与新手教程优劣比照设定相关的文章分析，上篇

篇目1，游戏教程应简单易懂 切忌产生大量”学习时间”

作者：Josh Bycer

说到玩游戏，最困难的事就是学习新的游戏类型。因为玩家被迫回到起点，这可能会让玩家觉得受挫。学习各类游戏的不同特点是需要时间的，这些时间合计起来就会很多了。这段“学习时间”就是所谓的“gamer tax”，这是扩大（或缩小）玩家基础的重要因素。

当我们谈论gamer tax时，我们关注的是让玩家理解游戏的基本要素所需的时间。换句话说：从玩家进入游戏，到知道该怎么做需要玩家花多少时间。我们不是说到达精通游戏或打败游戏的程度，因为到那个境界的玩家肯定知道怎么玩这款游戏了。

举个现实的gamer tax的例子：某人买了一个烤肉架。这里的gamer tax就是这个人组装烤肉架和想出如何用它烤汉堡。而不属于gamer tax的部分就是，这个人想学习的是如何制作出自己的沙茶酱或如何给排骨加香料。

使gamer tax成为一个重要概念的原因是，它会影响玩家对游戏的接受度。如果玩家必须花上几个小时读手册或看指南视频才能知道如何玩游戏，那么可能他们就不会在这款游戏上逗留太久了。gamer tax对游戏的普及也有影响，因为最流行的游戏的gamer tax往往是最少的。

对于每个学习《使命召唤》基本要素的玩家，可能得花上至少5分钟的时间才能知道怎么射击。动作游戏有意减少gamer tax，因为要让玩家玩上几分钟后就能很快掌握游戏的基本要素。然而，策略游戏由于复杂和多重的系统，在人们理解其基本要素以前会产生更多的gamer tax。

做点算术

游戏有多少gamer tax与设计师如何在教程中解释游戏和避免累赘的设计大有关系。玩家越容易学会游戏，游戏的gamer tax就越少。

PopCap的所有游戏，都有意让新手能很快地理解游戏机制。在最近的游戏开发者大会上，《植物大战僵尸》首席设计师举了一个例子说明该团队如何利用非常微妙的技术让游戏容易理解，同时不会让策略型游戏玩家感到太简单。

例如，向日葵作为产生阳光（游戏中的资源）的重要植物应该第一时间种植。对于塔防游戏高手，他们知道要优先考虑资源生产者，但对于从来没有玩过塔防的人，他们是不会知道这一点的。

让向日葵成为第一种可种植的植物，玩家就会知道他们的应该先种一棵向日葵，这就保证了玩家种植其他植物所需的阳光来源。《植物大战僵尸》就是将教程流畅化以减少gamer tax的典型，而《最终幻想13》是需要大量gamer tax的案例。

在一开始大约20个小时的游戏里，设计师所做的就是慢慢地引入游戏的基本机制。这种技术的积极方面是，保证玩家在这段时间内能够充分理解游戏。

消极方面是，它产生了太多gamer tax，从而将许多人排斥在游戏之外。如果游戏迫使玩家在“游戏真正开始”以前还要经历一段时间的试玩，那么在玩家按你的意图开始体验游戏以前，你所做的就是不断积累gamer tax。

以《传送门》为例，其中的物理谜题的gamer tax却接近于0。原因是，Valve公司将教程与游戏的初始关卡相结合。也就是，用第一个概念测试玩家，如果玩家通过就给出新的概念。他们并不试图将所有东西一股脑地塞进一个谜题中，或用一个内容膨胀的教程确保玩家理解游戏机制。他们只是以稳定的节奏保持游戏进展。

Valve在最初的几分钟内向玩家介绍了产生所有谜题的基本机制，目的是让玩家尽早理解，然后设计师再进一步构建这些机制，同时保证了玩家知道自己应该做什么。在《传送门2》中，当设计师引入胶体的概念时，他们再一次用几个简单的谜题解释了这个基本要素。在这几个谜题之后，他们再将胶体和基于传送门的机制与同样的谜题相结合。

在此并不是说你不可以做复杂的游戏。而是在玩家刚开始玩游戏时，应该避免某些复杂度。举一个最近的例子：我曾花了几周的时间努力学习Paradox公司的《Crusader Kings 2》。

在阅读手册和观看教程以及YouTube上的“Let’s Play”视频之间，我花了3个小时学习这款游戏是怎么回事。这真是一笔大gamer tax，比较没耐心的人可能早就放弃了玩《Crusader Kings 2》，更别说精华的部分了。我仍然不太懂怎么玩这款游戏，因为游戏中的教程内容太多了。

说到学习新概念，使用视觉工具是最好的教学方式之一。因为大部分人类通过用眼睛看，能达到最好的学习效果。显然，电子游戏是一种视觉活动，这让教程做得不好的游戏更加令人感到厌烦。电子游戏不应该含有和大学认证课程一样难的教程。至于复杂的游戏，如策略游戏，如果设计师真心希望扩大玩家基础的话，就必须吸取这个教训。

篇目2，论述游戏设计新手的几大认识误区

作者：Lewis Pulsipher

下面是游戏开发新手的若干认识误区及相关解释。

不切实际的预期是不成熟新手的一大特点。是的，你可以树立自己的梦想，但梦想需要付诸很多实践

他们设计出游戏，其他人会负责完成所有其他工作。这主要围绕创造性，而非实际操作。

游戏设计趣味横生，富有创造性，但它涉及具体操作。思考是具体操作；通过文字描述具体构思也是实践操作，查看测试结果及如何完善游戏也是实践工作。伟大发明家爱迪生曾说过，成功=10%灵感+90%汗水，这在此表现得淋漓尽致。

构思会直接出现在他们脑中，从真空中漂浮而来——他们只要有此构思足以。

构思的质量（游戏邦注：拿最高质量的来说）通常和数量成正比。你需要从很多构思中找出最合适的主题。最后，将此构思落到实处非常关键。

制作AAA游戏轻而易举。

这些游戏是开发者多年心血的产物，预算通常超过2000万美元。任何规模的学生团体，即便他们和专业游戏设计师一样才华横溢，都需要投入很长时间，方能制作出一款AAA游戏。

他们会在工作中成天玩游戏。是不是游戏高手至关重要。

就连游戏杂志编辑也不是成天玩游戏。体验游戏非常重要，但这不在你的工作范围内。游戏体验技能其实和开发工作没什么关系。

他们能够设计期望的内容。

这不符行业实况，在此设计是合作性的工作，即便是较小规模的“休闲”游戏。就连Sid Meier之类的杰出设计师有时都得迎合投资项目的发行商的口味。通常，你会被指定处理特定的设计问题，无法做自己的事情。

得到工作不久后他们就能够在AAA游戏项目中扮演重要角色。

致力于小型游戏的一位行业元老表示，制作《Madden football》之类的大型游戏，进而和别人说自己同这款足球游戏颇有渊源，他对此并不感兴趣。游戏规模越大，你在其中扮演的角色越小。对于一款需耗费数多年完成的游戏来说，你一年的投入也占不到整个项目的1%。

获得学位就能够让他们得到工作。

他们能够完成课程范围内的操作，无需付出额外努力，他们就满足各项成功必备条件。

学位能够让你同众多意图进军游戏行业但没有在此花心思的人士区别开来。但学生依然需要展示自己的才能，单凭学位远远不够。这意味着学生需要向着迷于体验电子游戏那样积极做好入行准备。打算入行的人士远超过行业的职位空缺。只有做好充分准备，方能够得到机会。

若他们能够制作出融入当前热门元素的游戏作品，那么游戏就会立即受到追捧。

事实绝非如此，这通常只会带来缺乏生气的不成功作品。

他们将在没有支付薪资的情况下事先组建开发团队，让他们按计划完成工作，承诺游戏发行后支付他们报酬（游戏邦注：虽然这种情况偶尔会出现）。

即便是在开发者以全职形式加入的工作室，游戏也经常会出现延误状况。获得丰厚融资的初创公司经常以失败告终。这些人士和你一样专注和狂热。你究竟有何与众不同之处？若你操作得当，你最终也许能够获得成功，但这不是通往游戏行业的常规道路。

他们一开始进入游戏行业就能够接触他们未来期望从事的职位。

和多数行业一样，你需要经过一些历炼，方能实现自己的目标。这里也存在“金字塔”格局，最令人向往的职业通常处在金字塔的顶部，其中位置有限，而鲜少被人关注的职位则位于底部，其中空缺较多。

认为大学课程是高中的延伸，然后基于这种观念行事。

优秀的大学和传统高中学校完全不是一回事。如今多数高中都属于培训机构，而且对此并不擅长。你在课堂测试结尾记住需要背下的内容，差不多就是这样。而大学则是个教育机构，你需要知道为什么事情会呈现特定运作模式，这样你将学会应对之前没有碰到或解决过的问题。

此外，在大学，你需要对自己的教育负责——你已成年。没有人会一直牵着你的手。你有机会学习丰富的知识，但前提是你需要付诸行动。

他们只投身硬核游戏的制作。

硬核内容只是游戏市场的一小个组成要素，是要求最高的领域。我们很容易就会低估休闲游戏玩家的规模。任何的成功作品都需要迎合休闲玩家。多数电子游戏都并非瞄准硬核群体。

工作总是充满趣味，他们最终会享受于自己创作的作品。

工作通常会充满趣味。若他们经常玩自己的游戏，他们将产生厌倦情绪。事实上，到制作过程末尾，他们通常会厌烦于“和自己的游戏打交道”。但他们会期待看到作品在市场发行。

他们制作的游戏作品，永远不会遭到撤销。

多数投入运作的项目最后都在完工前遭到撤销。行业的一个重要成功条件是，当游戏“缺乏可行性”时，开发者要能够及时发现。但游戏遭到撤销通常是出于质量以外的原因（游戏邦注：例融资、员工流失、公司收购或其他商业失败举措及市场的变化）。

测试就是体验游戏。

测试是项严肃的工作；你需要描述结果，在漏洞数据库中进行记录。测试一款游戏很长一段时间后，你多半会对游戏产生厌恶情绪，无论作品多么优秀。

他们会轻视及忽略非AAA游戏，仿佛它们存在什么问题，自己绝不会接触这类内容。

随着AAA游戏预算的提高，多数致力于这类游戏的开发者开始不再锁定这一类型。瞄准AAA游戏的工作室鲜少提供新手职位——为什么要冒险将钱投资在没有经验的人员身上？不妨自己算算看。

事情会很简单。这里总有“捷径”（或窍门），是吧？

绝非如此，如果你想要简单的工作，不妨转投其他领域。若你想要有趣的工作，那就加入我们。

篇目3，游戏教程是否会扼杀玩家的创造力

作者：Jame Madigan

先思考一下这个问题：我们应该通过游戏教程手把手地教会新玩家游戏的所有机制和难点，还是放手让玩家自己摸索？

在电子游戏中，“教学关卡”如此普遍，以至于当某游戏不能提供详细到保证玩家学会Y键有何作用的教学关卡时，该游戏就会显得相当另类。例如，本周初，我开始玩游戏《Faster Than Light》，虽然这款游戏确实提供了一分简单的教程和许多工具提示条，但要学会如何玩游戏，很大程度上还是要靠玩家自己的努力。玩这款游戏的前半个小时，我不停地咒骂和抱怨“为什么我要花钱升级门？”、“等等，为什么这些房间都变成粉色的了？”、“天呐！为什么开火了？开什么火？怎么开火？……游戏怎么结束了？”

（《Faster Than Light》先简单地向玩家介绍游戏，然后就把玩家丢进太空中，让玩家自己摸索。）

尽管，我最终上手游戏，并且意识到像《FTL》这种游戏，部分乐趣正是来自用新东西做实验、自己学习如何最大化生存希望。这并非不同于系统导向的沙盒游戏如《我的世界》或《泰拉瑞亚》：它们只是把你丢进系统里，告诉你游戏的一半乐趣来自自己摸索（游戏邦注：另一半乐趣来自感觉到自己比其他抱怨游戏没有手把手教学的玩家来得优越。）

这使我想起我从Jonah Lehrer的新书《Imagine: How Creativity Works》中看到的一个心理学实验。在2011年的论文《The Double-Edged Sword of Pedagogy: Instruction Limits Spontaneous Exploration and Discovery》中，Elizabeth Bonawitz及其同事发现不同的指导方式会影响人们探索新系统的方式。这里的“人们”我指的是“小孩子”。这里的“系统”我指的是“玩具”。

在实验中，研究人员邀请孩子们参观科技馆里的新玩具，不是像你们在黄金时间播放的新闻里报道的那种玩具。这个玩具是一个由具有不同功能的管状物组成的装置，可以发出尖锐的声音，可以发光，还可以播放音乐等。这些功能都很隐蔽，要实验一番才能发现。在一些孩子面前，研究人员摆出玩具，说“哇，看看我的新玩具！”然后她猛拉一条管子，展示玩具如何发出声音，再说“看到了吧？我的玩具就是这么玩的！”

在另一些孩子面前，研究人员摆出玩具，装作她也是第一次见到它的样子，不小心使它发出声音。（孩子们真的很好骗）然后她故作吃惊地说“哇？你们看到了吗？我再试试！”然后她再次猛拉管子。最后她把玩具给孩子们，并告诉他们：“哇，很酷吧？你们自己看看怎么玩这个玩具吧。”

所以，这个实验的关键是，这个玩具的功能很多，但研究人员只向孩子们展示了其中一个（发出尖锐的声音）。对于前一批孩子，这个功能是明确地展示在他们面前的；而对于后一批孩子，这个功能是无意中发现的。

研究人员发现，第一批孩子（研究人员在他们面前展示如何让这个玩具发声）摆弄这个玩具的时间更短，没有什么特别的动作，发现的其他功能也更少。

阅读本文的你们当然不会是小孩子，所以我想你们应该能看出这对电子游戏开发有明确的启示。当别人给我们一样东西，并告诉我们应该怎么操作时，往往限制了我们对其功能的想象。我们的探索行为就更没有创意。我们的大脑往往按阻力最小的方向思考，而手把手的指导恰恰给我们指出了一条最简单的思路。

对于以教会玩家掌握几种技能为目标的游戏，这么做是很好的。但对于以多种系统、选项、策略或方法的交互作用为中心的游戏来说，详尽的指导可能损害玩家和他们对游戏的长期体验。第一次打开《我的世界》这类游戏，思考着”如果我这么做，会怎么样？”是一次有趣的体验，游戏的重点就是促使玩家按这种思路玩游戏。就像被告之“这是会叫的玩具，这么做就能让它叫”的孩子，按照详尽的教程来玩游戏的玩家往往只会想到他们在教程上看到的东西。游戏中的意外、巧合、偶然应该是促进玩家创意和探索的必要元素。

篇目4，探讨让玩家阅读游戏教程的难题及解决方案

作者：Alexander Jordan

最近我在PC上发行了《Cute Things Dying Violently》（以下简称CTDV），刚好是这款游戏在Xbox Live Indie Games初次亮相的1年后。我投入了大量时间去修改各种漏洞，调试新的图像并针对键盘和鼠标体验进行了游戏完善。除此之外我还特别留意了各种评价以及这款游戏Xbox版本的相关记录，并发现它出现了一个很严重的问题，即玩家并不能正确地玩游戏。

从游戏核心来看，CTDV是一款物理类游戏：包含了投掷，弹跳，或将Critter从A点弹到B点等行动。就好比使用移动光标去玩《愤怒的小鸟》一样，只是CTDV更加复杂。

许多玩家只能快速领悟弹跳机制。所以我便困惑了。CTDV只能勉强称得上是拥有意外游戏玩法的游戏，但是玩家却很难真正理解它，并最终导致他们只能感受到一种糟糕且不愉快的游戏体验。而我应该如何解决这一问题呢？

以下将列出我所采取的一些集中玩家注意力的方法，以及它们屡遭失败的原因。

设置提示信息

在CTDV中除了“弹跳”机制以外最强大的功能要数控制机制了，即玩家可以通过按压一个按钮而保持高度活跃的Critter不动。这一机制将会在第二个关卡中出现，但是玩家却并未能阅读到相关的提示信息。

我发现许多玩家希望能够在“获得”核心的弹跳机制后再阅读可选择的提示信息（关于如何玩游戏）。所以我该怎么做？将有关“抓取机制”的解释移到了第一个关卡的首个提示信息中，并在“添加”生效前将其呈现在玩家面前？

不可行！许多玩家只会阅读首个提示信息中前三分之二的内容，并在提示信息开始解释抓取机制前停止阅读。

为玩家提供自助工具

许多玩家并不能从游戏中获得足够的提示。他们会以为弹跳目标将沿着直线前进。但是这些目标所撞击的最低点却会远远超出他们的预期，所以玩家只能无止尽地重复相同的过程。

考虑到这一点，我便添加了两个可选择的瞄准工具：预见弹跳目标的飞翔目的地的能力，以及清楚之前弹跳目标的飞行路线的能力。我在第四个关卡，也是迄今为止最困难的关卡的提示信息中解释了这些机制。

不可行！既然玩家可能不愿意阅读抓取机制的解释，他们也不会阅读这些解释。

通过游戏机制被动地指导玩家

因为发现玩家很少在游戏中学习如何更好地玩游戏，我便决定设置一些显而易见的技巧和指南去帮助他们。

对于PC版本的游戏，我将游戏的加载屏幕转变成一系列转动的“你知道吗？”提示，告诉玩家哪个按键能够触发哪些功能（游戏邦注：如抓取和预见等功能）。我同样也在Xbox和PC版本的暂停屏幕中添加了“显示控制”按钮，并在PC版本的选择屏幕中添加了重新映射按键。

不可行！根本无法对之前的问题做出任何改善。

添加需要玩家使用高级游戏机制的关卡

对于这一副标题我并不需要加以说明，我将直接跳到下一环节，也就是关于玩家只使用弹跳机制去穿越不同关卡但未能学到任何内容。

有些玩家更愿意反复尝试相同的内容，而不是分析并阅读游戏中的提示信息。因为CTDV是一款物理类游戏，所以玩家只能通过物理行动去完成任何关卡。玩家将在游戏中不断追踪各种可能但不确定的机遇，直到最终获得了成功或因为挫败而退出游戏。

不可行！结果表明在大多数关卡中，“必须使用”机制仍被不少玩家视为可有可无的选项。

总结

CTDV是一款带有适量意外玩法（玩家可以通过使用额外的帮助系统感受到这些内容）的物理类游戏。然而它却拥有非常强大且可行的游戏玩法，但我强迫或诱使玩家尝试更非凡游戏体验的做法均遭遇失败。

可能是我将结果夸张化了。事实上CTDV获得了很好的销量，而那些用“不正确”方法玩游戏的用户也只是少数。并且人们对游戏的反应也大多都是积极且礼貌的。所以此文绝非有意侮辱用户的智商。

但是当提到学习新游戏系统和机制时，我看到了许多既没有耐性且麻木的玩家。当然了我们也都难免如此——我们总是无视那些最新最棒的第一人称射击游戏的教程关卡，却选择直接经受战火的洗礼。拥有足够预算以及优化完善的AAA游戏总是不遗余力地将教程无缝地整合到游戏体验中，从而让玩家更轻松地学习新的游戏机制。

但是如果是缺少预算的开发者又该怎么做？资金不足也就意味着资源不足，所以我们很难在中等或底层独立游戏中看到基于声音或基于视频的教程。开发者只能通过文本和关卡设计去解释新的系统。我总是会在关卡设计方面出现差错，但是玩家似乎更容易忽视我们所提供的文本内容，这让我只能更加谨慎地进行关卡设置。

独立开发者是否最有可能引进新颖且令人兴奋的玩法机制？而我们又该如何将新功能传达给那些已习惯关闭这种沟通渠道的玩家？

关于其他解决方法的思考：

*彻底中止游戏，直到玩家阅读并消化教程为止？

*将教程融入游戏图像或叙事风格中？

*设计一种遇到不当玩法就会令玩家失败，并且无法再次尝试的关卡？

*或者你可以直接忽视本文，满足于游戏所取得的高销量？

篇目5，阐述休闲游戏设计中的学习曲线

作者：William

若关于游戏你仅限于体验，那么认为游戏学习方式根植于游戏本身也就情有可原；这不过是根据游戏呈现方式所得出的结论。作为游戏设计师，你应意识到学习曲线也是需要设计的内容。游戏学习曲线在新玩家如何认知游戏方面影响很大。

虽然我猜想你应该能够轻松想象学习曲线的样子，但我还是决定绘制一幅，因为在我们把握其精髓前，有些内容还是需要先理清。

问题：学习曲线是陡峭还是平缓？

上图显示，投入学习规则的努力越多，规则的理解效果就越好。玩家的目标就是完全理解游戏规则。就像你从图中看到的，完全理解规则需付出很大努力。所以，这就是我们所说的陡峭学习曲线。下图呈现的是平缓学习曲线。

在此图中，理解耗费更少努力，所以这就是我们所说的平缓学习曲线。奇怪的是，若观看图表，你会发现第一幅呈陡峭趋势，第二幅呈平缓趋势。我可以通过改变轴线解决此问题，这似乎有违直觉。我们称作陡峭曲线的过程绘制出来其实是个平缓曲线。很奇怪，是吧？不管怎样，我们先回到最初话题。

通常来说，平缓曲线优于陡峭曲线，特别是就休闲游戏而言。当然也有些玩家追求挑战，但我们最好还是将游戏设计成挑战活动，而非学习过程（游戏邦注：所以，若我们能够把陡峭学习曲线变成平缓形式，将收获良多）。

提供指南

你很难设计缺乏规则的游戏，若存在规则，玩家就得学习。策略之一就是加快整个学习过程。换而言之，你将告诉玩家：“这些是规则，你需掌握，掌握之后你就能开始体验”。这是棋盘游戏遵循的路线。你需阅读手册，尽可能记住所有规则，然后才能进行体验。让玩家向其他玩家解释游戏规则，并不会令过程变得更有趣。

经常发生的情况是，你阅读手册前1/3，浏览中间的1/3，然后完全跳过最后部分。你把手册弃置一旁，然后发表“让我们看看游戏如何运作”之类的话语。但在棋盘游戏设计师开始抱怨前，让我告诉你电脑游戏玩家是如何对待说明手册。“手册？有手册？”现在，这是个问题。

那么，电脑游戏设计师是怎么做？他们只是把手册融入游戏中，将其称作指南。这成为游戏规则学习问题最杰出的解决方案（游戏邦注：这同时也是最不讲究的，但这里我们不加以讨论）。指南从根本上说，旨在加快学习过程。

注意时间不是X轴，努力才是。指南将快速向玩家介绍规则，但这并不意味着玩家学习规则无需付出较大努力。设计指南需牢记：你的目标是简化学习过程，而不是加快整个过程。

借助常识

有些游戏，你无需学习其规则就能够进行体验：你已知晓些游戏的规则。规则非常显然无需进行陈述，但你能够借助此元素充分发挥优势。

多数人置身电脑前都能够立即开始体验《Solitaire》。这不是因为规则非常明显，而是因为他们已经知晓规则。不是所有人都想制作另一《Solitaire》，所以若你未将现实游戏植入虚拟世界，未复制另一电脑游戏，此信息又有何用处？其实用处很多。

即便你没有复制另一款游戏的全部规则，你的规则还是会和众所周知的游戏存在共同之处。例如，在多数纸牌游戏中，玩家可以按数字大小排列纸牌，形成牌组（游戏邦注：例如你可以把6放在7上面，把10放在J上面，把王后放在王上面）。所以若你设计新的纸牌游戏，也可以使用相同规则，这能够便于玩家理解。当然纸牌顺序已经是个标准。就像大家都知道王胜过王后，所以你在设计中最好也遵守这个规则。

几乎所有游戏都有众所周知的规则。多数第一人称射击游戏玩家都知道射击枪管会出现爆炸，而射击木箱不会（除非你使用火箭发射器）。这规则相当随意，但大家都知道，作为设计师，你也需明白这点。因此学习曲线不会变得更平缓，而是变得更陡峭。玩家将在开始体验前就把握你游戏的规则。

你可以通过制作玩家凭直觉就能操作的游戏，创造类似效果。当你开始体验《吃豆人》游戏时，你会看到5个角色，其中只有一个站着不动，所以这多半就是你所扮演的角色。若你处在迷宫中，你就能够在廊道中行走，因为这就是迷宫的运作方式。玩家通常无法穿过墙体。当经过药丸时发出愉快音效说明吃下药丸是件好事。由于幽灵非常恐怖，所以你最好还是绕道而行。现在你知道为什么《吃豆人》无需提供游戏指南。

拖延学习曲线

即便采用上述策略，有些游戏还是不易把握。若你所设计的游戏遇到此问题，我建议你采取下述策略。

这是否优于先前的曲线？或许没有，因为现在玩家需耗费很长时间才能掌握游戏规则。但想想玩家的游戏目标。她并不想尽快掌握规则。就有些游戏而言，特别是那些颇有难度的体验，玩家完全有可能在掌握所有规则前体验和享受游戏。多数桌面弹球游戏都有系列桌面规则。遵循这些规则，玩家将能够完成特定任务，获得某些积分。但若你尚不知其中规则，单通过连续弹击小球也能够获得许多乐趣（游戏邦注：剩余规则将会逐步通过矩阵板向玩家呈现）。

有时若玩家无需规则，那你可以设计完全跳过规则的游戏。若你设计一款玩家非魔力玩家的角色扮演游戏，你就无需向玩家解释如何使用魔法。此外，在有些游戏中，你无需完全理解所有规则便能够体验和完成任务。我在尚未把握所有《文明》游戏规则前，就已反复体验这款游戏多次，我曾经连续几个小时玩这款游戏。

牢记目标

我之所以再次重复是因为我觉得这点很重要：玩家并不想尽快掌握规则，他们希望尽快体验游戏。只要你在设计游戏时牢记这点，那就不会有错。

篇目1，篇目2，篇目3，篇目4，篇目5（本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao）

篇目1，The Game Design Tax Man

by Josh Bycer

One of the hardest things to do when it comes to playing games is learning a new genre. As it forces the person to return to square one again and that can be frustrating for players. When you add up each genre with all the different quirks, this time can add up. This period of “learning time” has been dubbed around message boards as “gamer-tax” and is an important part of building (or diminishing) a fan-base.

When we talk about gamer tax, we’re focusing on the time it takes someone to understand the basics of a game. Or in other words: How long it takes for a player to be able to make informed choices when playing. We’re not talking about game mastery or beating the game, as by that point the player knows how to play the game.

As an example of real life gamer tax: someone buying a new barbeque grill. The gamer tax would be the person setting it up and figuring out how to cook some burgers. What wouldn’t be a part of gamer tax is if the person decides to learn how to create their own barbeque sauce or dry rub for ribs.

What makes gamer tax an important concept is how it repels new gamers from a genre. If someone would have to spend several hours reading manuals or watching tutorials just to figure out what is going on when they’re playing, chances are they aren’t going to stick around. Gamer tax also has an effect on game popularity, as the most popular games have the least amount of gamer tax.

Someone learning the basics of Call of Duty for the first time may have to spend at most 5 minutes figuring out how to move and shoot. Action games by design have very little gamer tax, as the player is learning the basics of the game very quickly over the scope of a few minutes of playing. On the other side of the equation, strategy games due to their complexity and multiple systems, have a much larger amount of gamer tax before someone can understand the basics.

Doing Some Accounting:

The amount of gamer tax a game has is correlated to how well the designer explains the game through tutorials and avoids cumbersome design. The easier it is for someone to follow the game, the less gamer tax there is.

If you look at any of PopCap’s games, each one is designed for someone new to comprehend the mechanics very quickly. At the last GDC, the lead designer behind Plants vs. Zombies gave an excellent presentation on how the team used very subtle techniques to make the game easy to understand, without simplifying it for strategy game experts.

For example, sunflowers which are important for getting sunshine (in game resources) are always the first plant available to be planted. For a tower defense expert, they know that resource producers are always the first thing to build, but someone who never played a tower defense game wouldn’t know that.

By making them the first ones available, a player would know that they should be planting one before anything else to make sure that they’ll have a source of sunshine coming in. While Plants vs. Zombies is an example of streamlining the tutorial to reduce gamer-tax, Final Fantasy 13 is an example of an enormous amount of forced gamer tax.

What the designers did was over the course of the first twenty or so hours of gameplay, they stretch out the tutorial by slowly introducing the basic mechanics of the game. The positive behind this technique is that it made sure that the player would fully understand the game by the time the designers finish holding their hands.

The negative is that it created so much gamer tax, that it turned away a lot of people. If your game has a period of time that the player has to play before “the real game begins” all you’re doing is piling on gamer tax before the player can start experiencing the game as you intended.

Portal for instance, even with the physics based puzzles had next to zero in terms of gamer tax. The reason is that Valve integrated the tutorial into the starting levels. Testing the player on one concept and giving them something new if they pass. They didn’t try to cram everything into one puzzle, or bloat out the tutorial to make sure that the mechanic was understood. They did just enough to keep the game moving at a steady pace.

Valve introduced the base mechanics that all the puzzles stem from within the first few minutes. Meaning that the player understood them early on, allowing them to build on those mechanics while making sure that the player knows what to do. In Portal 2, when they introduced the concepts of the gels, they once again went back to the basics with a few simple puzzles. Then after a few puzzles, they integrated gel and portal based mechanics into the same puzzles.

The point of this post isn’t that you can’t have complex games. But that complexity should be avoided when someone is learning a game. As a recent example: I’ve been trying to learn Crusader Kings 2 from Paradox for the last few weeks.

Between reading the manual and watching tutorials and “Let’s Play” videos on YouTube, I have about 3 hours of learning about what is going in the game. That is a lot of gamer tax and a less patient person would probably give up trying to learn Crusader Kings 2, and the best part? I still don’t know a lot of how to play the game, as the in game tutorials are cumbersome.

When it comes to learning new concepts, the use of visual aids is one of the best ways to teach. As the majority of humans learn best through vision. Obviously video games are a visual activity which makes games that have poor tutorials even more troubling. There is no video game that should require lessons on par with a college accredited course. And for complex genres like strategy games, it’s a lesson designers need to learn if they ever hope to expand their fan-base.

篇目2，Student Illusions About Being a Game Designer

By Lewis Pulsipher

Here is a list of illusions and delusions of beginning game development (especially game design) students, with a brief description of why it isn’t so.

Briefly, what this list amounts to is, “Grow up and recognize what life is like, kid.”

Wildly unrealistic expectations are usually a characteristic of immature people. Yes, you can dream, but dreams require a lot of work to fulfill.

They’ll design a game and someone else will do all the work.
It’s all creativity instead of work.

Game design can be fun, it can be creative, but it’s also work. Thinking is work. Writing clear descriptions of what you’ve thought is work, figuring out the results of testing and how to improve the game is work. The great inventor Thomas Edison is supposed to have said that success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration, a statement that certainly applies here.

Ideas will just come to them, floating in out of the ether — and that one idea is all they need

Quality of ideas — of the best ones — tends to be proportional to quantity. You need lots of ideas to get some decent ones. And in the end, it’s the execution of an idea that is most important.

AAA list games can be produced easily

These games are the results of many man-years of work, and of budgets running to $20 million and beyond. A student group of any size, even if they have as much talent as successful professional game developers, would take thousands of semesters to produce a AAA list game.

They’ll play games all day in the job. It matters that they’re expert game players.

Even game magazine editors cannot play all day. Playing games is important, but that’s not something you’ll do much on the job. Game playing expertise is virtually irrelevant.

They’ll be able to design what they want.

This is not the way it works in the industry, where design is very collaborative, even on smaller “casual” games. Even the most successful designers, such as Sid Meier, sometimes must satisfy publishers who are funding their efforts. Typically, you’ll be told to work on a particular design problem, and won’t be able to do your own thing.

They’re going to have a big effect on a AAA game soon after getting a job.

One industry veteran who works on small games said he isn’t excited at the thought of working on a huge game, such as Madden football, and then being able to say he had something to do with how the football flies! The bigger the game, the smaller your part in it. When the game involves more than a hundred man-years of effort, your work for even a year amounts to less than one percent of the whole.

Getting a degree is going to get them a job.

They can do just what’s in the curriculum, and without any additional effort, they will have 100% of what it takes to succeed.

A degree differentiates you from the thousands who want to work in the industry but haven’t taken the time to do much about it. Still, students have to show what they can do, the degree alone doesn’t count for much yet. That means students need to be as fanatical about preparing themselves for a game industry job as they’re fanatical about playing video games. There are dozens of times as many industry wannabes as there are jobs available. Only those who prepare themselves fully will get the jobs.

If they just make a game that includes all the currently-popular elements (a market-driven game), theirs will be instantly popular.

No, this usually leads to a soul-less, unsuccessful game.

They’re going to be able to assemble a development team without salaries and get things done on schedule with the promise of royalties once the game goes commercial. (Though at least this happens every once in a while.)

Even where developers are well-paid full-time employees, games usually fall behind schedule. Start-up companies with good funding often fail. These folks are as dedicated and fanatical as you. What makes you different? You may succeed if you do the right things, but this is rarely an avenue into the game industry.

They’ll start their career working in the position they want to achieve in the long run.

As with most industries, you have to “pay your dues” to get where you want to go. There’s also a “pyramid effect” here, the most desirable jobs are near the top of the pyramid where there are fewer jobs, the less desirable ones are near the bottom where there are many more jobs.

Think the college curriculum is an extension of high school and act as such.

A good college is nothing like a typical high school. Most high schools are now training institutions, and not even good at that. You memorize what you need to regurgitate on the End of Class test, and that’s about it. College is (or should be) an educational institution, you need to understand why things work as they do so that you can cope with something you haven’t encountered or solved before.

Moreover, you are responsible for your education in college-you are an adult. No one will hold your hand constantly. You have an opportunity to learn a lot, but YOU must do it.

They will only work on hard core games,

The hard core is a relatively small part of the market, and the most demanding part. It’s easy to underestimate the number of casual game players. Any very successful game must appeal to the casual players. Most video games are not designed for the hard core.

Work will always be fun and they will always enjoy playing the game they create at the end.

Work will often be fun. If they play the game enough, they’ll get sick of it. In fact, by the end of the production process, they’re quite likely to be sick and tired of “screwing around with that game”. But they’ll enjoy seeing it for sale.

They will never make a game that gets canceled.

The preponderance of games that are started are canceled before they’re finished. An important quality of success in the industry is recognizing when a game “isn’t clicking”. But games are often canceled for reasons other than quality, such as funding, loss of employees, corporate takeovers or other business failures, and changes in the market.

Testing is only about playing games.

Testing is serious work; you have to write up results, contribute to bug databases, etc. If you test one game long enough, you’ll come to dislike the game no matter how good it is.

They can sneer at and ignore non-AAA titles as though there was something wrong with them and they’d never need to work on such a thing

Given the increasing budgets for AAA titles, the majority of people working on games are not working on AAA games. The studios working on AAA games have few entry-level positions-why risk a lot of money on inexperienced people? Do the math.

It will be easy. There’s always an Easy Button, isn’t there?

No. If you want an easy job, look for something else. If you want a fun job, look here.

篇目3，How Game Tutorials Can Strangle Player Creativity

by Jame Madigan

Okay, let’s do one more article on creativity and games, based on this question: Is it better to hand hold new players through a game tutorial to teach them all the mechanics and intricacies of a game, or is it better to let them figure things out on their own?

The “tutorial level” has become so ubiquitous in video game design that it seems really odd when a game does not go to to painful lengths to make sure you get a slow, measured introduction to every single game mechanic, presumably so you don’t burst into tears over confusion about what the Y button does. For example, I started playing the game FTL (http://www.ftlgame.com/) earlier this week and while the game does offer a brief totorial and many tooltips, it expects a fair amount from you in terms of learning how to play the game on your own. My first half hour with the game consisted mainly of a steady stream of expletives and mutterings like “Why would I ever spend money on door upgrades?” and “Wait, why are all these rooms turning pink?” and “OH GOD! WHY IS THAT ON FIRE? WHAT FIRE? HOW FIRE? …WHAT DO YOU MEAN GAME OVER?”

FTL (or “Faster Than Light” for the cool kids) gives you a brief overview, then tosses you to the space mantis/slug/rock men and expects you to figure the rest out yourself.
Eventually, though, I got into the groove and realized that for a game like FTL, part of the experience should be experimenting with new things, paying attention, and learning how to maximize your chances of survival on your own. It’s not dissimilar to systems driven, sandbox games like Minecraft or Terraria in that way: they just dump you into a system and tell you that figuring it out is half the fun. (The other half is feeling superior to people who complain about it not being spoon fed to them.)

This all reminded me about another psychology experiment I learned about from Jonah Lehrer’s recent book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. In a 2011 paper impressively entitled “The Double-Edged Sword of Pedagogy: Instruction Limits Spontaneous Exploration and Discovery” Elizabeth Bonawitz and her colleagues set out to examine how different modes of instruction affect how creative people get in their exploration of a new system. And by “people” I mean “toddlers.” Yes, toddlers are people; I looked it up. And also by “system” I mean “toy.” Work with me here.

The researchers invited kids visiting a science museum to check out a new toy, except not in that creepy way that you hear about on prime time news shows. The toy was a crazy homemade contraption consisting of tubes that did different things like squeaking, lighting up, and playing music. It’s important that these functions were not obvious and required some experimentation to discover. For some children, the experimenter took out the toy and said something like “Woah, look my badass new toy! Check it out!” Then she yanked on a tube to demonstrate how to make it squeak and finished up with “See that? This is how my toy works!”

For other children, the experimenter took out the toy, acted like she was seeing it for the first time, then pretended to accidentally make it squeak. She then feigned surprise (children are very gullible, it turns out) and said something like “OMGWTF? Did you see that? Let me try to do that!” then made it squeak again. For kids in all conditions, the experimenter gave the toy to the kid and finished by saying “Wow, isn’t that cool? I’m going to let you play and see if you can figure out how the toy works.”

Picture of the toy, taken from Bonawitz et al. (2011).

So, the key points here are that the toy did multiple things, but only one thing (the squeaking) was revealed. For some kids it was explicitly demonstrated and for others it was serendipitously discovered.

What the researchers found was that relative to those in other conditions, children who were given instructions on how to make the toy squeak played with it for shorter amounts of time, did fewer unique actions with it, and discovered fewer of the toy’s other functions.

Now, I understand that most of you reading this are not toddlers, but I think this has clear implications for video games. Because when we are given a thing and told “here is how it works” that presentation tends to constrain the list of things that we consider doing with it. We explore less and are less creative. Our brains tend to take the paths of least resistance, and heavy handed demonstrations create a nice easy rut for our thoughts to follow.

It’s Minecraft. Figure out what you want to do.

Sometimes this is great, as with simple games designed around mastery of a few skills. But for games dependent on the interaction of multiple systems, options, strategies, or approaches, detailed tutorials may hurt the player and their long-term experience with the game. Booting up a game like Minecraft for the first time, blinking a few times, and then saying “Okay, what happens if I do …this?” is a great experience and facilitating that approach is central to the appeal of the game. Like the kids who were told “this is a squeaky toy, here’s how to make it squeak,” players who get their hands held through an hour of tutorials are being mentally primed to consider only what they’re shown. Accident, serendipity, and an occasional bit of rudderless flailing about are sometimes necessary for creativity and exploration.

篇目4，Is Our Players Learning?

by Alexander Jordan

I recently released Cute Things Dying Violently on PC, almost a year after it made its successful debut on Xbox Live Indie Games. I spent most of the intervening time fixing bugs, commissioning new art, and streamlining the experience for a keyboard and mouse. However, I also paid careful attention to the various reviews and Let’s Plays documenting the Xbox version and realized that I had a problem with my players: they weren’t playing the game properly.

CTDV is, at its core, a physics game: throw, bounce, or “flick” the Critters from Point A to Point B. Think “Angry Birds” with a moveable cursor and you’ve got the idea. Okay okay, the game’s far more complicated than that, but that should be your key takeaway for this post.

Many players were quick to grasp the flicking mechanic… and nothing else. I was stumped. CTDV barely qualifies as emergent gameplay, but the players weren’t “getting” it and as a result were having an inferior, more obnoxious experience. How was I supposed to turn this around?

What follows is a short list of the ways I attempted to instruct, hand-hold, or scold my players into paying attention, and the various ways they failed.

Fighting short attention spans

Aside from the “flick” mechanic, the most powerful feature in CTDV’s control scheme is the ability to hold the hyperactive, mobile Critters in place with the push of a button. That mechanic is introduced in just the second level, but players weren’t reading the tool tips.

I realized that many players’ willingness to read optional tooltips on how to play the game expired after they “got” the core flicking mechanic. So what’d I do? I moved the “grabbing” mechanic explanation into the first tooltip of the first level. Throw it at the players before ADD kicks in, right?

FAIL! Many players would read the first two thirds of the first tooltip and then stop reading before they got to the explanation of the grabbing mechanic.

Give the player tools to help themselves

Many players also weren’t getting the full implications of, um, gravity. They’d aim their shots assuming that flicked objects would travel in a straight line. Those objects would hit lower than they expected, and the player would repeat the process endlessly.

Seeing this, I added two optional aiming tools: the ability to preview where your flicked object would fly, and the ability to see your previous flick’s flight path. I explained these mechanics in a tooltip in the fourth and heretofore toughest level of the game.

FAIL! If they weren’t going to read about grabbing, they certainly weren’t going to read about this.

Passively instruct the players on game mechanics

Seeing as how players often weren’t taking the ingame steps to educate themselves on how to better play the game, I decided to help them with tips and instructions lying in plain sight.

For the PC version, I turned the game’s loading screen into a series of rotating “Did you know?” prompts, telling the players which keys triggered which crucial functions, e.g. grabbing and previewing. I also added a “View Controls” button to the Pause Screen on both the Xbox and PC version and added key remapping to the PC version’s options screens.

FAIL! No meaningful improvement on the previous problems.

Add levels where the player must use advanced game mechanics

The above subtitle is self-explanatory, so howsabout I skip to the part where players would just resort to using the flick mechanic – and only the flick mechanic – to brute force the level and avoid having to learn anything.

Some players seemed more willing to try the same thing over and over and over and over and over again rather than break down and read an ingame tooltip. And because CTDV is a physics game, the only thing required to beat a level is for something to be physically possible. Players would chace possible but improbable opportunities endlessly until they managed to succeed or quit in frustration.

FAIL! It turned out that in most of these levels, “must-use” mechanics were still optional.

Conclusion

CTDV is a physics game with a small-to-modest amount of emergent gameplay that is best enjoyed through the use of its additional helper systems. However, the core mechanic is powerful enough and reliable enough such that players can avoid or ignore the additional mechanics in order to have a gameplay experience reminiscent of hair removal via duct tape. Earnest attempts to coerce or cajole players into the more streamlined experience met with failure.

I may be overstating the results. CTDV has sold enough copies that I know it’s been a resounding commercial success, and those playing the game “improperly” are a minority. Also, the response to my game and to me has been overwhelmingly positive and polite. So I’m not dealing with cretins, and I certainly don’t mean this post as an insult to my user base.

Still, I’ve witnessed a stunning amount of impatience and indifference when it comes to learning new gameplay systems and mechanics. I know we’ve all been guilty of this – sleepwalking our way through the mandatory tutorial levels of the latest and greatest first person shooter and opting for baptism by fire. Inflated budgets and adamant polish of AAA games often seamlessly integrate tutorials into the gameplay experience so that new gameplay mechanics are learned as painlessly as possible.

But what’s an indie developer with a scant budget to do? Less money means less resources, and you tend to not see voice-based or video-based tutorials in middle or lower tier indie games. That leaves text and level design for developers to explain new systems. Although I was guilty of occasionally dropping the ball on the latter, players’ willigness to ignore the former leaves us with… what, exactly, in our arsenal?

Seeing as how indie developers are most likely to introduce new and exciting gameplay mechanics, how do we best communicate novel features to players who have been trained to tune out that communication?

Parting thoughts

Focus on games where brute force is a feature with optimal use, like in tower defense games?

Completely halt gameplay until tutorials are presented and absorbed?

Weave tutorials into game imagery or storytelling style?

Design levels so that improper playstyles are met with obvious failure rather than an invitation to try again?

Ignore this entire article and just be glad that your game sold some copies to appreciative customers?

篇目5，Learning the rules

If all you do with games is play them, you may be forgiven for thinking that the way you learn a game is inherent to the game; that is just follows from the way the game is. As a game designer, however, you should realize that the learning experience is something you also can – and should – design. The learning curve of a game has a huge impact on how new players perceive that game.

Although, I suspect you can readily imagine what a learning curve looks like, I’ll draw one for you, because there is something I’d like to point out before we get to the good stuff.

Question: is this learning curve steep or shallow?

What the above graph shows, is that the more effort you put into learning the rules, the better your understanding of the rules will be. What you are aiming for as a player, is total understanding of the rules. As you can see in the graph, it takes quite a bit of effort to understand the rules completely. So, this is what we call a steep learning curve. The next graph shows a shallow learning curve.

In this picture, understanding comes after a lot less effort, so this is what we call a shallow learning curve. The strange thing is, if you look at the pictures, the second graph is the steep one and the first graph is the shallow one. I could solve this by swapping the axes, but that seems counter-intuitive. What we usually call a steep learning curve is actually a shallow one when you draw it and vice versa. Weird, isn’t it? Anyway, back to the original topic.

In general, a shallow learning curve is better than a steep one, especially with casual games. Of course, there are players who are looking for a challenge, but it’s usually a good decision to make playing the game the challenge and not learning the game. So, it would be valuable if we could turn a steep learning curve into a shallow one.

Providing a tutorial

Try as you might, you can’t design a game that has no rules, and if there are rules, the player will have to learn them. One strategy is to just get it over with. In other words, you’ll tell the player: “These are the rules. Learn them. When you’re done, you can start playing.” This is the path board games take. You have to read through the manual and memorize all the rules as best you can before you can even begin. The fact that you then have to explain what you learned to all the other players, doesn’t make this process more enjoyable.

What often happens in these cases, is that you read a third of the manual, skim the next third and skip the last part entirely. You throw the manual aside and say something like “we’ll just see how it goes”. But before you board game designers start complaining about this, let me tell you how players of computer games treat the manual. “Manual? There was a manual?” Now, that’s a problem.

So, what’s a computer game designer to do? Well, just put the manual into the game and call it a tutorial. This has become the most prominent solution to the problem of learning the game rules. (It’s also the least elegant, but that’s a topic for another time.) A tutorial is basically an attempt to speed up the learning process.

Note that time isn’t on the x-axis, effort is. The tutorial will introduce the rules to the player (or the player to the rules) quickly, but that doesn’t necessarilly mean that learning the rules doesn’t require a lot of effort on the player’s part. Remember this when you’re designing a tutorial: your goal is to make it easier to learn the game, not (necessarilly) faster.

Using common knowledge

There are games for which you don’t have to learn the rules in order to be able to play them: games to which you already know the rules. This seems a bit too obvious to mention, but you can use this principal to your advantage.

Most people you put behind a computer can start playing Solitaire right away (well, after they stop talking into the mouse, that is). That’s not because the rules are completely obvious, but because they already know the rules. Not all of us want to create Yet Another Solitaire, so what good is this information if you’re not adapting a real world game to the virtual world and you’re not cloning another computer game? A lot, actually.

Even if you’re not copying the entire ruleset from another game, you might still have elements in common with well-known games. For example, in most games of solitaire, you can build groups by putting a card on another card that is one higher in rank, i.e. you can put a six on a seven, a ten on a jack and a queen on a king. So, if you’re designing a new game of solitaire, you can use that same rule and it will be easy for players to understand. Of course, the ranks of the cards is also an example of something that is pretty standard. Just about everybody know that a king is higher in rank than a queen, so you’d be wise to adher to that rule in your design.

Just about every game genre has some well-known rules. Most players of first-person shooters know that shooting a barrel will result in an explosion, while shooting a crate will not (unless you use the rocket launcher, of course). That rule is quite arbitrary, but players know it and, as a designer, you should make use of that. The result is that the learning curve doesn’t just get shallower, it actually start higher up. The player will have an understanding about the rules of your game even before she starts playing.

You can create a similar effect by presenting your game in such a way that the player intuitively knows what to do. When you start Pac-Man, you see five characters and only one of them is standing still, so the chances are, that’s your avatar. The fact that your in a maze, suggests that you can move down through corridors, because that’s how our mazes usually work. And moving through walls is probably not an option. The happy sound you hear when you pass over a pill, means that eating pills is a good thing. And since ghosts are scary, you’d better run the other way. Now you know why Pac Man doesn’t come with a tutorial.

Dragging out the learning curve

Even with the above strategies, some games are still really hard to learn. If you face such a challenge with the game you are designing, then I suggest you take the following approach.

Does that seem better than the previous curves? Maybe not, because now it takes a very long time before the player knows all the rules. But think about what the player’s goal is. She doesn’t want to know the rules as quickly as possible, she wants to play the game as quickly as possible. (Yes, I know that I said before that your goal as a player is to have a total understanding of the game rules. So, I lied, okay? Deal with it. And yes, I’m telling the truth now. Really.) With some games, especially complex ones, it’s very well possible to start playing and enjoying the game before you understand all the rules. Most pinball tables have a set of table rules. Following these rules allows you to complete certain tasks and score more points. But, even if you don’t know the table rules yet, you can still have a lot of fun just knocking the ball around. The rest of the rules will be pointed out to you over time on the matrix board.

Sometimes you can design a game to skip an entire section of the ruleset if the player doesn’t need it. If you are designing a role-playing game where the player can decide not to be a magic user, then you don’t have to explain to her how to cast spells. Also, there are games you can enjoy and finish without completely understanding all the rules. I played many games of Civilization before I knew all the rules (hey, I was seven years old, okay!), but I did play the game for hours on end.

Remember the goal

I’ll repeat this, because I think it’s important: the player doesn’t want to learn the rules as quickly as possible, she wants to play the game as quickly as possible. As long as you design your games with that in mind, you’ll be okay.