Tutorials in Videogames pt 2 (Giveaway inside)

The last question about length of tutorials is hard to answer. While I'll gladly mess around for half an hour (or even more) for a game like Civilization or Age of Empires, I feel like I've learned everything I need in 30 seconds in Borderlands. The categories you have for answers felt really wide and really narrow at the same time, if you get what I mean.

nice

View attached image.

I am gonna ask this again, will you be removing blacklisted users so they can enter the GA after taking the survey? Or is it a "thanks for your input but screw you" kinda thing?

Not really into the games, but I did enjoy sharing my strong opinions about tutorials once more. :D

tfw you thought that it will open the link in a new tab so you just simply left clicked on it and then wanted to go back T.T
-> at the start of the survey again :C
bump though, I will do it later again with the same data, hope it won't affect your survey that much c:

About your question on tutorial duration, it's really hard to say: it depends on the complexity of the game.

IMO the tutorial should be as short as possible, on condition that it's long enough to show everything that needs to be shown, at a reasonable pace. So, for, say, a trivial platformer, this shouldn't take more than a few minutes. For some kind of complex strategy game, say Civilization or Europa Universalis, it might take a few hours.

In my opinion this survey is not very effective, a big "DEPENDS" enters in each case, the tutorial lenght/complexity will depend on the game, you would be better by adding a case A and B of the same subject, like "which is better of these 2", for example, take the tutorial by exposition and the contextual tutorial. most people will say second case is better, now put the same picture of the controller as the scene background texture, it simply doesn't work like that, these 2 cases depends on the amount of buttons that can perform an action. As a general rule, don't overhaul the player with functions they don't need, if they are learning to move around it makes no sense to teach them how to combine items for example, so example one and 2 only works if the player will need all these "functions" during that scene. Best way is to introduce one function at a time, think metroidvanias, they force you to use an skill to escape the room you gathered id (in most cases). Btw! warioland 4 tutorial is one of the best examples I can think of the contextual tutorial.

Sign tutorials works if you make sure the information can't be missed, again think metroidvanias escape rooms.

No tutorial works if the player is not missing anything obvious, for example, don't assume people is aware of all functions, in minecraft it works because of the few controls, but don't hide unique actions as dropping items etc if the player is not aware of it.

And the Training in menu I think (because they are mostly in rts, which I don't play much) are ok as far as are "complementary" information, like better strategies etc, but if I have to read all that to proceed into the game is a No NO xd.

Gamers just want to play, they will not resist too many game pausing tutorials, is incredibly awful when the user can predict when it will pop up, so avoid at all cost if you have large sets of instructions.

So well hope this information helps, again nothing is a recipe when you make a game, just put in it what feels good on it, what will work for a game won't work for the others, testing is the key of a pleasant end user experience.

Bump!

completed

Completed

Done. Hope we can help. =)

Thanks!

bump ~

There are a lot of "depends on..." for me in regards to many of those questions. I've answered what I feel overall, but the last question is a bit problematic, as it depends a lot on the game. If it's for say a platformer or a shooter, I would expect the tutorial to be short (and then they'll introduce the more advanced concepts through gameplay), while for a complex strategy game, a tutorial can take over 2h and still be fine.

Done and Bump!

Done

bump

Thanks to all who have answered already - just a notice, the survey and giveaways runs until wednesday next week :)

bump.