Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games

See How to Unobtrusively Incorporate Good Teaching into Your Game’s Mechanics

Learn to Play: Designing Tutorials for Video Games shows how to embed a tutorial directly into your game design mechanics so that your games naturally and comfortably teach players to have fun. The author deciphers years of research in game studies, education, psychology, human–computer interaction, and user interface and experience that equip you to make dynamic tutorials that help players enjoy your games.

The book links game design principles with psychology through the game tutorial. It offers easy-to-implement changes that can make a huge difference in how players receive your games. It explains how you can educate new players and engage experienced players at the same time through a combination of good design and basic understanding of human educational, motivational, and cognitive psychologies.

Transcending disciplinary boundaries, this book improves your understanding of the science of learning and the art of teaching. It helps you design game mechanics, or tutorials, that teach people how to have fun with your games without ever feeling as though they’re being instructed.

Matthew M. White is an assistant professor in game development at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, where he teaches game design, computer science, and software engineering. He previously worked on interfaces, human-computer interaction, and game programming at the University of Prince Edward Island and Snow Day Games, a small indie studio. He earned his M.Ed. in instructional design and technology focusing on the design of games from the University of New Brunswick and his Ph.D. in education from Memorial University of Newfoundland, co-supervised through York University's Education and Game Studies faculty.