I may be just some random person on the internet, and these are just my personal views, but hopefully my track record gives my views some merit.

How do you grow a scene? Every person may give you different answers, and nobody knows for sure. While many others went for factors like community, entertainment streams, casual hangouts, cash prizes and more, my approach was always that “if they’ll understand it, they’ll enjoy it”. I chose to focus on the role and potential of tutorials.

If tutorials were ineffective in the past as a tool to attract new players, it’s not because tutorials can’t attract new players period, like many people claimed. For me, it only meant that there’s still room for improvement. That the problem was with US, not with the new players. And if the problem is with us, then we can also fix it!

I think that every fighting game has its own unique “walls” that can limit its appeal to new players, and solving every game’s “walls” requires a one of a kind approach.

So what I did with the Guilty Gear projects specifically fits that game and its unique “walls”, and will not fit Street Fighter or Tekken. With that said, the experience gained from trying to simplify one of the (seemingly) most complex games in the genre, and dabbling in many different games, does help you see some of the “walls” of other games pretty clearly.

So here are my personal views on which types of tutorials may be effective in attracting new players to each contemporary game. (Other than Guilty Gear and Killer Instinct which we’ve already made tutorials for.)

Tekken 7 – Working on it. The only thing I can reveal right now is the “Top 15 Moves” doc which I really need help filling:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14QszwNxYv5VpTq2BY9jAN972SeZRbbw-oqj2dONWINI/edit

Arcana Heart 3- Working on it. Contact me if you want to help and contribute.

Melty Blood – While I think the easy execution characters in the game are maybe the most newbie friendly in the whole genre (so much easier than SF…) tactically it can be confusing when coming from other games. I’m currently working on perfecting an explanation for it (which is extremely hard btw) and that should hopefully solve it.

King of Fighters XIV – The series has always had the exact same two big “walls”: Three characters, and the movement system.

Being forced to play three characters from day one is overwhelming. I think the solution to this is to create an extremely simple “day one plan” for each and every character. If you create these well, the newbies can at least put up a basic fight with the other two characters as they focus on learning one at a time.

The movement aspect is a bit harder to tackle. KOF’s movement is unique, and not easy to control at all. Doing a hop instead of a normal jump in the heat of the match is a hard technical skill that requires getting used to. The 2nd problem is that it’s all unique to KOF, so while KOF players can easily play every game in the series, players coming from other fighting games can’t use their existing technical skills to ease their way into the game. Being a unique system also makes it harder to understand tactically. Think about the best KOF tutorial you’ve ever seen. Most people would answer “Dandy J”, but it’s not just because it had great production value, but also because it was about the what people needed the most. Not fancy HD combos, not hard confirms. It was about movement and what it means in the game! I think it’s about time to not only remake this guide with KOFXIV visuals(because these little things matter, like it or not), but also try to improve upon it even further. I’m sure the material can be explained even better!

Under Night – Sadly I currently don’t know the game enough to analyze it.

Pokken – Ditto.

Blazblue CF – I guess most of the GGCC episodes are still relevant. The game’s currently not on my mind so I can’t say more than that.

Street Fighter V, Injustice 2, Melee, Smash – I really don’t care about them currently so I have nothing to say.