[HN Gopher] The UX of video game tutorials
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The UX of video game tutorials
Author : adrian_mrd
Score : 52 points
Date : 2021-06-16 06:40 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (uxdesign.cc)
(TXT) w3m dump (uxdesign.cc)
| trinovantes wrote:
| I'm personally a fan of games that sprinkle tiny tutorials
| throughout the game rather than 1 large tutorial at the
| beginning. The early levels will only require 1-2 mechanics so
| there's little point in introducing everything and hope the
| player will remember to use all of them.
| bombcar wrote:
| I like it when the tutorial is part of the "story" beyond a
| simple "learn how to jump" training session.
|
| Something akin to an interactive cutscene that also tutorials.
| Either way you may want a way to skip for those who have played
| before. (Even more fun are tutorials that instruct you on using
| basic systems to complete but allow you to use advanced
| techniques if you know them.)
| zeta0134 wrote:
| I really liked the Codec system from the original Metal Gear
| Solid, for PS1. It made almost perfect sense in-game, with
| your tactical team monitoring your movements and able to see
| what you were doing, and it was done in a clever way. When a
| codec sequence is unskippable for story reasons, the
| designers will sneak some tips in that way, but more
| importantly, if the player takes a long time moving through
| an area, they might get an _optional_ call. Answering the
| call will usually explain some new mechanic in the area, and
| additionally provides some fun side-lore and comic relief, so
| it can double as a tiny reward.
|
| Laid out all at once, these conversations would be an
| overwhelming amount of information to absorb and exposition
| to follow, but the game generally nails the pacing. Provided
| you don't repeatedly call like a goof, the calls all seem
| like reasonable radio chatter, and hardly break immersion.
| Experienced players will move through the level quickly
| enough to miss the more tutorial-like prompts, and can ignore
| optional calls if they'd rather get on with the gameplay.
| mattbee wrote:
| I mean I'm a fan, but about 50% of MGS is being absolutely
| harangued, at inordinate length, by the codec characters
| smashing at the 4th wall with a sledgehammer.... so no it
| doesn't break the immersion when they give you control tips
| ;) but it isn't subtle and doesn't need to be.
| m12k wrote:
| If you're interested in this, you should also check out this GDC
| talk[1] by Asher Vollmer, creator of indie mobile game Threes
| (2014), that got a lot of credit when it came out for having a
| very smooth tutorial.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf7xLHUpKHE
| hcs wrote:
| I recently had a very frustrating time with the initial
| unskippable tutorial to Nintendo's new Game Builder Garage. It's
| not exactly a game, but I was expecting a much more game-like
| tutorial.
|
| - Objects had to be placed and manipulated exactly as the
| instructions and on-screen guides say, even for arbitrary things
| like moving invisible Nodons for layout.
|
| - Every step of UI manipulation was narrated every time, even if
| this is the third time you're copying and rotating a platform.
|
| - All of this narrated with many short lines of dialog, often
| just for flavor, and each with a sound effect.
|
| - Constant, distracting, meaningless animation of the narrator.
| Occasionally it would point at bits of UI, but mostly it just
| kept sweeping from side to side or in a circle, I guess following
| different "moods".
|
| - The one decision you're allowed to make is the color of the
| platforms, this coming at the very end of the first tutorial,
| after maybe 30 minutes.
|
| The tutorial has no faith in the player/user, despite the text
| constantly saying how good a programmer you are. It seemed like
| an afterthought, which is bad for the first thing the player has
| to deal with, at great length, in your product.
|
| This was my experience on release day. Hopefully this has been
| improved, or will be soon, but it completely turned me off. I had
| hoped to learn something about a gamified game development
| environment, but I feel like game designers weren't involved,
| certainly not instructional designers.
|
| (edited to fix formatting)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I had to buy a mouse for Tropico 6, because there was a
| tutorial step that required the middle mouse button... on a
| MacBook.
| [deleted]
| zeta0134 wrote:
| Possibly the most famous video game tutorial of all time has got
| to be World 1-1 from the original Super Mario Bros.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE&t=5s
|
| And really, most of the later Mario games execute this fairly
| well, with some (sunny) exceptions here and there. Nintendo is
| unusually skilled at introducing a new mechanic in a way that
| feels like organic play, and slowly ramping up the complexity in
| a way that will leave most players feeling like natural masters
| by the end of the level, without realizing that the level was
| leading them by the nose the entire time.
| grawprog wrote:
| Super Metroid is another game that did the 'invisible' tutorial
| thing well.
|
| https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/HugoBille/20120114/90903/The...
|
| That's actually one thing Nintendo devs in general seem to be
| really good at. I don't think i've ever really played a first
| party Nintendo game that had an outright tutorial but they're
| always pretty easy to pick up and figure out.
| ineptech wrote:
| Another great example is "A Dark Room" - a game in which the
| mechanics are introduced one by one in such a smooth way that
| no tutorial is ever needed.
|
| edit to add a link: http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com it's
| a very simple free game that (last I checked) can be completed
| in an hour or two.
| knolan wrote:
| One of the better tutorials I remember was for the Blood Dragon
| Far Cry 3 expansion. It's a tongue in cheek riff on 80's action
| movies and games and the tutorial is silly fun because of it.
|
| Not the first game to make a joke of its tutorial but it was
| memorable!
| smoldesu wrote:
| Rimworld (and Dwarf Fortress, for that matter) desperately need a
| better onboarding experience. In Dwarf Fortress' case, the best
| tutorial you'll find is the one online, because lord knows you'll
| die immediately if you waste time messing with the wrong stuff.
| Rimworld has a fairly good documentation system and a decent
| tutorial scenario to accompany it, but the "first game"
| experience is still crushingly brutal: new players will often
| lose their first few colonies, which can be a pretty soul-sucking
| penalty.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| I found it ironic to stumble through this convoluted sentence on
| a UX site:
|
| > What designers call an "invisible tutorial" is simply a
| tutorial section that fits perfectly in the flow zone, which
| values the preceding and succeeding events and respects player
| expectations. _There will never be a situation where a player
| does not realise they are not participants of a tutorial,_ but an
| invisible tutorial will hardly be discernible from the game
| experience as it respects the pacing of all experiences around
| it.
|
| An attempt to avoid the triple negative:
|
| > What designers call an "invisible tutorial" is a tutorial
| section that fits perfectly in the flow zone, which values the
| preceding and succeeding events and respects player expectations.
| _The player will always realise that they are not participating
| in a tutorial,_ but an invisible tutorial will hardly be
| discernible from the game experience as it respects the pacing of
| all experiences around it.
|
| I still don't get what this is trying to say. Isn't it true that
| the player _will_ usually (always?) realize they 're in a
| tutorial, but an "invisible" one will just feel well-integrated
| with the surrounding experiences? Or is this passage arguing that
| a tutorial that is "invisible" will by definition NOT be noticed
| as a tutorial?
| meristem wrote:
| UX design and UX writing are not necessarily the same skill
| set.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I'm 90% sure the second "not" is unintentional.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| That makes so much sense! Thank you.
| tk75x wrote:
| Editing to remove the "not" - There will never be a
| situation where a player does not realise they are
| participants of a tutorial, but an invisible tutorial will
| hardly be discernible from the game experience as it
| respects the pacing of all experiences around it.
|
| Still doesn't make much sense as now they are saying that
| invisible tutorials can't exist because the player will
| always realize they are participants of a tutorial (fixing
| double negative).
| er4hn wrote:
| The classic example is the first level of Mario. It teaches you
| all the mechanics of jumps, blocks, battling enemies, whatnot,
| but never explicitly feeds you directions.
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