http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InstructiveLevelDesign

The very beginning of Super Mario Bros , with all the basic elements of the game displayed.

seconds of the game. It's nuts!" Ego Raptor, Sequelitis Mega Man X on the other hand, has so much to offer, and it teaches you all of it in the first level, no, in the first fuckin'of the game. It's

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This is a supertrope for any way that designers communicate things to players using level design. This is Show, Don't Tell style stuff, techniques you can use to inform players without having to bore them with text.

Often, instructive level design is about teaching the player controls, basic rules, or patterns in a game. E.g.: The first scene of Super Mario Bros. can teach you "Mario will be hurt by goombas, Mario can get things out of question blocks by hitting them from below, Mario can grow big by getting a mushroom, etc." Obviously you'll find that kind of instructive level design at the beginning of a game.

You can use instructive level design for things other than teaching basic rules, though. In Portal, for example, test chamber 10 (around half an hour into the game) teaches you the "fling" tactic. The "fling" is not a basic rule of the game, but is a useful tool that is constructed out of a combination of basic rules (the basic rules that get combined are "you fall with some acceleration" and "portals can change your direction").

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Contrast this with Tutorial Level, where the designers sit you down and explicitly inform you about the game's mechanics rather than let you learn through experimentation.

Subtropes:

Antepiece: When a number of "challenges" involve related ideas, but initial ones are a much lesser challenge. They exist purely to expose some concepts that will be needed later.

Broken Bridge: As a designer, you put your player in a room that they can't get out of without working out the new thing you're trying to teach them. That way, the player can't go forward without figuring out more about your game.

Camera Tricks: Devs want to make things very clear in these situations, so they'll often use camera techniques. They might, for example, avoid confusion about locations by trying to get it so that every relevant object will be on the screen at the same time.

Advertisement: Equipment-Based Progression: Devs may place initial limitations on the player's abilities, and lay out the game in such a way that you only need *this* thing for *that* part. This avoids a bit of confusion for a player thinking about what they should use in a given place.

Foreshadowing: Sometimes a level designer will give you the opportunity to have a good look at the area of a level you're about to go before you go there, allowing you to asses the situation. This happens for the "energy ball room" in Half Life 2: Episode 1 and for many shooting arenas in FEAR.

The Law of Conservation of Detail: There are things you'll do in a level that don't seem like such a big deal; certainly they're not very challenging. But they might be teaching you certain controls in a subtle way.

Minimalism: Designers want the player to focus on learning something that could potentially be important. So instructive level-bits will often contain a small number of elements. They don't want you to be distracted by the nice way the light shines through the trees; they want you to focus on how to play.

New Weapon Target Range: Designers give the player a new tool, and set up the next area in such a way that it perfectly suits the tool's use so a player can learn how it works.

No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: Constraining the player means that you can make sure that they get introduced to the exact ideas you want to introduce to them.

Teaching Through Accident: When designers encourages players to do something that may not actually help them, but allows them to discover something new regardless.

Videogame Difficulty Tropes: There might be dynamic difficulty adjustment used in this kind of level design, or just generally less aggressive enemies or something like that.

Video Game Rewards: To hammer home that you've learned something specific, it's good to give the player some kind of small, short-term reward. Not a "you've won the game" reward, or a "you've done something HUGE AND DIFFICULT" reward. Just a "you've shown some cleverness" reward.

Related Tropes:

Training Dummy: Something you can practice on without any consequence.

Examples: