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3. Intuitive Game Mechanics
See that photo above with the PS4 controller and the bazillion lines pointing to different buttons? I absolutely hate screens like this. Sometimes, developers think they can get away with flashing one of those during a ten second loading screen to show you how to play. Yet, something like this almost always fails at teaching the mechanics of a game for a couple major reasons:
- We have limits to how much information we can process at once, which is a phenomenon called information overload. So, when a controller screen pops up for a short time, it’s hard to absorb everything it displays.
- We tend to learn best when we actively engage in an activity instead of just passively learning about it.
Of course, developers also do the complete opposite of this brief controller screen, which are lengthy tutorials that can last for multiple hours. Some of my favorite games, like Xenoblade, fall victim to this kind of set-up, making a large portion of the experience completely tedious. Video games are an interactive medium, so game mechanics should be taught in an efficient, interactive way.
On NES, games like Mega Man understood this well and taught players without tutorials. Sure, the game is really simple because all you can do is run, jump, and shoot, but you also have to learn about hazards that are in your way. In order to do this, the developers placed these hazards in such a way that allows you to learn about their effects through the level design instead of text prompts. For example, enemies like Sniper Joe are placed far away so you can see their attack pattern before you confront them.
This style of learning is another big reason why I love NES games. If more games could adopt a more proactive tutorial that is taught through level design, they would be a lot easier to learn.
