I'm creating a game and I got to thinking about the tutorial today. What bugs me about most tutorials I see today is that they almost seem to try to convince you that you are playing the game while you just watch the game being played for you. (I cite a lot of browser-RTS games on this, but I will also call out warcraft3 and spellforce - while those are old, the tutorial offers very little interactivity beyond what you are told to do, thus not really any gameplay taking place, imo. More recent examples would be most of the 'Clash' genre.) I really dislike this and I'd prefer not to even waste time trying to program something I can't stand, so I've come with an alternative idea:

I'd rather have no interactive tutorial, but organize information about the game very well within the manual, as well as have a 'Tutorial' map that only provides an outline of how to do everything with very specific instructions and pictures. The goal will be to allow the player to experiment on the tutorial map without the pressures that the normal game mode provides. (Ex: Food is a limited resource normally, on this map it is infinite.) However, this map will not allow the player to access all the materials that can be used to craft items or introduce very many enemies to the player.

I plan to make a virtual manual that is accessible from a button on the main UI. Not from a 'Menu->Help->Manual' type selection, but just a normal help button that brings up the manual. I also plan for the manual to allow the player to bookmark pages that they find helpful or might want to return to.

The whole idea behind all of this is to allow the player to chose whether they want to follow step-by-step instructions or whether they want to experiment on the tutorial map or just jump right into the game and figure it out as they go along.

My question is: Does this approach sound like a good idea?

There are at least two major groups of players when it comes down to tutorials. The first group contains playper who learn by doing, experiment with the game and learn the game while playing. The second group are players who want a description of how to play the game before they start doing it.

Both have in common, that they really dislike reading stuff, so tutorials in form of text is really hard to sell.

From my personal experience, I like manuals in paper form, but I start playing first (I'm the experimental type of player), often skipping tutorials and just after I've played the game for a few hours (gained enough knowledge about the game mechanism), I start to read the manual (check if there's still something new to learn).

Your approach is for the experiment group, which is often handled more easily, almost for free, because they discover your game on their own. The second group, the we-need-a-tutorial group, is much harder to hit, and most tutorials are tailored for this group of players.

Therefor I doubt that your approach gains a lot of popularity .

I tend to prefer the first level tutorial, though it can be hard to adapt to certain genres.

Build the tutorial into your game. Unlock more features until everything is unlocked in 2-3 missions, longer then that and its a pain. You could weave it into the story like a prologue which retells something that has happened, and it will thus be easier to sell an already known ending of the missions(you failed to defend the crystal! waa! Now back to the future you and start the game.)

I completely hate tutorials that go; You have a mouse, use it by moving it to the right. awesome! You know how to move your mouse! Now move it to the left. awesome! You can click with your mouse also! Awesome! You can press these buttons! Awesome!

Why not looking at it the broader way?

There are tutorials (optional), not interactive at all. Preferably divided into separate chapters you can "play" in any order you want (Paradox Games have these done nicely).

There are manuals (Civipedia/Encyclopedia, help, etc).

There are ingame tips and tooltips.

Implement these all and let the player use the one he/she prefers.