Hello Folks, I have a question for you experts: Do you know of games that offer no tutorial to the player?

I ask because I have a semiotics course to attend and this would be pretty interesting to present. Examples of games without tutorial (or with very little explanation) are: Monument Valley, Limbo, Don't Starve.

I've been searching the web but it's quite hard to find such topic. Any contribution would be really appreciated, also, I think being able to do a good game AND being able to explain it without words is really Great!

Thanks in Advance >.<

EDIT:

(since I understand people won't read each comment) The exam went well! I got terrific examples from you and you deserve a BIG THANK YOU!
I think the topic is still interesting and should be taken into consideration when creating new games as there are quite some great examples of game design in here. (and we know people playing won't read instructions anyway) so you're welcome to keep posting examples for the sake of others as well (: and thanks again!

really small puzzle games, eg?

sixteen

2048

tictactoe

physical puzzles (1000 pieces)

wooden block puzzles

You might try looking at this one:

(It's got some obnoxious language, but the megaman X series is great for teaching you as you play without any tutorial elements jumping in your face.

Tutorials are generally a newer invention.

Any older platform or shoot em up games from the 80s and early 90s don't have tutorials.

Especially arcade machines where they want you to get through that $1 as quickly as possible and not waste time on tutorials while at the same time making sure your time feels like it was worth it...

Another way of looking at it would be games that have invisible tutorials.

SuperMario Bros 1-1 is one of the best examples of this

Valve are especially good at this. If you think back to Portal 1, probably more than half the game is a tutorial of sorts.

Or Halflife 2.... here's a great video on it.

Google Roguelikes.

It might be hard to believe. But a majority of the games do actually teach you without need for a tutorial. Some of them are trial and error. And a few other's are a basic warm up, and uses very common buttons or a good interface.

The first level is usually simple enough with some very basic hazards to teach the player how the game works. The world moves when you move. These items are here. And that anything the enemy can do, you can do.

Later on through experiementation, and good UI, the player will usually pick up how the finer details of the game works.

Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. UFO: Enemy Unknown or XCOM: UFO Defense in some areas required a phone book of a manual. It took about 2 hours on the john to read it. Because honestly... the game was really in depth, had a cluttered UI, and limited graphics.

Thanks, every hint is really appreciated!
I'd love to point out the process of "codification of a game language, with no written language, but symbols" S:

@Alberth
Those are maybe too simple, as if I think about 2048 you swipe and you understand the game by trial and error but it also has a GUI with points that is telling you if you're doing good or bad, I'd need examples that tell the player almost nothing.

@ferrous
Megaman seems ok! thank you!

@braindigitalis
Yeah I thought about old games that were almost self-explaining such as Pac-Man. I think I'll definitely insert them (:

@ChaosEngine
I've watched the videos and they're really helpful! I didn't think that deeply about supermario, but now I do.

@Tangletail
Roguelike: Ok will check! LOL about the last example, I remember the old good instruction manuals, I used to read them superexcited while waiting to be back home with a new game, but this is really on some other level!

Super Meat Boy (great example IMHO),

Almost all Mario Games,

All Doom games.

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (i think there were no tutorials).

Startcraft/Warcraft there were tutorial missions, but you still play.

Fallout 1 (IDK for the sequels)

@imoogiBG

I have very little knowledge of first person shooters so it's very interesting to know this, I'll add these to my list of things to check too (: thank you

Super Meat Boy (great example IMHO),
Almost all Mario Games,
All Doom games.
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (i think there were no tutorials).
Startcraft/Warcraft there were tutorial missions, but you still play.
Fallout 1 (IDK for the sequels)

All fallout series up until new Vegas basically had tutorials. In 3 for example the tutorial was up until you left the vault. Until this point it was very hard to die, but choices you made there still had far reaching consequences later on...

In fallout new Vegas you simply were told "I recommend you don't head north unless you want to die". Your path was blocked north by high level monsters and going that way as level 1 meant a swift death (unless you kinda cheated by abusing navmesh glitches and had a *lot* of explosive or armour peiecing rifle ammo from somewhere). You had to go south, edge around the monsters while levelling up... I guess that's a tutorial by stealth.