Reintroducing Tutorial Levels? (issue 336)

[Forestidia86]

Someone made an issue about reintroducing the tutorial levels.
This is something that could be discussed.
I'm personally ambivalent about this:

On the one hand quite a few users seem to want them.
And it helps not getting stuck only because you don't know the mechanics.

But on the other hand there are advanced mechanics/tricks where the main puzzle of a level is to find that mechanics/trick out.
Furthermore the basic tutorial levels can be very bland.

There are old tutorial levels still available in the forum and in Clam's (Outtakes) and Rubix' pack are levels that are or could count as a tutorial.

[ccexplore]

While we can discuss and even vote on it, I think it's tricky because as veterans we tend to have the least use for them.  It's more about which approach to take for beginners for whom most of the game elements are still quite new to them.  We would need more inputs and observations from such people to have informed decisions.  On that note, I do recall Simon reported previously on the experience of at least one person who never played any Lemmings game previously, trying out Lix for first time.  Don't remember though whether the tutorial levels were still there or not at the time.

I do feel that we should also separate the discussion between tutorials for the absolute basics of the game, from the apparent secondary discussion around "advanced" tutorial focusing on more advanced mechanics/tricks.  I'm a bit more skeptical of the latter; if we even consider it in any form, I think it would more than suffice to have levels in earlier ranks where player must use some specific common mechanics/tricks to pass, moves that we expect to become basic know-hows on harder ranks.

[nin10doadict]

In my mind the straight-up tutorial levels for Lix don't seem necessary, or maybe only for the Lix-specific skills like the cuber. I feel like most people who are going to play Lix are probably those who have played Lemmings before (or at least should? ) It really depends on what the target audience is, and I personally view Lix as a game for veterans seeking a challenge.

[Proxima]

In ordering the lemforum set, I've always tried to keep in mind how the set would come across to someone who's never played Lix before. So L2 "Pipe Dream" can be solved with only one skill type (basher); L3 "Building Block Maze" adds the builder; and so on. The sequence of levels ends up working out pretty well in terms of gradually increasing the player's knowledge, and later levels building on knowledge gained in earlier ones.

However, the biggest problem has been that after making 240 excellent levels, we didn't want to throw any out and start over; so we've had to work within the set of existing levels. If I were starting the set from scratch, I'd never choose basher and builder as the first two skills to introduce, nor would I put a long and complex map like "Pipe Dream" so early.

I agree that it might be a good plan to add a short rank of 10 levels specifically designed to be tutorials. The work on ordering the lemforum set won't be wasted, because it's still good to arrange the pack with a sensible progression of required knowledge -- for one thing because a tutorial level can't convey every nuance of each skill; for another thing, because you know that some players will want to skip the tutorial rank and jump right in with the "real" levels

[IchoTolot]

I think a little extra rank for tutorial levels would be a good thing to have, especially for the lix exclusive skills. Also people seem to ask specifically for it and I don't see a reason why adding this is a problem. Every game should also address completely new players and I see the lix lemforum pack the main pack lix comes with.

I wouldn't touch the current ordering of levels for that, that's why a small extra rank for them would be more suitable.

These levels should focus on teaching the basic use of each skill, the more advanced uses need to be discovered during the main part of the pack.

EDIT: Maybe the ex/imploder case would need a bit more specialiced level to make the difference clear.

[Simon]

The basics of all 14/15 skills is explained in the tooltip when you mouse over the skill button. The ~5 earliest maps in lemforum should work well with these tooltips. I'm reluctant to throw at new players easier maps than those.

I don't like Any Way You Want's death drop in new players' very first level. Unsure whether Any Way You Want should be replaced or whether new players should start with tutorials. I'm okay with the many skills in AnyWay, this presents the game. AnyWay isn't solvable with runners, and I'd happily exchange (AnyWay solvable with floaters) for (no death drop in AnyWay). But this is material for another thread.

I'm leaning towards Tutorials for trickier rules and corner cases. Walker-to-walker is allowed and turns instead of cancels. Walker-to-blocker is allowed and cancels the blocker. Walker-to-climber is still disallowed, the walker cannot be assigned to everything. The walker is a cornucopia of special cases.

Exploder, imploder, yes, these need clarification. It's the only skill with such a split per level.

I'm neutral on trick tutorials. More than trick tutorials, I prefer smaller non-tutorial levels focussing on tricks, but that is then not a tutorial.

-- Simon

[RubiX]

The way I see things is that having tutorial stuff (even for absolute basics... learning each skill etc)  is certainly more about 'polishing' the game to a point where people who never grew up with lemmings like us can get involved in this game as a complete noob with no knowledge of what lemmings is about.

For any veteran lemmings player, testing a new addition/skill on-the-fly is just obvious to us.    We don't need tutorials, and know its just a feature to make the game even more new-user friendly.



I think it mainly comes down to the multiplayer aspect where tutorial stuff will be most beneficial.   Multiplayer is strategy, where single player is puzzle.   
Theres so much going on in multiplayer that tips can really help, but I guess its just more about the time spent = skill level gained.

[ccexplore]

I think it mainly comes down to the multiplayer aspect where tutorial stuff will be most beneficial.   Multiplayer is strategy, where single player is puzzle.   
Theres so much going on in multiplayer that tips can really help, but I guess its just more about the time spent = skill level gained.

For multiplayer, I suspect a collection of YouTube videos of showcase matches with expert commentary added, might work better to educate.  There are far less (or just plain none) opportunities compared to singleplayer where the player can afford/be allowed to pause or backtrack or try different things, at least not without going through multiple matches.  So I'm not seeing any tutorial-like things inserted or built into the level working too well in multiplayer compared with singleplayer mode, IMHO.

[RubiX]

Yea I think cc is right.

I do have these 5 videos made of multiplayer matches:   If I were to remove the music, then a voice-over commentary was dubbed onto it instead, these could really work for your idea I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ye01tQJSM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDnczhwEPL8&t=27s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASwAV8jnONw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0I4IsRG6U8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhcv7InnP0M