Analyzing the unique challenges of creating video game tutorial levels.
Christmas mornings are a special kind of magic for kids. There’s a lot to appreciate: spending time with family, enjoying a break from school, marveling at the festive decorations, and most of all, getting tons of toys. Video games were always the most exciting for me – action figures or Hot Wheels are cool and all, but I can drag hundreds of hours of fun from a good game.
I had a very narrow window of time to start my new game. After opening presents, I had just a few hours before more family activities began. Part of me wanted to be patient and wait until I had more time to savor each game, but my excitement was too much to handle. I always sat down and played the first couple sections.
Lemme tell ya, nothing kills the hype of a new game like a boring tutorial level. I’ve seen the trailers, I’ve scanned over every image on the back of the box in anxious anticipation; I’m ready for action. Instead, I spend 10 minutes clicking through text boxes while I learn to catch a Pokémon for the seventh time.
Poké Ball Go! Poké Ball Gooooo!!! GET IN THE POKÉ BALL, I HAVE TO LEAVE FOR MY AUNT’S HOUSE IN AN HOUR.
The tutorial level is typically the first gameplay you encounter in a video game. These levels often play out like pop quizzes. First, they explain a control or game mechanic, and then you use that information to overcome an easy enemy or obstacle. Once you succeed, the process repeats until all controls and mechanics have been explained.
This simple style of tutorial is effective across many genres; many game designers have made successful tutorials by following this template (I can't tell you how many times I've been presented with a small ledge and a text box that says, "Press A to jump").
This style of tutorial could be useful for other types of software, but only for programs with relatively few features. A tutorial in this style for something with many features (e.g. Excel) would be far too long.
Imagine completing a separate challenge for every single button in the ribbon.
In general, video game tutorial levels have plenty of tools at their disposal - text, audio, animation, and interactive elements. However, there are still many unique challenges in creating a good tutorial level.
Video games often aim for wide appeal, to be entertaining and accessible for people of all ages. This means it can be very tricky to create a tutorial that appeals to all your users. For example, a six-year-old playing their first Pokémon game needs much more guidance than a thirty-year-old playing their fifteenth.
Some games circumvent this issue by creating multiple tutorials and allowing players to select the best fit. Usually, these games offer one tutorial for people who are completely new to the franchise/genre, and they offer another tutorial for people who have already played similar games.
Tutorials for inexperienced players must be slower and more thorough, devoting more time to the basic controls and mechanics. Tutorials for experienced players can skip the basics, instead emphasizing any new or unique mechanics. This second type of tutorial can also cover advanced techniques that would overwhelm inexperienced players.
Some games even expand their tutorials into a set of independent sections. Each section can be played/read independently, allowing players to skip any concept they’re already familiar with. A good example of this is the mobile game, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links:
Every aspect of the game is covered here, and it's easy to navigate through these expandable categories.
Because Duel Links is based on a physical card game, many new players already understand most of the rules. The Help section is organized into expandable categories, allowing experienced players to skip past anything they know. In addition, Duel Links features interactive Tutorials and Quizzes that are geared toward inexperienced players.
This style of approach is particularly effective for complex strategy games, where there are many written rules to learn. In these games, the tutorial is presented primarily through text instead of animations or interactive elements. In contrast, action games are much more interactive, making it difficult to implement these expandable sections.
Other types of software may benefit from implementing multiple different tutorials. For example, if Adobe releases a new version of Photoshop, they could include separate tutorials for new or returning users.
Another useful strategy is making the tutorial level optional/skippable. This allows experienced players to jump right into the action. It's also useful for players who would rather learn the controls by screwing around on their own.
Why not always make the tutorial optional/skippable? It’s a useful option for many users, and it shouldn’t be that difficult to implement, right?
The issue is that tutorial levels are often tied to the narrative of the game. Tutorial levels don’t just introduce the controls - they often introduce the characters, setting, and plot, too. Thus, skipping the tutorial may mean missing out on important story elements. This isn’t an issue with other types of software, where there's no narrative.
For example, consider God of War 3’s tutorial level: You traverse the body of the massive titan Gaia as you lay siege to Mount Olympus. The siege is partially successful – the player murders the sea god Poseidon before being flung off the mountain. If you could skip this tutorial level, then you’d miss these really important story events.
Likewise, it would be tremendously hard to create multiple versions of this tutorial level. This is the third installment in the series, so returning players may only need to learn a couple new mechanics. This means the tutorial for experienced players would be much shorter. Accordingly, the siege itself would be shorter, dramatically altering the narrative.
It might seem logical to separate the gameplay tutorial from the narrative; you could create a tutorial that takes place detached from the game’s story. This allows you to create different, skippable tutorials without altering the narrative. However, this approach can make the start of your game feel slow and boring.
Consider the previous example with God of War 3. You could set the tutorial in a generic colosseum against generic gladiators, separate from any actual narrative. But, that’s a far less exciting way to start the game.
I mean really, what's more engaging?
This:
Credit to MKIceAndFire for the gameplay capture.
Or this:
Credit to me for this gorgeous, hyperrealistic concept art.
Another important factor in designing game tutorials is depth – how thorough does your tutorial need to be? Some games have a lot of controls and advanced mechanics to learn. It’s unreasonable to expect new players to learn them all at once.
One effective solution is locking some mechanics until later in the game. Many games have abilities, items, and upgrades that are unlocked as you progress through the game. This not only gives the game a nice sense of progression, but also it prevents new players from being overwhelmed by too many options at the beginning.
Of course, designers must strike a careful balance. Some games have been criticized for placing the most fun unlockables too late in the game, preventing you from using them very much. For example, I stopped playing Hollow Knight because I got bored of the core mechanics, and it was taking too long to unlock new abilities.
A related issue is retention of information. Sometimes people play the first half of a game, take a break, and then come back to finish it months or years later. For games with complex controls, it can be very challenging to remember everything after all that time. Because many games ramp up in difficulty over time, you're often forced to relearn the controls while playing a difficult section.
And even if you don’t take a break, some games are so complex that it’s hard to remember every detail from the tutorial. For example, look how many key bindings there are in Shadow of War:
Shadow of War Game Devs: "I paid for the whole keyboard, and I'm gonna use the whole keyboard."
I'm not trying to drag complex games - I absolutely love Shadow of War. However, these games do face additional challenges in their tutorial content.
A good solution to these issues is a replayable tutorial. This allows returning players to relearn the controls without having to face whatever difficult level they left off on. However, this can again be difficult to implement. In games with unlockables, replaying the initial tutorial won’t remind you how to use the new abilities you’ve unlocked. It can also be narratively jarring to replay the first level and then jump ahead to a later point in the story.
One way to both help users retain information and explain advanced mechanics is loading screen tips. These tips appear as text boxes during loading screens, and they help remind players of important controls and mechanics. Different tips randomly appear with each new load screen.
The snowboarding game Steep does a particularly good job with loading screen tips:
My only complaint is the text size. It's not terribly hard to read while fullscreened on a computer monitor, but console players sitting across from a TV screen will likely struggle.
Steep's loading screen tips are particularly useful because you can scroll through them with the arrow keys, allowing you to skip to more relevant tips.
Steep also incorporates its loading screen tips into the pause menu, allowing players to reference them whenever needed:
These tips cover a variety of concepts, including controls, game mechanics, and game modes.
These tips are particularly useful in Steep because the tutorial is optional. Sometimes players skip the tutorial, and (surprise, surprise) they end up very confused about how to play the game. This way, those players can still learn everything through the load screens and pause menu. These tips are likewise helpful for returning players looking to refresh their memory on the controls. In addition, some of these tips explain advanced mechanics that weren't appropriate for the initial tutorial.
Loading screens on other types of software are often too fast to allow for loading screen tips. Alternatively, some programs give you brief tips every time you open the software. This approach can be very helpful for new users learning complex programs. Still, it's important that experienced users can disable the tips. As Microsoft learned a couple decades ago, unwanted advice does not make for a great user experience.
Takeaway: If you're a technical communicator looking for inspiration, consider examining technical pieces made for other fields. You may learn new creative tools and strategies to implement in your own field.