Whether you’re new to gaming or a veteran MLG (major league gamer), the chances you’ve seen a tutorial in a video game are extremely high. Although, it’s not impossible for someone to have played a few games and never encountered a tutorial. Most commonly, tutorials or beginners’ instructions are found in games with complicated controls and key bindings. Although, if the game were based on a story line and focused on a particular character, the tutorials become more subtle, as to not break the immersion of the narrative.
Take the narrative driven game, Heavy Rain by Quantic Dream, for instance. It opens on a scene in which one of the main characters the player controls is waking up for the day, taking a shower, and things of the like. The game indicates with symbols when a certain action needs to be performed with the controller, allowing the player to get used to the dynamic speed-dependent controls. The game doesn’t straight out tell the player: “This is a tutorial.” Another game that does this is Portal 2. When beginning the campaign, the main character Chel had woken up from a coma caused by a brain injury. The computer system used throughout the laboratory facility runs a few “health checks” by Chel, in which it tells the player to move around the room and stare at certain things. Simple subtitles such as “Look Around using the ® Thumb Stick” appear at the bottom of the screen, guiding the player alongside the in-character tutorial.
Other games have no tutorial whatsoever. Take, for example, the game Stardew Valley, a 2016 release that remains popular six and a half years later. Its mechanics are simple, yet some tools are different than others and can not be used on certain items. For instance, upon receiving an upgraded watering can, the player can hold the activation button to water a further distance (first upgrade allowing for 3 tiles, then a block of 9 tiles, and so on). However, the game does not illude to this in any way and it’s up to the player to figure out (or to find on StardewWiki like the majority of players).
Then the gray area comes into play where a game offers a tutorial but is not required. Many strategy-based games do this due to carried over mechanics and game franchises with regularly returning players. Syd Myer’s Civilization VI, a strategic turn-based empire building game, offers non-required tutorials. What’s unique about their tutorials is the different skill level tutorials they offer to new players to the game, new to the franchise, or new to turn-based strategy games in general. This also tends to be the case for simulation and survival games such as The Sims 4 or Minecraft, where the player can restart their journey through the game with different saves. This way, those who are simply on their 30th household restart or 17th survival world can hop right to it without needing to go through the basics of the controls again.
Nevertheless, it seems to become more and more popular to not include any sort of tutorial in games, possibly due to the increase in gaming experience which makes tutorial less
Brooke Holben
Brooke Holbenis a fourth-year student at Lock Haven University dual majoring in Communication (Electronic Media) and English (Writing with a minor in art). She served as a staff writer and photographer off-and-on for the Eagle Eye staff and now currently works as the Online Editor. Brooke is also the president of the campus's chapter of national honorary band fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi (Eta Alpha, HA). After Lock Haven, she plans to continue her education with a masters degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment and furthermore use the combination of degrees to become a script/narrative writer for video games, comics, and other forms of entertainment media.
