But when I tell Grammarly what I’m trying to do, it thinks I want to write the next Odyssey movie.
Do you need help writing a battle tutorial?
Is it possible to build a tutorial that introduces less mechanics one battle at a time? A battle that needs to explain five new elements could feel like an info dump. Introducing only two might feel more manageable
Yes, I slowly introduce additional battle mechanics in upcoming battles. Telling players what they are fighting. Which character works best against them. Who is worst. Which skill or magic to use. So players know who the DPS is and who to use as support. And forewarn players of any special attacks or abilities. At least for the 1st 6 fights. Then I let players figure it out themselves. Of course, they can always skip the tutorials if they want to figure it out on their own. I cut the info significantly. So here is what I have now.
In this first tutorial battle, you will face
Evil
Humans. They are
Weak to Firewind’s
Purify spell (125% damage) and Vincent’s
Man-hunter bane skill (dealing 150% damage). They are also
Resistent (reducing damage by 25%) to
Torment.
In the main menu, under Status, you can find a reference guide explaining each character’s strengths and weaknesses.
Books covering magic, bestiary and weapon types, will be provided early on in the game. Also, for reference only. Lore is also provided for those that are interested.
The best tutorials in game design has zero words, and instead allow the player to play around and see how things work. You have a tutorial battle with four unfamiliar enemies, and two controllable actors. It will likely be less overwhelming if you reduced it to one unfamiliar enemy, and one player character. That said, it looks like you’re building a game with type matchups and the big comparison I can name would be Pokemon. Unfortunately Pokemon is a game that will spend an entire playthrough teaching the player all their type matchups.
IMO it’s often better to let the player wander around with partial knowledge of all your game mechanics. They will instead learn part by part as they progress through the game.
Example: the original Final Fantasy 7 doesn’t give you a tutorial until literally in the middle of the game. They pull this off by making the game easy enough to just spam attack to succeed. By the time the player makes it to the mid-game where the tutorial is finally accessible, any mechanics the player hadn’t figured out can be explained without overwhelming them with a hundred unfamiliar terms
I actually checked FF7, and there isn’t a combat tutorial there, even for the boss battle. The opening combat is very easy and gives Cloud a very limited number of options, so the player can figure it out by experimenting.
My situation is different. All four of my characters are playable in the tutorial, and each has 8 skills. Two are better at dealing damage, while the other two can buff the party or inflict abnormal status effects or steal. The tutorial battle is intentionally easy so the player can experiment with all of those abilities without being overwhelmed, and it’s also completely skippable. They are all the same creature type. It’s not until chapter 5 that there are different creature types in the same battle. Two previous enemies and two new ones.
I’m not trying to teach the player every matchup or mechanic at once. The detailed matchup information is available in the menu under status as an optional reference.
After the tutorial battle, they lose all their skills but two. So the player knows what they’ve lost and will be more determined to regain them.
Then, as the player progresses, the game gradually reintroduces the mechanics. For example, one character recovers a combat ability that is useful against a boss, and there’s a short tutorial explaining what that ability does when it becomes relevant.
So I’m actually following the principle you’re describing: let the player learn by playing, don’t dump all the information on them at once, and introduce mechanics gradually when they become relevant. The initial tutorial is just there to give the player a safe opportunity to experiment with a combat system that is considerably more complicated than FF7’s opening combat.
It sounds like we’re on the same page, then I don’t have much more to add. More power to you
I know I’m coming in at the tail end but why even have the initial tutorial then? Learning the nuances of these skills isn’t really relevant until the actors relearn them. So why not save the tutorial for that moment but let the player experiment in the actual beginning.
Your current description makes it seem like the player goes through a tutorial twice and even if the skill was introduced in the beginning, you’re kind of sending them back to a tutorial (I imagine skippable) in the latter half once it matters.
I didn’t consider that. Yeah, they would be relearning the same tutorial twice. And that’s silly. Plus, all the skills and spells say what they work against in the description. I should just leave up the characters’ basic roles. Although that might not be necessary either. If they can just read what their skills do. But it does show the character’s personality a little bit.
You’re expecting the player to read???
On a serious note, I consider it more important to reflect the character’s personality in the story elements and making sure the narrative reflects how the character views the world/thinks. While emphasizing this through their skills/mechanics is also good, its probably the least likely place to be seen.