I hear a lot about frustrating, unskippable tutorials. What games do a good job at teaching you what you need to know?
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The legacy console editions of Minecraft have always done a good job in my opinion as a tutorial. It’s hard to skip it (or at least was for me) and it really walks you through the basics. Then you have the choice of learning more or just… going out and playing minecraft
Driver for ps1. I’m not sure though if I’m sarcastic.
Plants vs Zombies
Mega Man is a pretty sweet example, explained by this blast from the past.
The original Portal game does a good job of this. The first several puzzles are essentially tutorials that still manage to feel fun and interesting.
A lot of the game before you escape the testing track, minus maybe the point you are told about momentum jumps, feel like one big tutorial without even realizing you’re in one. It’s done very well.
I’m here to say Portal as well, specifically because, once you really look for it, you realise that about 90% of the game is tutorial. Like, seriously, basically everything leading up to “The cake is a lie” is teaching you the skills you need for the final sequence. It’s a massive tutorial followed by one level of actual game, and it’s beautiful, precisely because you don’t even notice that the tutorial hasn’t ended.
Portal 2 imo. Stephen Marchant makes everything better
Portal 2 has the best introduction to jumping controls of any tutorial in existence.
Apple
Stephen Merchant.
Correction not to be an asshole, but because looking up Stephen Marchant brings up a different human
When I played through Portal in dev commentary mode, I was surprised at the time to realize they’re basically trying to teach you things through the whole game (or at least heavily signpost). Made me realize a lot about game design, and design in general.
There’s a lot of videos and articles like this one discussing how Stage 1-1 of Super Mario Bros for the NES is a cleverly designed tutorial for the core game mechanics.
Yeah, this is still the GOAT 🐐.
Is this where we bring up the old Mega Man X Sequelitis video again? Chances are the best tutorial is the one you don’t even realize is a tutorial. There was also a trend that I first noticed around the time of Gears of War where the tutorial would not only be built into the story so that you wouldn’t feel like it was chore, but they’d also give you the opportunity to just skip it.
For all the faults Nintendo embody, they know how to make tutorials, especially with the Mario series. You may think “there are no tutorials in Mario” but that’s part of it. Nintendo’s design formula for making stages for Mario games consist of “introduction, escalation, complication.” First they throw a new mechanic at you, maybe the stage has rotating cylinders you need to stay on top of to progress, and not fall down. Then they up the difficulty a bit, adding more factors to the gameplay like introducing enemies that you have to dodge simultaneously. Then finally they turn the new concept up to 11 towards the end, by making you have to juggle both the new mechanics and some other modifiers, perhaps having to fight a boss at the same time, or perhaps requiring some more advanced platforming maneuvers to progress. That way a stage can be a tutorial, and you don’t even realize it.
Hard agree, BOTW in particular was spectacular. The Great Plateau.
When you finish the tutorial bits and it’s like “you need to go over here” and the map just opens up and you realize this game is FUCKING HUGE 🤌
Technically I don’t think there’s a tutorial level per say as much as there is a tutorial set of levels, but Baba Is You.
The game starts off with only the controls on how to move and teaches you about how you can change the rules of the level to beat it if it isn’t possible normally, without explaining anything. Just from you exploring and testing different things. The only other time you’ll ever see any other form of level hint is maybe in the level names or if you end up in a position where you have to undo or restart the level from breaking the " [ object ] is you " rule in some way.
Amazing game. I remember hearing folks describe it, before I ever played. I couldn’t get my head around the concept. Then you play, and all the rules just make sense.
Breath of the Wild. It’s integrated so smoothly you don’t even realise it’s a tutorial. It seemlessly transforms into regular gameplay.
My mom really though the Plateau was gonna be the entire game lol. When the game gave her a paraglider she was like “oh there’s gonna be more?”
I think the Great Plateau is roughly the size of OOT’s entire world, so if she only played classic titles that may feel reasonable.
Maybe it’s not a bad tutorial, but it is long and slow.
Outer Wilds has a very elegant diagetic tutorial in the form of a museum and, well, a training ground, whole game is really a multi layered tutorial with scaling level of complexity.
Came to say this as well :)
The best tutorials are ones that are fun to play both on your first time and subsequent playthroughs
Something like portal, hollow knight or hades
I want to shout out Left 4 Dead’s game instructor for smoothly teaching new players the game even while they’re playing with others. Get more ammo here. Use adrenaline to do stuff faster. Give Nick your pills. Rescue is coming - defend yourself! Then, once you’ve played enough, the help messages gradually become less frequent.
I’ll also shout it out for being my favourite implementation of HUD markers in any game. The icon pulses into view close to your crosshair, then flies over to the thing it’s pointing at. If it goes off-screen, the marker returns next to your crosshair, with an arrow indicating which direction to look in to see it again. A lot of other games have marker icons just suddenly appear at the spot and they crawl along the edge of the screen if the item is off-screen. The way L4D does it really draws my eyes.
Hopefully once HL3 is released we get a L4D3
Kind of tangential but I’ve always found the start of fallout 3 (the iconic scene where you exit the vault) to be a lesson in game design. Here’s a completely open world but I can guarantee in ten minutes you’ll be at the entrance of megaton. No direct prompting, just subtle framing and environmental clues.
The one that sticks out in my mind is the original BioShock. Spoilers if you haven’t played it.
Bioshock
The first thing that happens is a voice over the intercom asks, “Would you kindly pick up that weapon.” And of course you do it, or the game does not progress. The voice is very polite and resonable, helping you navigate this dank maze of horrors. “Would you kindly open that door?” “Would you kindly kill that monster?” The calm manners contrast starkly against the modern horrors you’re experiencing in the game. Of course every request seems like a great idea at the time, and of course the game ends if you fail.
Then halfway into the game, you finally meet the man behind the voice and he explains that you are a mind-controlled slave, conditions to obey any command that begins with “would you kindly…” He’s trying to destroy the tyranny of the system and commands you to kill him, sacrificing himself to free you from the control phrase. The “tutorial” seemed like it was just helpful instructions, but you didn’t really have a choice, did you? The majority of players just followed those instructions without question, never considering whether they were good choices or moral actions. And could you say no? Without the wrench, you can’t survive the first attack. Without opening the door, you remain in the first room forever. Your world is pre-ordained and tightly controlled. How much free will do you have in the game and outside of it? At what point do you stop making decisions and start following orders? And when can you stop again?
I was going to mention Bioshock too, but what I love about it is the voiceovers never pause gameplay. The worst tutorials are the ones that make you sit through cutscenes that are longer than you want to sit through.
I hate to break it to the both of you but… that’s not a tutorial.
