WEBVTT 00:00:00.089 --> 00:00:02.610 I have a confession to make. 00:00:02.610 --> 00:00:09.820 I’ve tried, many times, to play games like Total War, Crusader Kings, and Endless Space. 00:00:09.820 --> 00:00:14.820 I've bought them, downloaded them, made time in my calendar for them. 00:00:14.820 --> 00:00:17.250 And yet - the same thing always happens. 00:00:17.250 --> 00:00:22.070 I get about 20 minutes into the tutorial, and I start to zone out. 00:00:22.070 --> 00:00:24.609 My eyes glaze over, and my mind drifts. 00:00:24.609 --> 00:00:28.630 I start to think about all the things I could be doing that are more fun than this. 00:00:28.630 --> 00:00:31.810 Like filing my taxes or watching paint dry. 00:00:31.810 --> 00:00:36.710 And this is a shame - because for the most part, video game tutorials are actually pretty 00:00:36.710 --> 00:00:37.790 good these days. 00:00:37.790 --> 00:00:40.180 They’re interwoven into the world and narrative. 00:00:40.180 --> 00:00:42.570 They’re well paced so as not to get boring. 00:00:42.570 --> 00:00:46.050 And they’re cleverly designed to be subtle and unobtrusive. 00:00:46.050 --> 00:00:48.379 Even invisible at times. *Impact* 00:00:48.379 --> 00:00:53.899 But for certain genres like RTS, grand strategy, and city builders - let’s just call them 00:00:53.899 --> 00:00:55.920 “complex games” for this video. 00:00:55.920 --> 00:01:01.469 For these complex games, the learning experience can be pretty miserable - and at their worst, 00:01:01.469 --> 00:01:06.630 these tutorials can stop people from ever getting to the actual fun part of the game. 00:01:06.630 --> 00:01:10.899 So I wanted to find out if there were ways to improve this experience. 00:01:10.899 --> 00:01:15.229 What techniques can we take from other genres - in order to make complex games easier to 00:01:15.229 --> 00:01:17.509 teach and easier to learn? 00:01:17.509 --> 00:01:18.509 Well. 00:01:18.509 --> 00:01:25.099 I'm Mark Brown, and this is Game Maker's Toolkit. 00:01:25.099 --> 00:01:30.299 When we look at less complex games, I think the biggest evolution has been a realisation 00:01:30.299 --> 00:01:35.310 that the tutorial doesn’t have to be something you do all in one go, before you get to play 00:01:35.310 --> 00:01:36.430 the game properly. 00:01:36.430 --> 00:01:42.240 Instead, it can be split up and sprinkled throughout the entire experience. 00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:45.369 And this approach has many advantages. 00:01:45.369 --> 00:01:51.100 The big one is that, according to Plants vs Zombies designer George Fan - a player's willingness 00:01:51.100 --> 00:01:55.119 to learn grows along with their level of investment. 00:01:55.119 --> 00:01:59.979 So when games dump a load of tutorials on you at the start - that often exceeds your 00:01:59.979 --> 00:02:01.439 willingness to learn. 00:02:01.439 --> 00:02:05.810 By delaying these lessons, the game can wait until you're more invested. 00:02:05.810 --> 00:02:10.209 Another advantage is that you get to play the “real game” almost immediately, instead 00:02:10.209 --> 00:02:13.880 of having to sit through something that can feel boring and academic. 00:02:13.880 --> 00:02:18.400 And in fact, if each step of the tutorial is small enough - you can sometimes teach 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:21.280 players without having a tutorial at all. 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:26.549 In Portal, for example, all of the early puzzle chambers are actually inferring a small piece 00:02:26.549 --> 00:02:29.540 of information about how the game works. 00:02:29.540 --> 00:02:33.799 But as far as the player is concerned, they're just playing the game. 00:02:33.799 --> 00:02:38.510 And the third benefit is that by delaying these tutorials, they can deliver messages 00:02:38.510 --> 00:02:40.390 when it's actually relevant. 00:02:40.390 --> 00:02:45.610 The game can pop up the crafting tutorial when you first find a crafting table - instead 00:02:45.610 --> 00:02:49.599 of telling you this at the start and hoping you’ll have remembered by the time you finally 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:51.140 get to make something. 00:02:51.140 --> 00:02:56.159 Now, complex games are typically still stuck in the old format. 00:02:56.159 --> 00:03:00.329 And that means players have to learn before they're invested, they don't get to actually 00:03:00.329 --> 00:03:04.590 play for hours, and they'll learn things that might not be relevant for ages. 00:03:04.590 --> 00:03:07.689 And, look - I can understand why this happens. 00:03:07.689 --> 00:03:12.329 The reason it's possible to delay tutorials in less complex games is that designers can 00:03:12.329 --> 00:03:16.360 slowly introduce game mechanics throughout the course of the adventure. 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:20.260 They can start you with a simple character with very few abilities - and then slowly 00:03:20.260 --> 00:03:25.680 increase complexity as you find new upgrades, unlock new skills, recruit new party members, 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:26.870 and so on. 00:03:26.870 --> 00:03:30.889 But complex games typically need to begin with everything turned on. 00:03:30.889 --> 00:03:35.749 As every system talks to each other - everything needs to be online from the very beginning. 00:03:35.749 --> 00:03:36.969 Right? 00:03:36.969 --> 00:03:41.360 Bruce Shelley, who worked with Sid Meier on the earliest Civilization games, coined the 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:44.780 phrase “inverted pyramid of decision making”. 00:03:44.780 --> 00:03:49.170 The idea is that when you start Civilization, you basically have one decision to make on 00:03:49.170 --> 00:03:52.250 your first turn: where should you settle your city? 00:03:52.250 --> 00:03:55.700 And one decision on your next turn: what should you build there? 00:03:55.700 --> 00:03:58.090 But now you have two decisions to make. 00:03:58.090 --> 00:04:01.489 What should you do with your new unit, and what should your city build now? 00:04:01.489 --> 00:04:05.810 Soon after, those decisions start to balloon - and by the end of the game you're making 00:04:05.810 --> 00:04:11.140 dozens of decisions per turn as you juggle hundreds of units, cities, enemies, allies, 00:04:11.140 --> 00:04:12.349 and resources. 00:04:12.349 --> 00:04:16.989 The point being: over the course of a game of Civilization, the complexity has organically 00:04:16.989 --> 00:04:22.550 grown from a single settler in a foggy map - to a massive empire of competing nations. 00:04:22.550 --> 00:04:28.520 And so by virtue of its slow increase in complexity, Civ is well placed to teach you its systems, 00:04:28.520 --> 00:04:30.460 bit by bit, as you discover them. 00:04:30.460 --> 00:04:35.030 An example of this in practice is the outstanding city builder Frostpunk. 00:04:35.030 --> 00:04:39.150 In this game you begin with one job: gathering resources by hand. 00:04:39.150 --> 00:04:42.169 And so the game gives you a quick tutorial about that. 00:04:42.169 --> 00:04:46.270 Then you turn on the generator… and the game gives you a tutorial about that. 00:04:46.270 --> 00:04:51.770 This carries on for the entire campaign, with small tutorials for every major mechanic - but 00:04:51.770 --> 00:04:55.830 all the way you're actually playing the game for yourself. 00:04:55.830 --> 00:04:58.740 Another avenue for this is the user interface. 00:04:58.740 --> 00:05:04.030 From my own experience, at least, a complex UI can be one of the most overwhelming things 00:05:04.030 --> 00:05:05.030 to a new player. 00:05:05.030 --> 00:05:11.139 But how many of these buttons, bars, windows, and panels need to be there on the first turn? 00:05:11.139 --> 00:05:12.830 So take a look at Mini Metro. 00:05:12.830 --> 00:05:17.620 At the beginning, there's almost no interface at all, meaning all you need to worry about 00:05:17.620 --> 00:05:19.650 is connecting up train stations. 00:05:19.650 --> 00:05:23.919 It's only when you start playing that more information slowly appears - like the train 00:05:23.919 --> 00:05:27.250 line menu, the clock, and the passenger counter. 00:05:27.250 --> 00:05:30.599 Another example can be found in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. 00:05:30.599 --> 00:05:35.889 The tool wheel is a helpful, time-saving pinch of UI design - but it could be difficult to 00:05:35.889 --> 00:05:40.660 introduce players to two different types of inventory, at the start of the game. 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:46.050 So, instead, you have to save up and buy the tool wheel from the shop - meaning the player 00:05:46.050 --> 00:05:50.190 gets to set the pace in terms of how complex the game's UI is. 00:05:50.190 --> 00:05:55.819 This does happen in some complex games - the UI in Total War: Troy expands as you play, 00:05:55.819 --> 00:06:01.389 for example - but I'd love to see designers get even more aggressive with this technique. 00:06:01.389 --> 00:06:06.500 So this is all about how a single campaign can become more involved over time, allowing 00:06:06.500 --> 00:06:10.350 the developers to withhold teaching until it’s actually relevant. 00:06:10.350 --> 00:06:13.520 But perhaps there's another way of thinking about this. 00:06:13.520 --> 00:06:18.639 If you want to get started with fighting games - definitely a complex genre, but that's outside 00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:19.700 the scope of this video. 00:06:19.700 --> 00:06:23.669 Uh, if you want to try your hand at fighting games, you don’t need to know about trip 00:06:23.669 --> 00:06:29.380 guards, frame data, happy birthdays, turtling, bivouacing, or pretzel motion in your first 00:06:29.380 --> 00:06:30.380 fight. 00:06:30.380 --> 00:06:31.759 And I only made up one of those. 00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:35.789 All you need to know to get cracking is how to do more than button mash. 00:06:35.789 --> 00:06:40.800 So the designers of Mortal Kombat 11 considered this when making the game's tutorial. 00:06:40.800 --> 00:06:46.000 They broke the player base down into segments - like couch players, dabblers, connoisseurs, 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:47.729 and online PvPers. 00:06:47.729 --> 00:06:52.030 Then they figured out what people actually need to know, depending on what level of player 00:06:52.030 --> 00:06:58.439 they are - and put those lessons into three tutorial brackets: basics, advanced, and strategy. 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:03.720 The important part is that these three brackets aren't designed to be played all in one go. 00:07:03.720 --> 00:07:08.740 Instead, the tutorial is specifically designed to kick you out of the tutorial menu at the 00:07:08.740 --> 00:07:12.850 end of each segment - with the intention that you will now go and play the game, use what 00:07:12.850 --> 00:07:15.120 you learned, and enjoy yourself. 00:07:15.120 --> 00:07:19.190 You can always come back and learn more when you feel ready to go to the next level - and 00:07:19.190 --> 00:07:21.800 take your game from button mashing to bivouacing. 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:23.411 Oh wait that's the one I made up. 00:07:23.411 --> 00:07:25.000 Anyway. Here's my point. 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:30.538 Most complex games aren't meant to be played though just once, like a story-driven adventure game. 00:07:30.538 --> 00:07:34.860 They're designed to be played over and over again - like a fighting game. 00:07:34.860 --> 00:07:39.460 And so perhaps we can take this format, but instead of thinking about peppering tutorials 00:07:39.460 --> 00:07:45.110 across a single campaign - we can zoom out and put tutorials in between entire playthroughs 00:07:45.110 --> 00:07:46.110 of the campaign. 00:07:46.110 --> 00:07:49.250 And I've got a story that could show how this might work. 00:07:49.250 --> 00:07:54.879 My first game in the Civilization series was Civilization V - which was well received, 00:07:54.879 --> 00:08:00.449 but some hardcore fans criticised it for simplifying or outright removing features that had been 00:08:00.449 --> 00:08:02.509 seen in earlier entries. 00:08:02.509 --> 00:08:05.050 Stuff like espionage and religion. 00:08:05.050 --> 00:08:10.219 But it was great for me because it was so much easier to learn a game with fewer systems. 00:08:10.219 --> 00:08:15.039 I was able to get into the fun relatively quickly, and actually play through a few campaigns. 00:08:15.039 --> 00:08:20.060 Later down the line, Firaxis would eventually reintroduce those forgotten features - and 00:08:20.060 --> 00:08:24.080 more - in expansion packs like Gods & Kings and Brave New World. 00:08:24.080 --> 00:08:28.419 And I found those pretty easy to learn as well because I already knew the basics from 00:08:28.419 --> 00:08:31.700 Civ V: I just needed to figure out the new stuff. 00:08:31.700 --> 00:08:36.470 And so these expansion packs essentially created that gradual increase of complexity I've been 00:08:36.470 --> 00:08:40.810 talking about - just with entire campaigns in between the tutorials. 00:08:40.810 --> 00:08:46.730 And so the same could be done for other games - just, not necessarily through selling expansion packs. 00:08:46.730 --> 00:08:51.530 What I mean is: instead of an easy mode just being the same game but with dumb AI - it 00:08:51.530 --> 00:08:55.400 could be a stripped back version of the game with fewer systems to know about. 00:08:55.400 --> 00:08:59.350 Then the player can play again, with more systems turned on. 00:08:59.350 --> 00:09:03.070 And keep going until they get to the full fat version of the game. 00:09:03.070 --> 00:09:07.220 I'm not saying it would be easy to do - and the game would have to be designed this way 00:09:07.220 --> 00:09:08.560 from the very beginning. 00:09:08.560 --> 00:09:16.060 But, if done well, it could be very effective at teaching players as their investment rises. 00:09:16.060 --> 00:09:17.190 But okay. 00:09:17.190 --> 00:09:21.790 Maybe it doesn't make sense for a certain game to sprinkle the tutorial out across multiple 00:09:21.790 --> 00:09:24.200 turns or multiple campaigns. 00:09:24.200 --> 00:09:27.890 Perhaps the design just doesn't accommodate that and it actually does need to frontload 00:09:27.890 --> 00:09:30.500 the experience with a big load of learning. 00:09:30.500 --> 00:09:31.710 Fair enough. 00:09:31.710 --> 00:09:36.420 So - is there some way that we can make this more interesting, more fun, and more effective 00:09:36.420 --> 00:09:41.080 at teaching people the basics? 00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:44.920 Something we see in almost every action game tutorial is a bit where the game asks you 00:09:44.920 --> 00:09:47.040 to perform the action you're being taught. 00:09:47.040 --> 00:09:50.290 Like, you can't move on until you punch six people. 00:09:50.290 --> 00:09:55.320 It's a simple but effective way of teaching because you're asking the player to get hands-on 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:56.890 and try for themselves. 00:09:56.890 --> 00:10:01.200 We call this kinaesthetic learning - which is where deep learning occurs via the process 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:03.400 of physically doing a task. 00:10:03.400 --> 00:10:06.960 Now - complex games do try and do this. 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:10.730 You've probably played games where it walks you through a sample campaign by pointing 00:10:10.730 --> 00:10:17.290 arrows at bits of the UI and asking you to click here, click there, select this, drag that. 00:10:17.290 --> 00:10:19.860 And, well… you're involved! You're doing stuff! 00:10:19.860 --> 00:10:20.990 Aren't you clever? 00:10:20.990 --> 00:10:23.560 But are they actually that effective? 00:10:23.560 --> 00:10:24.690 I'm not so sure. 00:10:24.690 --> 00:10:29.460 Asher Vollmer, who made the elegant mobile puzzler Threes, says of these arrows - "As 00:10:29.460 --> 00:10:32.370 far as the game is concerned; I have advanced. 00:10:32.370 --> 00:10:35.930 But as far as my brain is concerned; I've learned nothing". 00:10:35.930 --> 00:10:40.090 Part of the problem is that blindly following instructions just isn’t a very effective 00:10:40.090 --> 00:10:41.190 way to learn. 00:10:41.190 --> 00:10:46.930 So, in Asher’s game, he instead turns the tutorial into a series of very small and simple 00:10:46.930 --> 00:10:49.040 puzzles for the player to figure out. 00:10:49.040 --> 00:10:53.490 Take, for example, this bit, which is about telling you how to use the outside walls to 00:10:53.490 --> 00:10:55.210 rearrange tiles. 00:10:55.210 --> 00:10:58.040 He could ask players to “swipe to the left twice”. 00:10:58.040 --> 00:10:59.710 And now "swipe up twice". 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:06.090 But he doesn't: he says "Rearrange numbers by pushing 'em into walls" and then "use the walls 00:11:06.090 --> 00:11:08.120 to add 1 & 2 together". 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:13.000 It's a very simple task, but it's enough for players to actually engage their brain and 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.720 start to do the sort of thinking that will be used in the proper game. 00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:20.720 Luckily, some complex games do a really good job of this. 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:26.280 If we look at the first tutorial in Frontier's Planet Zoo, the game starts by walking you 00:11:26.280 --> 00:11:29.410 through the process of improving an animal’s welfare. 00:11:29.410 --> 00:11:31.210 NANCY: "Aww, poor dabs! 00:11:31.210 --> 00:11:35.780 I'm sure it can't have escaped your attention that the tigers look a bit miffed. 00:11:35.780 --> 00:11:39.580 That's because they aren't too keen on the type of terrain in their habitat". 00:11:39.580 --> 00:11:43.070 It’s pretty hand hold-y and straightforward. 00:11:43.070 --> 00:11:47.960 But then it asks you to improve the overall welfare of all the animals in the park. 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:51.840 NANCY: "All of that should give you a pretty good understanding of how to make animals 00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:56.440 happy, so I'd like you to go check on all the other animals in the zoo and fix up any 00:11:56.440 --> 00:11:58.170 issues with their habitats." 00:11:58.170 --> 00:12:00.280 And it just lets you get on with it. 00:12:00.280 --> 00:12:05.000 At this point you're given hardly any guidance, so you have to put into practice what you 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:09.460 just learned - and do some critical thinking to fill in the gaps in your knowledge. 00:12:09.460 --> 00:12:10.520 NANCY: "Right! 00:12:10.520 --> 00:12:14.810 I'm off for a cuppa while you make sure all the animals are well looked after!" 00:12:14.810 --> 00:12:18.550 I found this really effective, and it happens throughout the tutorial. 00:12:18.550 --> 00:12:23.020 You're put into zoos with specific problems, shown how to fix one of them, and then you're 00:12:23.020 --> 00:12:25.630 asked to solve the rest on your own. 00:12:25.630 --> 00:12:30.690 Offworld Trading Company is another good example - in each step of the tutorial you are given 00:12:30.690 --> 00:12:34.170 a list of objectives and have to solve them for yourself. 00:12:34.170 --> 00:12:38.460 Simply by removing the “click here” arrow and making the player find the right option 00:12:38.460 --> 00:12:41.610 themselves is enough to make them feel engaged. 00:12:41.610 --> 00:12:45.470 And it feels like you're actually playing a game, right from the word go. 00:12:45.470 --> 00:12:49.350 But I won't pretend that this is a perfect solution. 00:12:49.350 --> 00:12:51.750 And that's because of feedback. 00:12:51.750 --> 00:12:56.810 When we learn kinaesthetically, we use feedback to see if we did it right or wrong. 00:12:56.810 --> 00:13:00.610 Now, if you make a mistake in an action game you’ll see that immediately. 00:13:00.610 --> 00:13:05.580 But, in a strategy game, if you don’t balance your economy correctly you might not realise 00:13:05.580 --> 00:13:07.470 for many hours. 00:13:07.470 --> 00:13:12.680 Complex games typically have a very slow feedback cycle, which does make it hard to learn from 00:13:12.680 --> 00:13:14.450 hands-on experience. 00:13:14.450 --> 00:13:19.290 You may need to play an entire campaign to understand how decisions and strategies will 00:13:19.290 --> 00:13:21.240 unfold over the whole game. 00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:25.880 Which is why the easiest games to learn are those with short campaigns that you can repeat 00:13:25.880 --> 00:13:29.110 often - compared to those that last hours and hours. 00:13:29.110 --> 00:13:31.580 But there are some potential solutions to this. 00:13:31.580 --> 00:13:36.170 Perhaps the quick game in Civilization, which dramatically speeds up the campaign, could 00:13:36.170 --> 00:13:38.710 be rebranded as a training tool? 00:13:38.710 --> 00:13:43.220 Another answer is for these tutorials to use advisor characters who can warn you if you're 00:13:43.220 --> 00:13:46.802 doing something dumb that might have a negative effect down the line. 00:13:46.802 --> 00:13:51.307 In Offworld I got told off for selling aluminium for less than $10 a pop, 00:13:51.307 --> 00:13:54.700 and got a lesson in how the stock market works. 00:13:54.700 --> 00:13:59.450 The nice thing is: these two solutions also help with another problem that strategy game 00:13:59.450 --> 00:14:00.910 tutorials face. 00:14:00.910 --> 00:14:05.360 Which is this: it's pretty teach to people how to do things - but it's much harder to 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:08.290 explain why to do them. 00:14:08.290 --> 00:14:12.320 I can tell you which buttons to press to build something in Civilization, but there's no 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:16.770 simple way to explain what you should build, or when you should build it, or where you 00:14:16.770 --> 00:14:18.600 should place it after it's built. 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:23.470 So - like before, speeding up the feedback cycle allows players to see the consequences 00:14:23.470 --> 00:14:26.000 of those choices for themselves. 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:29.210 And advisor characters can offer recommendations and warnings. 00:14:29.210 --> 00:14:32.810 ECONOMIC ADVISOR: "I think we have enough workers for the moment. 00:14:32.810 --> 00:14:37.960 You may want to construct something else in your city". 00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:41.250 There's one more thing that games do, that make them easier to learn. 00:14:41.250 --> 00:14:45.230 And that's leveraging things that people are already familiar with. 00:14:45.230 --> 00:14:48.070 You know: spikes hurt, ice is slippery. 00:14:48.070 --> 00:14:50.758 Coins let you buy things, keys open locks. 00:14:50.758 --> 00:14:53.500 Skulls mean danger, and so on. 00:14:53.500 --> 00:14:57.890 Plants vs Zombies doesn't need to tell you that a zombie with a metal bucket on its head 00:14:57.890 --> 00:15:00.520 is more resilient than one with a plastic cone. 00:15:00.520 --> 00:15:03.260 We know how these materials work in real life. 00:15:03.260 --> 00:15:08.750 By leaning on stuff that players already know, games can feel intuitive to play - and it 00:15:08.750 --> 00:15:12.400 often means they don't require a tutorial at all. 00:15:12.400 --> 00:15:18.220 Now over in the world of complex games - one way to do this is to use a theme that is grounded 00:15:18.220 --> 00:15:19.500 or historical. 00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:23.630 Civilisation is definitely a franchise that uses this to its advantage. 00:15:23.630 --> 00:15:28.413 People can bring their own knowledge of history to make assumptions about how things will work. 00:15:28.413 --> 00:15:30.280 Most of the time. 00:15:30.280 --> 00:15:35.150 But perhaps the best place for complex games to look for real world inspiration is in the 00:15:35.150 --> 00:15:38.090 user interfaces we encounter every day. 00:15:38.090 --> 00:15:44.230 Just like how Reigns copies the swipe left, swipe right interaction from dating apps like Tinder. 00:15:44.230 --> 00:15:48.680 And how Disco Elysium's dialogue boxes are inspired by a Twitter feed. 00:15:48.680 --> 00:15:53.030 So let's see all this in action and go back to that bit in Planet Zoo where I was left 00:15:53.030 --> 00:15:55.790 to improve the animals' welfare on my own. 00:15:55.790 --> 00:15:57.220 How did I know what to do? 00:15:57.220 --> 00:16:02.550 Well, I know that I can sort this list by welfare by clicking up here... because thats 00:16:02.550 --> 00:16:05.150 how a list works on most websites. 00:16:05.150 --> 00:16:10.790 And I know I can click this to find the animal because the same icon is used on Google Maps. 00:16:10.790 --> 00:16:16.790 I can easily see where the problem lies, because red indicates bad and green indicates good. 00:16:16.790 --> 00:16:21.850 I know how to filter the items because the funnel icon is used on apps like Google Sheets 00:16:21.850 --> 00:16:27.340 - though I could probably make some assumptions for what an animal wants just by my knowledge 00:16:27.340 --> 00:16:29.880 of real-world critters. 00:16:29.880 --> 00:16:33.690 On the flip side, here's an example of this going very wrong. 00:16:33.690 --> 00:16:39.880 In playtests for Total War: Troy, some players really struggled to find the end turn button. 00:16:39.880 --> 00:16:44.240 One player spent 40 minutes on the first turn, unsure how to move on. 00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:45.240 The culprit? 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:50.090 This button, which uses an hourglass to indicate "end turn". 00:16:50.090 --> 00:16:53.970 Now, people who have been playing strategy games for years might associate an hourglass 00:16:53.970 --> 00:16:58.260 with ending a turn - but I think most people have a stronger association with something 00:16:58.260 --> 00:17:02.370 loading, including the cursor in old versions of Windows. 00:17:02.370 --> 00:17:06.699 By the way, these loading animations are called "Throbbers" and I'm really sorry to be the 00:17:06.699 --> 00:17:08.360 one to have to tell you this. 00:17:08.360 --> 00:17:11.539 Anyway - the devs swapped it for an arrow before launch. 00:17:11.539 --> 00:17:14.009 And I think we can take two lessons from this. 00:17:14.009 --> 00:17:17.929 One: don't assume your audience has played other games. 00:17:17.929 --> 00:17:21.089 And two: play test your tutorials. 00:17:21.089 --> 00:17:23.990 Like, a lot. 00:17:23.990 --> 00:17:28.919 So there are a few more techniques I want to touch on before I wrap up. 00:17:28.919 --> 00:17:34.269 We all know the idiom "show, don't tell" - and it applies to tutorial design too. 00:17:34.269 --> 00:17:38.590 Massive walls of text can be hard to get through - and an image or video can sometimes tell 00:17:38.590 --> 00:17:41.420 you the same information in half the time. 00:17:41.420 --> 00:17:45.240 Take these preview windows for weapons in Into the Breach. 00:17:45.240 --> 00:17:49.539 Designer Justin Ma said “You could type out a hundred times, ‘Damages a tile and 00:17:49.539 --> 00:17:54.309 pushes adjacent tiles,’ but showing that little animation of them moving is a thousand 00:17:54.309 --> 00:17:55.580 times more effective". 00:17:55.580 --> 00:18:00.679 Now, sure - text is almost always necessary in the tutorial for a complex game. 00:18:00.679 --> 00:18:06.070 But designers should try to cut down words, be consistent with language, avoid jargon, 00:18:06.070 --> 00:18:10.260 and… maybe this is just a personal preference… but I don’t really like this thing where 00:18:10.260 --> 00:18:15.409 some pointless flavour text is spoken by a voice actor but the actual important stuff 00:18:15.409 --> 00:18:16.460 is left unsaid. 00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:20.580 HOMER: "March north-west, towards the land of Corinth. 00:18:20.580 --> 00:18:25.120 For even now, the Corinthians plot your demise". 00:18:25.120 --> 00:18:28.899 Another good technique is to provide ways for players to find information when they 00:18:28.899 --> 00:18:29.940 get stuck. 00:18:29.940 --> 00:18:33.559 Things like tool tips - and tool tips within tool tips. 00:18:33.559 --> 00:18:39.610 An encyclopaedia of terms and the ability to rewind or replay specific bits of the tutorial. 00:18:39.610 --> 00:18:44.250 Ultimately, if someone gets stuck you don't want their only solution to be Google. 00:18:44.250 --> 00:18:49.410 Plus, this should give you more confidence to let players figure stuff out on their own, 00:18:49.410 --> 00:18:51.980 as the information will be there if they need it. 00:18:51.980 --> 00:18:55.910 And finally, it's good to remember that people learn in different ways. 00:18:55.910 --> 00:19:01.470 I won't deny that some of the ideas in this video are biased by the fact that I am personally 00:19:01.470 --> 00:19:03.990 a very kinaesthetic and visual learner. 00:19:03.990 --> 00:19:06.909 And I have the attention span of a six year old child. 00:19:06.909 --> 00:19:09.750 So providing multiple avenues can be good. 00:19:09.750 --> 00:19:14.429 Offworld, for example, has two ways to learn - scripted tutorials that walk you through 00:19:14.429 --> 00:19:18.269 each step, and practice challenges where you can learn through trial-and-error. 00:19:18.269 --> 00:19:24.480 Meanwhile, Total War is always good at providing different tutorials for complete newbies and 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:29.299 returning players who just want to figure out the new stuff. 00:19:29.299 --> 00:19:35.259 Just like with the user interface in the last episode of GMTK, the tutorial can be one of 00:19:35.259 --> 00:19:39.450 those things that's undervalued, and left until the last moment. 00:19:39.450 --> 00:19:46.549 But, again: it shouldn't ignored because a tutorial can be so important to a game's success. 00:19:46.549 --> 00:19:51.809 For this video I spoke to developers at places like Paradox and Creative Assembly and everyone 00:19:51.809 --> 00:19:56.950 told me the same thing: teaching new people how to play is the only way for a franchise 00:19:56.950 --> 00:20:01.169 to grow its fanbase - and avoid withering into irrelevance. 00:20:01.169 --> 00:20:06.490 In this video, I've identified some techniques that I think could make tutorials better: 00:20:06.490 --> 00:20:13.240 Finding ways to break the tutorial up - either across a campaign, or across multiple campaigns. 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:17.999 Finding ways to have the player get their hands on the system and learn by doing, rather 00:20:17.999 --> 00:20:19.240 than reading. 00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:23.800 And finding ways to be intuitive, familiar, and welcoming. 00:20:23.800 --> 00:20:29.220 Thankfully, strides are being made in this area, with more thoughtful tutorials and more 00:20:29.220 --> 00:20:30.940 intuitive interfaces. 00:20:30.940 --> 00:20:33.580 But there's still a lot of work to be done. 00:20:33.580 --> 00:20:38.320 Until I can get through the Crusader Kings tutorial without falling asleep, we're not 00:20:38.320 --> 00:20:39.320 quite there. 00:20:39.320 --> 00:20:40.590 Thanks for watching. 00:20:40.590 --> 00:20:44.220 If you like what you just saw and want to show your appreciation, please check out this 00:20:44.220 --> 00:20:46.029 quick YouTube ad break. 00:20:46.029 --> 00:20:47.769 Stick around afterwards for an indie game recommendation. 00:20:51.480 --> 00:20:58.320 My recommendation this time is Narita Boy - a trippy, retro-tinged brawler with a killer 00:20:58.320 --> 00:21:00.340 pixel art aesthetic. 00:21:00.340 --> 00:21:06.470 It's a minor Metroidvania with a bigger focus on fight scenes: which reminds me of Guacamelee. 00:21:06.470 --> 00:21:11.759 And the strange, esoteric plot makes me think of Sword & Sworcery. 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:16.029 The game's not without its problems - including a floaty jump and simplistic level design 00:21:16.029 --> 00:21:20.870 - but I just found the whole thing enchanting and utterly engrossing. 00:21:20.870 --> 00:21:25.840 Nartia Boy's on everything - including Xbox Game Pass.