Enforced Tutorials and You

First of all, my usual apologies and such.

I am sorry if this is in the wrong section, or if there was a discussion for this already.

I tried searching "tutorial" but nothing came up, which I found odd because I recall reading about this before. I do follow and read a lot of discussions on games and such though, so maybe it was elsewhere. u.u'' 

Now, onto the topic.

How do you feel about games that force a tutorial on you? 

I grew up with a lot of games where the controls weren't anywhere except for in the manual, and maybe if you were lucky (and playing a fighting game) there was a list of them in the menu or you could map them yourself in the options. 

I remember renting games from a store and spending the first few minutes trying every button and every combination I could think of to see what would happen before going along my way to explore.

Nowadays I always get stuck with a 10 minute tutorial that includes how to walk, how to jump, how to talk to NPCs, and then some. I'm not joking, I've timed it, the longest tutorial took me a full half hour and stopped me every few seconds to play an example before letting me try it myself to see if I could do it. If I'm lucky, maybe I can skip these tutorials, but that's gotten pretty rare now.

So I wanted to know what everyone thought. 

Should tutorials be built into the game play and into the story?

Should they just be in the manual and the player should be expected to read it?

Should you be able to skip them?

Should a player be rewarded for sitting through it instead of just jumping into the game?

Maybe something else I didn't think of?

Please share your opinions on this and any different ideas you may have.

Also if there was a topic for this, links to it/them would be appreciated.

Thank you.

You're right. I encourage anyone to read this 10 tutorial tips from the creators of Plants vs Zombies about the subject, it's very informative and helpful because Plants vs Zombies has one of the best tutorials I've seen. It really eases you into the game quite well.

I think the main thing about tutorials is they should be optional, but available. They can adapt to how the person is learning, and they should definitely not be just walls of text. Show, don't tell is the famous saying.

There is a problem with games that over-tutorial, but you shouldn't assume players would read an instruction book or just know how to play. You should assume players are willing to try and engage with the system though.

I think the Pokemon games serve as a cool example for tutorials in jRPGs, as their demographic is primarily kids, so passive tutorials need to be crafted in a way that helps people ease into what may very well be their first jRPG, without pissing off veterans. You'll notice in Pokemon, you're made to walk around, talk and listen to the advice of NPCs to progress, and get used to navigating the world before you fight any battles. Your first battles are very simple, contain a small move-pool to choose from, as well as only a few participants, so you don't overwhelm yourself with choice. But seeing what your opponents can do also gives you insight into future mechanics you'll also have access too one day. There's also a lot of optional tutorials for people who are really stuck. (there's also a few cool ways Pokemon teaches you it's exclusive mechanics, but that's not for now)

Should tutorials be built into the game play and into the story? Yeah
Should they just be in the manual and the player should be expected to read it? Nobody reads the manual, and you know that.
Should you be able to skip them? Optional tutorials are probably for the best.
Should a player be rewarded for sitting through it instead of just jumping into the game? Not in a big way. If tutorials give you a few common basic items to play around, like potions and such, it could help the player learn once they're out of the tutorial and trying out it's lessons in the field. Giving rare/exclusive items for beating a tutorial doesn't sound like a good idea, you don't want veteran players to feel they have to sit through garbage or miss out on something really cool.
 

I was replaying Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines a while back (a CRPG based in the World of Darkness) and I remember thinking about how well the game handles its tutorial level.

Basically, you've got an older vampire showing you, the new kid, how to feed on humans, how to sneak, how to fight, etc., but it's done in a casual, conversational way that also gives you a ton of background lore (like the relationship between the various vampire organizations). Usually, tutorial levels feature dull, emotionless characters who dryly says things like "Climb that wall over there. Okay, good.", but here, I feel they really nailed the personality of the older vampire and made the player form a personal connection with him. It gets even better when he shows up later in the story to save your ass again, by which point most players have really taken a liking to the character.

Also, you can skip the whole thing on subsequent playthroughs by shrugging off his help, at which point the older vampire jokes "Nice knowing ya, kiddo." and sends you on your way. This is preferable to the traditional "WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY THE TUTORIAL? YES/NO" pop-up screen that so many games like to employ; that pop-up alone makes me want to hit no right away because intended or not, it makes the tutorial seem completely disconnected from the rest of the game.

I always read the manuals of games as a kid(from like 5 years old, and til this day), and absolutely loathed idiots who would run around like headless chickens in a game because they didn't know the controls/mechanics because they hadn't read the manual. Just saying.

Actually, I always read manuals. And, for that reason, I usually think of tutorials as needless hand-holding/padding for a new generation of gamers whose attention-span has been melted down by fast-food and cheap Hollywood entertainment. That being said, most of my games have some sort of tutorial simply for the sake of not alienating the simpler people of the world.

Anyway, on-topic:

Tutorials(granted that they're lengthy) should always be optional game-play sequences for one very good reason - some players might want to replay or restart the game, and knowing that they're going to have to waste time with tutorial areas can be a factor in simply making the player stop playing altogether at that point.

As much as I love Metal Gear Solid 3, the long ass intro/tutorial area of that game is usually the biggest factor in stopping me from doing another play-through.

Secondly, as several here have said already, walls of text don't work all that well - especially if your game has reaction based/combo based game-play mechanics, in which case you should probably have the player do the stuff, rather than showing or telling them about it.

Thirdly, spend some time considering how you want to implement the tutorial into the world. If your game is obviously "gamey", then simply referring to the tutorial as a tutorial, and keeping things gamey in terms of how the instructions are framed etc. is perfectly fine. If, however, you don't want to break the 4th wall, and want to keep the immersion strong you should spend some time devising a plan for how to implement a tutorial section that makes sense within the game world. Like, maybe your main character is a soldier in boot-camp - there, a basic training course could make sense.

Another point worth mentioning in that tutorials can be broken up. Rather than having "a tutorial", you can have a simple introduction to your game, where challenges are presented to the player, and where the method of solving the challenges are introduced along with each specific challenge, which might be broken up with patches of regular game-play, dialogue etc. along the way.

I guess that's all I have at the top of my head, atm.

EgoRaptor has some fantastic commentary on stage design encouraging the player to experiment with the basic actions available to them:

EgoRaptor on Mega Man

The guys at Extra Credits elaborate on the subject, too.

Extra Credits on Super Mario Bros World 1-1

Granted, the games they're talking about are simpler compared to an arpeegee, which brings me to another point:

Complex game design requires complex explanation.

The more features you add to your game, the more you're going to have to pause and explain stuff to the player.

Finally, here's a video showing video game hand-holding taken to its logical extreme:

Sonic the Hedgehog OmoChao Edition.