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[JasonPickering]

alright guys. I am getting to this spot in my game. let everyone know how you handle the explanation of game mechanics in your games, or in games you have played.

some examples might be Super Mario Bros gives no explanation, it is all trial and error unless you read the manual. how ever in Super Mario world 2 yoshi's island, there are boxes that give hints when struck. so what do you guys think.

[Chris Z]

A good tutorial level or levels will minimize reading.  Think of the signposts in Braid or <6 word popups in Crysis that tell you how to perform one (usually required) action at a certain point in the level.

[Zaratustra]

Tutorial levels are what's killing civilization.

[Mikademus]

Tutorial levels are what's killing civilization.

That, and giant mutated monsters.

[Bree]

You Have to Burn the Rope has an excellent tutorial. In all seriousness, Left 4 Dead's opening cinematic works as a kind of hands-off tutorial as well.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Tutorial Level:

DO:
- Make it fun
- Make it fast
- Make it easy
- If you know the mechanics already, you should breeze through the tutorial in a few seconds


DO NOT:
- Pause for forced text
- Show lengthy cutscenes
- Make it longer than a few seconds if the person knows what they're doing
- Make it a separate menu option (people will not click it)


What I did for Closure was combine the tutorial with the title screen and credits roll. It worked quite nicely.

[Captain_404]

DO:
- If you know the mechanics already, you should breeze through the tutorial in a few seconds

I (sort of) disagree with this. If a player already knows the mechanics s/he shouldn't be subjected to a tutorial at all, not even a three-second one. I say find a way to work it into the first level, and don't ever compromise your gameplay.


EDIT: actually, it would be more accurate to say I disagree with the idea of a level only for a tutorial entirely, but whatever.

tutorial level should = level 1

[pgil]

Yeah, I agree the tutorial is best when it's integrated into the first level. My favorite games teach me as I'm playing. Yoshi's Island is a great example, because the first levels don't feel like a tutorial. They just explain new concepts (concisely) as you get to them.

[Strong]

I always think the Wario Land games have the best tutorials possible. To introduce a mechanic, they simply give you a situation in which you have to use it, and have a painting on the wall in the background showing you just enough information (which button to press and what it does) to let you go through.

[Matt Thorson]

One tutorial level method I like is to provide levels for each of the very basic skills the player needs.  For example, level 1 in a platformer could be about jumping.  Key characteristics of these levels:

• No possibility for failure or no consequences for failure
• To beat the level, the player only needs to have a very basic grasp of the skill
• There is plenty of room to experiment further with the skill and improve beyond "a basic grasp" if the player wants to
• Instructions on how to perform the skill (implicit or explicit).  For example, Braid simply had a sign which said "spacebar" when teaching you how to jump.  It didn't have to tell you what spacebar does, because that is obvious.  If the skill is more complex (a button combination for a special attack maybe), you may need a textbox.

This way there is no explicit "tutorial" on the menu that inevitably everyone will skip, and the tutorial stages would be stupidly easy (and fast) for a veteran of the genre/game, preventing boredom for them.

[muku]

• To beat the level, the player only needs to have a very basic grasp of the skill

I just went through some of the audio commentary on Portal, and at one point they talked about something they called "gating". The idea is to have a tutorial level which is almost impossible to solve by blind stumbling around; only if you have really grasped the mechanic will you be able to complete it. That way they could rely on the player having internalized that particular skill from then on and could layer more complex challenges on top of it.

It might be an unusual case because Portal is basically one long tutorial, but I still found the idea interesting.

[Matt Thorson]

• To beat the level, the player only needs to have a very basic grasp of the skill

I just went through some of the audio commentary on Portal, and at one point they talked about something they called "gating". The idea is to have a tutorial level which is almost impossible to solve by blind stumbling around; only if you have really grasped the mechanic will you be able to complete it. That way they could rely on the player having internalized that particular skill from then on and could layer more complex challenges on top of it.

It might be an unusual case because Portal is basically one long tutorial, but I still found the idea interesting.

I would agree that the player shouldn't be able to accidentally solve the tutorials - I was trying to say that they should understand the skill but needn't master it just yet.

This is especially useful when designing the levels after the tutorial levels, in deciding where to start the difficulty curve.  By using "gating" (as the Portal team called it, I usually call these types of levels "gatekeeper levels") in the tutorial stages, you know a minimum skill level for the player coming into World 2 to help you make this decision.

[Inanimate]

Wario Land: Shake It had a great 'Tutorial Level'. Yoshi's Island did it best though, in my opinion.

[Bree]

I also like games that allow you to discover tricks on your own. Mario 64's hub world, for instance, is a ton of fun to play in: it's big and open, has lots of secrets, and there's no death penalty or punishment for doing something wrong.

[moi]

Ideally the whole game is a tutorial

[Frog]

For games that have an playable overworld gating can be done by making it impossible to get to the level's entrance without using certain skills. I haven't personally tried this technique but it could make the overworld more than just a bunch of doors. You could even hide secret challenge levels throughout it. It worked for Super Mario 64 anyways.

[letsap]

Typically I prefer to omit a tutorial level, but in level progression games you probably can't always do that. I'd strongly suggest that you avoid putting all of the game's hazards and mechanics in one level, because that makes things fizzle out and can really do a number to immersion. For instance, don't have a pool of water right next to a pit of lava and have one sign say "This is water" and another just a few feet over saying "This is Lava, it will hurt you." That always comes off as being campy.

I think moi said it best with

Ideally the whole game is a tutorial

Introduce things gradually. Ideally your gameplay should be intuitive enough that it rewards experimentation.

[Traveller]

Ideally the whole game is a tutorial

I'm usually a little annoyed by this mechanic.  I mean, it WORKS--you can't actually go wrong with it.  But it kind of puts limits on what the game can throw at you, the player.  Early levels either stop posing a challenge to an experienced player, or they become terribly boring.  If an advanced mechanic can be used to skip an easy puzzle, then the puzzle stops being useful as a tutorial because the player might learn the hard and not the easy thing...  But if you can wall-jump for the whole game, but you never GET to because there's no point most of the time, well, that has its own problems.  And then you have issues where you get to the end of the game and you only have one or two levels at "full power"...just a few simple puzzles that use the game's full potential; that's no good.

I think Super Metroid is a good model in a lot of ways.  Some powers, you always have, and are unnecessary-but-helpful (wall jumping, triple bomb jumping).  Some powers, you gain over time, and don't need early on.  A skilled player can find creative solutions to the early levels, while a new player won't even bother looking for those.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is, easyish tutorials are good, but make it clear what the player is supposed to do, and then let them sequence break if they want.  Tutorials can have a 'hard' solution that only a skilled player will spot; this should also be a quick solution, but it shouldn't just be "perform the easy things rapidly".  Like, maybe there's an easy path that teaches you the basics of jumping, but up above there's all this horrible machinery that looks like part of the background--an expert can wall-jump to get up there and sneak through it, risking death, but complete the tutorial way faster.

[Mikademus]

Ideally the whole game is a tutorial

I'm usually a little annoyed by this mechanic.  I mean, it WORKS--you can't actually go wrong with it.  But it kind of puts limits on what the game can throw at you, the player.  Early levels either stop posing a challenge to an experienced player, or they become terribly boring.  If an advanced mechanic can be used to skip an easy puzzle, then the puzzle stops being useful as a tutorial because the player might learn the hard and not the easy thing...  But if you can wall-jump for the whole game, but you never GET to because there's no point most of the time, well, that has its own problems.  And then you have issues where you get to the end of the game and you only have one or two levels at "full power"...just a few simple puzzles that use the game's full potential; that's no good.

A good way to handle this is to design those levels so that skilled players can discover alternative routes, secrets or challenges.

[Matt Thorson]

Ideally the whole game is a tutorial

I also disagree.  This is but one way to structure a game and I wouldn't call it objectively ideal.