Learning Experiences

So I'm curious; assuming I have more than a single reader, in what ways do you learn best? Is it different depending on what skill it is you wish to learn? Is it a common way, or something very unusual? Do you read manuals and play tutorials, or cut right to the chase?

Today I helped a friend with an assignment, namely, by playing Left 4 Dead 2.

I'm not sure precisely what her major is but she'd been looking for people to play a basic, instructional game of it with her, and I was more than happy to help. It was fun, and made for a good break from my work. The purpose of this assignment, however, was to choose two target audiences whom would be very different, and I'm assuming at least one of which would have no background genre knowledge to support them, and to create a document or presentation to teach them how to play a cooperative game. Perhaps it didn't matter that it was a game, and she went for that because she's a fan of them. Maybe she's a game design major. Not sure, but I certainly want to ask now.

In any case, we took the time to basically tour the early parts of the game, trying to encourage her to look at what we did from an observer's standpoint instead of a player's, to look at what was important to know, the mechanics, what was difficult or important to the team work and experiences, difficult vs easy things, and points of note that could be easily overlooked by the uninformed.

I know it's not feasible to make a tutorial instead of this for her assignment, but in full honesty; to learn a game, what works for you best? I find for most people it's tutorials. Not only do they test your capability and understanding of what they're teaching, but they mean practice and involvement. They draw you into the experience when done right, and make it interesting- a quality that greatly enhances the rate of learning. People learn fun things and survival skills pretty quickly after all, but the boring stuff usually takes effort (whatever it is that bores you).

So, assuming to play a game, a tutorial is the preferred method...

How does one craft a good tutorial?

I think my favorites have always been the ones that haven not really seemed like/been tutorials. You'll know it's scripted, but if it pretends to make things a part of the game and uses discrete button or menu cues, these things often can blend into gameplay and let you immerse yourself. I find these the most enjoyable, but how does one hide the tutorial skeleton without making it potentially too punishing for the learning players? Ease them in without making it feel like you're holding their hand for baby steps? Do you dump it all at once or spread it out through the game?

Food for thought.