The Tutorial - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 17

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t he t utorIal
Bolstered by examples in current games, the teaching methods dem-
onstrated in Chapter 1 are illustrated as game design principles. Why
did the designers choose to place the pop-ups in that particular spot?
Why does game play stop when tutorials pop-up? In real teaching,
how are people taught using tutorials? Where did the word tutorial
come from? These questions are answered with in-game examples.
Particularly, this chapter demonstrates with examples the three
common types of tutorials that are found in contemporary games
(pop-ups, special levels, and not at all), and explains them. It links
them to methods of teaching that are used in modern education in a
way that is nonthreatening and easy to understand.
What Is a Tutorial?
As I said before, you probably already have an idea about what a tuto-
rial is. What I'm here to tell you is that idea is probably wrong. I'm not
suggesting you are ignorant; what I'm suggesting is you have prob-
ably gotten used to sub-par tutorials . Just like you don't expect to
be seated and offered a wine list at a greasy spoon diner, you don't
expect a magnificent learning experience when playing a game. I'm
also here to tell you that that doesn't have to be the case. As authors
like James Paul Gee, * Kurt Squire, † and others ‡ will happily and read-
ily tell you, great games already teach people things without trying.
In fact, there is a whole community of scholars and game designers
dedicated entirely to the purpose of designing games for teaching,
* Gee, J. (2007). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New
York: MacMillan.
† Squire, K. & Jenkins, H. (2003). Harnessing the power of games in education.
Insight , 3(1).
‡ Katrin Becker, Jennifer Jenson and Suzanne de Castell, Henry Jenkins, Eric
Zimmerman, Katie Salen.
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