Hey! I think it depends on the game, but it's always interesting about hearing people's opinions about tutorials. What do you think about tutorials and their length? How long would you say a tutorial should be until you will just like, screw this game and this tutorial? Do you have any good examples of games with tutorials in small, medium and large games? Best regards, Tim
I've not had any great problems with tutorials. Some are better than others of course, but I've never given up on one. If I find a game interesting I'll figure out how it works somehow. Obviously it's more important with highly complex games and I guess the easiest type of tutorial is one that overlays the interface, highlighting buttons to press whilst giving an explanation of what's going on. A good recent ios example, having this type, is Mars Tomorrow. A very complex game where the tutorial can be reactivated at any time to provide help and suggestions of what to do next.
I tend to think that the way the tutorial is organized largely depends on you key audience. Younger generations are playing games more frequently and they're definitely familiar what to do in a new game, because they play tons of games and many features are similar in different games. So they can understand intuitively what to do in this or that new game. For elder generations the situation differs.
I can be put off by excessively long tutorials. The best ones have mini tutorials scattered through the game - so when a new concept is introduced you get a mini description - so you never have to spend too long learning without playing the game.
Overly long (and boring!) tutorials can stir negative emotions in players. In my personal opinion (although it varies based on game's target audience) the best tutorials are the ones where everything falls in place naturally like a part of the story. e.g.: There was a power failure, but we've finally repaired a few subsystems. But if you are going to show people how to select units, move the map.. don't torture them for too long .
Thank you for all the responses, we will keep it in my mind when we are doing the tutorial for Castle Cats, hopefully you can help us test it soon! Regards, Tim
In this generation, most of the youth has a short span of attention and that is scientifically proven. And so I think you tutorials shouldn't be that long
I think tutorials should ideally be integrated into the game, like the first time you play it or first level you play will teach you how to play the game and introduce challenges. Also, keeping dialog boxes to a minimum, so that players can learn the game uninterrupted is important. But this all depends on what kind of game you're making as well
absolutely Speaking about multiplayer games, I think, it's good when there is some learning room or smth like this
I always look at mario. No need for instructions. It does lots of clever things like mario starts facing right to the left of the screen. It is the only place in the game this happens. As a result you naturally move right. Then you see the question mark which makes you curious. Then you see the bad guy and if you die then you don't have to go far back. But my favourite bit is a little further where you get the first mushroom and it goes and hits the pipe and runs into you. Even if you try to jump over it cause you think it is a bad guy you hit you your head and collect it anyway thus teaching you what the mushroom does. Basically a masterclass in game design. People don't think enough about the design aspects of their game.
@Destined: That's a fantastic example, it was so long since I've played Mario that I've already forgotten these examples. And yes, master class indeed! You might be right, that people don't think enough about game design, but the question is what is enough. There are a huge number of aspects developers need to be aware of, so if you aren't a huge game dev studio, you have limited resources and in some case you simply have to use industry best practices. I honestly think that the key is to launch the game as a minimum lovable product and polish it according to insights you'll get from players themselves who will actually play the game and through deep data analysis (tutorial/learning curve being of the prime examples). But that's another topic by itself.
Agree with that. The tutorial itself should be native, be part of the gameplay. And it depends on your audience a lot. Getting feedback from players on early stages is important - though beta tests (just like what we're focusing on while inviting to beta test our game) or during the soft-launch of the game.
It is amazing how many people don't even test it outside their team, when 30 seconds of watching a random play tells you more than you can learn playing 10000 times yourself.
Nice discussion, Mario example is perfect. A way to go to everyone, I will try to add that on my games.
