The New Player Experience - Hooks, Tutorials, Rewards - Extra Credits

preview_player
Показать описание
A good new player experience consists of three pieces: the hook, the tutorial, and the reward. Spider-Man (2018) is an example that gets this right, by giving players an amazing experience right off the bat and not waiting until the second act.

___________

___________

___________

♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM

♪ Outro Music: "Mega Blocked"
By DaMonz, Trainbeat
Рекомендации по теме
Комментарии
Автор

So many great games never get noticed because they’re great 10 or 20 hours in. With literally hundreds of games coming out every day, we can’t afford that. In the first 10 minutes, games have to grab the player, teach them how to play, and get them wanting to come back.
Sound off in the comments with other examples of games you've seen that do (or horribly don't) get the new player experience right!

extrahistory
Автор

Portal 2's opening. "Say 'apple'." *Prompt: space bar: Say Apple.* *Presses space bar; jumps* "Okay, now what you just did is called jumping."

BusterBeachside
Автор

To be fair dying in the tutorial for Dark Souls absolutely delivers what you were promised when you picked up the game.

rickimaru
Автор

John Romero, while interviewed on the level design in DOOM, believed that the golden rule of level design: finish the first level last. "Because then you've learned everything about the game's level design, and you're going to put it all in the first level where you want people to get excited anyway."

chuckschwa
Автор

Best mechanical hook I've ever seen: Portal. The game makes you straight up wait in a box for a good minute... And then, bam... The portal opens and you see yourself just standing there (with your mind blown). I haven't seen anyone that wasn't just utterly fascinated by the first portal that opens and stepped through it repeatedly to figure out what is going on. So simple, yet utterly perfect.

Niosus
Автор

Nowadays the worst problem I've seen with games, and it's even worst in browser and mobile games, is how boring and tedious the tutorials are. Just a bunch of screens full of text constantly interrupting you from actually playing.
In my opinion, a good tutorial will teach the basics with words, and let you experience the rest as you advance. No reason to explain what every single icon in the HUD or every single in-game menu does when you simply don't need it yet.
Also, tutorials HAVE to be optional. Forcing a player to go through a boring tutorial for something maybe they already understand from similar games is a really bad idea.

DanCreaMundos
Автор

I think Breath of the Wild did this perfectly:

The visual hook, the unforgettable first vista showing you Hyrule and the narrative hook: calamity Gannon.

The tutorial shows you what you can do in a natural way, only using words for controls, also cementing the general loop of the game.

And finally the triple reward: narrative, short term (heart/stamina), and long term (paraglider). I can't imagine a better example of a reward that promises things about the future.

Over a year since it came out and this brilliant game continues to surprise me!

tajdyson
Автор

Good 10 to 20 hours in. So, after the character creation screen?

scottrauch
Автор

Oblivion: Hey, do you like dark caves?
Player: No, they're really du-
Oblivon: *GREAT BECAUSE YOU'LL BE LOOKING AT THEM FOR AN HOUR STRAIGHT*

andrasfogarasi
Автор

final fantasy 7's intro is the best example i can think of that, it starts with a cg of midgar (which was mind blowing at the time) and goes right into a fight with with characters that already know each other and you slowly learn what they're doing through dialogues and context, without feeling like they're explaining it directly to you, then you plant a bomb, fight fucking giant robot, run from the bomb's explosion, buy a flower from a cute girl and THEN the game starts. Its the game that got me into jrpgs, and i think the intro is a big reason for that

kile
Автор

I gonna really show my age here. But a great visual hook/tutorial is the demo disc of final fantasy 8 inside of brave fencer musahi (I think). The opening cutscene not only is beautiful, the pulsing heartbeat with the music is building to something, then the character is looking at a map of the island and as he pulls it down, the music swells and it reveals the battle that's raging there and you're heading straight for it. It gets you pumped and then throughout this whole battle, you're learning about the game in engaging setting.

Aging_Casually_Late_Gamer
Автор

Here's my new player experience in Doom (the new one), sometime after having played and enjoyed the old one:

- Doom guy wakes up and breaks out of chains and smashes some demon's head. This is the hook. The voice telling you to rip and tear, the immediate stress of doom guy realizing he's chained to a coffin or something and there comes a demon, and him smashing his way out of it tells you what kind of game Doom is right away just in case you didn't already know.
- I get to shoot some demons with the pistol. This is the beginning of the tutorial.
- I push a button on a door to open it and snag my suit and be introduced to two characters - one who is clearly a bad guy, and another who I'm inclined to believe is a bad guy but I'm not so sure. This is just a quick way to introduce us to part of the story, as these are the two most important characters in the game, with the exception of Vega.
- I go into the hallway ready to shoot more demons, but a prompt interrupts me and tells me I should push a button to "glory kill" them instead. I'm not a fan of prompts stopping the whole game, but in this case it's a warranted interruption since glory kills are arguably the most important mechanic in the whole game. The player was going to shoot those zombies just like the last ones, but the game stops the player and instead introduces them to the wonders of beating demons to a pulp.
- I go into a room, grab a shotgun, destroy a gore nest after a computer tells me there's too many demons, and fight the first complicated "arena full of demons" fight in the whole game. It's just imps for now, but it gives the new player a taste of what is to come, and it's still challenging because the player at this point only has a shotgun and a pistol. This right here is kind of the tutorial. There's not much to lose for dying at this part of the game, and the player puts all the pieces of movement and shooting and glory kills together to learn by experience what works and what doesn't for slaying demons. The player gets better over time later too, but this is the first foray, so this is where a player can first see which ideas are good, and which ones don't work in Doom.
- I get on an elevator, punch Sam Hayden's stupid screen, see the doom logo, and pump my shotgun, and I'm off into the actual game. This right here is the reward - overlooking the martian terrain as the elevator comes to a stop, pumping a shotgun as the metal dies down, and getting to work.

blehmeh
Автор

My "New Player Experience" for Factorio was watching videos about Factorio for weeks, finding out that its price was about to go up due to nearly being completed, and trying out the demo...which is basically a tutorial with narrow mission goals and just barely enough tools to solve them. The latter introduced the mechanics without giving me enough rope to hang myself with; the former showed me what was possible if I had all the rope.

timothymclean
Автор

The original Halo. Such a great intro that pulled you in, gave you enough to go on with the narrative but left you with questions, then had you move without a gun to get to the bridge yourself to make sure you know those basics before finally handing you a pistol. You get to take some easy shots against some Grunts, then you get your first assult rifle and tutorial's over, because those Marines are getting slaughtered and you're needed to save the day *right now*.

Great intro segment.

moonblaze
Автор

I just realised that with one visual hook, the player seeing herself through a portal, the 30+minute tutorial feels totally worth it in Portal.

Kapin
Автор

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective has a phenomenal opening and hook.

tooawesomepeoples
Автор

Got to love the Dwarf Fortress tutorial.

Teamotei
Автор

Yeah the spiderman tutorial was one of the best I've seen in a while mixes narrative, visual, and and mechanical.

darkmyro
Автор

I have been playing through Breath of the Wild recently and I think it had an excellent new player experience, especially with its tutorial and reward. You could consider the whole great plateau a tutorial that introduces all of the game’s main mechanics in a very non intrusive way that feels like the rest of the experience. I think BotW shines with it’s reward when you get the paraglider and you finally have the ability to get off the plateau and explore wherever you want.

Chariot_Rider
Автор

I'm replaying (and trying to beat for the first time since I wasn't good enough as a kid) Metroid Prime and the intro is so good.
You get the taste of Samus' power before it's taken away and you want it back.

luliby