i did a short study on this a while ago, and, fortunately, i still have the old text file of all my notes, so, for once, i'm making an educated, well researched and almost-properly formatted post. you cant expect more from a high school dropout...
as far as i'm concerned, there are 3 types of good tutorials
- quick, comprehensive, intuitive
- novel and/or comedic
- super-intuitive and built into the early gameplay loop. i know that's vague, so an example could be Dark Souls, a game simple and intuitive enough to exchange the traditional idea of a guided tutorial sequence for a short, difficult self contained level 1 strewn with environmentally integrated beginner tips for the player to bumble about with and figure out.
the one thing all 3 have in common, and should be true for any tutorial, is interactivity and engagement.
there are very few cases where a simple how-to pop up is anything but lazy. one exception, is in the case of "tips" like @DaveTheCoder's example. obscured tips can nudge the player in the right direction when they're off track, while leaving plenty of room for discovery, which is something that usually does not need its own dedicated setting, scene or moment in time. DO NOT hide vital information here, unless there is a very good artistic reason to do so. what's "clever" to you can be infuriating to a player trying to have a good time.
the type of tutorial you use should absolutely reflect the type of game you're tutoring the player for. you wouldn't use a hardcore "figure it out" tutorial like dark souls for a game like undertale. for that, toby fox made the right move of parodying traditional tutorial sequences with an elaborate joke, that still functions as a casual-friendly tutorial. on the other hand, quick, engaging, guided tutorials fit best in strategy/tactics or management simulator games, like zoo tycoon, where the goal is clear, the controls are intuitive, but the inherently complex nature of the game makes a proper introduction necessary.
tutorials can also serve to help the developer discern if their game sucks ass. if you find it impossible to create an intuitive and helpful tutorial for your game, there's a chance it's not a good game. if no one can come up with a good tutorial for your game, it's either a ground breaking new genre that you should patent immediately, or it's simply not a good game. video games should not be needlessly complex, esoteric, or otherwise unintuitive, and tutorials reflect that.
that's all i've got.
thank you for attending my masterclass, i expect a check to the amount of $21.00 + tip in my PO box next week.
