How do your players figure out the rules for your game? Are they reading instructions or using trial and error? Like most things in video game design, a well thought out plan for how your players will discover your rules can help your game more enjoyable and interesting for everyone who picks it up. [MUSIC] Documentation. Some rare players might want to read instructions for your game, but they are the exception to the rule. Most players will not look in the box for a manual or search for it online before they start up your game and give it a try. Though some manuals are well designed and some can contain interesting tips, illustrations and extras, few are read, and games should make sense to a player who is only learning the game by playing it. This isn't to say that your players won't be doing any reading in the game. Lots of games have in-game documentation. These aren't usually manuals and they rarely get longer than a few sentences. A screen may pop-up with some text that explains the rules of gameplay or some item in your inventory may labeled with text explaining it's purpose. Try to keep this sort of documentation clear and brief when it's used. Every time your player has to stop playing to read instructions, it takes them out of the game a little bit. [MUSIC] Narration. One step up from documentation is narration. Instead of giving us text to read, some games choose to give us audio narration to guide us through gameplay. The nice part about this method is it can often happen in the background as a player continues to explore. The player can continue to be inside the game. Just make sure that your narration isn't redundant. It should explain things in your game that the player can't learn in other ways. >> Fran said thoughtfully. >> That's redundant. You're not giving the audience any new information. >> Fran said, annoyed? >> [SOUND] If narration is used well, it can be integrated into your story and it can tell the player things they would have no other way of knowing. Sometimes a game might turn the narration into a character in itself. Portal and Portal 2 are games that do this brilliantly. The narration comes from characters that are rarely seen, but since the narration itself always has unique personality, the player feels like they're listening to a character and experiencing the game, rather than listening to an instruction book. [MUSIC] In-Game Discovery. There is an old rule in writing. Show, don't tell. What it means is that, when possible, a player should be experiencing the story with all their senses rather than just being told things. My friend and I have worked out a little example here. >> Don't eat these things. They'll make you explode. I wonder what one of these things taste like. [SOUND] >> Notice how both of these examples explain the exact same thing. If you eat that thing, you explode. However, the tell version is a lot less interesting, exciting, and memorable than the show version. Whenever possible, try to let your players discover the rules by experiencing them. For example, if a large part of your game involves a character doing acrobatics at death-defying heights, maybe the first level can give them some space where they can jump around closer to the ground. They can explore their abilities in an environment where initial mistakes won't result in their immediate death. And they can get to understand the rules before moving on to the tough stuff. If you wanna check out a game where all three of these techniques are used together, try out Trine, which lets you discover the gameplay rules at the start of the game through documentation. There's a storybook text, and there's some narration. There's a classic storybook narrator telling you about the characters. But there's also some early levels that are set up to give you a chance to try out all the different powers and abilities of all the three playable characters.
