Forced or optional tutorials?
Assassins Creed 2 is a good example of how tutorials can be worked into a story rather than an optional training session. The game has you play a portion of Ezio’s adolescent life, completing training missions that introduce basic systems such as fighting, looting, and climbing. Some have criticised this as a slow moving section of the game that could have been accomplished in a shorter time, but a writer for AC2 (Corey May) has defended this portion of the game saying it was “necessary to spend time with Ezio as a carefree adolescent”, and that “it needed to be more than a token five minutes”.
In my opinion the starting sequence in AC2 was done very well. While it’s essentially just a tutorial session, it also builds a little back story giving some insight into Ezio’s family life and sets the stage for the main event.
Call of Duty 4 did something similar with the F.N.G opening level, introducing the player to the control system and giving a glimpse into the personalities of the NPC’s you will be fighting alongside. This section ends with a timed run through a mock-up cargo ship that explains some additional controls (rope slide) and kicks off the main story via a cut scene when the course is complete.
Optional tutorials can lead to the player skipping training in order to get to the meat of the game. This is especially true for sequels and returning players as they already know how to play the game from experience and just want to get started. Unfortunately, skipping tutorials can result in missing vital information on new features added to the game. For example, a friend of mine recently completed AC2 without using a single smoke bomb or visiting the fight trainer outside of the required mission to do so. His reasoning was that he knew how to fight from playing the first game. While it’s not really necessary to use smoke bombs or the special moves available from the trainer, it opens up an entirely new way to play. There is always a chance this could negatively affect impressions of the game through no fault of the game designer, not to mention all the work on new features going to waste if players neglect to use them.
I think the most effective game tutorials are integrated into the story in such a way you barely notice they are there. AC2 gradually introduces elements throughout the game in a way that seems a very natural progression of learning skills as the character does. It could have perhaps used a little fine tuning but still a great example of how to work a forced tutorial into story elements.
