User blog:Dessertmonkeyjk/Visual Tutorials

Allow me to start off-topic here... it's been 3 months already? I need to pick up the pace here and get this worked out. I'm also redoing the wiki format as an in-universe representations of an ecyclopedia of sorts. Any speculations and meta details right now will be removed and reworked into the rest of the wiki. Some pages will remain as meta data such as concepts and gameplay while lore, characters, and locations will not.

Now with that out of the way, I like to discuss something crutial in today's way of teaching the player.

Games as of recent tend to have a forced tutorial integregated into the prolouge sequence with an extensive use of text boxes and button prompts. Sometimes, you will unable to proceed unless you complete the tutorial presented to you. This can be considered annoying and intrusive of a common player's intelligence who can pick up the mechanics fairly quickly. However, keep in mind that for every video game, there is a brand new player to teach.

Wouldn't you want to make it simple to understand how to play and allow them to proceed much faster into the game? How about teaching them whenever they see fit? Why not teach them with not text but with visual representations of the actions they need to preform?

This is much simpler then you think it is. In Batman: Arkham City, there is no glide tutorial. Only a simple intruction that says "Hold Jump while running off an edge to glide". It is quick, simple to understand, and to the point. However, I did say trying to do this visually instead of using text. Imagine this text was replaced by a 2D animation with Batman running toward and edge and jumping off. Below it is the required button press to preform this action.

Hm... I see some of you still don't get what I'm talking about here. Let me use well-known visual example.



Here is a demenstration of a wall jump. Imagine there is a button prompt every time our mustache plummer come close to a wall to teach the player about timing. This can be shown in a small window with a tutorial animation playing or use a ghost in the playspace doing the action. No text or explanation needed.

Not all actions that need to be teached to a player are suitable for this method. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be utilized but some mechanics may prove to be too complex without breaking it down into steps.

So... that's that. I hope you learned something today and apperciate if you check back for another blog entry. This time it'll be about level design, I promise. This visual tutorial even fits in there but I won't be talking about it unfortunately.