Examining the effect of different types of tutorials on new players of a compute science teaching game

This paper presents three different tutorials for a complex game named GrACE. Tutorials are inspired by a Gamasutra article “4 Ways to Teach Your Players How to Play Your Game” by Darrison J . The first tutorial is the Non-interactive tutorial made by the Northeastern team who also worked on the game. This tutorial uses game design perspective to explain the game. The second tutorial is the video interactive tutorial, made in Eko Studios, an interactive video creation platform. This particular tutorial dives into storytelling perspective of the game. The last tutorial, the background in-game tutorial focuses on giving information while players are engaged in the game. Each tutorial had 15 playtesters who were asked to playtest the tutorial and the game. This paper also discusses pros and cons of each tutorial based on playtests. Results reveal the background in-game tutorial as a superior tutorial among three tutorials for the game. As a result, this paper suggests the game tutorial needs to focus more on teaching players about the mechanics of the game through gameplay.