My favorite rule was when Fan said I could add dragons to my game and get an automatic +1 in all design categories 😀
In all seriousness, I think PvsZ is well-known for having an excellent tutorial sequence considering its expansive strategic mechanics. I think one of Fan’s most useful tips was his last one, when he described how much he leveraged prior knowledge in the initial design of the game. It’s so easy to get swept up in the novelty of making a fun experience that we forget we have shared cultural understandings that we, as designers, can utilize more effectively as we build games.
My sketchnote documents the 10 tips Fan provides for a good tutorial. I have some doodles that connect to examples he provided (the chameleon, the shovel, the peashooter vs repeater, etc). I also use green to indicate some personal notes I have for the P4 assignment. Does Conclave successfully stagger mechanics? Should Conclave employ more adaptive messaging? How can we leverage prior knowledge in our visual design? Fan’s suggestions are geared towards strategy games, considering that’s the genre for PvsZ, but I think the spirit of a good tutorial is sufficiently generalizable across all genres.
