Follow the steps laid out in this article and you will be able to teach new things to your player through good level design, use of lighting and object placement and engineer a great teaching experience for the player. Players will generally approach a puzzle using the skills that they already have learned and use them to solve a puzzle. You can't always expect them to think up a completely new solution that is outside their skill set. If it is a brand new skill, it needs to be introduced and taught to the player, gradually increasing the difficulty and introducing new applications for the skill, while giving the player a safe environment for practicing the skill.

This article is a walkthrough of Level Building Tutorial 1: Doors where I demonstrate how to teach a new skill to players. Here is a link to the level:
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=550084517

What skills and expectations does the player bring with them? If you are introducing an alternate use of an object, you should start with the regular function and build from there.

The new skill in this level uses doors, so I have included some regular doors that provide regular door functions. The player will come back to these doors upstairs, so I am hinting that there may be other uses by leaving one open and placing the activation block for the second door high and exposing the door as it rises instead of having it disappear into a wall. I also give them a hint with the two activation cubes on the far wall upstairs, so right away they know that an objective will be to get up to it.

Where does the player almost never look? Up. It is extremely hard to get players to look up, so that makes the ceiling a good place to hide things that are secret – but a bad place to hide things that are essential. In this tutorial, the player needs to go up, though, so we give them direction by guiding their eyes up. The height of the main room, the ceiling struts, light cubes, and two energy cubes all get the player to look up.

I didn't just want to build stairs, so I tried to make the path to the top of the door a little bit of a puzzle. However, this is where we start training the player to do something new. Since they probably haven't used doors this way before and might not know what to do, we need a strategy that won't fail.

How do you make sure the player doesn't miss the lesson? Don't give them a chance to use a shortcut to get past it, missing out on learning it. Make sure there is no way around, over, under or through. Keep the path linear and don't give the player any way out except forward.

The blue cube that is high up in the wall in the main room needs to be collected, so I placed it high out of reach to lead the player to start climbing. That is step one of getting them to climb on top of the door.

Step two is activating the door. When the blue cube is placed on the activation cube, the player sees the door rise and provide a lift to the balcony. It also provides a step to get the player up to the door.

It is extremely important to let the player see the results of their actions; that is why the sightline of the player allows them to see the door rising when they activate the door; that teaches them that the door is part of the solution.

The player then can hop to the door frame and get on top of the door and ride it to the balcony.

How many skills should you teach at one time? Only one. After introducing the skill of riding the door up to the balcony, the player is introduced to the related skill of using the door as a stepping stone. The first door is still up and the player uses it to get to the next door, which is down. The player can jump down to the door and ride it back up; this is reinforced by collecting a cube that is low and out of reach from the balcony, so the player now rides the door as well as using it as a stepping stone, reinforcing both skills.

Should you kill the player while teaching? No! A player should never have to die while learning a new skill. Stress inhibits learning, so learning must never be stressful. After the player is proficient at the skill, then they can be tested in a more dangerous environment; but not while they are learning it. If the player falls off of the doors, they can easily go back and do it again. That allows their brain to learn the new skill much faster.

How do you encourage the player to learn a difficult skill? Rewards motivate the player to keep practicing. Learning new skills takes effort, so reward your player with a great view, a secret area, collecting extra cubes, whatever you can do to encourage them to keep at it. Re-play the game and look for all these steps; they are all in the main game. Remember what was hard for you at first, and realize how much easier it is for you now. The developers of Qbeh-1 did a great job teaching many skills in the game. Imitate them!

There is a secret area in this tutorial level, and a bonus cube. Those are my rewards to the player for learning a new skill. I love secret areas, and I love to reward my game testers by putting their initials in lights on my levels – and giving them a star for each time they break my level! It is one the achievements I offer.

How do you teach a skill that the player doesn't want to learn? Introduce the skill slowly. Take away all other options. Allow the player to practice somewhere safe. And reward the player.

I didn't want to learn to jump! Those jumps over thin air were scary! But Qbeh-1 taught me to be a very skilled jumper by gradually adding more jumping skills, allowing me to practice them in safe areas with floors and walls to catch me, and over the course of 36 levels, I learned to jump – and enjoy it! But it was really hard for me at first. But I was really motivated to finish the game, so I stuck with it. And I got lots of rewards and achievements. But most of all, I really learned how to teach skills in the games that I am building.

I hope that this helps you learn to teach your players and I am looking forward to learning from you in your levels!