Onboarding
Game designers create onboarding experiences that ease new players through a welcoming/training experience. The time you spend taking learners through creating avatars and then using a forum to compare the results may seem like a waste of time, if it is not directly linked to academic performance. However, you could view this process as an "onboarding experience". The creator of Plants vs. Zombies offered this advice on how to subtly introduce people to a new game interface in his presentation at the Games Developers Conference (GDC):
Blend the tutorial into the game:
Better to have the player "do" than "read"
Spread out the teaching of game mechanics
Just get the player to do it once
Use fewer words (eight words on a screen is the optimum!)
Use unobtrusive messaging if possible
Use adaptive messaging
Don't create noise
Use visuals to teach
Leverage what people already know
Note
Watch a webinar on providing tutorials and help by a leading game designer at http://gdcvault.com/play/1015541...
