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Games in complex genres, like strategy and simulation, can be really hard to learn. So are there ways to make the tutorials for these games more enjoyable and more effective?
=== Sources and Resources ===
– Sources
[1] How I Got My Mom to Play Through Plants vs. Zombies | GDC on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbzhHSexzpY
[2] Bruce Shelley | Game Design Workshop
https://www.gamedesignworkshop.com/bruce-shelley
[3] Mastering Kombat: Designing Mortal Kombat 11’s Empowering Tutorial Mode | GDC on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbSyH3lo1Zg
[4] How to Make Great Game Tutorials | GDC on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf7xLHUpKHE
[5] The Feature That Almost Sank Disco Elysium | GameSpot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X0-W5erEXw
[6] Evolving the UX/UI of A Total War Saga: Troy using player feedback | Gamasutra
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/373860/Deep_Dive_Evolving_the_UXUI_of_A_Total_War_Saga_Troy_using_player_feedback.php
[7] Into the Breach’s interface was a nightmare to make and the key to its greatness | Rock Paper Shotgun
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/into-the-breach-interface-design
– Additional resources
This is a Talk About Tutorials, Press A to Skip | GDC on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM1pV_6IE34
Should Players Buy Their Own UI? | Gamasutra
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SebastianLong/20200430/362083/Should_Players_Buy_Their_Own_UI.php
=== Support GMTK ===
Support GMTK on Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/GameMakersToolkit
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=== Games Shown ===
A Total War Saga: Troy (2020)
Crusader Kings III (2020)
Endless Space 2 (2017)
Ghost of Tsushima (2020)
Fallout 3 (2008)
Half-Life 2 (2004)
Total War: Warhammer II (2017)
Jurassic World Evolution (2018)
Arms (2017)
Bionic Commando (2009)
Rage 2 (2019)
Splinter Cell (2002)
Portal (2007)
Death Stranding (2019)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
Returnal (2021)
Metroid Prime (2002)
Civilization (1991)
Civilization V (2010)
Frostpunk (2018)
Persona 5 (2016)
Crusader Kings II (2012)
Mini Metro (2015)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020)
Street Fighter V (2016)
Dead or Alive 6 (2019)
Mortal Kombat 11 (2019)
God of War (2018)
Tekken 7 (2015)
Civilization VI (2016)
Civilization IV (2005)
StarCraft II (2010)
Devil May Cry 5 (2019)
Yakuza 0 (2015)
Astro’s Playroom (2020)
Threes (2014)
Total War: Three Kingdoms (2019)
Planet Zoo (2019)
Offworld Trading Company (2016)
Anno 1800 (2019)
Skate 3 (2010)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019)
Two Point Hospital (2018)
Slay the Spire (2019)
Hearthstone (2014)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003)
New Super Mario Bros. U (2012)
Luigi’s Mansion 3 (2019)
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (2019)
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (2014)
Plants vs. Zombies (2009)
Overcooked (2016)
Inside (2016)
Reigns (2016)
Disco Elysium (2019)
Heroes of Might and Magic II (1996)
Cuphead (2017)
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)
Into the Breach (2018)
Cities: Skylines (2015)
Bayonetta (2009)
Minecraft (2011)
Star Fox Zero (2016)
XCOM: Chimera Squad (2020)
Titanfall 2 (2016)
Narita Boy (2021)
=== Credits ===
Music by Lee Rosevere (https://leerosevere.bandcamp.com)
Additional Music:
Subject Name Here (Portal)
China Theme: Atomic (Civilization VI)
The Still, Cold World (Frostpunk)
Reflections (Mini Metro)
The Last Flame (Frostpunk)
Online Menu (Dead or Alive 6)
England Theme: Atomic (Civilization VI)
Sophon’s Prologue (Endless Space 2)
Threes (Threes)
Parkie’s Pieces (Planet Zoo)
Martian Mining and Manufacture (Offworld Trading Company)
Collection Manager (Hearthstone)
Pangolin Waltz (Planet Zoo)
The We, Horatio Theme (Endless Space 2)
Credits Theme 3 (Starfox Zero)
Nartia Boy Theme (Narita Boy)
=== Subtitles ===
Contribute translated subtitles – https://amara.org/en-gb/videos/JcxvgxWY0awb/
Source
Hey! The GMTK Game Jam starts next week! Register your interest here – https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2021
That's why I love Bayonetta – when I was stuck I could just practice my combos between loadings. I had all the time I wanted to redo what the game wanted me to do and to hone my skills further.
I'm only thirty seconds in rn but dude so far its sounding more like you have unmedicated adhd lol
Isn't "strategy": study first, then do, then learn if you did well much later? Information management, long-term planning, risk-reward calculation under uncertainty, sparse feedback are all things you have to be able to handle to "strategize". In that sense RTS tutorials have it spot on already with a meta-hands-on approach. 😉
I HATE tutorials that walk me through and tell where to click. It's such a turn-off, when the game doesn't let me play for myself, that it can make me actually uninstall the game and never play it again.
Lmao i was like “I recognize all of these fgc terms except trip guard and bivouacing”
so I spend 5-10 min searching it up and was just about to comment that you made a mistake when you said “I only made up one of those” 😂
I'm so sad because I was excited to see that you also install games to drive letter:/SteamLibrary. I install mine to G:/SteamLibrary 😛
EDIT: the next scene you delete spending time with family for learning a game. LOL
Just looking at the insane amount of tiny, unreadable font in most of these games gives me zero desire to play any of them.
I think that one thing you mentioned, but did not discuss that is super important is games providing written reference material. I.e. manuals for basic controls, as well as clearly written breakdowns of game mechanics that are not obvious. This helps players who are willing to invest time in the game to have a reliable, in-game source for their knowledge. There are many creative ways to deliver this knowledge without breaking the immersion of the game. As well, there is a growing demand to learn more about game mechanics (as clearly show by the popularity of this excellent content). Just wanted to throw that out there for those who want to learn more about games, but do not want to have the game spoiled by researching from 3rd party sites.
Driving simulation basically let you turn on more complex systems to deal with. Forza especially
Persona 5 is a great example. 50 hours in and I was still getting tutorials for new mechanics. There are so many systems (but often shallow ones) so the game just kept stacking new ones on the pile to not overwhelm and keep things fresh. Worked great to create a complex whole. Love that game.
15:43 I see you swiping left to the princesses and right to sexy sexy Waluigi.
Happy Pride everybody.
I disagree with just all of this and alot of the reason is primitive phrasing as i put it
I was terrified for a second bc fighting games are one of my most played genres, and had no idea what bivouacing was
gets to the part about what you need to get into fighting games, as someone whos wanted to get into them but just never could because AI doesnt teach you well enough, and the only people who play fighting games are people who PLAY fighting games so it's hard to learn
…you only made up ONE of thoes terms? I'm guessing it's happy birthday but the fact that for a brief moment I legit thought those were all real…yeaaa…
I think you make good points here, certainly the more complex strategy games could have vastly improved tutorials.
However if you asked the players "would you like us to sacrifice end-game content in exchange for a tutorial"
I think many of them would prefer to have the end-game content.
Also total war games are super easy to learn and pick up. I would rate them as easier than civilisation games. Like if you can't be bothered to learn the basics for a game like that you're never going to enjoy a paradox game.
Another point I would make is that complex strategy games are kind of like whisky while something like a first person fighting game is more like red bull. Whisky is better enjoyed slowly over time. Red bull is all about getting a big rush.
Fighting games can be picked up and put down in 1 evening and forgotten about for years then you can pick them up again and have a blast.
Complex strategy is something that consumes your life and your soul. Your every waking moment outside of the game is spent thinking about what you'll do in-game.
Thinking about odd mechanics to discover and learn about is actually part of the fun for those games, not lying here. Reading through extensive wiki pages and reading about other players doing strange things in their game is all part of the experience for me.
Strategy games cater to a very different audience, one that actively uses google to solve the problems they encounter in-game.
Simple lets plays are a rite of passage to learn many a paradox game.
However there are more niche mechanics that happen so rarely I think making a tutorial to cover all of them would be impossible.
Again I would say better tutorials is something strategy games can always improve on and some of the methods mentioned in this video would certainly be useful. However I bring up the fact that some people just love to learn about the game in their own way.
I notice you mentioned minecraft as a bad game for relying on wikipedia to learn, however that's part of the design of the game I think. They chose to make the game hard to learn but fun to master. You use word of mouth with your friends to figure things out and share experiences doing stupid things.
It's not so different for strategy games. You can even send in a strategy game save you know is terrible to a big lets play youtuber and they might feature that save file in a video of their own explaining and detailing what you did wrong and how to get better.
Just asking how to do things in forums is actually part of those games as well to some extent.
Learning to play complex strategy games is actually part of the fun.
I'm not trying to excuse the lack of certain strategy games explaining basic mechanics but you kind of need to be built different to enjoy them. I'd say mastering something like a total war game like rome 2 or the like would be a good first step in understanding some of the campaign map.
Also with paradox games, there is a lot of similarities in how they present and explain things to the player. So once you learn 1 you're kind of primed to pick up other games much more easily.
(also they do actually add more niche mechanics with expansions so by design or accident they did one of the things you suggested)
I don't mean to sound condescening or anything. I used to be just like you, a nobody trying out a paradox game for the first time and being overwhelmed. I just watched a bunch of lets plays and learned by walking into the fire myself which things worked and which didn't.
Over time ( a lot of time) it becomes intuitive to you what the game is telling you, and you learn to tune out information that isn't relevent to your current problem in the game.
I paused the video on the fighting game terms and told my wife, "I'm 100% sure he made up 'bivouacing' to mess with people."
I love Endless Space 2! I love the art, the music, the gameplay… But true, the tutorial is really, really terrible. you can't skip steps unless you deactivate the tutorial (as in, if you try to kill the window, it will prompt you to stop the tutorial).
It is also very lacking in informations for more advanced gameplay. An example is : you can buy a system with influence (the currency) if this system is inside your zone of influence (the space around your system). What that doesn't tell you is :
1. the system needs to be habitated
2. you must be at peace or in cold war for it to be possible
3. you need to unlock this technology in the tech tree
At no point in the tutorial was all of this explained, and I had to look in the UNOFFICIAL wiki, because the OFFICIAL wiki is not updated often enough. Sad.
17:08 But an hourglass is such a beautiful object. 🙁
Very interesting! Thank you.
Good stuff.
"game tutorials are pretty good these days. well woven into the game-" shows fallout 3's 10 trillion hour long tutorial
I would say there's a spectrum, total war is on the simpler side.
BUT, we can make better tutorials, and at times I think developers need to reach out to players in an effort to reach more people. And without this, sometimes games get "watered down" to attempt to reach more people, but end up not doing that, and alienating existing players.
Dota 2 is an example of game that's a victim of its own complexity.
laughs in Dwarf Fortress
Pro tip: skip the tutorials and just check the keybinds through the settings
My friends persuaded me to get eu4 but after playing the tutorial I have literally no idea what is going on in the game. This video could really help a lot of games!
Tutorial…what's a tutorial
I find almost every tutorial to be useless and distracting. And by that, I mean the only ones I actually think are good are the ones I never noticed.
Seeing as how Potato McWhiskey, one of the most popular Civilization content creators, has an HOUR LONG VIDEO on just "What should you build first, Granary or Monument?" I can appreciate that tutorials in these complex games aren't standard. Because they can't be. They'd take way too long.
Honestly my favourite tutorial set-up is half-life's. It doesn't make sense for Gorden to not know things and not be well trained when the game begins, so having an optional level from before the game begins (when Gorden is applying for the job) feels better, and keeps the pace of the game better too. Plus making the tutorials optional instead of slowly drip feeding these things allows players to jump right back in for replays, and makes more sense theme wise; we're playing someone skilled at something, we shouldn't be sitting there playing them fumbling through the training, but as someone immediately in the situation.
Going into the tutorial and then into the main game through the main menu further emphasises this by putting a full stop on the tutorial and giving a greater sense of time between then and now. Where as when the tutorial runs right into the game, it feels almost like the character is oddly reminiscing at best, or that they were trained just moments ago at worst (because from our perspective they were).
KSP2 might be a good test case to see how complex game tutorial may (or may not) be improved. This is a game that literally has to teach you rocket science, so it's probably one of the most difficult to build a tutorial for.
Someone should get BattlestateGames to watch this video
Civ V is the best Civ imo
"Tutorials are pretty good these days"
shows a 13 year old game
Damn, time do be flying by doe.
Age of Mythology's story campaign works as a tutorial for every race, building, unit, synergy and strategy in the game. You first start as the Greeks in a map you're only taught how to control combat units and win by defeating enemies in combat, then move on to build your very first base in the following chapter and are taught how the map fog works by using Pegasi to scout and are given defense towers to build, and on the following chapters you are slowly introduced to more and more buildings and new units the game had locked you out of. Finally you are tasked with using a different race and the tutorial starts from scratch for the Egyptians and Nords in a similar fashion to the Greeks at the start of the campaign, until you reach the end of the game with a test for everything you have learned so far.
I'm only halfway in but the tutorial style you describe where you unlock more systems as you progress through playthroughs is how Hades is setup. You gather some resources and learn new things on each run, and as you accumulate experience and resources the game expands. You unlock new weapons and passive perks and items to use and advance your relationships with several characters. You have to escape hell like 8 times to see a real ending to the game and new things unlock the entire time.
Aaaargh the worst part is that Endless Space (1) had a REALLY good and beginner friendly UI. In fact, that was pretty much the best feature of the game IMO. All the complexity was there, but only the basics were yelling out visually. The rest of the stuff was easily to stumble upon organically and go "oh wow, that's a thing I can do? Cool!". The second game frustratingly went back to generic 4X design language and ended up being much less enjoyable for it. Quite a shame.
It's interesting I found this video now given the thing I've been binging on Youtube lately: carpentry videos. Not as far away as you'd think from this topic. Some channels are run by non-English speakers, and their only way to communicate is to show. There is no tell. And they do it. Clearly-communicated, easy-to-follow instructions with zero talking and minimal, if any, on-screen text. If JSK-koubou can teach me how to build a perfect-functioning drill press from scratch out of wood JUST BY SHOWING, game designers can get most of the way there no matter how complex the game. Effective communication is a universal skill, and game communication is just a flavor of it. Go watch non-gaming videos on Youtube where people do and make stuff, and see what works there.
The long feeback loop is my main problem with Civ games and RTS games. Why would I spend hours in a playthrough without knowing if I'll win or lose when I can play a faster game where in the same amount of time, I could lose many times, learn my mistakes and eventually win.
I'd love to continue this topic regarding a different flavor of what I'd consider complex games. For lack of a better term, I'll call them "infinite options games," and it mainly comprises MMOs and open-world games, I'd say. The complexity is right there in there in the name. I can do anything. I can do everything. How do you choose? How do I even do any one thing, and can the game teach me how to do it "well"? Whether it's combat or making money or housing or running communities or whatever, there are fundamental principles of "why" that are never covered, just the basic "how" and sometimes not even that.
These areas in these games are as big, complex, and as time consuming as real life, yet it seems like devs flat out rely on the community to explain them. There's definitely an 80/20 rule going on, I think, where 80% of the concept of something could be communicated to every player in game, and the community could focus on the more interesting and complex aspects of the last 20%. It just blows me away how often aspects of games that probably took 10-100k hours in development man-hours are not taught to the people who pay to play the game using those systems and who ultimately pay the salaries of the developers.
I still have mental whiplash from the first time I tried Europa Universalis. It felt like nothing I had played before, and I never learnt to play it.
Similarly I struggled through HOI4 and Stellaris, and though I've played MANY hours of both, I still feel like a noob at them.
Total war is different to me. I played them since Shogun, and they feel like incrementally more complex games. But I can see how new players would find picking up a newer TW title for first time and having a hard time.
and can we just bow our heads to blizzard for games like warcraft and starcraft, who teach people their games REALLY well…
there's just something about hearing "I have the attention span of a six year old child" in the smoothest, calmest voice possible lmao