Introduction - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 8

we will talk about in Chapter 2. I promise you, teachers have been
encountering and overcoming this obstacle for generations.
It is every game designer's dream to have their vision enjoyed by all
kinds of people. Some of us give up, however. We think that perhaps,
like beer, some people don't like particular types. Just like some peo-
ple drink IPAs and others drink Stouts, some people play FPSs and
some people play RPGs, and that's all there is to it. While it is true
that people often form habits, and therefore rely on their pre-existing
motivations to seek new experiences, the fact that they try new games
at all is evidence that novelty-seeking behavior is still present, but not
being accessed properly. Let me give a caveat: this isn't a topic about
marketing. I am not going to tell you how to get people to pick up
your game, but rather, how to enjoy playing once they have. If your
audience is indeed hesitant to try your game, you may have a slightly
different problem, which I am probably not qualified to help you
solve. Assuming you are able to get people to try the game in the first
place, the way you are probably accustomed to keeping them playing
is through rewards—fun stuff they are either given or get to do once
they overcome game obstacles. This is actually a kind of teaching that
we will discuss in Chapter 3, but for now, one of the best examples of
this kind of teaching is found in Heavy Rain ™.
When we let players die, lose lives, lose experience, that kind of
thing, we are effectively punishing them for their bad behavior. We
don't want them to be unable to overcome game obstacles, because
then they'll never see the entire game we've put together for them. We
don't want our children to eat glass because then they'll never live to
see how awesome life is. So what do we do? We punish the players.
Give them a game-over screen, take away some of their power, that
kind of thing. We'll talk all about this in Chapter 3. For now, I'd like
to say that truly great games wait until the player has learned the basics
before punishing him or her. In Heavy Rain (see Figure 1.4), players
start with innocuous tasks and on-screen instructions that show the
users how to play before they are faced with more dire challenges.
Before anything gets set on fire or anyone dies in Heavy Rain ,
Ethan has to learn how to shave. If he screws up, the punishment isn't
overly dire: he cuts himself slightly, and immediately gets to try again.
This lets people learn how to play without making them throw the