23 replies to this topic

[Radien]

So, this week someone wrote an article about how Nintendo learned from a very early age how to teach game mechanics through early level design, using Super Mario Bros. level 1-1 as an example.

http://www.1up.com/f...el-design-mario

I have to admit that in some ways I felt Legend of Zelda was not as successful, on account of being too difficult (at least for me, when I was 6 or 7), but it still is quite instructional to see how it was all done.

I'm placing this topic in ZC Discussion because really, that's what most of us will find this information useful for.

(Although in retrospect there are other forums it'd work in, like quest design, etc. Feel free to move it if you are able and feel it should be moved.)

[LinktheMaster]

I really enjoy the way things were designed in the old days. A lot of games help you learn them without babying you too much.

Related, I once found this video about Mega Man's level design in telling you what to do without blatantly telling you what to do. Note that there is a lot of cursing in the video, but it's still really informative. Here it is.

[nicklegends]

I agree that the means of teaching in older video games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda is really elegant, but I feel that they were more or less required to do that because of technical limitations. I don't think it's necessarily a superior approach. The article mentions the castle area in Mario 64 as being like a sandbox of exploration, but who's to say you can't explore in more modern games after a brief explanation of how to use a new move?

Also, modern games tend to have more complicated and varied controls. In Mario 1, you can jump and run, with one button for each. In Super Mario Galaxy 2, you can high jump, long jump, wall jump, ground pound, spin, spin jump, triple jump, collect star bits, ride Yoshi, and much more. There is no possible way you can expect a player to figure out all the critical moves my him or herself. The way you do it is you tell a player how to execute a move (by a sign or forced text), then you give them an opportunity to practice it about three times to move to the next area.

The "elegance" of modern tutorials has diminished only because the control method of modern games has diminished.

[Cukeman]

One thing I admire about The Legend of Zelda is item-based puzzles. When you get a new item,
the game tells you how that item functions, and you often use it to leave the room.
That's all blatant, ordinary and obvious - I haven't gotten to the good part yet.

The good part comes later on when you discover clever new uses for the item, where instead of
merely using the item to activate it's specific type trigger, you can actually use the item in a way
that is different from it's central function. These alternate uses often involve "domino effect"
puzzles, where one thing causes another, which causes another leading to the result.

This element is not so much present in the newest Zelda games, which is unfortunate
(I'm looking at you Clawshot, you ONLY let me hook to clawshot circles??), however
it has been used beautifully in previous games.

[SUCCESSOR]

I think what the 1-up article and the Sequelitis video are trying to make clear is that immersion is always a better teaching method than just telling the player what to do. With more complex controls required in games the use of obstacles as a sole teaching method has become diminished, this is true. I personally with rather non invasive hints about use of controls when confronted with an obstacle I don't know how to overcome than sit through a length dialogue about how to do something and then left to do it or forced to repeat that same lengthy dialogue if I forgot.

If control hints are not enough for some players the option should exist to have a demonstration of the technique to help the player learn. This goes along with the fact that the best way to learn something goes in the order: immersion(doing it yourself), demonstration(watching it be done), explanation(being told how). The latter methods should only be used if the one(s) preceding it failed on its own. However, I think game designers are either lazy or worried about losing frustrated casual players and jump to explaining rather than use organic methods of teaching.

A certain FPS I've long forgotten the name of failed in this sense. It described how to play the game(or specific scenario) and then you went and played it. The problem was that it wasn't clear(and what explanation can be clear to every individual?) and the only way to review it was to die and start all over.

[Giggidy]

Also, modern games tend to have more complicated and varied controls. In Mario 1, you can jump and run, with one button for each. In Super Mario Galaxy 2, you can high jump, long jump, wall jump, ground pound, spin, spin jump, triple jump, collect star bits, ride Yoshi, and much more. There is no possible way you can expect a player to figure out all the critical moves my him or herself. The way you do it is you tell a player how to execute a move (by a sign or forced text), then you give them an opportunity to practice it about three times to move to the next area.

This is *exactly* the problem here. You seriously underestimate gamers.

[Cukeman]

While it's true that they want to sell games to people who have never played a game before,
it's also true that they could offer a tutorial-free mode for the rest of us.

As for me I ALWAYS read the manual, so I don't need tutorials at all.
Yes manuals can be boring, but often they describe story aspects that
you would otherwise never learn in-game.

Edited by Cukeman, 19 August 2012 - 07:02 PM.

[nicklegends]

This is *exactly* the problem here. You seriously underestimate gamers.

I think you underestimate the tediousness of figuring out obscure button combinations to accomplish arbitrary moves. There is no way playing Super Mario Galaxy would have been as fun if I didn't get a quick primer on the controls.

[Moonbread]

I think you underestimate the tediousness of figuring out obscure button combinations to accomplish arbitrary moves. There is no way playing Super Mario Galaxy would have been as fun if I didn't get a quick primer on the controls.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you. Super Mario 64 is essentially the exact same, and it doesn't tell you how to perform each jump, but pretty much leaves it up to the player to learn them. Honestly, none of it is really rocket science, unless you're playing Mortal Kombat. Half of a match is pausing the game to remember how to do the combo you want to do, in that case though. It's all about figuring out how you can make controls and gameplay that are easy and tight, but don't have to be shoved in your face for it to be that way.

[Giggidy]

Honestly, none of it is really rocket science, unless you're playing Mortal Kombat. Half of a match is pausing the game to remember how to do the combo you want to do, in that case though.

I'd argue that fighting game button combinations are just bad design though, and not really an argument for stopping the game to feed the player a tutorial. Of course you're gonna get problems when you try to cram a bazillion different moves into 4 or 6 buttons. Contextual controls have similar issues, but I have no problem with those if you do them correctly.

(That is, the contexts are 100% mutually exclusive so it's never ambiguous what the button does, you have appropriate prompts that don't interrupt gameplay, and the contextual options are all infrequently used. Skyrim/Oblivion's E key is a great example of how to do this *almost* right. The one place where they fuck up is accidentally stealing something sitting in front of someone when you want to talk to them.)

[nicklegends]

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you. Super Mario 64 is essentially the exact same, and it doesn't tell you how to perform each jump, but pretty much leaves it up to the player to learn them.

Don't the signs tell you how to do each move?

[Radien]

I really enjoy the way things were designed in the old days. A lot of games help you learn them without babying you too much.

Related, I once found this video about Mega Man's level design in telling you what to do without blatantly telling you what to do. Note that there is a lot of cursing in the video, but it's still really informative. Here it is.

Ahh, yes. I had seen that before, but I watched it again. While I don't think Megaman X is quite that fantastic of a game, I do agree that it used some very good "conveyed tutorial" techniques. Learning how to play the game was not difficult.

This element is not so much present in the newest Zelda games, which is unfortunate
(I'm looking at you Clawshot, you ONLY let me hook to clawshot circles??), however
it has been used beautifully in previous games.

Well... in Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess we have clawshot targets, certain grates, ivy, and certain other types of climbable walls. But yes, there were fewer non-target grapple points in TP, and OoT outdid both of them (TP and SS) by making most wooden objects hookshot-friendly. Personally, I plan to emulate OoT by making anything wooden hookshot-friendly unless there's a good reason for it not to be.

'd argue that fighting game button combinations are just bad design though, and not really an argument for stopping the game to feed the player a tutorial. Of course you're gonna get problems when you try to cram a bazillion different moves into 4 or 6 buttons. Contextual controls have similar issues, but I have no problem with those if you do them correctly.

Hey.... I play fighting games, mostly Soul Calibur, and I would definitely argue to the contrary. The entire point of fighting games is to use a wide variety of moves with differing strengths and faults. If it seriously isn't the kind of game with so many moves that the player will need to look at the move list at SOME point, then it will be much harder to make it a good fighting game. If it's like Super Smash Bros. -- where it's about angle and trajectory and items and platforming, not just moves and combos -- it can work... but Street Fighter-style fighting games require more sophisticated button combos.

But I'd still consider Soul Calibur a good fighting game in that respect, even though it has some complex moves you need to look up. Why? Because, before it resorted to the complex combinations, the game made sure to use up the simple button combinations. Simply pressing any one or two attack buttons at once almost always results in a different attack, and you can combine it with a direction on the D-pad to access yet another set of attacks.

You don't need to look up the move list until you have tried out all the basic simple button combos, and every single character has a minimum of around 50 different moves that can be performed without memorizing multi-part button sequences. That's what I consider an elegant fighting game.

[Anthus]

I agree that immersion teaches better than walls of text explaining things. Does anyone remember what the manuals are for? It should be left up to the player to decide if they want a wall of text, or cut scene explaining their moves to them. A huge personal peave I have with some games is that you can't skip the bullshit. (EDIT: Have censors been removed..?)

I'll use OoT as an example, just cause everyone here has played it several times, I'm sure. Kokiri Forest has several parts where moves are explained to you, but it is done in an interesting way as part of the game. You are told how to target that rock. You can experiment with your sword and jumps, and if you back flip, oh, look, you get rewarded by a blue rupee. The game doesn't really hold your hand much. You are never required to train with it.

Manuals should be reserved for detailed explanations of moves, and the game developers should try to teach you the stuff they want you to know in the least imposing way.

Edited by Anthus, 20 August 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[Giggidy]

Ahh, yes. I had seen that before, but I watched it again. While I don't think Megaman X is quite that fantastic of a game, I do agree that it used some very good "conveyed tutorial" techniques. Learning how to play the game was not difficult.
Well... in Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess we have clawshot targets, certain grates, ivy, and certain other types of climbable walls. But yes, there were fewer non-target grapple points in TP, and OoT outdid both of them (TP and SS) by making most wooden objects hookshot-friendly. Personally, I plan to emulate OoT by making anything wooden hookshot-friendly unless there's a good reason for it not to be.
Hey.... I play fighting games, mostly Soul Calibur, and I would definitely argue to the contrary. The entire point of fighting games is to use a wide variety of moves with differing strengths and faults. If it seriously isn't the kind of game with so many moves that the player will need to look at the move list at SOME point, then it will be much harder to make it a good fighting game. If it's like Super Smash Bros. -- where it's about angle and trajectory and items and platforming, not just moves and combos -- it can work... but Street Fighter-style fighting games require more sophisticated button combos.

But I'd still consider Soul Calibur a good fighting game in that respect, even though it has some complex moves you need to look up. Why? Because, before it resorted to the complex combinations, the game made sure to use up the simple button combinations. Simply pressing any one or two attack buttons at once almost always results in a different attack, and you can combine it with a direction on the D-pad to access yet another set of attacks.

You don't need to look up the move list until you have tried out all the basic simple button combos, and every single character has a minimum of around 50 different moves that can be performed without memorizing multi-part button sequences. That's what I consider an elegant fighting game.

I'm sorry, I just seriously have a hard time believing you actually need hundreds of different attacks to have a good fighting game.

[Radien]

I'm sorry, I just seriously have a hard time believing you actually need hundreds of different attacks to have a good fighting game.

Do you mean hundreds of different attacks by ONE character, or hundreds total? Remember that even Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which uses moves so simple that it doesn't even need a pause-menu move list, has a total of over 700 different moves if you count all the characters.

But perhaps you were using hyperbole, or you're only talking about one character. In that case, I agree that you don't need even a hundred. I counted, and Talim, my favorite Soul Calibur character, has 75 moves in Soul Calibur 2 (not including incomplete combos).

If even 75 seems like too many moves to you, though, I want to defend it: of course you don't need that many moves per character to have a good fighting game, as Super Smash Bros. has shown, but some people LIKE games where a large portion of the game is faking out your opponent with a wide variety of animations and gauging the exact timing of scores of different moves.

For comparison, it's possible to have a good action/adventure game without swords. But Legend of Zelda fans usually like swords. So why not give it to them? People who hate swords (if they exist ) can just play other games.

If all I wanted was the highest quality game possible, I would just pick a Zelda title and play it all the time. But I like variety. That's why I have a favorite racing game, a favorite platformer series, a favorite RPG series, a favirute fighting game, etc. etc.