Good Game Design - Shovel Knight: Teaching Without Teaching
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2014
- Shovel Knight has a lot that's great about it, but it's game design takes the cake! Today we analyze how Shovel Knight (and 140) teach you without actually teaching you. Please share and enjoy!
Good Game Design is a series where we look at different principles of what makes games great! Sometimes it's nice to appreciate the finer parts of gaming out there.
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I laughed really hard at that little "nonononono" with the angler fish.
lol that was my realtime reaction :P
snomaN Gaming your not the only one that hated that thing SO MUCH GOLD JUST GONE ;-; it's HEARTBREAKING
Matthew Stevens Then the SMB3 fish appeared in Specter of Torment and it got worse.
I HATE that stage.
But at least the fish looks cool.
I just kind bounce on the chest. You are a bit faster than it, so you have to to wait every now and then or you'll fall and die.
The original Mario Bros. The first instant of the first level teaches you that Goombas are bad, you have to jump on or over them, and that you can jump. With your jumping ability you find a mushroom that because of the level design is pretty hard to avoid and it teaches you that mushrooms are good. All within 10 seconds of game play.
Awesome, so true!
You know what that game really teaches you first? "Right is the way" All you do is go right, all the time. Wanna progress in Mario Bros? Look to the right. Wanna go left? Well, you can't.
This is odd because that's not even a thing you might think about... I mean, games like Zelda let you walk anywhere, even to the left...
The original Super Mario Bros.*
The original Mario Bros. was an arcade game
You learn through death, that's not a good mechanic
@@JustBearly Only if it is over-used. The original Mario game is very self-explanatory also.
FREAK YES
I'm so tired of modern games that start with crappy tutorials and long winded explanations of crap you could've easily figured out on your own. Especially when these sections are right at the beginning, and drag on and on to the point where you might think the whole game sucks.
Yet another reason to love Shovel Knight, like we didn't have enough already XD
Now I kinda wanna try that 140 game.
140 is one of my all time favorites, its sooo good
Look, I get where your sentiment is coming from and I agree! But, as a developer, I get how these tutorials make it in. The things I've seen in playtests! And yes, in an ideal world, we could all be super geniuses and design the best ever levels to teach players everything they need to know organically... But on the other hand... I'm sure at least one person quit Shovel Knight having never figured out how to do the downward attack.... *sigh*
Runie549 I
I'd say that the main problem of tutorials is unskippable and annoying tutorials. Like, as you said, long-winded crappy ones, especially if they break immersion. You don't need a long and drawn out tutorial-that is in fact bad design-but a player who's just picked up that system for the first time should have at least an opportunity to mess around and learn the controls. Every game should assume it's getting a mixture of people who already know how to play, and do not want tutorials, and people who have never played this genre or on this system or just in general before.
Skippable tutorials or a tutorial mode that can be disabled in-game or a silent tutorial that includes plenty of space to mess around and has been tested with someone who hasn't played that genre of games before (and includes an indication of when the beginning cutscene stops if there is a possibility of confusion) and of course a controls screen so that you can see what the controls are (and remap them), with the absolute minimum of unnecessary and forth-wall-breaking dialogue. One thing you can do to indicate controls to someone who may have never played that genre before is just...fade them in on screen on startup and have them go away as soon as you do anything. Or write them on the level. Or, you know, have the controls as a main menu option.
Note that if you pick up a controller and your hands naturally take the position best suited for playing games-like, say, index fingers on the triggers, thumbs on the analogue sticks-you're an expert at operating that controller. That's not basic skill level. That's 'I have mastered this complex piece of machinery'. (You may still be bad at games, but not at using the controller.)
What seems intuitive to someone who has played video games before will often not seem intuitive to someone who has. People new to video games have no reason to assume glowy things do something other than providing illumination, or where to put their hands on the controller, or what the analogue sticks do, or that mixing jump and dash is possible, or many other things that seem obvious to someone who has been playing games for years.
One example I saw was someone trying to learn to play Samus Returns-but he'd never played a platformer before, and at the section where the game was trying to teach him to ledge-grab. What someone experienced with games would do is jump towards the ledge. What he did was completely ignore the ledge and begin doing literally everything but that and get frustrated that he couldn't find the way out-because he had no reason at all to assume that he could do anything different with that specific section of wall. If something like "try to grab this ledge" was written on the wall, then that wouldn't have happened, and from that point on he would, in whatever platform game he played next, try to grab a ledge to see if it was grabable like Metroid's ledges.
Hell, I remember being a small kid of like, 7, and trying to play a game marketed to small kids (Tigger's Honey Hunt, I think)-and spending quite a while on the very first area of the game, frantically clicking the screen and mashing random buttons on the keyboard and wondering why the character on screen wasn't moving. Eventually, after over a minute of wondering why the the game had apparently frozen, I happened to-by giving up on keyboard mashing and pressing every button on the keyboard sequentially, starting from the tilde key-press A, which made the character move left. There was no indication, on-screen, in the menus, or in the manual, that pressing A would do literally anything, and the use of the mouse in the menu, with the arrow keys doing nothing, made me expect use of the mouse in the game itself.
This could have been avoided by a signpost in the background that had something like the A and D buttons with left and right arrows above them, or putting the controls in the manual, or having a controls option in the menu. Instead, there was no indication of the control scheme-it assumed everyone playing it knew that spacebar was jump and A and D were left and right-and every game I had played before had used the mouse or arrow keys.
Worst of all, it turned out there was a signpost, just offscreen, that told you how to jump. They recognized that spacebar=jump wasn't something that everyone knows-but failed to realize that D=right was just as abstract and utterly unintuitive to people who had never played a platformer before.
Goddamned terrible tutorial in that one. Forever influenced how I looked at tutorials. Also for years afterwards, whenever I played a platformer, I put anything with the A and D keys or the WASD control scheme under the concept of 'games like Honey Hunt' and games that used arrow keys under "games with obvious controls".
One of the reasons I got Puyo Puyo Tetris is the fact I miss games with no handholding.
"IF you somehow still haven't played it : what's wrong with you ?"
I'll tell you what is wrong, it's called : THE GAME STILL NOT BEING OUT FOR EUROPE!
It's on steam
Steam... It's even on linux since last week...
LugoMoll
I don't want it on steam. I want it on my portable gaming system.
It's 2 years later... But.. I can't afford the game, it's 15 euros on steam, which is way too much
That is about the cheapest games get...
One of the things I love most of early Legend of Zelda titles is that every time you get a new item, in the room just outside there are some enemies. And since you're restricted to using a few items at a time, switching between them can be a bother sometimes, especially if you had to use your new tool to get out of the room you found it in...but then you look at the item you just acquired and wonder: "What if I can use THIS in combat?" And that's how you find out you can throw rocks and pots at enemies with the Power Bracelet, stun them with the Hammer, dodge attacks with the Feather, avoid getting knocked back with the Iron boots...and after the first one or two times it happens you know that every time you get a new power it doesn't just let you solve more puzzles but it also adds more to your arsenal.
+ZorotheGallade Yeah I like that. I like that there's more versatility to the items, and you're right it doesn't just come out and tell you about its secondary function, (or even for the boss fights or something), it lets you figure out the solution on your own, which is great
I've been consciously noticing this "teaching without teaching" principle more and more lately. I just started playing Shovel Knight recently, and the first thing that struck me was how well the intro level was designed (followed swiftly by the awesome music!). Figuring out something on your own is always more satisfying and empowering than being told.
WanderingRandomer Oh yeah! You'll notice it more and more when you're looking for it. A lot of games do it well.
snomaN Gaming I feel like tutorials in games are not always bad as long as they are done right. Have you played Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door? The game gives you optional tutorials in the beginning and throughout the game, explaining the basic mechanics. However, they do not feel forced. Then after the tutorial, you are expected to use what you have learned to solve a puzzle, but without any blatant hints. It's brilliant.
@@juanstrong3695 Super Mario World is an example in how to do tutorial
It STRUCK you? Like a shovel…?
@@BreadShowOfficial Nice
honestly, the opening of portal is pure genius
Propeller Knight's stage was much harder than Treasure Knight's. So many bottomless pits.
Yeah it was definitely a rough one!
Plague Knight's stage was tricky too
@@snomangaming i struggled with the tower of fate levels the most
never had any trouble with the angler fish in Treasure Knight's level, i just sorta shovel pogoed on the chest and got past all the platforming easily, by smothering it in a thick layer of cheese.
Polar Flight is the worst for me. Then we have Propeller Knight.
man, the intro level from mega man X is great in teaching without teaching
Señor Deltor E G O R A P T O R
This... tastes like Egoraptor!
I love how VVVVVV teaches without teaching. Your abilities are very basic. In fact, there's only one, but the obstacles you face are numerous.
It has a fairly open world, but it has very clear levels, each of which have one or two central gimmicks that the game teaches you very carefully and with no text at all.
For example, one level introduces you to those yellowish lines which flip you mid-air. To even get to the main part of the level, you have to try that in a safe environment and just a few screens later, you get to an optional collectable, the way to which clearly shows that you can (and have to) flip multiple times in the air using those lines.
It's really neat.
To slightly elaborate on your thought about the hidden walls, notice the very second hidden wall on the plains DOESN'T have any markings, but is clearly in the way, so you KNOW it is there, and that is what you need to do, but it shows that not all secrets in the game will have a marking to look out for, so you should keep your eyes open.
I absolutely love this idea of subtle skill-building and I think it's even better when the audience doesn't realise that it's happening. There's a phrase in filmmaking that goes "the audience want to work for their meal ... they just don't want to know they doing it". Incremental progressions are key for smooth growth. I also love that Shovel Knight is basically Zelda 2 meets Super Mario Bros 3. Great vid. And great series! These principles and their phrases are a fun way to break it all down!
+tobo86 Yeah I've been appreciating games that do it well a lot more now! Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed :D
+snomaN Gaming: In case you haven't heard of it already, I came across 'Nudge Theory' recently, and thought of this video. It's basically indirect behavioral influence by way of suggestion. One of Nudges Theory's most frequently cited examples is the etching of the image of a housefly into the men’s room urinals at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, which is intended to ‘improve the aim’.
Haha thats awesome actually! Great stuff
As covered by EgoRaptor, Megaman X teaches in such a manner.
+Vercalos al'Corlin Yeah thats a perfect example
+Vercalos al'Corlin And Donkey Kong Country :)
+Vercalos al'Corlin super metroid too. (digressing and sidequesting, and my own idea.)
+Vercalos al'Corlin I was about to say the same thing. So there you go!
i agree, it just throws you in a first level, a pretty simple leave that does teach you how to play the game without explaining everything
Portal 2, Shovel Knight, and Skyrim come to mind.
+Peter Doria Great games. Absolutely! Portal especially
@@snomangaming so does hollow knight
Skyrim teaches
Skyrim is great! I have negative max health, so I need to restart, but I loved every second!
The Kirby games do a unique thing were they have the controls pop up in the background as you approach the section you need them for, instead of stopping you to say "press a to jump"
Yeah i like that!
It is the least intrusive tutorial I have ever seen!
You know, the first thing I do in a game without long unskipabble boring tutorials is:
Try a few button combinations so I can learn the controls
I think the black background with the (mini-)bosses is less about not distracting you and more of an homage to NES games. "Big" (in terms of size) bosses couldn't be done as sprites on the NES so instead, the boss was made up of background elements. The boss *is* the background and interacts with you... as a result, though, you couldn't display anything else as background graphics, hence the black background.
Yeah, I think they were paying homage to the games that influenced it, but it makes it doubly cool because they have the technology now to not have to do that, but they did it anyway. So it gives tribute, but also does the isolation thing too.
One great example of a good level design is from Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth. Whipping the candles for hearts and items is non-intuitive but the enemies and candles in the first sections of the level are placed so that you'll inadvertently hit a candle while fighting enemies, teaching you that candles contain items.
Shovel Knight continues its instructive level design to the very end. This also shows in Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth. You can see it in the third stage very well. The first obstacle is a fire-breathing skull which you can see before you can reach so you don't accidentally hit yourself. In the beginning of the very next room, a large spear impales several skeletons showing it's deadly but skeletons drop hearts. Those hearts stay on the spear, showing that spear's stem is safe to walk on. In the next vertical section this knowledge is put to the test.
Awesome points!
My favourite example of a game teaching without teaching would be Metroid Fusion after you obtain the morph ball ability. The only text it gives you is how to enter morph ball mode (pressing down twice). From there, the next 1 minute of level design is built to force you to see that you can use morph ball to roll into tight spaces, that you can't jump as a ball (thus, teaching you when to leave morph ball mode), and showing you that you can enter morph ball mode by pulling yourself up into a narrow passage (this bit's my favourite, because it's possible to trigger this without try to deliberately, but it's immediately clear as to what just happened to the player).
Good call! A lot of responses have been about the Metroid series, I might have to look more into that for the future.
Good call. I think the GBA games will give you the best examples of this. The prime series, as great as it is, ended up using quite a bit of text or narrative explanation early in the games.
I don't know of a specific one but I love when games aknowledge your efforts to explore dead ends or make tricky jumps that aren't part of the core experience.
+OtakuDaiKun Yeah absolutely! Ones that reward you for exploration are great :)
Short version: "show, don't tell".
+Stratelier Pretty much! lol
+Stratelier
I disagree. I think it's a step up! Do, don't show! :D
ZobmieRules
Fair enough, SDT is primarily aimed at writing after all, not videogames. Though I still like to think of it in the context of:
Tell = Explicit instruction from the game itself (including when it comes from another in-game character)
Show = Areas designed to show off what the player can do by allowing them to do it on their own terms without instruction
Of course, there may be some things that are just too subtle for a player to pick up on themselves without some kind of hinting ... Super Metroid's trio of wall jumpers is a good example of that.
Man these are great videos! I love how you just jump into these principals as they actually exist in games. No wasting time talking only theoretically. Great job!
Zach Whaley Hey thanks! That means a lot :) I like to think this series cuts to the point, no extra cushion :)
Super Mario bros teaches without teaching
Le Person That was mine o^o
He is not talking about obstacles, but more about controlls. Mario Odessey doesn't do this, for example.
It doesn't really teach you without teaching. It really just throws you into a level and says "HOPE YOU ALREADY KNOW THE CONTROLS!! BYE!!"
@DarkGrisen lies
@DarkGrisen it teaches through death
My favorite game that has the silent tutorial or "teaching without teaching" is Super Metroid. I think that game did a wonderful job at it. Also this is a great series. Keep up the great work! :D
Yeah, very good example. I think I need to do an episode about it in the future. Thanks, I'm glad you like the series :) Will do!
excellent review! This is the type of analysis that is missing in most of these game reviews
This is my favorite sequalitis episode ever.
But seriously, very well made episodes snowmaN, you gotta subscriber!
It seems like such a simple concept, but the pampered casual gamer culture seems to bring in more money than those who can contextually figure out simple patterns, which I believe has a lot to do with the lack of this principle in most games. Awesome video.
Super Metriod
About you mentioning 140: thanks mate. It had gone totally under my radar. Picked it up last weekend, played it thru and just LOVED IT! Man, what a clean and pure design gem!
Isn't it just fantastic? I love that game!
seriously one of my favorite platformers ever.
Yeah. Shovel Knight does have a lot of that teaching. Only other game that comes to mind is the second level of Super Mario World where it has a whole bunch of enemies lines up in a row with a shell in front of them.
Really enjoyed the video. I believe you have a lot of potential for a wider audience with content like this. Keep it up!
Dude, I never realized just how subtlety YCG let you learn on your own. It's brilliant! Thanks for sharing this 😁
Green Hill Zone in Sonic 1 does this. There's a whole video about it from GeekCritique.
+Daniel Ziltener Oh yeah a great Sonic level
this was really good. thanks for making this!
Awesome video! My personal favorite 'teaching without teaching' game is Super Mario World. The way everything is taught to the player is incredible, because the player doesn't even need to start playing the game. In most games, when you first start it up, there's something to watch on the title screen, usually showing the game in action or a cutscene showing the background to the plot. In Super Mario World, the player is shown what seems to be just a regular level, but it shows the player everything that they need to know. It shows that Mario can jump on Koopas, sometimes knocking them out of their shells. He can pick up these shells and use them to hit blocks he can't hit by jumping. Yoshi comes out of the block, and, being a new mechanic, needs to be taught to the player. The player sees that he/she needs to jump on Yoshi to ride him, big dinosaur coins are good to collect, and Yoshi can eat fruit in the background. The player sees that you can speed up by running longer. Yoshi jumps onto the de-shelled Koopa and kills it, but also kills the shelled Koopa, showing that Yoshi is stronger than Mario. It then shows the different colors of Koopas, the fact that Mario can get knocked off of Yoshi if he gets hit, and that shells can kill multiple enemies when thrown. Yoshi is then shown eating an enemy that is too high to jump over and cannot be jumped on. You then see him land safely on a Piranha Plant that just jumped out of the bush, showing that enemies can come from places you wouldn't expect, but jumping with Yoshi will keep you safe.
It seems kind of dumb, especially with Mario being an established franchise, and it's not even gameplay, but it's able to teach the player levels worth of information in just 30 seconds.
In a way, Monster Hunter teaches you how to have easier times with certain monsters with necessarily teaching you straight up what to do. Whenever you fight a Monster for the first time, they sometimes stick items in the Supply Box, so it gives you an Idea of what you can do - like "Oh hey, here's a Flash Bomb for a monster that focuses on flying" or "Here's a piece of Tinged Meat so you know this monster will fall for that when it's tired." The entire concept of the game supports this too in how to fight each monster, as observation of each monster's attacks and telegraphs make this waaaay easier on you.
I started playing the game only a few weeks ago and have been enjoying every moment of it. I can't wait for king knights story, showdown, and dig
Just came into my mind, that Duke Nukem 3D's first level from 1st episode does this also quite well:
1) you have a roof at the start, where you have exploding containers you can shoot, wooden box you can smash and an AC that you have to break (if you shoot the containers, they break it). You learn, that the containers explode and destroy surroundings, when you shoot them, boxes can have loot inside and AC-pipes are something you can go crawl in.
2) you have to drop down so, that the game teaches you, that you'll take damage from high drops
3) there are windows, where one enemy starts shooting you: you learn, that some windows are secrets
4) there's also a flying dude in the start area, that teaches you, that you have to look up also (remember, that this was quite a new feature back then)
And so on... actually I think the first level in Duke 3D is really good level design, as it works great as both a campaign level AND as a multiplayer map.
Excellent analysis!
Hey man great videos, just watched 3 in a row, looking forward to watching the rest!
Hey thanks, yeah lots more analytical content on the channel, and more to come :D
Ridin' on cars!
Guitar riff
My absolute favorite "teaching without teaching" level is Luigi Raceway from Mario Kart 64. It gives the basics of racing games, while also pushing the player to test out the item system (you'll find that the first set of item boxes can't be missed easily; they're even before the first turn!) and the drifting system (the parachute that comes down, so the player finds the "hop" button that doubles as the drifting mechanic).
im a game desighner and im watching these to decide what game to make and how to make it! stay cool and eep up with the good game desighn advice.
I'm definitely checking out 140. Taking notes for later, if/when I make another game. Accomplishing that "teaching without teaching" thing is one of my goals but I always have to end up leaving messages for the player.
+jojogape Yeah, it's a perfect example of anything thats unnecessary is not there, and it still pulls it off. Minimalism done right.
"You just have to look at things objectively, see what you don't need anymore, and trim out the fat." - GLaDOS, always relevant
+jojogape I feel the same, especially when thinking about making a PC game.
There's so many damn buttons on the keyboard, how is the player supposed to know which button to push??
I guess the best way would be to have button prompts to teach which buttons are used in this game, but is that cheating? Is that still teaching without teaching?
I guess you could disguise the buttons the player is supposed to press by making the level layout resemble that button/key.Like, you're supposed to press S in order to go down a ladder, and the ladder's shape resembles an S. I don't know.
Braid. Portal.The Swapper. The Witness. Basically any good puzzle games.
The Witness is pretty much an entire game built around this concept
Devin Sloane
I'd say the concept of the game makes this structure very obvious.
Braid does the exact same thing, even spending an entire word on just platform mechanics and letting you know you can turn back time when you die.
If The Witness didn't do this well, it'd be the worst puzzle game in existence :D
Shovel knight got me into platformers this year im gonna start mega man legacy collection tonight. I never got into them before because I thought the jumping to certain places was too hard but shovel knight gave me the confidence and the passion to find more games like this
In Half Life 2 Ravenholm there is a circular saw that is blocking the path. You pull it out with the gravity gun. Then a zombie shows up. You instinctively throw it at him which chops him in half.
Now you learned the use of the best weapon against zombies
This reminds me of the Megaman X sequelitis.
However it's good to find games with a good game design. Who knows,maybe Yacht Club Games saw the Egoraptor video
Great video about a feature (or lack of feature?) in games, I miss myself way too often. I think, Teslagrad does a pretty good job, at this, too.
Also, I love how the bits of 140 you showed were the speedrun pro-way to play it (end of level 3) instead of the usual casual first time playthrough. :D
Zet Yup :) It's the gameplay I had on hand :P
The Talos principle really impressed me for the same reason. The game begins with a very linear sections to force us to understand the basic elements of gameplay. Each new mechanic is introduced by one or two very simple puzzle that only use this new gameplay element. Then, the followings puzzles are more complex and combine several gameplay elements.
The game is also interesting because it guides us by offering a logical order for completing the levels but we are free to choose our own order or skip a level at any time. We are also rewarded if we leave the boundaries of the game and try to explore the map.
+Skritz Yeah I've seen a lot about that game I'll have to check it out!
I really enjoyed this! As someone that's super into Shovel Knight, I really enjoyed a detailed look at the first level. Great vid!
Thanks for watching Perry, you da man :)
I just found this series.... And I'm in love with it👌💯😍
So much nostalgia man,
I'm reminded of Ducktales foremost, but I rarely get to mention this next one that burned into my being as a young'UN: ever play an NES classic called Ninja Crusaders?
The idea that boss fights took place over an entirely black background. Oooo, you knew something big was up
I like how Undertale teaches you that you can spare enemies without literally telling you "HEY, IF YOU PRESS ACT THEN MERCY YOU CAN SPARE ENEMIES" and it rewards you for sparing them too
+Superdude007 Yup, it does a good job of letting off the reigns but still "teaching" you
ya and it also rewards you for being a pacifist and not killing anybody
I'm running through Triforce Heroes, and I feel it does a good job in this area (once you get through the beginning text that's mostly plot-related). The gameplay tends to introduce a new item, then immediately gives you a set of simple puzzles that utilize the item's basic features. As you progress, the puzzles become more involved and require more teamwork to solve.
Since the game features an online mode with relatively limited communication - a set of 8 or so emotes to use - the game's ability to teach you becomes quite important. In fact, I rather like online mode's limited communication; if you had full communication, players that had already completed an area might just tell you the solution to various puzzles, which takes from the achievement of solving the puzzles yourself. Completing a level requires all players to solve the puzzles to some degree, not just one player barking orders at the other two.
+Page Book Yeah that's awesome! I've seen some gameplay of it and it looks really cool! Definitely makes full use of teaching through gameplay, I love it.
Great video :)
No idea how I found out about it, but great job. Subscribed!
Hah, well I appreciate it, thank you for watching and subbing :)
Ah yes... the teaching without teaching principle. Now I have another video to refer to besides Egoraptor's "Megaman Sequelitis" when my friends ask what I'm talking about with this design choice. Good vid, snomaN
Haha thanks man! Yeah, I'm basically talking about the same thing here. Appreciate it.
2:30 They also keep the entrance high enough away so you can't think "maybe I missed the correct way to go" and go back.
Yes! Exactly :) You MUST do it to proceed!
God, it's so satisfying when that snowball picks up that scarf, lmao
+Ashai Tides Hahaha yeah I love the intro
The binding of isaac is a good example to me. you start without knowledge about anything., but as you progress you will learn about enemy patterns or what a specific item does. and then you keep unlocking new things to see what they do and new floors to explore. it also helps that everything is randomly generated so if you play again it doesnt get boring.
+Luca Vissers YEAH! BoI is a strange beast because its REALLY confusing in the beginning, but it just takes time to master
I looove when games teach like this. I notice it right away and think it's great
This is one of my favorite games of all time! Flawless design, great difficulty, and feels so rewarding to beat. Plus has the best DLC that feels like a whole new game with in it!
Didn't read the comment, but I love your name!
I remember a video similar to this by Mark Brown; he mentions how in Half Life 2, you’re taught to use saw blades against zombies in Ravenholm without any text boxes either; just with good level design. That example always stuck with me.
VVVVVV Is a pretty good example. Most of the is governed by literally 2 movement options (walk and flip) but each zone has a different mechanic. Whether its confusing screen warps, weird Sprite monsters or strings that forced you to change direction, the game warms you up with each concept first, gradually making in harder as one progresses through the level. There are also 20 trinkets to collect. Some are found by exploration, but others require mastery of said mechanics from each zone. After one completes each zone, it throws you a final challenge, one that combines all these mechanics into a wonderfully difficult final level.
Super Mario Bros. was designed like that, as Shigeru Miyamoto once said. You run into the Goomba and die. So you learn you have to jump over it. Then the question mark blocks contain coins. So you hit them all. But then the mushroom looks a bit like a Goomba and comes out, so you try to avoid it. Only as a beginner you won't know it actually falls down, so it will hit you and make you bigger instead of die.
And so on.
The newest Kirby games have a pretty neat way of including tutorials. Simply put, it's just a bunch of signs in the background with a button and an illustration of what happens when you press it. And of course, the signs are placed right next to an obstacle that needs to be cleared with what it teaches you.
So when you do repeated playthroughs, you can just waltz past these obstacles while ignoring the signs. And these kinds of minimalist tutorials that don't break the pace work really well.
Super Metroid is the perfect example and yes,I know it has been said multiple times in the comments already.
Just the first 10 minutes of the game are perfectly designed: You get a short story bit at the beginning. You are a Samus a Bounty hounter, you defeated Mother Brain and killed all Metroids except a single one, which you gave to scientists on Ceres, so they can research it. The you get a signal, Ceres is under attack and fly back there.
You start at the top of a shaft only way is down. As a new player, you'll be cautious jumping down, and that's when you see the pink thingy in the top right corner starts to fill. You realize it's some sort of map.
When you reach the bottom there's a small arrow, showing you the door, go right. You jump up some stairs and you are in the next room, a smal obstacle, you can easily jump over and more stairs. It teaches you the jumping mechanics.
Next room. It goes further down but you also have to go a bit left, teaching you, that it you can also go back, important for later.
Next room. Dead scientists and the Metroid disappeared. You've seen this room in the intro. This creates tension.
Another short room with nothing, but then you enter the last room of the tutoriel. There is the Baby-Metroid. From the intro you now, Metroids are evil, so you shoot it. But nothing happens. Suddenly a big puple dragon thingie. Shoot it. It flys up. The intro had shown Samus aiming to the top right, o you intinctively use that knowledge to attack Ridley.
Once the Tutoriel bossfight is over, there starts a timer. You have one minute to escape. It's not too hard, but this makes sure, that the player knows the basic gameplay.
You are 5 to 10 minutes into the game and already know what to expect from the game and how the controls work, without a single textbox explaining anything.
The only textboxes are exist are: you found x, this is how you use it.
Best example for teaching without teaching here s when you get the Plasma beam:
You find a pile of enemies, that take some kill to kill, next room an enemy you can't hurt at all. Press further and you found Plasma beam. You try it out, it hurts the unhurtable enemy. you go back to the prvious room: It is way easier to destroy the pile now, the beam goes through that pile and hurts every one of them with a single shot. The game taught you what the beam does, without explaining what it does.
+AtomTomZeitalter YEAH that intro sequence is a perfect example of this principle. I've started, but havent finished Super Metroid. I need to do that lol
I think Metroid: Fusion does that very well as well. It DOES have some sort of Tutorial, but for the most part it lets you explore and find places you can't reach yet, but once you get a certain upgrade it let's you go there. For some parts there's multiple ways to get somewhere, so you can test a lot by yourself
+KyokiNoMonogatari Yeah thats a good example. Metroidvanias in general do a good job of telling you where to go simply by blocking certain paths.
I'm very impressed with how Shovel Knight handled its first level. I was honestly expecting a bunch of tutorial popups before I even got halfway through the level, but no such thing.
I think the only other example I can easily point to was the opening level of Mega Max X back on the SNES. It taught the controls in a very similar fashion.
Most of Mario games tend to do this as well as Tiny barbarians and Rayman games.
And though I agree with you wholeheartedly, not all genres can use this way of teaching i.e. strategy games or certain RPGs would have hard time to teach you everything you need to know, since those games have mechanics within mechanics within icons within abilities.
Teaching without teaching principle works best on games with simple mechanics or platformers.
I like your channel so much, I dont know how you dont have more subs
+Superdude007 Thank you that means a lot :) Hopefully I will continue to grow
MEGA MAN X. the intro stage is masterful, and I think Shovel Knight took inspiration from it.
Shovel Knight is one of the best games I have played! I love to figure out all my controls in the first level of any game, and i don't progress though the level until I have. I'm so glad this game doesn't interrupt the smooth gameplay with annoying tutorials.
Apparently MegaManX is really good for this as well.
I'm pretty confident that the background for bosses being plain black was a throw-back to NES graphics. Back then programmers would use background layers to animate the complex bosses because of the memory limitations for the number of sprites that could be displayed in the foreground at once.
Yes! That's why it's doubly cool! They didn't have to do that nowadays, but they gave the nod to the games that influenced it, while also using it to show off the new boss without distraction. Even cooler.
I love this way of learning because usually during tutorials I just ignore everything and then when the tutorial ends I don't have any idea what to do....
Random Example: Metroid on NES
At the beginning, you can't go very far right, so you end up having to go up and left to get the morph ball, your first power up. This is notable because Metroid games was one of the few platforming-heavy games that heavily emphasized exploration or vertical platforming, so simply reminding people that going up or left was possible mattered.
Then, once you have the morph ball, you can easily go through the narrow corridors. You've already seen these on the right section of the corridor, so after using it for the first time, the next course of action is clear. It also sets a precedent for the Metroid formula, where new items open up new areas.
If players want to explore every inch of the game, the way to Norfair has an easy to reach Missile upgrade. Though technically out of your way, it shows the benefits of simply exploring, and provides an opportunity to do some of that vertical platforming. Likewise, the Long Beam is also available as soon as you can carry a few missiles, but is never actually required. It is a purely optional reward for exploring and finding missiles Asap.
Shovel Knight, it's my favorite game of all time
Donkey Kong Country 2: Haunted Hall level. I have a blog-post planned about it, but really the whole game does this & is awexome; it's just that Haunted Hall is one I can really grok.
+Khyrberos Yes, that level really does teach you very well about the barrels and all that.
Cave Story I'd say is my favorite to do something like this mainly because it was the first to teach me like that and was my first indie game I owned
I'm planning on getting the Treasure Trove game on the Switch for my first game of Shovel Knight
Dragon Quest IX has a nifty part of its tutorial that goes by with minimal 'splaining.
Many strategy games try to do this by limiting your options early in the campaign to force you to learn the basic ones first.
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Battle for Wesnoth tries to even teach you the strategy basics (Village importance, Daytime importance, even Leader assasination, defensive formations, linebreaking) by the design of early scenarios of the lower inherent difficulty campaigns that are designed for starts (mainly Heir to the Throne, which is probably the campaign most players start with, as well as the most played campaign of the whole game).
I knew all this thanks to Egoraptor's review on Megaman X. When I started playing Shovel Knight, I started to notice the teaching without teaching thing and it was great.
I just found this vid because I wanted some one to acknowledge that it does this.
+Edward Gil (ObaREX) Yeah Egoraptor was a big inspiration for this series actually, I start to notice game design in every game I play now :)
snomaN Gaming Well you seem to actually committing to this. Your way of explaining it is good and necessary because Arin's vid on Megaman X (despite being very educational) is an older vid and people should be reminded of these things.
heres a random story about being taught stuff in games. One time I was playing pokemon, and I got the Bike, but I got annoyed at having to open the menu, then go into my bag, then finding the bike to use it. so when I got there i tried some buttons and found out how to register an item to the Y button in the DS pokemon games.
Great video thanks!
Nice topic and examples!
+TurnTheGameOn Hey thank you!
I"m one of the ones who hasn't played this yet. I think "rainbow puke bridge level" may have convinced me though. Nice video!
Haha! Thanks man I'm glad you liked it. Seriously, when I saw the "rainbow pukey bridge" for the first time, I was so happy hehe
Honestly, I’ve been pretty tolerant of tutorials, especially if they’re not stuff you’re forced to go through, and if they can easily be referred to in-game; a simple “Press A to jump, B to fire, Y to dash, X to use item, start for the menu” never hurt anyone. But I still agree that games like Shovel Knight do well at creating situations where you can discover mechanics and controls intuitively and experiment with them in safe areas before you’re required to really know them. Granted, I doubt games where you have a lot of possible actions at any time, like the Assassin’s Creed you show early on, could do this well, but it’s still a great idea when you can.
the hardest stage for me was lurch knight, because the invincibility item from his stage is really good.
Absolutely informative.
Fucking 140. I lost my shit when you mentioned that awesome game! I thought nobody knew about it!
the amazing thing is this game is gorgeous and its EIGHT BIT! Just nice and one of my fav games of today
+hjames78 Yeah, it's like an 8-bit and new gen hybrid, because it can have more colors on screen than the NES would allow, but its very obviously an homage to it.
Me, having played this, totally agree with the angler fish statement
I'd love to see a Good Game Design on 140, the games rhythm mechanics are great and you talk alot about it.
NINJATTILA I do love 140 so much, I would totally do a whole episode about it in the future, except I already covered a lot of it here :) Thought it fit pretty well with the theme hehe.
Spectre knight was my favourite boss. Unlike other bosses where I can play very aggressively, spectre knight taught me a bit of patience. Now I can do it perfect easily.
My favorite game that does this is Super Metroid! Specifically, I'm remembering a part where an enemy jumps out at you and you have to use a bomb to kill it, which accidentally breaks some terrain to show you where the next place to go is!
That is awesome, excellent example!
Jellanius Fisher Um, sorry? What's with you?
I think Super Mario (the first one) and Sonic the Hedgehog both do excellent jobs at teaching without teaching
Absolutely! Mario practically pioneered it!
As soon as I played Shovel Knight: I thought of the ''intro Stage'' video of Egoraptor. It's exactly like the intro stage of megaman X ''FUUUCCKKIIING GEEEEEEENIUS!!!''
Good video: Keep it up :)
+PopoTheFister Haha yeah it has very similar concepts. what a great video :P
Breath of the Wild is a good example. It teaches you the way the game’s world works in the massive Great Plateau. Though there’s some button prompts here and there, it’s generally teaching you how open the world is and the ways you can interact with it. One of the best tutorials I’ve played, imo.
I would have to add BoxBoy to that list of "Teaching Without Teaching." Even though there are short tutorials, and some books of tricks you can acquire, they only teach you the basics. When I got to Spiky's world, I wasn't even told what I had to do, but I had been learning about the different tricks available to me throughout the game, and after a bit of trial and error, and very generous checkpoints, I felt like a pro platformer, and a smarter one, too, since this is a puzzle platformer. Is it possible you could do a video on games like BoxBoy?
I like learning,
playing games too.
I usually like combinations,
but not between these two.
I had't really thought about this when I played Shovel Knight, as most of those things are intuitive for somebody who's been playing video games for many years. But you are right, this is a pretty good example of how a game should teach the player it's mechanics. This is also very present in games like Megaman X for example (and Shovel Knight obviously has a strong influence from games like Megaman), and hipefully more games will implement this sort of pseudo tutorials. There's nothing more annoying than having to stop every 2 seconds so the games tells you "press a to jump over the pit"
+Carlos Espinosa Yeah absolutely! That's why I love when games let you play to learn