Well...this really does depend on the game, and target demographic. If the game is meant for younger children....of course the explanations will be more verbose, and "friendly". That shouldn''t be held against the developer...

Has anyone here played Red Faction (For Ps2)? I liked its way to teach game play mechanics. It really fit into the atmosphere and mood..as well as the story.

Halo did it extremely well (somewaht similar to Half-Life and Deus-Ex, but at the first level beginning only), and you could get through it (maybe automatically) if you had played it before. This was good because it was the first of its kind for X-box and gave people an idea of what was going on with the controls.

--OctDev

Stick with in-game tutorials, but give the option of skipping them if they''re stuck in front. Depending on implimentation, they can make or break the first five minutes of a game.
I''ll agree that Halo did it well, with a bit of down time if the player needs to get a little more movement practice. After seeing friends try to pick the game up, though, they might''ve wanted to keep the "ordinence testing" to work on the subtle details of aiming.
It should be pointed out that the tutorial only comes up on Easy and Normal, being skipped on Heroic and (Medic!) Legendary. Also, having the aim check helped, especially since both Halo and Oni have inherently flipped (inverted Y axis) controls...

-Sta7ic

What we''re dealing with here is poor use of the "fourth wall" of gaming. This fourth wall as a literary device is when any given character skips over the other characters and talks directly to the audience. A good example of how to use this would be Colonel Roy Campbell from Metal Gear Solid. As a rule, he never talks through the fourth wall when other characters are present (which is when snake is talking through the codec). I think whats annoying about ingame tutorials is that they use the fourth wall, but do it very poorly, breaking the immersion factor of the game. I think what many games would benefit from doing is have a special button, like F1, or C-UP, or Triangle, jump to the tutorial thats appropriate for the situation, and then treat it as though your telling the player how to do something, and not telling Link how to do it.

I''ve just remembered Kappa the imp from final fantasy 6 who did what I''m saying.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

Shen Mue had this done right when teaching the player new moves, the person or move scroll would say something like "Take two steps forward and then strike with your arm while tensing your legs", this would translate to forward, forward, kick+punch.

In most cases I would prefer a seperate tutorial mission(s) to an ingame tutorial, an exception would be if the game had complicated controls.

- DarkIce

Dwarf once wrote ''The true gamer needeth not a manual, rather he needeth only his experience as a gamer.''

How many people actually read the manuals? I swear by dead friend Cledus the Snail''s grave that at least 99.86% of gamers DO NOT read the manual.

Most of us are good enough to hop in and start playing, but maybe that''s because we''ve been playing games since the 0ld sk00lz skillz were still in...

Help screens, as said earlier, depend on the game. If you are playing Mortal Kickassing, you don''t want your punch in the face to suddenly freeze to have some text pop up that says "Now, you have just been smacked by your opponent, and have become [PRONE]. This causes you to lose [BLOOD]. If you lose too much [BLOOD], then you will [LOSE]."

That would be extremely annoying...

But if instead, as you fell on the ground, a voice would say something like "Ouch! Try and use a combo to counter something like that next time!" I think the game would be much easier to play.

One game that I wrote long ago was a rip of Wolfenstein, the already popular (and still fun to play, sometimes... when you are drunk and cant remember your name!) and the way I assigned the keys was very odd... So, I was thinking about writing a tutorial, but no one would read it, especially since the game was running under dos, and the tutorials would never be read anyway...

I decided to map some instructions on how to use stuff onto the wall tiles, and then I''d just smack the instructions on the walls... It actually looked pretty good... for DOS...


~Dwarf

"I swear by dead friend Cledus the Snail''s grave that at least 99.86% of gamers DO NOT read the manual."

Depends on the game. Ive read numerous game manuals for complicated games, such as Civ 3, and for strategy games, such as Lords of Chaos, to look for advantages in the way the game systems work.

That said though, did I ever bother reading Unreal Tournaments? Nope, lol

Spectre Software - RPGs, strategy, puzzle games, programming

optional in game tutorials are nice....if not optional, it is ok if they are integrated into the game to where it doesn''t really feel like a tutorial (like in Morrowind)

A CRPG in development...

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.


"I''m gay, please convert me." - Nes8bit

Here''s my ordering then, form best to worst:

In-game help screen/tips
Separate tutorial mission
Key/help sheet
In-game tutorial
Manual/booklet
Separate TXT/DOC file
Internet help

I guess I can''t emphasize enough how helpful a good help screen can be. It is probably the most convenient assistance a player can get.

In my opinion, I think in-game help is the best way to teach a gamer how to play the game. A ''intro'' level to the game to show off how you do things is great - it only lacks in that you have to spend 30 minutes playing it before you get to actually play the game. Actual ''in-game'' help (as in during actual game play) is second to this, and it could always be turned off for those of us who find it annoying.

Jason Doucette
www.jasondoucette.com