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[stevesan]

One thing that's a huge turn off for me when getting into new games are long, text-heavy tutorials that throw everything at you at once. From SpaceChem to STALKER to DEFCON (just some games I've started playing recently), I feel like these are unnecessary and break some basic game design guidelines. My main gripes with them:

It's not very fun to just do what some text box tells you to do. Click this. Click that. OK now hit next. WE HAVING FUN YET? Hell no.

They tend to just throw everything at you at once! "Here is every single feature in the game, NOW GO!" I much prefer the Warcraft/Starcraft philosophy of tutorialization: Spread everything out over the course of the game. The first mission in Warcraft2 was just to build some farms. And then each subsequent mission added only a handful of new mechanics. All the way up to the last level they were introducing new things.

As a result of such developments, I can't help but feel that we have regressed in how we present tutorials...I don't remember older games having such un-fun beginnings, although maybe the paper manuals alleviated this issue to some degree.

So I want to hear other people's opinions on this. Do you think certain game-types, such as the immersive sims like STALKER and Deus Ex, absolutely need some front-heavy and lecture-like (read: boring) tutorials? Or do you think that with proper effort, the player could be eased in to the complexity much more gracefully? Are there games like STALKER and SpaceChem that do a better job? I think for DEFCON, plenty of other RTS's have shown it can be done, but no examples of complex puzzle games (Braid and Portal avoided this, but they are very different from SpaceChem) or immersive FPS sims come to mind...

[Gimym TILBERT]

portal 

[tesselode]

First of all, I hate it when the game throws everything at you at once. I usually just stop playing the game because I don't want to memorize a bunch of rules.

I think the instructions on how to play should be spread out among some easy levels and there should be as few tutorial texts as possible. Don't explain what someone can figure out on their own.

[StevenOBrien]

I'm generally of the opinion that, in most cases, a well designed game shouldn't need a tutorial at all. A well designed game should be able to teach the player how to play the game through discovery within the first few minutes of the game. Obviously this isn't ideal in every single case, but I still think game developers should strive to follow this belief as much as possible.

[Dragonmaw]

Heavy tutorial segments are annoying. But spreading everything out so that the single-player is one long tutorial is just as annoying.

As mentioned already, the first few levels of a good game should be focused on introducing the player to the game through discovery, not obvious tutorials. Games that do this effectively usually fall into the Nintendo camp, although modern FPS design also leans heavily towards quick, discovery-based tutorials (Halo, Call of Duty, etc).

The most egregious genres in regards to obtuse tutorials and play are the grand strategy, 4X, and space sim genres. It's not all bad, though: Civ 4 and 5 both have little pop-ups that inform you what things do as you discover new mechanics, and Freelancer did a good job of easing the player into the mechanics through the first act.

Paradox tutorials are legendarily bad.

[letsap]

I hate, hate, hate tutorials. I love tutorial levels. The difference is that one is hands on and one is on your hands. I recently played some Resident Evil 4 and noticed just how great it handled its first few screens of gameplay: The crows invite you to experiment with your gun as their jet black bodies contrasted the laser sight, showing you that a dot appeared on stuff you could shoot. The Ganado's house introduced threat to you, as well as action commands when you inevitably went up to the window. The dog in a bear trap a little later on actually introduced you to saving Ashley's butt.

Basically, tutorial areas completed through simple actions which can be accomplished by experimentation are the best. After those are done, give a few simple puzzles or tasks and then let your game be as complex as you want. It adds replayability this way too, letting you go back later and see if you make less mistakes just out of the gate.

[C.A. Sinner]

all of that may be fine and true for action games, but what about, say, a complex tbs or a management sim (not talking farmville here)? in some games it's just impossible, or at least least extremely hard, to learn all the rules by experimentation alone.

[Dragonmaw]

Civilization does a good job of this. And most complex games force you to learn via experimentation anyway, as the systems are so complicated and interlocked that discerning what goes where is nigh impossible without just fucking around.

Example: Dwarf Fortress, Europa Universalis

[sublinimal]

all of that may be fine and true for action games, but what about, say, a complex tbs or a management sim (not talking farmville here)? in some games it's just impossible, or at least least extremely hard, to learn all the rules by experimentation alone.

Genre does matter when it comes to implementation, but in any case, learning should be integrated to the game. In a Civlilization-style game, I prefer a bunch of optional tooltips and hints over a separate tutorial mode.

Tutorials in complex games tend to be "cutscenes with clicking". It seems silly to me that games are all about interactivity, but players are taught by putting them on rails somewhere outside of the main game. And I for one wouldn't go back to the era of thick manuals either, even if that has its own charm.

[DavidCaruso]

all of that may be fine and true for action games, but what about, say, a complex tbs or a management sim (not talking farmville here)? in some games it's just impossible, or at least least extremely hard, to learn all the rules by experimentation alone.

This is what I've been thinking too. I guess the best compromise for TBSes/RTSes would just be a separate entirely optional tutorial campaign with stuff like tooltips/hints or w/e integrated. Even then it should be limited to just letting the player know what types of moves he can make, instead of "okay when you're in THIS situation you should do THIS."

In action games, of course, you almost never need a tutorial level. With some games it'd even become worse if you had a tutorial level (e.g. rank-heavy shooting games, where it's supposed to be a surprise which you have to recognize and adapt to.)

[C.A. Sinner]

Example: Dwarf Fortress, Europa Universalis

i learned both these games via their respective wikis, not experimentation.

and i think most people learn df via tutorial videos these days. i was just more or less forced to to do it the hard way because i started before there were any decent vids.

also, what david caruso said. learning the strategies and advanced concepts of a game isn't the same as learning the rules and it's not the job of a tutorial to teach you that.

[letsap]

For hyper complex games like that, brevity in the form of controls or actions assigned to categories of actions (for instance, say a flood is coming in and you need to build levies. You would know the controls to access building and find a levy there. If you don't have enough money, or materials, or any other factor, the game would tell you) or even a rulebook is preferable to lengthy text sessions. Minecraft does this pretty well, there are tons of recipes and mechanisms you can build, but the game never stops your progress and instructs you to make a pressure plate lock for your door before letting you proceed. The most important feature of modern tutorials that makes them a bad thing is the way that they stop gameplay all together, I think.

[mirosurabu]

For games like Dwarf Fortress and Europa Universalis the best way to go is to simply include well-written manual or well-made video tutorial. If I'm REALLY interested in the game (and these games are played by REALLY interested people anyways), I will put up even with a terrible manual.

I really despise learning-as-you-go, unless it's done subtly (meaning no forced tasks and pop-ups) but that's sometimes impossible.

[stevesan]

For games like Dwarf Fortress and Europa Universalis the best way to go is to simply include well-written manual or well-made video tutorial. If I'm REALLY interested in the game (and these games are played by REALLY interested people anyways), I will put up even with a terrible manual.

I really despise learning-as-you-go, unless it's done subtly (meaning no forced tasks and pop-ups) but that's sometimes impossible.

Yeah I agree here. If it's really complex, give me a manual. Cuz you know what? I can easily refer to it later. A lot of tutorial levels throw all this crap at you and then give you no way to reference that information again. Just terrible.

I think forced tasks are OK (think Warcraft 2 and Starcraft), but it can be done in a way that isn't so damn boring.

[stevesan]

For hyper complex games like that, brevity in the form of controls or actions assigned to categories of actions (for instance, say a flood is coming in and you need to build levies. You would know the controls to access building and find a levy there. If you don't have enough money, or materials, or any other factor, the game would tell you) or even a rulebook is preferable to lengthy text sessions. Minecraft does this pretty well, there are tons of recipes and mechanisms you can build, but the game never stops your progress and instructs you to make a pressure plate lock for your door before letting you proceed. The most important feature of modern tutorials that makes them a bad thing is the way that they stop gameplay all together, I think.

Yeah can you imagine if Minecraft introduced you to itself with a pop up box that says "Click here to select your axe *arrow pops up*. [Click next to continue]". Like...jesus christ please god no!!!