Return of the Tutorial: Escape from Skull Island - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 112

in the game starts from the moment it is turned on. We are going to
go ahead and talk about each portion of the game in sequence—boot,
main menu and save/load functions, begin game screen, gameplay
and advancement, and the Game Over screen.
Learning at Boot
As long as players are breathing, they are learning something. For this
reason, let's assume that they are indeed breathing when the game
is booting. If you inundate them with your company's logo screen, a
startup video, a technology video screen indicating the type of audio
codec you used in the game, and a logo screen from your parent cor-
poration, they've already learned something: in this game, I have to
wait to have fun. So, for this reason, the first thing someone booting
Escape from Skull Island is going to see is the main menu. Boot will be
so thin you will think there is something wrong. Like the first time
you turned your computer on after having installed a solid-state hard
drive, you will simply feel like games aren't supposed to start this fast.
It will be like going out and getting married before you even start dat-
ing. It will be like wanting a cookie and having it appear on your desk.
It will be like… okay, you get the point… fast.
Why am I going to do this? Well, it is simple. Players expect to
play. When they turn the game on, they should get what they expect.
Imagine for a moment that you are playing hopscotch for the first
time. Instead of walking around and looking at the chalk on the
ground, you are chained to a desk and not allowed to stand up or look
at the playfield until the person who drew the chalk on the ground
tells you all about how he drew it, how proud he is of it, and how he
used the most cutting-edge chalk available, and then tells you that
you are going to get to see it after he explains it to you some more. Not
very natural, right? Almost seems like you are being held prisoner.
Well, that is exactly what you are doing in a game; you are taking the
player's cognition prisoner. The result is not positive. In the event that
your company forces you to display a startup screen, it should be less
than one second in length and any input should skip it. If you are an
indie game company and think that displaying a company logo and
a tech logo at startup will make you feel more “official,” skip it. You
should take input during a cut scene or logo as a clear message: I don't