Archive: 13 posts

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I recently made a level that included a mechanic for players to design and race on their own tracks (basically by using stickers placed on a grid). Now, it works pretty well and judging by the kind of scores are racking up on the board some people are using it (the score is weighted to favour racing on more complexed tracks), but the one bugbear with it is that it's not immediately apparent how to use track editor. Consequently, I had to include a "help movie" option in the editor, to teach players how to use it - basically it show up as a series of slides such as the one below; http://i5.lbp.me/img/ft/5d51e20e3a56a805ab7b15ec3efd9e2c78a83420.jpg Now, what I'm interested in is people's views on 'Help & Complexity' vs 'Pick-up-and-Play Simplicity' in LBP levels. There's broadly speaking two ways of looking at it A more complexed design may require additional help and explanation, but the added depth it can bring is worth it for players LBP levels should be simple enough to play without separate help screens - they just put players off So what do people think? Are players put off by having to spend a short time with a help system, or are they generally willing to make the effort for more rewarding levels? Or alternatively, is there a way of drip-feeding help to players in such a short time that makes the process basically 'invisible' to them? Thought, opinions and poll answers welcome

2011-03-16 13:27:00 Author: matneee Posts: 66

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That is the question... Nice!

2011-03-16 16:50:00 Author: Unknown User

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Now, what I'm interested in is people's views on 'Help & Complexity' vs 'Pick-up-and-Play Simplicity' in LBP levels. There's broadly speaking two ways of looking at it A more complexed design may require additional help and explanation, but the added depth it can bring is worth it for players LBP levels should be simple enough to play without separate help screens - they just put players off So what do people think? Are players put off by having to spend a short time with a help system, or are they generally willing to make the effort for more rewarding levels? Or alternatively, is there a way of drip-feeding help to players in such a short time that makes the process basically 'invisible' to them? Thought, opinions and poll answers welcome In short, it mostly depends on what kind of game you are designing. If all you have to do is bounce, collect bubbles and stay alive, (Hedge Hopping in Story Mode, for instance) then I think that sort of game probably could do with just a quick text bubble and throw the player in. However, if it's a more complex game with phases, power-ups, different enemies, complex gameplay mechanics, etc. then a set of instructions would indeed be very helpful (such as the Gobotron, also in Story Mode). For more complex games, "teaching" the player from the beginning as they progress through various stages is a happy medium between the two choices above. It's also a pretty common game mechanic, and has been utilized in LBP, LBP2 and nearly every major console game on the market. Also, what about returning players? I don't want to replay a tutorial each time I start the game. You can either include a tutorial as an intro to the game or, even better, separate it out in a menu altogether for returning players, or put a "Skip Tutorial by pressing triangle" option once you start the game. Like I said above, it really depends on what kind of game mechanics are included in your level.

2011-03-16 17:22:00 Author: schm0 Posts: 1239

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Yeah, I definitely agree about not ramming the help down returning players throats part - the tack I took was to have a separately labelled help button pop out when the relevant device activated. It works with the LBP handmade aesthetic, but obviously "push triangle..." etc works just as well. The common mechanic of gradual help as you go along is, of course, tried and tested (although it's a surprisingly recent development in video games really), but I suspect the beauty of such a system is to spread the learning in such a way as the player basically doesn't realise. I'm wondering that if that approach is crammed into an LBP level - with it's relatively short playtime - would the 'gradual' help need to happen so frequently that it actually becomes more annoying than just getting it out of the way in one go?

2011-03-16 17:33:00 Author: matneee Posts: 66

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The common mechanic of gradual help as you go along is, of course, tried and tested (although it's a surprisingly recent development in video games really), but I suspect the beauty of such a system is to spread the learning in such a way as the player basically doesn't realise. I'm wondering that if that approach is crammed into an LBP level - with it's relatively short playtime - would the 'gradual' help need to happen so frequently that it actually becomes more annoying than just getting it out of the way in one go? Like I said, you could prompt the user to view a tutorial before starting the actual level, giving the option to the player right away. A more complex system could implement a "Gameplay Tips On/Off" option. Perhaps at the start of each "level" there is a camera that pans over the race track showing the curves and twists, etc... Turn the setting on and during this brief introduction the player is given subtitles including brief instructions. There's a ton of ways to implement what you're talking about.

2011-03-16 18:58:00 Author: schm0 Posts: 1239

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That depends on complexity or how known this kind of game play is, but doing tutorial your level should not give any negative experience to the player compare to lack of it where not understanding how to do things may confuse the players.

2011-03-16 20:19:00 Author: Shadowriver Posts: 3991

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i totally agree with "schm0" always keep up slowly, never throws everstuff on the player, this is the answerfor most of levels, but if throwing everething on player is unavoidable, like vs levels, the answeris really a optional tutorial, the player must choose, tutorial or skip it!

2011-03-16 21:41:00 Author: Unknown User

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Thats why I clicked other; I wouldnt really enjoy being forced into a tutorial I dont want to watch before I play the level. But maybe I do, and if I do, I would like the option to choose to watch it, and if I dont Id obviously choose no.

2011-03-16 22:35:00 Author: ATMLVE Posts: 1177

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I hate hate HATE most of the tutorials people make. They're often too wordy and yet they'll still manage to fail to convey exactly what you're supposed to do, and almost everybody makes them unskippable. On the other hand, tutorials are sometimes unavoidable, so make them as clear, concise, and short as possible, get plenty of feedback from friends (drop them into the level and see if the tut was enough that they can play without being confused), and for pity's sake, make every tutorial/help screen easily skippable. As a backup, make sure you use controllinator prompts or subtitles that remain onscreen for a while to keep the basic instructions visible for those rash players who skipped past vital information, and, better yet, implement logic that detects if the player is struggling and turns on onscreen prompts. An example of that last thing I said would be in Rock Band: if you're playing the vocals and you don't do the tamborine parts, or if you're playing the drums and you don't use the kick pedal, an icon pops up that shows you what to do. It can also help if your tutorial is entertaining or even funny: the bottom line is to keep players from getting bored, so if you demonstrate the controls by showing a sackbot doing it wrong and crashing and burning in a funny way, it can help keep people from pushing that "return to pod" button.

2011-03-16 23:31:00 Author: Sehven Posts: 2188

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the bottom line is to keep players from getting bored, so if you demonstrate the controls by showing a sackbot doing it wrong and crashing and burning in a funny way, it can help keep people from pushing that "return to pod" button. Ah, now your talking Yeah, I guess the key is to be engaging if tutorials prove necessary. Just like any kind of teaching, if you can make people relate to the material somehow, it's going to go in with a lot less trouble.

2011-03-17 13:06:00 Author: matneee Posts: 66

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I agree with everything schm0 and Sehven said. But really I think it's best if you can make it simple enough to not need a tutorial at all. I suppose it's not exactly the same as gameplay tutorials, but in the Beta when judging the Contraption Challenges I had to play through a LOT of different vehicle control schemes, and some tutorials were better than others. But I found the best ones were the ones which didn't need explanation at all, that you could work out for yourself what to do. It's much more fun that way. Tutorials I really hate are the really long ones which say "This is this. It does this. But not when you're doing this. Here's something else, which does this, and this, but only if you press this. Don't do this, or this will happen, which means this won't work..." etc etc. It needs to be simple and only expalin the basics. In Clockworx 2 my tutorial was originally about twice as long, and even had some text saying something along the lines of "Don't touch the bounce pads on fire as you'll die, but only if you touch them twice, touching them once is fine". When really it wasn't needed, it's obvious that fire should be avoided, everyone already knows what it does. In the end all I felt that needed explaining was how you get points and what the different coloured bounce pads did. And I kept it easy to follow with a visual demonstration, so you don't even have to read anything and you can see what to do. Oh, and one thing you should always do - don't use sequencers or timers. Give players time to read tutorial text and view each stage in thier own time. Outputs from magic mouths trigger when they're closed, which is much better for advancing to the next bit of info than uisng a timer, where you either don't read fast enough and miss it, or read it too quickly and have to wait.

2011-03-17 14:18:00 Author: Nuclearfish Posts: 927

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Well you guys pretty much covered it. For me I also feel that levels should be very simple and familiar to jump into and get to playing. But that was not going to be the case for my Jedi level. What I did because I hate the long wordy text is I put in game instructions (button labels) that constontly scroll as subtitles. The player can jump in and get started and after he has a question he can simply stop 4 a second and look at the bottom of his screen. It's not that distracting if you don't need them so I liked how it turned out. I think some sort of ingame instructions/tips are good because the player will now know whether or not he/she gives a crap to listen to them or not.

2011-03-18 16:22:00 Author: CENTURION24 Posts: 266

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I'd much rather prefer something complex with a tutorial to something simple. Having siad that, the tutorial needs to be good or I'll jsut sit there thinking "what?" and then quit. Oh, and I don't mind sitting through tutorials at all, I'd only quit if I found it boring once I used it myself.

2011-03-18 16:38:00 Author: kirbyman62 Posts: 1893

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