Tutorials have become an indispensable part of the Game Designer's toolkit, because while game mechanics may be perfectly clear to developers during production, handing them over to players can represent too steep a step for those players.
That step carries a major risk: if the player gets lost, or doesn't grasp the fundamentals of the game, they'll eventually leave. That was my case with Stellaris (a 4X grand strategy space game), whose sheer number of features lost me completely. Sure, there's an introduction, but it failed to make the basics click for me, which ruined the experience.
So how do you convey the developers' intent without turning it into a school lesson, breaking the (already fragile) immersion in the game?
The solution: a tutorial designed for players.
A video game tutorial is the entire set of tools a designer puts in place to teach the player the rules and mechanics of the game, before or during play.
That covers very different things: a text screen before the game starts, an NPC telling you "press A to jump," a room designed so you discover on your own that a crate can be pushed, or an enemy placed exactly there so that dying to it teaches you not to charge in headfirst.
What do they have in common? They exist to reduce entry friction. Their goal isn't to explain the whole game, but to give the player the minimum keys needed to start playing independently.
Key concepts
Learning safe space
Before throwing the player into the deep end, most games set up a protected space: an environment with no real stakes, where they can fumble, fail, and start over without any cost. This is where they test the controls, get a feel for the game's physics, and discover the first basic features.
This is called the learning safe space. Its purpose is to build the player's confidence and early reflexes before real gameplay begins. In essence: try things, explore, there are no consequences.
Scaffolding
Borrowed from educational psychology, scaffolding refers to the temporary support structure placed around learning, gradually removed as the player gains skill.
In practice: you don't dump every mechanic at once.
You break things down step by step. First walking, then jumping, then running, then chaining the two together, then adding the wall jump. Each step is presented and (in theory) mastered by the player before the next one is introduced. Visual cues and text hints accompany the first attempts, then disappear once the mechanic has been internalized.
The goal is to keep the player within what psychology calls the Zone of Proximal Development : a challenge stimulating enough to maintain engagement, but never overwhelming enough to discourage. Too easy, and players get bored. Too hard, and they ragequit. It's the same principle as the flow state discussed in an earlier article.
Immediate feedback loop
Every player action in the tutorial must trigger an instant, clear response, whether visual, audio, or physical.
When the player presses the right button, the game must immediately signal that it was the correct action. If the action fails, the feedback must be just as explicit so the player understands why it didn't work.
This mechanism is what establishes cause and effect in the player's mind. Without immediate feedback, learning doesn't stick. The player repeats actions without understanding their logic, and eventually disengages.
Introduction curve
A game can have the best mechanics in the world, but if they all arrive at once, the player drowns. This is what's known as information overload: too much information to absorb in too short a time.
The introduction curve addresses this. The Game Designer sets a pace for how mechanics are presented, generally following three steps:
- Introduce the mechanic
- Have the player practice it in a simple context
- Confirm mastery in a real challenge before introducing the next one
This curve follows the scaffolding principle mentioned earlier.
That pace isn't linear, though: it also includes quieter moments and phases that group mechanics together to reinforce what's been learned. Active learning requires concentration, which causes fatigue. Alternating discovery moments with calmer ones keeps engagement up over time.
Consistency of conventions
Whether on PC or consoles, developers have established control-mapping and feedback conventions over the years.
If "A" jumps at the start of the game, "A" must always jump. If red signals danger, it must always signal danger. This might seem obvious, yet it's one of the first things that drifts in poorly designed games.
Consistent conventions reduce the player's cognitive load. They let players rely on what they've already learned, and even on what they know from other games: left stick to move, ledges marked in yellow for climbing (recent Tomb Raider games made this a visual signature), shiny objects to indicate interactivity.
All these shared industry codes create familiar ground, even in an unfamiliar world. The player doesn't have to relearn everything from scratch.
« Don’t make me think »
This concept isn't limited to tutorials and explanatory phases. It applies to the game as a whole.
The principle comes from web usability, popularized by Steve Krug, and it applies to video games with the same force: if the player has to make a mental effort to figure out how to interact with the interface or controls, the design has failed.
A good tutorial explains itself. An obvious action doesn't need a wall of text.
A well-designed interface fades into the background: the player's attention stays on the gameplay, not on decoding what's expected of them. The moment doubt creeps in, the moment ambiguity appears, friction builds up. And friction costs you players. This is a recurring problem for games originally designed for PC, where console ports run into trouble: menu navigation is much smoother with a keyboard and mouse, which makes console interfaces feel clunky and hard to maneuver.
Types of tutorials
Explicit tutorial
This is the most recognizable form, and often the least loved: text screens, pop-up windows, an NPC who stops to explain "press RB to block." The game literally steps outside gameplay to talk to you directly.
That said, this approach has a major advantage: it's clear, thorough, and hard to miss. For complex systems (a 4X, an MMO with dozens of interlocking mechanics), it's sometimes the only viable option.
World Of Warcraft is the typical example: the starting zone runs through a chain of guided quests, each introducing a mechanic with its own explanatory text, a marked objective, and immediate rewards.
The downside is exactly what was mentioned in the intro: the school lesson. If an explicit tutorial is too long, too wordy, or disconnected from the action, it breaks immersion before it even begins.
It's often the default option, not the most elegant one, but sometimes the most honest choice for a game that genuinely has a lot to explain.
Tutorial integrated into gameplay
Here, the game starts immediately. You learn by playing, in real situations designed to introduce a mechanic exactly when it becomes relevant.
Portal is the perfect example. Each test chamber introduces a new property of the Portal Gun (creating a portal, walking through it, using momentum to cross a gap) in an enclosed space with no risk of death, before combining it with previous mechanics in increasingly complex chambers.
At no point does the player read "here's how a portal works." They're simply faced with an obstacle they can only cross by placing one, and the solution emerges through experimentation.
This is scaffolding in its purest form: each step builds on the last, and the player progresses through their own Zone of Proximal Development without it ever needing to be named. Learning is part of the gameplay itself.
Environmental tutorial
No text, no NPC, no pop-up. It's the level design itself (its composition, lighting, geometry) that conveys the information.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild gives a masterclass demonstration with the Great Plateau. This starting area is a condensed version of all the game's core mechanics: climbing, paragliding, cooking, shrine puzzles, managing cold. Nothing is written down, but everything is placed to be discovered in a coherent order, within a space restricted enough that exploration remains guided without feeling directed. This level is widely considered a benchmark of level design.
This is where consistency of conventions becomes essential: a slightly textured ledge, a differently lit outcrop, a path that naturally winds toward the next point of interest. Visual language replaces language altogether.
The player feels like they discovered everything on their own (which is indirectly false), making the learning all the more memorable.
Tutorial through controlled failure
The most radical form: the game explains nothing, but lets you fail under conditions where failure carries no real consequence, so the lesson sinks in through experience rather than explanation.
Dark Souls has become its symbol.
No text-based tutorial, but a starting cell containing a corpse holding a message, an enemy placed right after to teach you that charging in headfirst doesn't work, and messages left by other players acting as community signage.
Every death teaches something: the location of a trap, an enemy's pattern, a direction to take.
What makes this approach viable is the immediate feedback loop: the punishment is instant and unambiguous, and the player understands exactly why they failed. The friction exists (and is fully owned by the design) and is part of the contract made with the player from the very first minutes. It's a risky bet, one that can discourage just as much as it can hook players, but it turns failure itself into a teaching tool.
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