Practical Game Design

How to design a tutorial

There is a famous quote from an ancient Chinese philosopher that says:

"Tell me and I forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."

This phrase should be a mantra for every game designer working on a tutorial to teach a game mechanic. How many game tutorials have you played that were just a lot of dialogues and instructions, one after the other? And how many times has getting back to a game with such tutorials after a few days required you to go through those dialogues again (or have a look at a guide on the internet)?

A tutorial made of just instructions and text is a bad tutorial, especially if it overwhelms the player with a huge amount of information in a quick succession. Remember that the more ...