How a video game’s tutorial can enhance the game’s feel.
Tags: Game feel/ Animal Well/ Cyberpunk 2077/ Nier Automata/ tutorials/ immersion
Spoilers for: the opening 15 minutes of 'Animal Well', a tutorial in 'Cyberpunk 2077' and the tutorial area of 'Nier Automata'
I have recently started playing one of the big hits from this year; ‘Animal Well’ the 2D exploration-platformer with wonderfully delicious throwback pixel aesthetics; faux-CRT-TV scan lines to boot!
You play as a small defenceless blob in a dark and mysterious world full of furry friends and foes; knowing which is which can be a little tricky.
One of the things I have most enjoyed about my early playthrough of Animal Well is the total elegance of its initial tutorial. You start with some basic exploration; you can move left or right in the world; you can jump; you can fall down gaps which is bad and if there is a gap at the edge of a screen (that isn’t a fall) then it will take you to the next part of the map. Pretty standard stuff.
But, then I get to the first enemy (this blue ghosty thing to the left); it takes up a lot of the screen and it’s obvious that there is no real way past it. I backtrack to the previous area and the only the obvious path is not an option as it is too high to jump to (perhaps I need some kind of double jump…). As I stand, though, and continue to look around I notice a little section of the screen; it’s a small nook but it looks like it would take you to another part of the map. I go that way and there we have it, a new section I hadn’t noticed before- and why would I have, there had been a clear and obvious way forward up until that moment. I make my way along this section and find something to pick up, so I do and it pops into my inventory. It’s a firecracker I am told I can throw and it is immediately equipped for me. I keep going along a couple of corridors until I come to a dead end, except for a little platform to jump up to. I do this and I am back at the enemy I encountered earlier. Time to run away again… but wait. Now I have my firecracker; it’s already equipped; I can see it at the bottom of the screen. I press throw and my blob character chucks the firecracker, which lets off a delightful fanfare of sparks, crackles and smoke. My spectral pursuer shudders at the sight of it and disappears.
“Haha! I did it!”, I say to myself triumphantly.
Or did I…
It was not obvious at the time, but as I rolled back my memory of the events it became obvious that this was the one and only intended path of progression. I had seen a few routes and options but no matter which I tried to take they were all going to circle me back to this moment; a moment that taught me how to read my environment and look for hidden paths, how to spot items in the environment, how to equip and use items and how to deal with enemies. But, in the moment it just felt like I was on a little adventure; exploring, scavenging and relying on my wits to survive.
In retrospect, this perspective of being a lone adventurer is totally false, or at least fabricated. The moment was completely scripted from start to finish, but because it was guided by the designer’s invisible hand it left me with a sense of personal discovery rather than plodding an intended path. And, because that hand was invisible it allowed me to ‘just play’ the game and explore then get a sense of achievement from doing something that felt so much like an independent, spontaneous choice. When that choice paid off it felt like it was all me and it felt great.
I want to compare this to when you first get an automatic weapon in Cyberpunk 2077. You get given the weapon and you are offered the chance to pop a microchip into your head to enter an assault rifle tutorial. I personally chose to take this in case the shooting mechanics were different from how other first-person shooters play. There follows a pretty mundane go round a practice yard shooting targets. The player character, V, takes the tutorial chip out and you go back into the main game. I do indeed now know how to use the weapon but personally I felt bored by the tutorial as the developer very openly guided me through the ins and outs of the weapon.
I am, of course, being slightly unfair to Cyberpunk 2077 here; the shooting mechanics are much more complex than the Animal Well firecracker; the tutorial was skippable; the developers of Cyberpunk did an excellent job of keeping the tutorial true to the world with the use of the brain chip; the aesthetic of the firing range was in-keeping with the game; and finally there are a number of mechanics* in the game which are taught in a much more invisible-handed way, such as driving.
There is always a problem of increasing complexity of games and making tutorials palatable and complementary to the world and intended experience
My main point here though is that in the Animal Well tutorial it allowed me to feel a real sense of autonomy and control in the game and that this feeling appeared pretty intentional by the developer (Billy Basso). I think that this is a really important factor to be considered when developing tutorials and how they can be used to enhance or complement the intended emotional experience of the game as a whole. Animal Well is a game about exploration and learning to manage as a small creature in a mysterious and scary world. A tutorial that allows you to explore and overcome; to discover and develop a sense of control over this enigmatic environment suits it well. A handheld tour through the mechanics would have felt jarring and dissonant to the rest of the game. Billy took the main emotional throughline of the opening of the game and weaved that into how the tutorial is delivered.
Billy Basso; the developer of Animal Well
So, it's not so much that I want more exploration or invisible-hand work in Cyberpunk 2077 tutorials. In that game I really just want to feel like a badass who throughout the course of the game is becoming even more badass. If we go back to think about learning how to use automatic weapons we can consider that to achieve something like this maybe instead the tutorial could have just been an early combat mission where, perhaps, you were given a single use insertable chip that slows down when your brain notices you need to do something like reload or take cover or aim (a little like the dead eye mechanic in Red Dead Redemption), or a chip that does some of these for you to reduce your cognitive load* at this point. These chips could then be taken away from you after the mission as you have learned the necessary skills.
Yes, this absolute behemoth is part of the tutorial in Nier Automata!
Something like this actually happens in the tutorial area for Nier Automata, another game with chips. Before you even know what chips are, you already have some in play; one that particularly stands out to me is a chip that will automatically use one of your healing items (of which you are given plenty for this section) if your health goes below 20%. This is a great idea, as there is a lot happening in this tutorial area; a lot of enemies to deal with, mechanics to learn and a fairly complex HUD* and menu if you go into that. A chip which basically makes sure that you don’t die is a perfect little addition to a tutorial area to allow you to focus on the battle and get through it with little to no deaths. It also does this without making the challenge too easy, so it feels like you have personally overcome a significant challenge. This helps you to feel like the badass combat robot you are, despite the fact that you are still learning the basics of the game.
For me then, this early section of Animal Well was an excellent example of how awareness and management of player experience helped create an intended emotional state and how different elements of the game- such as this tutorial- can be designed to enhance or diminish that intended emotional state. It showed a great awareness of the over-arching themes of the game and how each element of the experience could be used to work in harmony rather than create jarring immersion breaks. Many games and developers already do this well and I hope more continue to in future.
That’s how I feel about this. You might feel different and that is OK.
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Notes
Mechanics: These are the things you can 'do' in a game, sometimes called 'the verbs' you have, e.g. 'interact with', 'shoot', 'use', 'punch', etc.
Cognitive Load: This refers to the notion that the brain can only stay on top of so many things at once and if you are trying to manage to many ideas in your head at once your output in the world starts to fall off and your quality is reduced.
HUD: This is your 'Heads-Up Display' which refers to the information you are given on the screen at anytime that isn't the game itself (environment, NPCs, player characters, etc.). This, then, is often graphics showing the weapon or inventory item you have equipped, your health bar, presented information your score or time left, weapon ammo, aiming reticule, etc.
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