Rime Devs Discuss Making Their Game Accessible Without Annoying Tutorials In A New Video

Tutorials – does anybody really like them? Sure, sometimes they're a necessary evil, and may make your overall experience with a game better, but the actual process of playing through them is usually a drag. Well, Rime is a beautiful new Zelda-esque adventure that seeks to do away with tutorials. But how do you do that when your game is heavily reliant on puzzle-solving and exploration? Won't people end up confused and/or lost?

Well, Rime developers Tequila Works are really going the extra mile to make sure their puzzle game is accessible, despite not having tutorials. To achieve that, they've come up with some clever hacks – for instance, the large tower in the middle of the game's world acts a compass of sorts, keeping player oriented.

"The tower has a really huge symbol: the lock. It's a recurring symbol. From a gameplay perspective, it serves as an anchor. A reference as you explore different areas. 'Okay, the tower is over there.' And, at the same time, it's your goal. You know you have to get there."

According to Tequila Works' head of QA, a huge amount of effort is being sunk into making sure all the puzzles work as smoothly as possible…

"When you test the game, you have to do the right things, and wrong things, and everything in between. You have to consciously play it wrong. It's complicated, because you need to challenge the work done by the design team. The rest of the team goes nuts!"

While we're at it, IGN recently posted some new Rime footage, including the game's first enemy encounter, and some pretty underwater footage. Scroll on down to check it out.

Rime hits PC, Xbox One, and PS4 on May 26. A Nintendo Switch version should arrive sometime soon after.