the experienced fighter doesn't suddenly look like a newb.

That is a pretty decent way to do it. I am playing Kenshi right now and basically that's what they do. Any time a new thing opens up, you get a little tutorial popup on the side - you can click it and it will give you an explanation in a wizard-style messages. It's actually amazing - the popups are really unobtrusive and you can dismiss them if you want to. When it's something you need to know, it gives you 2-4 messages, each contains a small digestible piece of information and you then click "Continue" to go to the next one. It both prevents the player from being overwhelmed by a lot of information and you can just read 1-2, do something else and come back to the rest. You can also close the message and the thing would be minimized back to the side, so you don't need to waste screen space. If a new system is opened up to the player (e.g., crafting) you will be walked through how to find and use it by prompting you to click the appropriate buttons and only then you can click "Continue". However, the option is still there, just called "Skip", so if you think you don't need to do that, you can just press that and go to the next message.

It's unobtrusive, it doesn't overwhelm you with information, it shows up only when appropriate, it's pretty good. Another cool thing is that you only get the messages once, so, for example if you've played a while and start a new game, you don't get any tutorials until you encounter something new. Furthermore, you can reset the tutorials back from the options, if you so wish and you can turn them off entirely. The only improvement I can think of is being able to re-trigger specific tutorials after you've encountered them.

At any rate, another thing I like having is having a tutorial that is separate from the main game - that way you can play it if you want and learn the basics, or just skip it and go straight into the main game. You don't need to put everything in that tutorial, though, if the game has a lot of stuff going on, but it would be enough to cover the basics, like look, move, shoot, etc. as appropriate. As a nice bonus, it can serve as an additional world-building tool so you can actually show the main character (or somebody else) who is actually a rookie and being trained.

I thought of another game that did a cool thing with tutorials - Second Sight. It actually tied it incredibly well with the game story and it served to more gradually introduce new stuff - the idea in that game is that you wake up and don't know who you are (I know, original, right), but as you play you start getting "flashbacks". Those are you receiving physical training which shows you stuff like climbing, crawling, jumping, etc. You basically play a small tutorial level that that shows you some moves and then you get to the next level in "the present time" and you get to use that knowledge, as you start finding obstacles that need those skills. It was really cool especially since it worked within the context of the game, too.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I generally don?t mind a tutorial, but I prefer it be fluidly woven into the narrative at the beginning without breaking/slowing narrative stride. I dislike when games do formalized training, like military FPSs that introduce you as ?the new guy,? and some drill sergeant takes you to a shooting range to teach you FPS mechanics for the first 10 minutes despite them being 90% universal across the genre and genetically ingrained in the DNA of any gamer who?s played an FPS within the last 15 years. I?m boots on the ground; I wanna get busy killin? right away; just teach me what you think I should know with minimally invasive text pop-ups as I progress.

 

[kilenem]

There is a thin line between the game being hand holdy and being extremely esoteric. I would rather a game be esoteric then handholdy My favorite game for Wii U is Xenoblade Chronicles X. Its one of the most unintuitive games I've ever played. To the point the prima guide can barely help you. Its still extremely fun

 

[max734734]

I hate being interrupted with Stop a sec because hey...The more you know...! in games. The icon Ezekiel mentioned is about as good a compromise as possible unless a dev gets crafty with narrative-based tutorials. There are a few examples of each, but more often than not I find tutorials too distracting and in some cases counterproductive to just learning the game naturally.

Tutorials should be at least either contained within their own menu for really complex gameplay or treated like unintrusive training wheels at most, where you can use them or lose them on the fly.

 

[CritialGaming]

This is highly dependent on your world design. The question is, is your game world built in such a way that the player can get around/solve quests/fine secrets without a tutorial? If the answer is no, put a tutorial in. Otherwise give players an option upon loading the game, "Welcome to the World, would you like to take a quick tutorial on how to play?"

Honestly the best tutorials in gaming, are the tutorials you don't even know are happening.