Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Tutorial

cliffski

I’m doing the tutorial for Gratuitous Tank Battles over the next few days. In format, it is similar to the one in Gratuitous Space Battles. I have thought quite a lot about tutorials, and the best approaches to them when i make my games. My starting points come from ym own experiences with game tutorials which are thus:

  1. I hate tutorials that are slow. I learn FAST. If your game has a tutorial that will take more than ten minutes, then I’m likely going to skip it and not bother, and then try to wing it. Sorry, but I have little free time…
  2. I hate tutorials that rely on spoken voice. I can read. I can read faster than you can speak, even if you are some sort of entertaining rap-singer with extreme vocal dexterity. Plus, the accent and acting will often make me snigger or groan. Text please. (also some people game with the sound off, especially in a room with family members).
  3. I dislike tutorials that attempt to be too cute or funny. Save it for the games characters, or the manual, anything but the bit where I am purely after information, not flavour or atmosphere.

With these thoughts in mind, my tutorial is split into different parts of the game, and triggers when you hit them. Its basically text windows with the odd interactive prompt to click a button, and flashing rectangles that highlight which parts of the UI are being referred to. In a sudden outbreak of common sense, there is now a ‘reset tutorial’ button on the options screen, which resets it all and shows it again if you missed something.

There is a lot more to the tutorial than actual modal pop-up windows though. I also think that an effective part of a games tutorial is distributed elsewhere, for example:

  1. the website, and it’s forums
  2. The manual
  3. Videos showing how certain stuff works, linked from the website.
  4. Tooltips on everything

I think this works well, because it means you don’t burden veteran GSB and RTS players with forcing them (like FPS games do) to look left and right and click all the buttons before you let them play. Real gaming newcomers can read the manual, and every tooltip and tutorial window, but I’m hopefully not applying the brakes too much for gamers in a hurry who want to plonk down an army of mechs RIGHT NOW and watch things go bang.

Thats’ the plan anyway. I’m looking forward to the manual. Should be fun to do. Most game manuals suck. Hopefully this one will not.

4 thoughts on Tutorial

  1. Tooltips on everything is a big old yes.

    Having to go to outside sources sucks. If it isn’t explained to me in the game I’m most likely not going to (bother to) learn it. If not knowing about the thing obviously hinders me I will probably stop playing the game. That is one of the (many) worst things about MMOs: they are densely layered with information and systems that you ought to know, but they tell you nothing.

  2. My complaint with the GSB tutorial system was that it just took sooooo loooong to get through. And there was no in-built way to skip it, so you had to sit there clicking forever on every new screen you went to if you reinstalled the game.

    Other than that, I agree generally with your points. Definitely about sound and duration – I have one game that I really want to play, but the tutorial is made of a series of fairly long videos with voice-over explanations for everything. Not only is it hard for me to find the right time to go through them, but I know I’ll have forgotten everything when I go to play as there is no interaction at all.

  3. I don’t like text tutorials. I prefer a lot more sound and “doing it” based tutorial. Sound tells me what to do and I personally do it. I too hate long tutorials if they are made in a boring way but I don’t mind them being long at all if they are part of game’s story. For instance look at Rock of Ages (the game) and Section 8: Prejudice. Or even Defense Grid: The Awakening does it right. You are slowly introduced to the game and the towers in the game along the story. You won’t get everything instantly because that’s not how the story goes but rather you get your towers eventually when you are ready for them and when the time is correct for them in the story.

    In those the tutorials are part of beginning of a story. So I guess I’m trying to say I personally like most at tutorials which are implemented into a story of a game if the tutorial part is short. If the tutorial is getting too long, you need to add an option to able to skip it but still so that the player won’t miss anything on the story.

    Also look here: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits
    I think in some of those episodes they talked about tutorials or at least ways to introduce players to their games and sharing information about them.

  4. Oh yeah, but if a tutorial doesn’t fit into the story, don’t force it to be part of a story.

    It doesn’t sound nice when some old grumpy soldier says via voicecom “Now here’s this vehicle creation screen. You click there and do this and then put that there and finally save your vehicle and plop it on a battlefield.”

    That’s not how you implement a tutorial into a game.

    Personally I really liked the Defense Grid way of doing it. You had a companion all the time along you telling how things were and how he battles alongside you even his battles are done “behind the curtain” and the results of his battles are recovered towers, memories and information aliens and info of everything (aka tutorials of everything).

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