How to do a good tutorial?

[Avascar]

On a video game, you know all the basics and such. I have trouble explaining how the things work, but I also want the player to find out this and that and try other things. What should I do?

[jeanfabre]

Hi,

 you need to find how it's done on other games, and inspire from that.

 either you do a small video, or you do an ingame tutorial, that points arrows to feaures and ui elements, explaining what it does, etc etc. that's the likely best ways to go about it. external help with step by step instructions and tips will hardly get looked at, so your best bet, is inside the game as the user begins, it should have features such as dismissing the help and such.

Bye,

Jean

[escpodgames]

Oh man! I love tutorials!!!! for Super monsters ate my condo we did 17 different iterations just to get the player to understand the game Gah!

Depending on what the game is id say the best beat is to give the player a small task and let them do it, and slowly get them to understand each gameplay mechanic/rule in small cuncks so you don't overwhelm players. Also user test it! see what people don't get, see what is confusing. You will find a lot of people don't read text so make it work for those players as well as the players that do read text.

What's the game? maybe we can help more if we know the type of game.

[Avascar]

It's a 2D platformer, I'm planning it to be somewhat of a casual game. So far I did simple text on a level, explaining how to do this and so on. So far, I'd say the controls are pretty simple, arrow keys and a button to press.