Tutorials 101 - How to Design a Good Game Tutorial - Extra Credits

Thank you a lot!

I found that sometimes giving the play a glimpse of future features could spark some excitement.
For example, while playing, the players get to see some cool toys that an NPC is using. It let them wonder what will happen if they can get their hand on it.

I’m always shocked how few games make tutorials/hints a menu option. If a player experiences good flow, they don’t need a tutorial. If a player wants to get an introduction to the world, or is lost, just enable tutorials.

Assassin’s Creed is infamous for forcing players to relive hours of tutorials on how to move around, then providing no information on changes to the specific game. As much as I love AC’s concept, many games are more frustrating than enjoyable.

This isn’t necessarily a tutorial issue, but this one game in the 2000s turned out to be unbeatable because the devs made the boss fight require mashing a button that didn’t exist on the main console they released on. Similarly triple clicking probably wouldn’t work when every mouse has different signals related to it’s buttons, which has historically crippled game playability.

I love this quote 🤩: “If you are mindful of this [how features are explained during the development] and disciplined in your design, you can create the best tutorial there is; one that no one remembers is there.”
10 years after creating this video, it is still as relevant as ever.

This is why I'm a fan of research trees. They limit the choices in the beginning and gradually introduce more complex interactions, but still leave all the options open for experienced players to use the path they take through it as it's own meta mechanic

That was waaaaay too good!!!! It was so funny and the art so cute, and really helpful. Thanks for that.

The best part of breaking a tutorial up over the course of a game with mechanics becoming explained as they become important is that if they were always there and you just didn't know how to use them, repeat playthroughs let the player use them well from the beginning, allowing them to come more connected with the game.

it's been a decade and this is still one the best videos on this subject I've seen

I created a board game (irl) and it's pretty fun, its like chess but much more complicated and I am making that game in unity too, but i don't know how to make a tutorial for that, because as I said its complicated and I don't even know where to start from

Valve should have watched this before making the CS: GO one.

cough cough, breath of the wild

Monolith Soft should watch this video.

VICTORIA 2

Metroid Prime is a perfect as example of a well done tutorial

I'm just thinking about Red dead redemption and it's engaging tutorial

Superliminal was also %90 tutorial.

this remembered me of Witcher3. First 10 minutes is tutorial, I barely learn hof to quick attack and 10 hours into the game I start to wonder what the other moves are and why the game is equally hard and boring to play.

Cube cavern has the best tutorial, the music is Catchy!

This video still has value to this day. Thanks as always.

man

I want to know how Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild stacks up to this.

SWANKY!!!

ASASAN CREED 3'S TUTORIAL WAS HARD AND I COULDN'T FINISH WHY

good video
wanna be friend?

I’d rather have an invasive tutorial to idiot proof a game than get thrown to the wolves.

Steamshovel Harry: imma make the tutorial so long that the player won't have time to do anything else

A good idea is also different levels of tutorials example
first game you have played
First game of x genre
Standard
No tutorial

this tutorial stands very well even till today

You mention using WASD to move, and something no one seems to realise is that left handed players may not be comfortable using WASD when they have perfectly good cursors or the number pad. I know it's a bit off topic, but I don't think there's a single good reason not to give people customizable controls, no matter what the game is.

Thanks for this! I have a lot of people requesting a tutorial for my game and I'm usually against tutorials as the games I grew up with didn't have them so this is helpful.

A good tutorial is like a ninja. Effective and efficient, but near undetectable.

when that integral sign came up early on I just cracked up

1:05
AMNESIA!!

im in 2020! whoa....

Hay yo wass up

I hate that WASD is the norm when QWES feel so much better to me. It’s especially bad in games that don’t make changing controls easy.

Golden sun series, the Djinni and NPCs show you how to use your abilities and give you the tools how to use them! Love this series.

How do you make the advice in rule 2 work for teaching systems whose importance increases gradually over the course of a game? For instance, the base stats of Pokemon (ie the differences in stats between Pokemon)start off relatively unimportant, but their impact scales as Pokemon level up, just as a natural consequence of how the game’s math works. The Pokemon games seem to take the route of “We won’t expect or demand you know this in the first place”, so they dodge potential problems that way... but I’m curious how such a problem might be solved if a game had a similar situation, with it being hard to define when it would be appropriate to introduce

A couple examples of a well done tutorial is Mass Effect and the online Wizard101 and Pirate 101.

Mass Effect teaches powers and level ups, inventory and combat as you play through the first level. Wizard 101 and Pirate 101 teaches everything in a way you can't fail before setting a player loose in the world. Chat, combat, spells and abilities inventory and gear... and if make a new character you can skip the tutorial and jump right in if you want.