Do you think it's important to have a tutorial? Even for simple RPG Maker games?

[pickledylans]

Hey so if your game is pretty simple and doesn't have any unusual mechanics or controls, how do you think a tutorial should be handled? If at all?

(This was originally a profile post but a mod suggested to put it here after it blew up a bit so here ya go!)

Right now I'm thinking of having a simple control sheet at the beginning of a new game due to other people's suggestions, but I'm still curious to see what other people think and their personal solution to this!

 

[MushroomCake28]

I originally thought that everything needs a tutorial. So I did put quite a few in my game. Then I realized that people usually don't pay much attention to tutorials and just skip through them. So now I'm changing my philosophy to this: have only the minimal necessary amount of tutorials. Making stuff more intuitive is better than having tutorials, but shouldn't remove the option of having a tutorial (make it optional for example).

 

[TheoAllen]

https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/how-to-tutorial.104165/

Unless you're aiming your game for a total stranger, people with the gaming common sense know that to move around your character using arrow keys and probably access the menu using ESC.

The way I do it now is something like this.

Spoiler

Full vid here (Skip to 1:11)

 

[Bastrophian]

I think for the most part, unless your very young, most JRPGs dont really have much of a learning curve. If youve played Final Fantasy 4, maybe you remember there was a building in the first town (Barron) where there were some NPC (white/black mages mostly i think) who told you about various parts of the game like what certain status effect did, the rock paper scissors mechanics of how certain monsters were weak against certain magics or elemental weapons, treasure box mimics, stuff like that. I think that was PLENTY. I thing having an in depth tut for an JRPG should only be implemented if your game has a special mechanic that differentiates it from other JRPGs. For instance, FF7 had the limit break mechanic, there was a TUT location for that similar to how FF4 that I mention a moment ago, but FF8 also had a limit break system one, but was different for each character and was a bit more involved in that they implemented active time event style controls, and so required an in depth TUT (the first disc of FF8 was pretty much the tut for the entire game... Im exaggerating, but only a little, lol... it was fun, but it was a grind-tastic mess of confusing menus. Forget a tut, you could write a textbook on it).

 

[peq42_]

As said in your profile post, I think that just a image before the game starts showing the basic controls is enough. Just something so no one can say "Hey! This game shows no tutorial at all!"

 

[EthanFox]

I would say absolutely yes.

However, I would also say that a "tutorial" isn't necessarily a level or sequence where you are given specific instructions and follow them.

This is quite an old video now, but it explains the gist quite well:


A good tutorial teaches the player what to do in order to progress. The best tutorial teaches the player these things without them realising they are being taught; you just take on the knowledge as you go.

That being said, keys and buttons can still be a thing. I tackled this by having this on my banner on Itch.io:

 

[Wavelength]

If all of your mechanics and controls are pretty obvious, I'm on the side of saying it's not necessary... but it's still a good, helpful thing to have. Don't bore or burden the player. If there's nothing new that players haven't seen in most RPGs already, then a simple picture showing the controls is probably enough.

However, I think designers often believe their mechanics are more "obvious" than they really are. Stats are a really good example. What does "RES" mean? What does "LUCK" actually do? Spell this out for your player somewhere - ideally as part of the interface (on the status or equip screens), but if you're making something on RPG Maker and don't have scripts to add it to the interface, then just make a really quick tutorial once the player is given a chance to choose between different stats/equipment, or add it to the game's documentation.

Don't underestimate the usefulness of documentation, like PDF files that come with the game. You can add information in there for people who don't understand something, without burdening players who intuitively get it. Some people say "manuals" are obsolete, but I completely disagree with them, and I think they can be lifesavers without any drawbacks.

 

[pickledylans]

If all of your mechanics and controls are pretty obvious, I'm on the side of saying it's not necessary... but it's still a good, helpful thing to have. Don't bore or burden the player. If there's nothing new that players haven't seen in most RPGs already, then a simple picture showing the controls is probably enough.

However, I think designers often believe their mechanics are more "obvious" than they really are. Stats are a really good example. What does "RES" mean? What does "LUCK" actually do? Spell this out for your player somewhere - ideally as part of the interface (on the status or equip screens), but if you're making something on RPG Maker and don't have scripts to add it to the interface, then just make a really quick tutorial once the player is given a chance to choose between different stats/equipment, or add it to the game's documentation.

Don't underestimate the usefulness of documentation, like PDF files that come with the game. You can add information in there for people who don't understand something, without burdening players who intuitively get it. Some people say "manuals" are obsolete, but I completely disagree with them, and I think they can be lifesavers without any drawbacks.

Right!! I miss gaming manuals so much! It was great if you wanted to look up how a mechanic worked real quick, plus they usually included a little art which i thought was neat. Very few games come with them nowadays ;;;;

 

[Eschaton]

You will have to teach your player how to play your game. I believe that a forced tutorial is something that the player either noticed or doesn't. It all depends on the artfulness.

You can design your levels such that they convey to the player what they need to know to get by without being intrusive.

Players like to learn by doing. When the player becomes aware of a mechanic, they will want to play around with that mechanic inmediately. If it apparent early on that the mechanic isnt reliable because the first time they used it, it missed, the player will default back to the things they know works.

So, a good way to teach the player is to introduce a mechanic, then present a simple challenge to try that mechanic against. If they see that it works, learning has occurred.

Look at Final Fantasy X, for example. When Wakka joins the party, you go into battle against flying enemies and learn quickly that Tidus can't hit flying enemies, but Wakka pretty much always does. When Lulu joins the party, you're introduced to magic enemies against which physical attacks are worthless, but magic attacks are very effective. In that game, they still explicitly explain the mechanics, but also allow the player to learn them by doing. You could achieve this conveyance without a single text box because those mechanics are simple enough.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I'd go with put tutorials no matter how simple your games looks to you, because you cant make sure that everyone who plays your game actually knows how to play a game. What if someone new to gaming tried out your game, and because of the lack of tutorial failed to learn how to play it and eventually stopped trying to play games at all?

You just really have to be creative on how to inplement them.. Right now what I'm doing in my game is that the stuff are explained briefly so as not to bore players and there's a pop-up notification that a new entry in the "Guidebook" has been unlocked. So if there is anything they want to clarify about the mechanics they can go look at it at the Guidebook.

 

[Aesica]

Yeah, always try to have some sort of tutorial, but ideally, make the tutorial unfold naturally as part of the game rather than:

Annoying Faerie: Welcome to the tutorial zone! Before you can enjoy the actual game, I'm going to have you do a bunch of lame crap that has nothing to do with the actual story! Now move with the arrow keys and open the treasure box by pressing enter!"

Player: But I want to explore the world and fight stuff and--

Annoying Faerie: Open. The. Damned. Treasure. Box. I will not let you leave this screen until you do!

Player: Fine... *Opens and gets 10 gold* Now can I enjoy the rest of the game?

Annoying Faerie: Not yet! Next we're going to learn about combat! *Initiates fight* Use the attack command to reduce the foes' HP to 0 to win the battle. Have your HP reduced to 0 and you lose! Now go!

Player: YOU DON'T SAY!

- - -

My approach is to make the earliest battles nearly impossible to lose so the player can get used to combat. NPCs (mainly in bars) will often give useful tips. Deeper mechanics, such as elements, will be unnecessary to worry about early on, become a cool way to kill enemies faster after the first dungeon, then gradually make their way to "omg these foes are dangerous, I need to kill them as quickly as possible so let's exploit elemental weaknesses!"

For the initial control description, you can easily have the first NPC they encounter as part of the story quickly explain them. Or you can just draw a nice diagram on the wall or floor of the starting building.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Every game absolutely should teach you how to play it. Even a simple RPG maker game isn't obvious to people who haven't played before and might not know that Enter and Z are Confirm, Esc and X are Menu/Cancel, and that there even is a run button or change page button.

How complex things are will tell you how much you have to show. Normal RPG maker game could just throw up a single screen of "these are the controls, you can change them in the menu [if I use a plugin for that]". If your game has a complicated elemental system (as in using an element on an enemy can change their elemental resists around) then you'll want to give them breathing room to experiment and tell them enough that they can pick up on it.

I'll echo the manual. Even with the Wii U we were still getting manuals (electronic ones there) for our games and I still used them, even on games with "obvious" mechanics because I might get caught up on an "advanced" technique that the manual made easier to understand.

If it's just complex controls, a good UI can do most of the work. If it's complex mechanics, then you have to show them how to use the mechanics. The above posters said plenty, it's a matter of tying it into the flow of the game. As a recent example, Octopath has the Break system. It's "tutorial" is at the beginning of your first fight, it tells you about how you have multiple possible weapons to attack with and how to change them. This fight pits you against a foe with a single shield. You attack it, and it breaks, with an icon of your weapon going into it's shown weakness pool. Next turn, the game tells you how to boost. You boost, and it's enough to kill the enemy. Bam!, now you know the basics of the new mechanics and are given enough to learn how to implement it and learn more.

I'd go with put tutorials no matter how simple your games looks to you, because you cant make sure that everyone who plays your game actually knows how to play a game. What if someone new to gaming tried out your game, and because of the lack of tutorial failed to learn how to play it and eventually stopped trying to play games at all?

I remember a few years back the thing many gamers were doing was putting Super Mario Bros in front of kids (I think like 10-14) who thought they were awesome at gaming to see how well they did. Many didn't get there was a jump button. Even to veteran gamers nothing is really "obvious", we just get better at picking things up.

 

[Fernyfer775]

When it doubt, slap it into a manual and let the player access it if they want to, otherwise, if your game doesn't do anything that isn't already pretty standard in most rpg games, then I would say that you shouldn't bother.