Tutorial Level Design Guidelines for 2D Fighting Games

Abstract

Fighting games can have barriers to entry as a result of the competency and skill needed to understand the mechanics and objectives of play. One of the key challenges in fighting game design is to teach players how to attain competency. The most common teaching strategy employed in many fighting games is to include a tutorial level. However, there is a lack of research on how fighting game tutorial levels should be designed to support learning for new players. In this paper, we propose design guidelines for video game tutorials, based on the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and video game design theory. We developed a fighting game tutorial, based on our design guidelines. We evaluated our design against a popular, recent fighting game, Guilty Gear Strive, in a user study with 10 players new to the genre. Our evaluation showed that our design improved on the in-game tutorial, in terms of supporting player learning. We also demonstrated that our design guidelines can provide useful insights into how to provide learning support in fighting game tutorials.