Return of the Tutorial: Escape from Skull Island - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 116

This is one of the many beautiful parts about using voice-overs and
audio learning. If the player decides to switch characters before the
voice-over finishes, we are going to gently scold them. Observe the
following narration that happens if the player decides to press Z or X
while the narrator is talking:
Oh, impatient are we? Okay, I'll just talk about this next character…
The gentle prod is a method we use in teaching all the time. As
I have said throughout the topic, it is important that players real-
ize that they have done something they are not supposed to, but not
be punished brutally early on. This gentle chastising at the hands of
the game's narrator is humorous, and keeps them on task to listen to
the game's instructions about how to use the character. On the flip
side, we don't want experienced players to be babied, so if the player
skips by switching characters or adds characters to his or her party
before the narrator finishes the discussion a second time, the follow-
ing narration takes place:
Well, fine then. I'll just be over here. Press TAB if you need me.
An image labeled “Help: TAB” appears in the bottom right of the
screen. he game saves this preference to a file so that experienced
players don't have to fight with it every time they start the game,
incurring extraneous additional cognitive load for no particular rea-
son. On the other hand, in the unlikely event that a novice player
accidentally mashes his or her way through canceling the narrator, the
player has the option to bring him back.
In addition to the principles I have listed thus far, the multimedia
principle is also strong here. Like many new tutorials are adopting, an
animation of the character using his or her skills is apparent on the
right side of the screen. The narrator begins to talk as this animation
begins to play, so due to cognitive proximity, it is very likely that the
player will watch the animation while listening to the narrator. Not
only does this serve as a structured function for sound that holds
attention, it also is consistent with our conversation about modeling in
the cognitive apprenticeship model of teaching. The NPC in the ani-
mation serves as an expert, who is performing duties that the player
needs to emulate. This emulation learning is step one in scaffolding,
where the emulation is complete—a type of worked example—and