What do you think of game tutorials (Telltale's in paricular)?

Emily

The Wallace & Gromit team is thinking about how to handle the tutorial in Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, and would like your feedback about what you like/dislike in the tutorials we've done in the past.

(If you haven't played them, please check them out before responding... it'll only take a few minutes of your life! If you haven't bought the episodes, you can access the tutorials through the demos: Sam & Max | Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People.)

A few simple questions to get the conversation started...

1) Did you like the tutorials for Sam & Max Season Two and SBCG4AP?

2) If you didn't like them, what would you want to see to make the tutorials better?

3) Are there other game tutorials that you really like, that you think our designers should look at? Please tell us about them!

Dedlok

I really liked both Sam and Max's and SBCG4AP's tutorials. They seemed to provide the correct balance of humor and teaching imo.

What I don't like in tutorials, well the ones that completely stop gameplay and/or have unskippable movies detailing every aspect of control, from moving or jumping to the more complicated stuff. I don't mind being told about it, don't mind being shown pictures of it or text that appears on the screen or a brief movie for the more complex stuff.

So basically to sum up, if you do more of the same I have no complaints, but no minute long cinemas devoted to just showing how you can move around by clicking your mouse.

Molokov

I enjoyed them both - of course, it's not like the controls are that hard to master, but I had to play the tutorials just to hear any extra funny dialogue (of which there's plenty in both).

They are fairly short - a single puzzle - but I guess that's good, because it means less time wasted on a tutorial and more spent in the actual game.

Some games, I find, will incorporate the "tutorial" part in the first scene of the game, but I don't see why that's necessary - having it separate means people know it's a tutorial, and a lot of humour can be had with breaking the fourth wall (like in SBCG4AP)

In otherwords, I agree with Dedlok. They're good already

Guybrush Threepwood

Just mirroring what Dedlok and Molokov here, in that I had no use for the tutorials and only use them for any new dialogue or locations. I know how to work a point-and-click just fine, but I think that the way you handle tutorials already is brilliant and I prefer that you don't force the user to go through one. No criticism from me, just keep doing what you're doing!

Derwin

Apparently you are going to get little to no criticism here. I like the way they are handled currently as well. Having an optional tutorial which includes a small puzzle as a teaching mechanic is great. Also, the humor in the tutorials make it worthwhile to play even if you already know how to play the game. It makes it feel like you are getting a little more for your money.

I'd say keep with the small puzzle tutorials, keep the humor, and make a new one for each episode. Also keep the storyline (if any) of the tutorial separate from the storyline of the game (I hate it when you have to play a tutorial or watch a tutorial cinematic just to know more of the backstory of a game).

MaxFan

I pulled up Sam & Max and played the tutorial because I never had before, and had already played the SBCG4AP demo because I heard you could go into Strong Sad's room. I thought Sam reminding me about the cheese after every *single* thing I clicked on to hear a line was a little tedious, but otherwise thought both tutorials were very good.

deadlinejon

because wallice is cluless(almost), and gromit cant speak, have gromit hold up sighns!

wisp

well, the tutorials are fine. i think, tutorials are a good idea, because even if you already have experience with the genre you're playing, a tutorial helps you get used to a certain game, without the risk of missing something important.
for a point and click adventure you should focus on the stuff other games don't have and only do a short introduction on the point and click basics.
the sam & max season 2 tutorial was a bit lacking in this, it described the whole pointing and clicking in detail, but forgot to mention how you can run. this was a new feature in season 2 and i didn't notice it, until someone talked about it on the forums.
the sbcg4ap tutorial described everything nicely...so you should be okay with the wallace and gromit thing...maybe you could give the tutorial more connection to the real game though. let's say, the tutorial takes place before episode one and you take an item...and then in the first episode you start with that thing in your inventory.
something like this...so the tutorial can be part of the main game, but doesn't has to.

Emily

the sam & max season 2 tutorial was a bit lacking in this, it described the whole pointing and clicking in detail, but forgot to mention how you can run.

That's because the voice lines were recorded before running had been finalized.

Thanks for the feedback! Keep it coming.

Armakuni

I think the tutorials I've played so far are great. It's much better to include a seperate tutorial, as you do, rather than force the player to play through the tutorial at the start of the game (as I've seen in many other games).

Uncle J

I played the Sam & Max S2 tutorial after playing S1, and thought it was handled fine. I would have liked some new content rather than a remake of an old puzzle, but I can see that wouldn't have been the best use of resources. The thing about the tutorial is that a lot of existing fans will play it anyway, because they're completists who like to make chronological catalogues of their CD's in their spare time so as to listen to every track they possess in historical order. Sorry, perhaps that's only me. I have no life. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

Actually, I've never done that.

With a new property like W&C I would have the tutorial integrated into the first puzzle of Episode 1, but then retrofitted as a standalone option in the menu for eps 2 and following, for players who hadn't played previously-released installments.

Furthermore, maybe the ideal tutorial acknowledges the possibility that the audience is being patronized and makes something of that, possibly by having a pedantic character as instructor who insists on pointing out the obvious. Wallace might be very good at that, labouring the desperately self-evident, e.g. observing that the pointer on the screen observes and responds to movements you yourself, the player, make by moving a small, very vaguely rodent-like controller, or equivalent on other platforms -- but entirely fails to impart useful information without big placards or whispering in the ear from Gromit. The functional should always be the aesthetic and vice versa, he said with great pomposity.

Strong Max

In SBCG4AP the tutorial schould be a seperate option on the main menue

Jake

Um, it is. Main Menu --> New Game --> Tutorial button

Dr. Zoidberg

I think tutorials are useful when you are starting a game with a genre or controll scheme you've never played before, E.G. The Sam and Max tutorial, the first point-and-click adventure game I ever played, and the Half-Life tutorial, the first FPS I played on a PC.

jmm

Tutorials are fine.
Just add an option to directly go to the game any time* with a "Go to the Full Game" button. So if you're tired/bored/whatever with the tutorial, starting the full game is just a click away.


* When you have control.

Udvarnoky

I thought the tutorials for CSI: Hard Evidence, Sam & Max Season 2 and Strong Bad were all great. I don't see why the Wallace and Gromit one would be any different. Frankly, Telltale games in general are so straightforward and self-explanatory that a tutorial is almost unnecessary, so I like how you guys are trying to make them amusing on their own.

Androu1

I didn't really like the tutorial for Sam & Max Season 2.It wasn't too funny (but it did have it's nice jokes like "Sam: ...you will have to think like us. Max: for which we want to apologize" or something like that)

SBCG4AP really made me laugh,tho.Specially because of the lappynapped reference.

Strongsadioware

Your tutorials are the best! There like the rest of the best!

Joe2

I played the old Kings Quest/Quest for Glory/Sam and Max Hit the Road type games, so I just skipped the tutorials. However, being able to skip a tutorial without penalty is a huge plus in my book.

I just played the tutorial, and can't really comment because of the reasons in the first paragraph. I didn't like the fact that the Sam and Max Season 2 tutorial seems like a piece from a season 1 quest. That might be just me though. In a bunch of other games, I usually skip them if I played that kind of game before. In the case of Crysis, the tutorial blended in seemlessly in the game, and it was really nice because the tutorial bits were easily ignored on subsequent playthroughs. In the case of other games, if I don't play that genre a lot, I play the tutorial like the case of the first time I played Overlord.

splash1

You should make the tutorials different each Episode, or put them in different places, take the Nancy Drew tutorials, they have many interesting tutorials, sometimes in different locations. There's also a very nice tutorial Delaware St. John, each one gives you a location on where you are placed in the game, they run over basic details and such and such, but don't change the tutorials at all, I like the funny speeches they give out, what you should do is make the tutorials exactly where new locations are in the game, same tutorial though in different location.

Off Topic:
1,300 post!!

dimomarg

Emily. The best way to handle the tutorial is like the Strong bad one. you know, with the "stay in the role" or "no, I don't wanna be part of your tutorial"

LuigiHann

I don't like the idea of having a different tutorial for each episode. Most people will only play the tutorial for each series once, so I'd say copy-and-paste that for each episode, and put all the creating-new-content work into the body of the episode itself.

splash1

LuigiHann wrote: »

I don't like the idea of having a different tutorial for each episode. Most people will only play the tutorial for each series once, so I'd say copy-and-paste that for each episode, and put all the creating-new-content work into the body of the episode itself.

I'm not saying new tutorial, a location that is only available in that Episode.

Mclain

I liked Max's and SBCG4AP's tutorials and prefferd to them only.

Redrot

I think that the tutorials are too quick. i think instead of actually telling what to do, there should be two. one that gives hints and another that tells what to do

Sinker182

I think both the tutorials are great, especially when they break the fourth wall. I do wish that the tutorial for Sam & Max was not just the same puzzle from 101. That's my only complaint though.

ig0rpwnwEd

I liked the SBCG4AP one being original, but I did not like the Sam and Max one, wher Telltale made a part of the game easier.

mmm11105

The tutorials and walkthroughs are great except that every SGC4AP has the same tutorial. You should keep them unique to make them worth playing through.

Molokov

er... mmm11105, the tutorials are there for new players to the game, so I would always expect them to be the same for each season of a game. After all, I'd prefer that the "new stuff" would be actually, you know, put into the main game for each episode, rather than the tutorial.

natlinxz

I played the one for the wii version of SBCG4AP, and I loved it!
I thought that it was AWESOME that it had its own mini storyline, and I would play it even If I already knew how to play.
But, it did help me, for sure!

16_BIT_MARIO1

I really like the way Telltale already handled their tutorials. The only thing I can suggest is that the fourth wall must be absolutely shattered by the end of it.

deadlinejon

16_BIT_MARIO1 wrote: »

I really like the way Telltale already handled their tutorials. The only thing I can suggest is that the fourth wall must be absolutely shattered by the end of it.

YES. please.

Mouldcube

I actually went through the tutorials for every sbcg4ap game so far to see if any of them did have a different tutorial, I really need a life.

wait...I thought this thread was sticky last time I saw it.