GameBanshee writer, Gamasutra blogger, all around RPG knowhow guy Eric Schwarz (aka sea) has written an opinion piece inspecting the opening of Fallout, and how it succeeds at introducing you to the game world and mechanics. Not much new material for our regular readers, of course, but a very worthwhile resource to link to the next time someone is telling you "I can't play Fallout, it's too inaccessible".<blockquote>Fallout teaches the fundamentals of its interface in surprisingly intuitive and covert ways. This is accomplished through the corpse near the player - after all, just about everyone's going to want to inspect it. To do so, Fallout requires the player right-click to change the cursor to "interact mode" and then left-click on the corpse once more. This opens up the looting panel, which clearly displays both the player's inventory and the container's own items (in this case, a machete). When the player's done, however, another problem appears - the player can't move anymore! Well, right-clicking worked once, so what about again? Sure as can be, a second right-click returns the cursor to movement mode and lets the player continue exploring.
But what about the machete on the corpse? Provided the player can read, he/she will no doubt notice the "INV" icon prominently displayed on the user interface. Clicking it opens up the inventory, where the player will notice a few things: first, that he/she hasn't been sent out without supplies; second, that the machete appeared at the top of the player's list; third, that any items can be equipped in the "Item 1" and "Item 2" slots, not just weapons. Thus, the player has learned not just how to use the interface for moving, interacting, looting, and equipping items, but also that items can be used in the weapon slots - suggesting not only that, say, Stimpaks can be used to heal one's self, but that they can be used to heal others as well.
Although this seems counter-intuitive and difficult to figure out, this is actually one of the most effective "invisible" tutorials I've ever seen. With a single sequence, the game has taught the player the fundamental differences between movement mode and interaction mode, how to change between the two modes, how to interact with the environment, how to manage inventory, and a whole other mode of interacting with the world, through items. It's not mandatory, but unless the designers wanted to break immersion with tutorial messages, this is about as quick and effective a way as you can teach the player these things.</blockquote>
But what about the machete on the corpse? Provided the player can read, he/she will no doubt notice the "INV" icon prominently displayed on the user interface. Clicking it opens up the inventory, where the player will notice a few things: first, that he/she hasn't been sent out without supplies; second, that the machete appeared at the top of the player's list; third, that any items can be equipped in the "Item 1" and "Item 2" slots, not just weapons. Thus, the player has learned not just how to use the interface for moving, interacting, looting, and equipping items, but also that items can be used in the weapon slots - suggesting not only that, say, Stimpaks can be used to heal one's self, but that they can be used to heal others as well.
Although this seems counter-intuitive and difficult to figure out, this is actually one of the most effective "invisible" tutorials I've ever seen. With a single sequence, the game has taught the player the fundamental differences between movement mode and interaction mode, how to change between the two modes, how to interact with the environment, how to manage inventory, and a whole other mode of interacting with the world, through items. It's not mandatory, but unless the designers wanted to break immersion with tutorial messages, this is about as quick and effective a way as you can teach the player these things.</blockquote>
If one can't figure out how FO interface works, he'd better get interested in the game, first.
It took me a while to notice I can do that in JA2. Nice article, sea!