Studio employees advise giving instructions in small portions, introducing them after the game starts, and using hints directly in the gameplay, instead of lengthy explanations at the beginning.
A former programmer and producer at Itchie, who worked at Square and SNK, spoke about a typical mistake when creating tutorials:
When I was developing mobile games, I noticed a high churn rate of players and decided to add additional explanations. But after analyzing the logs, I realized that players hardly read the instructions. The high churn rate was not due to a lack of understanding, but because they had to wait too long before they could control.
After reducing the tutorial by 30 seconds, player retention improved.
Developer Shimaguni Yamato added:
Managers often say: "Add explanations!", but it's better to give players pleasure right away. Tutorials should be introduced in the middle of the game in small portions, separating the basic rules from the secondary ones.
Hiroyuki Matsumoto emphasized:
Players just want to play, no matter what, so they hate learning materials. Even if the basics are explained at the beginning, I don't remember them. All that is needed is a red circle with direction and quick hints before important actions.
Alwei from Indie-us Games noted an example from Nintendo:
Players don't read instructions and don't look for them. [...] Nintendo excellently shows the controls through gameplay, as in Ocarina of Time and Donkey Kong Bananza. This is the perfect approach to learning.
