Role And Experiences Of Tutorial In Location-Based Game

Location-based games, such as Geocaching and Pokemon Go, have gained wide popularity during recent years. Since playing a location-based game requires time and willingness to go outside, convincing players to play these games can be more challenging than other types of mobile games. In this article, we research how different tutorials, a location-based (which requires moving around) and a sedentary (which is played without moving physically) could help to overcome this barrier. A location-based game called "Treasure hunt" was developed and used for collecting data from two test periods: first one with a location-based tutorial and second one with a sedentary tutorial. On one hand, the sedentary tutorial increased significantly the proportion of the players who completed the tutorial. On the other hand, it did not increase the proportion of the players who continued playing while moving. Thus, a sedentary tutorial can be considered as a good way to introduce the idea of the game, but does not appear to increase long-term engagement with the game.