How to write a tutorial

[OneDollar]

For a while now I've been thinking about writing some tutorials for AGS. My original idea was video guides (about 2 weeks before Densming more than covered that angle with his great videos), then I moved onto the idea of a series of specific tutorials for making different GUIs (How to make a 9 verb GUI, how to make a verb coin GUI etc). Lately I've been wondering about making one large document that walks through making a game from scratch and then adding to it with more and more complicated ideas.

The other thing I've been thinking about is the AGS Wiki, which (as keeps being discussed) is in a rather empty state at the moment. Writing tutorials that would fit into wiki articles might be helpful, but its a much more restrictive writing style. I don't think I could write a 'game from scratch' type how to in the wiki.

So... what kind tutorials would you find useful? What tutorials *did* you find useful? Is there a type of tutorial you found helpful for another program that's missing from AGS? What topics want covering, and how and where should they be covered?

Currently the following general AGS tutorials (unless I've missed any) are around...
*Manual entry for getting started with AGS (and web-based version)
*Manual entry for scripting in AGS (and web-based version)
*Desming's video tutorials
*Handful of specific topic tutorials in the Wiki

[Layabout]

Heh, funny you should mention this. I had this thought to get some of the AGS art wizards to create a bunch of tutorials on various subjects like background creation, composition, sprite creation, animation, palette creation for low-resolution sprites (somewhat like a basic colour theory, concentrating on skin tones and complementary colour schemes for sprites). It would be a pretty intensive project to undertake, I would be willing to make a tute or two for a project of this scale. Something like an all inclusive AGS creation 'book'.

[Stupot]

Hehe, How to write a tutorial...
I thought this was going to be a tutorial about how to write an entertaining and informative tutorial.

[magintz]

I always find learning by example a good way. If something is shown to me through a practical implementation it would be helpful.  Step by step written tutorials I'll always find better than a video as they're easier to reference and go back and check things.

As every game is different it would be difficult to show how an entire game is made there are too many specifics such as background art, character art, music, story, programming and even using the AGS interface.

Here's some suggestions for tutorials:
> A video overview of AGS and it's features and functions. What various options do and where everything can be found. Perhaps an explanation of the AGS manual, forums and wiki to help eliminate RTFM replies.
> An introduction to programming using AGS, something quick and visual to let people who might not have any programming experience learn about variables, conditionals and object oriented programming.
> The idea of making a game from scratch is nice but it might be more practical to do a demonstration of implementing a single room of a game. This could cover things like example programs to use for backgrounds and music and some links to good tutorials or references, but it would be better if your tutorial focused on AGS. Show the implementation of a GUI, some characters, dialogue, interactions and other AGS related things.
> More specific tutorials. Perhaps look at some tricky questions in the technical forum and try to explain in a tutorial how these things can be done, or base the tutorials on common things such as how to implement a verb coin.

The main thing I can mention is not to make a tutorial for tutorials sake but to make something that will be of genuine help to people.  As with games I also strongly suggest that any tutorial be beta tested by both a native English speaker and a non native English speaker, this can be crucial to the learning experience.

Hope this helps,
Magintz

[OneDollar]

[...]Something like an all inclusive AGS creation 'book'.

Did you have any thoughts on how you'd organise a project like that? One big AGS 'book' has its advantages - its one download so someone could access it all offline, would have contents pages and be searchable, could be arranged so that tutorials follow in level of difficulty... but then there's also the problem of updating it and correcting mistakes as well as (to a certain extent) hosting it. Putting stuff in a wiki solves the updating and maintaining issues, as well as being able to upload people's tutorials as and when they're done, but at the moment with so few entries and (apparently) very little interest in adding to and editing the AGS wiki its going to be quite hard to keep a standard style and level of difficulty.

I don't think I can contribute much to the art side of things, I was just wondering if you had any set plans for collecting those tutorials together?

One other idea - I've done a bit of messing around in Blender in the past and they have (in addition to a wiki-based manual and lots of stand alone tutorials on different subjects) a huge wikibook called Blender 3D: Noob to Pro that teaches by going step-by-step through different tutorials of increasing complexity, gradually covering all the different techniques. The whole thing is written by 4 people, then edited by 14 others. They also offer (slightly outdated) .pdf versions to download.

Hehe, How to write a tutorial...
I thought this was going to be a tutorial about how to write an entertaining and informative tutorial.

Hehe, maybe a bit further down the line...

The main thing I can mention is not to make a tutorial for tutorials sake but to make something that will be of genuine help to people.

One of the reasons for this topic

I also strongly suggest that any tutorial be beta tested by both a native English speaker and a non native English speaker, this can be crucial to the learning experience.

Very good point. I'll definitely enlist some help to check it all makes sense.

Thanks for the suggestions as well. When I get chance I'll go over the other tutorials out there and see if I can spot anything obvious that's missing, in the meantime any other ideas are also welcome.

(Maybe somebody should make a list of tutorials that need writing, in a similar way to this list so that people can dive in and grab topics)

[Trent R]

The other thing I've been thinking about is the AGS Wiki, which (as keeps being discussed) is in a rather empty state at the moment. Writing tutorials that would fit into wiki articles might be helpful, but its a much more restrictive writing style. I don't think I could write a 'game from scratch' type how to in the wiki.

Although making a tutorial on the AGS Wiki would be best in wiki format, I think you should upload it onto the wiki anyways. I put up WYGIB on the wiki a while ago, cause it's still a good read (granted, not a tutorial).

> A video overview of AGS and it's features and functions. What various options do and where everything can be found. Perhaps an explanation of the AGS manual, forums and wiki to help eliminate RTFM replies.

Agreed, even though I wouldn't use such a tut.

As for a list of tutorials that need writing, there's a mini list in the RPG Sticky in the Beginner's forum.

Best of luck on which ever tutorial you create.


~Trent

[Babar]

Lately I've been wondering about making one large document that walks through making a game from scratch and then adding to it with more and more complicated ideas.

This was something of my intention when I made my tutorial collection. Not one document, obviously, because that would have become too unwieldy and messy (I learnt quite a bit from that blender tutorial, but in that case it was all about 1 thing, so it fit. An adventure game involves too many elements to be shown together on 1 page, at least if you ask me), but a sort of reference for when someone wanted to make a game: "Hey I want to make a cartoony game! I'll take this tutorial about drawing cartoony backgrounds, this one about drawing characters, and then this one for the funny dialogue".

I achieved something like that for the art part of it, but the rest is severely lacking. Which reminds me, I apologise if this hijacking your thread, $1, but if someone knows of a tutorial on how to design a detective game (or a tutorial on how to write a mystery novel if it is applicable to games), I'd greatly appreciate it. And music too! If you have a tutorial on how to write music for games (for beginners), that would make me very happy.

Scripting tutorials were the most problematic for me. The engine is always being updated and fixed, commands change, etc., so in the end all I did was link to the Beginner's FAQ in the agswiki.