Tutorials

Holla Forums, I've been replaying some old games and I realized that the vast majority of the time, tutorials are absolute dogshit and I hate them. Some of them are so shit that they sap my will to play entirely.

Is there even such a thing as a good tutorial?

I didn't mind reading the instruction manual before I played a game. That's kind of a tutorial

I suppose Dark Souls has an alright tutorial. At the very least it's unobtusive.

The best "tutorial" is having a proper mechanics manual inside the game.

The best tutorial is one that doesn't actually feel like a tutorial, and instead puts the player in a relatively safe situation where he can organically learn the mechanics of the game.

The first Fallout does this perfectly.

Best tutorial is no tutorial. Just throw player right into action, and make obvious controls that you can't mistake for anything else.

Tutorial itself is not necessity for sales of your game or anything, especially in the age of internet, when noobs mostly watch lets play videos anyway, made by pink haired nu males.

You can't do that unless you make a really simple game.

I feel like the best way of having a tutorial is to make it completely optional so if you're replaying you just skip it outright.

The only time I thought 'Hey, that's a good idea.' in regards to tutorials was in Assassins Creed, whichever one is the pirate one, where if you hadn't played in a while, it asked if you wanted tutorial prompts and stuff to refresh you on how to do things.

Real man learn by trial and error. Tutorials are a travesty (although there's nothing wrong in progressively increasing difficulty/unlocking new features, as long as it doesn't take the entire fucking game to unlock everything).

DCS has great tutorials and they save a shitload of reading when you are learning a new cockpit.

This. Integrate the tutorial into your game design.
In Metroid games, whenever the player acquires a new powerup, you're given the controls on how to use it, and what it does. The room immediately after requries a simple application of the powerup to proceed.

Players don't need tedious, longass tutorials. All they need are the controls, a short explanation of fundamental mechanics, and a place to test/practice them in.

I've always been a fan of the tutorials in Dark Souls and Blood Borne. I've never played Demon's Souls, but I assume that it set the trend.
Basically, you can investigate markings on the ground to see the button prompts, but if you don't want to see them you can totally skip them. This means that if you are already familiar with the game you can rush past it all and get into the meat of the game very quickly.

Apart from that, I like games that give you a safe area to fuck around with the controls in until you figure out what you are supposed to do to proceed for the same reason I like the DS tutorials, because it is unobtrusive and lets players who already know how to do it get past very quickly.

Given the current generation of children, thats impossible. Too stupid to explore the functions of a basic gamepad.

Demon's souls is a bit different, there is an initial level that you can go to that is the tutorial level with developer notes, the game gives you the option to skip this at the beginning and go straight to the Nexus

Far Cry: Blood Dragon has a tutorial which essentially parodies itself, with the tutorial instructions being comically stupid and the protagonist cursing like a sailor over the fact that he's stuck in tutorial mode. It's only made funnier by the fact that his partner started the tutorial to troll him.

Killer7 had a good one.

I also like the idea of slowly adding mechanics to the game, but then you get shit like Advance Wars Days of Ruin where you don't get full gameplay options until halfway through the campaign

GOD TIER: New mechanics integrated via gameplay. Minimal, if any written instructions are present.
HIGH TIER: Tutorials optional.
MID TIER: Tutorials absent in-game. Players are expected to consult an instruction manual to learn about controls.
LOW TIER: Tutorials mandatory, but aren't overbearing, and are written in a way where they make some sense within the game's universe.
SHIT TIER: Tutorials are both required and overbearing.

Neat

Nailed it.


Optional is great too.

The loading screens are funny too.

Advance Wars has one of the best tutorials by virtue of it tying in with the actual campaign, so that when you're dropped out of it it felt like you never stopped playing at all. Most tutorials either put unnecessary flags and stops to be enjoyable or are completely disjointed from the main game, but I like that one a lot. Other tutorials I like are the shit like in Wario Land 4 where there's hints in the level about what you're supposed to do but no annoying character to teach you otherwise.

Fuck off Ubishit

pic related is the one that the majority copy.
The fact that the tutorial is optional and not forced and well integrated in the game is a testament of good design.

don't forget UNATCO training, which also includes interesting bits of lore such as JC being unable to smile. Ever.

yes, this two games are the rule to follow.