Today’s post is about tutorial construction in general and in specific.
Tutorials
… are about introducing the player to the game experience. This means that the core mechanics (meaning the ways the player can interact), the overall pacing and atmosphere/theme all need to be set up. So a key element to tutorials is the repeating and emphasizing of those things for the first time in the game.
The classical example is Super Mario Bros’ Level 1-1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE
The main conflict about any tutorial is not forcing the initial learning curve too much on the player, which in general is one of the more difficult tasks to pull off. As a consequence, tutorials tend to be heavily designed and iterated.
Ocularis: Tutorial
The Ocularis-Tutorial was the first level designed and the longest to be worked on. Here is an overview:
You start on the very left after a short fade in where Leonora monologues “Wh- Where am I? Who am I?”. This sets up the whole narrative and level progression. On the same time, the 3D model of avatar Leonora is seen, who is carrying armor, sword and bow. This prepares the player for being able to fight. The player starts in a small secluded chamber where she has some space to try out basic movement and some controls should she have seen the controls menue. Left and right in the chamber cave paintings are placed, encouraging the player to move towards them.
When the player leaves the initial chamber, she gets a look up through the whole cave. The cave, as the whole game, has a constant, repeating drive upwards. The specific atmosphere encountered is an example for the other specific atmospheres found in the game.
Returning to the overview I showed above, you can see several tutorial messages. These are short texts introducing to movement, exploration, combat and dialog. There are also opportunities to experience voice over, fall damage, climbing, fighting, looting, meeting NPCs / with choices and jumping.
The fairies and their dialogues set up not only Leonora’s compagnionship with other NPCs, but also their major role in the gameplay and narrative. Exiting the cave, the player is let out into the open world and presented to the games major goals in the world. Both works through an arrival moment:
In the foreground is placed what is needed to be achieved first: Collecting the (blue) Ocularis relics. In the middle ground there’s an overview over the first stretches and landmarks from the game world – a hill on the left, a small tower with sphere in the middle, some sea with sphere on the right and a valley in the front where the player will pass through first. In the back ground the overshadowing Tower of Umbra can be seen, which will host the games final places and scenes.
Feedback Suggestions
- What is your favourite tutorial-design-trick?
- Do you think the pacing is too dense in the Ocularis tutorial?
Conclusion
So this is it. I’ll be honest, not all of these features were planned, some simply evolved from the dynamics of gamedev. And some were made features – for example the idea of a separate starting chamber, which later on got a special postprocessing effect.
If you want, you can play Ocularis, experience the tutorial yourself: On itch.io there’s a download link. I’d be glad!
Hope you’re having a good time!
Gregor Sönnichsen 