How many games approach their design as if this is the first game the player has ever played?

[ZombieKidzRule]

This thought just randomly occurred to me as I was giving feedback on a game. I first started playing CRPGs when they were a new thing. And the vast majority of players were new. Games came with detailed player manuals that you were expected to read and they explained how everything worked. Even how to boot up and start a game. Like insert disk A into your computers floppy drive or some such thing. Why? Because everything was new. And there wasn't an internet to go to for answers.

It struck me that every player has to have their first game. Every player is new at some point.

But in thinking about some recent games that I have played, I seem to recall doing things such as trying controls, not because the game told me that was how it works, but because that is what I am accustomed to. Like pressing ESC to pull up a menu or something.

The more I thought about it, the more I wondered how many games actually approach their design as if that game is going to be the very first game that the player is playing. Therefore, you can't take anything for granted. You can't assume the player will know how to do anything. They have no other game play experience for context.

As an ancient school player, I still prefer a player's manual that I can reference, but that seems to be more rare now a days.

In your experience and recollection, how many games are designed as if this is the very first game the player will be experiencing and they are completely new? Not looking for an actual number here, but more of an impression of is it very common, fairly common, less common, not common at all?

Is your experience different between professionally developed (studio) type games and smaller, indie developed games?

If you are designing your own game or if you have ever published a game, did you take that approach? That there might be players where your game will be their very first experience and you really can't take anything for granted?

Now, I realize that approaching your game design as if your game will be the very first game a player might experience might constitute more work. But I am very curious what your experience is in this regard.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and happy game designing and developing!

 

[Andar]

too many - and none of the developers have ever heard of the question "do you wish to skip the tutorial?"

It is especially bad on mobile games where a lot of the games handhold you for ten minutes by forcing you to click specific buttons, until you can finally decide how to play yourself - and even after that the quests and rewards are mostly railroading.

 

[Kes]

I think tutorials are much less common than they were. A number of them are quite clunky and seem to assume you are a little stupid. I distinguish that from those which assume that you might be young.

In my own games, I assume that some, but not all players, may be new to RM games, so I give tutorial scrolls at the appropriate times and sub-divided if necessary. For example, the first scroll might contain Controls, Quests, Exploration.

At the time they are given the player is presented with a list of those sub-divisions and asked which (if any) they want to read. Whether they read them there and then or not, the scrolls go into key items for future reference.

I don't think my controls, in or out of battle, are so complex that they require specific tutorial battles. Instead I try and weave small 'instructional' content into in-battle dialogues so that they feel quite organic.

I have never had complaints, and a few people have commented positively about the way I do it. But I work on the assumption that what I do is not going to be exactly what everyone wants, so I read threads like this to see what tips I can pick up.

 

[Avery]

I basically had to go backwards with my game - though disclaimer, it is made for students and teachers.

Assuming that today most people in that age group are digital natives, I explained only the UI and the special functions and thought "klick on stuff to make it happen" was obvious. Testplaying showed: it was not, like not at all, even with the 16-18 year old age group.

A click through everything tutorial is annoying though, so I made a tutorial puzzle instead. With some extra explainations and things flashing up like "NOW YOU HAVE TO CLICK ME", even if people skipped the textbox, it kinda guides them through a puzzle in the style of the rest of the game, but without relying only on long texts and with a direct practical effect for everything you do.
In the end, they understand the manuals to solve the puzzles and have clicked on every UI element (and saw what happened), but they still have to actually think for themselves to get the answer to the tutorial part.
After that I found a massive improvement in the later playtest, where the students were as fast as the first ones, even though they had gotten an extra puzzle to solve.

I like how Gothic, an old German game did it. With no dedicated tutorial you basically first passed through enemies that did not even harm you where you could just try out your first weapons and then weaker versions of later enemies (titled young so you knew it was not the same as the ones you meet later) where you learnt on the go how fights played out without being at risk of a undeserved dead. No textbox, barely any UI, you looked your controls up and then had enough room to get used to them.

 

[ATT_Turan]

My choice was to provide beginner-level instructions but not a moron-level tutorial.

I agree with @Kes that the little tutorials built into many standard games are a waste of time - I don't think anyone of average intelligence needs to be told "this button does this" and also have a section of the game that forces them to, say, push each direction in the controller to practice moving.

So I have instructions as if someone has not played games like this before, broken up appropriately. The first area explains how to move and activate events. A few minutes later, when you get party members, the menu is enabled and those controls are explained.

Later, when battle is possible, I explain the basic parameters.

Nothing more than 1 Show Text box per subject.

 

[Mac15001900]

Proper first-game-ever tutorials seems really rare on PC games nowadays. I assumed Stardew Valley would be a great game for someone who's never played anything, only for them to assume that a chest is just a decorative item or not realise that you can cut trees with the axe. And I really can't remember the last time I saw a 3D game explain the concept of using your mouse to look around.

 

[Tai_MT]

I find that it's... a weird experience. Most games do this:

1. Treat every player as if they have no idea what a controller is.
then...
2. Proceed to skip vital and important information on mechanics that have just come up... or explain those mechanics in very vague and broad ways. Or, even, never tell the player that a mechanic exists in the first place.

To me, this is the most frustrating thing.

Look, if I'm playing on PC, then YES you need to tell me what buttons do what. I may assume the WASD, spacebar, enter key, and maybe Q and E do something, but if you got other keys that do stuff? I need to know. There are like 104 keys on a keyboard, plus the big 3 on the mouse as well... I need those controls to be told to me as part of a tutorial for a PC game.

But, if you plop a controller in my hand and then proceed to tell me what everything does? I'm going to be annoyed with you. It's a controller. It has like 20 buttons, MAX, and I know they're all going to do something. It isn't like a PC where I have to guess which buttons are even controls or do things. So, I will naturally press every single button on a controller to see what it does. I think most people will. Unless they're just trying to "get into the game immediately" with friends. Then, they'll typically ask their friends how to do things.

Now, if you have really weird controls or functions that aren't obvious... like Hold left bumper and then press Triangle to do something, or access a menu... or a command wheel or something... Tell me that in your tutorial.

Let's just look at Stardew Valley for a moment. Humor me.

Here's a list of mechanics the game NEVER explains to you:
1. How to raise happiness of animals.
2. Talking to a person each day raises their happiness, even if you don't give them a gift.
3. How fishing works.
4. How you can cook things (it tells you when you've unlocked the method to cook, but never HOW to unlock the method to cook).
5. Doesn't teach you about any of the weapon mechanics (like heavy, speed, etcetera).
6. What each choice at specific level ups actually does and whether it's more or less useful (is it better to get more attack power, or more critical hit? What's my critical hit chance right now and is 50% extra even beneficial, compared to a flat damage increase?).
7. What some upgrades for the farm even do. Do you want fruit bats in the cave or mushrooms? How often do you get either one, and what kinds? In what amounts?
8. Where to even obtain some items in the game. Time to grab a wiki if you need something for your collection, because spawn chances of things changes on season and location!


Sure, it's nice when some things are left up to discovery. I can't deny that. However, you run into a serious problem when players "never discover" something, because it's vague, or doesn't really happen all that often, or whatever else. Unless the chance of discovering something is going to be 100% across ALL PLAYERS who ever touch your game... You will need to explain some things to players and drop hints or clues about it.

Devs really should try to present all information relevent to any decision the player may or may not make. This is why a "tutorial" even needs to exist in most games. Not to teach us "the controls" and then "how to basically just get started playing". No, it should go, "Okay, here's this new thing you haven't run into yet, here's how it works". As in, if you purchase a fishing rod or something, you should IMMEDIATELY be given the tutorial for how fishing actually works and then probably given a quest to do exactly what was in the tutorial so that you "for sure" learned the mechanics.

It's really annoying when I have to pause your freakin' game and go hit up a wiki to do something.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

There are a lot of “silent” ways to tutorial the game. Something as simple as having the control map in the menu would handle a decent chunk. Also…there are more active ways to teach how to play the game. You get the thing? Here’s a puzzle where you need the thing to get out and it demonstrates many ways to use the thing.

A ton of games also have some sort of in-game book to reference at your own choosing. Kinda like how Kratos at the beginning of Tales of Symphonia is all, “Damn, Lloyd you can’t hit the side of a barn, here’s my notes.”

I think these are good solutions for games that have a lot of side content (like cooking/crafting systems, stuff people may not do unless they actually 100% the game) and “advanced strats,” stuff you don’t necessarily need to learn to beat the game but great for those who like to get deeper into the guts of the game.

Games usually do need some level of introducing to players how the game works, but I think the important element is to not be too intrusive to the flow of the gameplay and be broad enough that it’s both welcoming to new players while not making advanced players feel like they’re eating a box of sidewalk chalk.

It’s really odd how intrusive tutorials have gotten the longer video games have been around. Having a separate player’s guide (that often doubled as an art book) seems to be a lost art. I think about all the nearly tutorial-less games I beat as a child before the internet and I’m a bit confused why we need to info dump now.

 

[RCDunn]

Your question reminds me of this video I recently watched (although it's a few years old). In short most games assume the player has familiarity with the very basics of games in the first place. This helps most players who've been playing for years, but creates serious barriers of entry to non-gamers.

So I would give some thought of who is going to play your game. Could it be a bunch of first-time gamers (e.g. family members)? Then a tutorial covering the fundamentals should be included. Is it a game designed for fans of the JRPG genre, and therefore have played other JRPGs before? Then a tutorial covering what's unique in your game makes more sense.

Either way, you can't account for every player of your game so tutorials should always be optional/skipable.

 

[tumsterfest]

A few thoughts:

1. Consider your target audience. You're not designing for yourself or other developers.

Your player could be someone who grew up with old-school RPGs, but has a full-time job and family now. Or a parent who wants to play alongside their 7-year-old. Or a teenager who only knows Fortnite and Mario. Or guy wanting to share your game's experience with his non-gamer friend or partner.

Do you want them to finish your game, or get frustrated and delete it?

I found Xenoblade Chronicles 2 a chore to finish, in part because I barely had a clue how the battle system worked. The issue was twofold: I was busy and sometimes went 2-3 weeks without playing (making it challenging to build sustained competency), and the tutorial system suuuuuuucked and wasn't accessible on-demand.

There's a reason more games are including "story modes" and optional hand-holding tooltips. It's to allow casual, young, or non-gamers to enjoy the game. Street Fighter 6 does a fantastic job acknowledging the massive barrier of entry into fighting games for new and casual players. Horizon: Forbidden West displays help text and a demo GIF every time I pick up a new weapon type, and I love it for that.

2. Crap, I rambled too much and forgot my second point. See? This is why games need tutorials. People forget things


TL;DR: I've seen other forum threads where an alarming number of people scoff and are condescending about games using tutorials. IMO, it's an incredibly narrow and not-so-empathetic outlook on UX.

(I do 100% agree that tutorials should be skippable. Weaving them subtly into gameplay in a fun way is also great. Just make sure they're accessible for reviewing later.)

 

[TheoAllen]

See? This is why games need tutorials. People forget things

A decade ago I would never expect this to happen. I always come back to the game and remember everything and what to do.

Nowadays, nah. Got hundreds of games in the library. A lot of things and hobbies to do outside of gaming. When I came back to the game, unless I've spent 150+ hours into the game (that is usually already engraved in my mind), I was like "What's the control again?"

I appreciate it when the game always shows what button to press. Press X to unleash special skills, F to interact, and shows all time.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

@TheoAllen Yeah having the control map has become very important to me. Even though I have a freaky good memory, my muscle memory is another matter. If I've been playing one game for a few days and then grab another game I've played just as much my hands just go BRRRRRRRRRRRRT and become some hideous mutant of several control schemes for a solid 5-10 minutes.

 

[BubblegumPatty]

My first gut instinct was "Don't most games assume it's your first game ever?" But when I think about it, I realize most RPGs I can recall only really go into detail the functions and gameplay unique to them.
"Baby's first RPG" Pokémon only spends significant time explaining How to catch new Pokémon, The fact that there's different types with advantages/disadvantages, and how or why trainer battles happen. They don't force you to learn movement, or explain what the heck a turn based battle system is, or what it means to level up.

I think it's good to assume any game is someone's first in the franchise, to not scare off newcomers, but to not assume they've never touched a controller before... But having easily accessed cheat-sheets and control maps never hurt.

 

[Tai_MT]

@TheoAllen Yeah having the control map has become very important to me. Even though I have a freaky good memory, my muscle memory is another matter. If I've been playing one game for a few days and then grab another game I've played just as much my hands just go BRRRRRRRRRRRRT and become some hideous mutant of several control schemes for a solid 5-10 minutes.

Also known as the "Skyrim Effect". Namely, you spent two weeks playing Skyrim, getting accustomed to "Y button jumps", and then you play a shooter or something else first person and immediately have muscle memory issues, ha ha.

It'd be nice if game developers could all just AGREE on a "standardized format" for common actions.

 

[gstv87]

I have seen players boot up the game for the first time, dismiss the popup that tells them "go here to train", open the online play menu that is right on top of the tutorial button, dismiss the SECOND popup that points them to the tutorial, go straight to online play, to the hardest difficulty, be completely lost in the middle of the battle, and complain they get rekt at every turn.

that is, literally, the process to play TF2: you boot up, and not once but TWICE you are pointed in the direction of the tutorial.
there is no excuse.

and don't even get me started on the players who can't read the description of an item that clearly states in perfect English (and, countless other translations thanks to Valve's perpetual updating of the localization files!), "This weapon does no damage."

you're going through that tutorial, sir, and you come out the other end having known that a tutorial exists, and having been through it!
if you didn't pay attention while at it, that's on you.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

@gstv87 this happens a lot with story elements too. “How was I supposed to know to go there?!” “Why on Earth did Character do that?” Iunno…if you weren’t mashing the confirm button through absolutely every unvoiced piece of dialogue you might have figured that out.

 

[BubblegumPatty]

Lmao damned if you do damned if you don't.

If you force them to go through the tutorial they'll complain about being babied and "shut up I know what I'm doing, just let me play" but than forget all the controls and objectives immediately, even when it's got a flashing neon arrow pointing to it. Even the best tutorial can't solve impatience and inattention.

 

[ZombieKidzRule]

Thank you for all the great responses! There are a lot of great points that I want to remember.

And I definitely agree that tutorials should be able to be skipped. This is especially true for games that want replayability.

As a chronic restarter of games, even though I haven't finished them yet, I hate getting stuck going through a long intro or tutorial that I already experienced. For me this is the same as long cutscenes. I very much appreciate games where cutscenes can be skipped. I don't skip them the first time, but if I restart, I will definitely skip them.

And I like games that put onscreen reminders of controls or games with reference materials.

Anyway, this is something I am going to try to keep in mind as I work on my projects.

Thanks again and feel free to keep adding additional thoughts.

 

[TheAM-Dol]

I haven't read all the responses in the thread yet, but I know Andar made the point and I'm reiterating it:
Include an option to skip tutorials.
Ideally, an option slider to set the "amount" of tutorializing, such as "no tutorials", "tutorials for game specific mechanics", "tutorials for new gamers" - but that's a pretty large ask.
And, even though I advocate for tutorials being disabled through the options, we should acknowledge a shortcoming with this method: there is a nonzero chance a new player may accidentally disable tutorials which may result in a frustrating experience for them.

One thing I've harped on in my streams (besides being a broken record about rebindable keys) is having redundancies in your tutorials. This is for multiple reasons:
1) players may take a hiatus from your game for any number of reasons. Upon returning to your game, if tutorials are one-and-done, they may struggle to recall important details about your game which may require them to have to start a new game just to get that information again, and if that happens they may just decide to give up on your game rather than continue. Providing something like an in game manual or being able to access the tutorial information again at any time is great to help players refresh their knowledge on your game.
2) people often learn in different ways. Some folks reading comprehension may be better or worse than anothers. Or there could have been a distraction (such as a drunk streamer too out to lunch with his chat) that may result in skimming or less comprehension, so building your tutorial to effectively tutorialize the same information but in different formats will help folks better understand the systems.
3) For games that are often heavily systems driven (as opposed to mechanically driven. Systems being the gross game play aspects and management portions of the game) such as RPGs I think it is important to offer manuals as players do not get the obvious and immediate feedback that would be seen in a mechanically driven game; a sword hitting armor bounces off with a clang indicating players need a different strategy, meanwhile in a systems game a sword attack is "resisted" and the number is just smaller...but why? Systems usually are far more complex with how numbers interact with things but rarely is it provided to the players the proper feedback for every number interaction (often times because it would be impossible to implement so much feedback - it could potentially become too much feedback that it only results in more confusion). This is where design nuance comes in, and where things like manuals would help organize information: during the main tutorial, the overview of the game systems can be provided in a succinct way, while providing detailed information about the nuance in the expanded manual. Players (such as my self) who often feel like they are "missing a piece of the puzzle" can get that information at any time by reading more about it in the provided manual/encyclopedia/wise sage back at town. (I'd personally discourage against encyclopedias as they are often an overwhelming wall of choices and text, which could be intimidating and may be more hassle than it's worth to find the information the player wants to know.)

To more directly answer the question, a game should be designed with a target audience in mind. If it's designed for core gamers it's safe to assume it likely won't be someone's first. Most of us here on this forum also won't have an indie game of the size that will reach an audience that is game-curious (I think it's safe to assume most game-curious people likely want to join a conversation around what's currently popular, therefore they are more likely to gravitate to well-marketed AAA games or Indies taking the internet by storm). That said, I also feel like games that don't at least make an effort to be slightly inclusive towards the game-curious is an antagonistic approach to their potential audience. And I've mentioned it before, but being accommodating to players will help build loyalty, and for indie devs, loyalty is more valuable than your game's sales, so I would encourage everyone to make sure to provide the bare minimum to welcome a wide margin of different types of players, however, I also understand some would rather just focus on their core demographic. Designing tutorials, like with all things in game development comes down to the phrase "it depends".
The amount of information you provide makes the game more transparent to the player, but there are certain games that may not want to be transparent in order to make their mechanics successfully work. My aforementioned redundancies and provided manual are important for my game because my game has a "do what you want, play how you want" philosophy and it's important, in order to facilitate that philosophy that players can clearly understand most aspects of my game. But your game may have a philosophy to it's design where this kind of transparency would be counter to that DNA.

Edit:
Cleaned some typos, clarified a few points, added Point 3), and expanded the last paragraph about player types.

 

[RCXGaming]

I haven't read all the responses in the thread yet, but I know Andar made the point and I'm reiterating it:
Include an option to skip tutorials.
Ideally, an option slider to set the "amount" of tutorializing, such as "no tutorials", "tutorials for game specific mechanics", "tutorials for new gamers" - but that's a pretty large ask.
And, even though I advocate for tutorials being disabled through the options, we should acknowledge a shortcoming with this and that there is a nonzero chance a new player may accidentally (for one reason or another) disable tutorials which may result in a frustrating experience for them.

One thing I've harped on in my streams (besides being a broken record about rebindable keys) is having redundancies in your tutorials. This is for multiple reasons:
1) players may take a hiatus from your game for any number of reasons. Upon returning to your game, if tutorials are one-and-done, they may struggle to recall important details about your game which may require then to have to start a new game just to get that information again, and if that happens they may just decide to give up on your game rather than continue. Providing something like an in game manual or being able to access the tutorial information again at any time is great to help players refresh their knowledge on your game.
2) people often learn in different ways. Some folks reading comprehension may be better or worse than anothers. Or there could have been a distraction (such as a drunk streamer too out to lunch with his chat) that may result in skimming or less comprehension, so building your tutorial to effectively tutorialize the same information but in different formats will help folks better understand the systems.

To more directly answer the question, a game should be designed with a target audience in mind. If it's designed for core gamers it's safe to assume it likely won't be someone's first. Most of us here on this forum also won't have an indie game of the size that will reach an audience that is game-curious. That said, I also feel like games that don't at least make an effort to be slightly inclusive towards the game-curious is an antagonistic approach to their potential audience. Outta time to continue writing but you get the point (will fix my many typos later)

Not a half bad idea. I already had that "disable tutorials?" button installed in my games' option menus as well as a planned manual function, but this cooked up some ideas:

• After a tutorial is completed, you get a lil "tutorial card" in your inventory (in its own section) that replays the specific necessary information you need - arranged by the function needed like (Overworld) or (Combat).
• In terms of tutorials that the player consistently needs a refresher on, visual aids are better in the long run. EX. Hookshot targets always having a little glowy-bit or the Swap Equipment button being part of the battle UI, etc.
• The manual file accessed in the menu (thanks Yanfly Menu Manager) is a general overall manual that refreshes all of the basics for the player.
• Game Mechanics can be helped with tooltips, like if an enemy has a barrier that blocks all damage that isn't Fire Element, then you can just hover your mouse over their name when selecting them, etc.

New Game Plus turns off all tutorials by default, since it implies you already are familiar with the game's systems. But you can also turn them on again if you wish.