The Tutorial - Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games - page 30

players feel confused, frustrated, or alienated in accordance with the
game's horror theme, the designers alienate new players by providing
almost nothing. The game opens with a handful of tips designed to
teach “gamers” how to play the game. These tutorial tips also reify an
unfortunate trend of making assumptions about the audience; the tips
are specifically geared to gamers. They are presented in an unskip-
pable cascade of white text against a dark background before the game
can start. Unfortunately, this is where it ends in terms of tutorials.
Other “hints” that are presented throughout the game are the stan-
dard pop-ups you would expect.
Right: Early-on learning.
Wrong: Mistaking lack of guidance in an attempt to drive a
theme with lack of guidance altogether. Great game, but
alienates novice players. Tutorials make wide assumptions
about player base.
Hitman: Absolution™
A rare gem of a tutorial, Hitman: Absolution runs players through a
tutorial level at the very beginning of the game, before challenges are
presented to the player. Unlike many other commercially available
games, the tutorials are entirely sound-driven. This may not seem like
much at this point in the topic, but you'll later learn how the brain
processes sound differently than images, and why this can enhance
learning, particularly in novice players. In Chapter 6, I will particularly
discuss how audio cues are processed differently by the human mind
than visual cues, and why you should capitalize on this in your game.
Right: Auditory cues deepen learning. Learning happens early on.
Wrong: Learning is mandatory and unskippable. Tutorial
instructions do not attempt to determine the player's skill
level before providing instructions.
Dark Souls™
For a game that prides itself on punishing difficulty, one should not
expect too much handholding. That is exactly what is included in
Dark Souls : a barebones, pop-up-based tutorial that illustrates what