Ninja Gaiden Black and the Tutorial-Less Tutorial

Ninja Gaiden Black’s main character is a quick, agile ninja, not an ox-like warrior. In order to survive, the player must spend a large amount of time dodging and weaving, finding just the right time to strike. All of this requires a deep understanding of controls - not only of single buttons and what they do, but button combinations and when to use them. Modern games – both educational and commercial – use long tutorials that slowly walk players through movement and combat, using practice dummies or contrived scenarios, which tell the player how to move, but often lack a sense of experimentation from those early levels. Instead of painstakingly instructing the player on how to navigate and conquer the virtual battlefield, Team Ninja, the game’s developers, opted for a different teaching style – To make the beginning of the game an open sandbox, and make experimentation the basis of navigating levels and conquering enemies.