How to make tutorials more interesting and fun?

[Milennin]

What makes a good tutorial:


-Interactivity. Don't just show text, but let the player try out for himself.


-Relevancy & Pacing. Don't give the player a tutorial on something that isn't going to be relevant until later into the game. If you want to have a lot of mechanics right from the start, introduce them one at a time, giving the player time to learn each new thing before moving on to the next.


-Availability. Players will skip through tutorials or forget about stuff, so make sure they can look up the information again whenever they want to.


-Brief. Don't use more text than what's necessary. The less text you use, the less chance you have of boring your player with the tutorial.


If you can put the player into gameplay scenarios that naturally teach them the mechanics of your game without having to use tutorial messages and without confusing them, you know you have created the perfect tutorial. But easier said than done.

 

[sam.carter9001]

I'm not sure I'd call them tutorials, but I like what Suikoden II did once you were caught by Viktor's Merc Army and held captive.

Pohl (Paul) would come to you and have you do some sort of chore or task to earn your meal. The tasks were fairly simple, but they taught you that if you pushed against a box, it could move in certain directions. The teaching aspect was part of the game and the story, and it never felt out of place.

I'd like to do these kids of things in my game.

 

[IRHP]

Simple; interactivity, humor, and timing. Just teach them on a need to know basis, keep it simple and short.

 

[Blinn]

Make them funny.

If the tutorials are in-game, reward the player for taking the tutorial. Like I did with this scene: