When Tutorials Forget to Tutor

A while back, I wrote about tutorial hell — that loop so many of us fall into where we keep watching, keep following, keep “learning”… but somehow never actually learn. It’s a trap I know all too well. But lately, I’ve realised there’s another layer to it. It’s not just about how we use tutorials. It’s also about the quality of the tutorials themselves.

Because here’s the thing: a lot of what’s out there doesn’t really teach. It shows.

You know the ones — the tutorials that jump straight into “click here, drag this, connect that” with no explanation of why any of it matters. By the end, you’ve got a working door, or a particle effect, or a dialogue system, but not a clue how you got there. You copy the steps, you get the same result, and then the moment you try to do something even slightly different, it all falls apart.

That’s not teaching. That’s painting by numbers.

A good tutorial should do more than walk you through a sequence of clicks. It should explain the reasoning behind each step — why the creator chose that approach, what alternatives exist, what each node or line of code actually does. It should build understanding, not just repetition. Because the goal isn’t to reproduce someone else’s work; it’s to learn how to build your own.

The best tutorials make you think. They show you the problem-solving process — how to debug when something doesn’t work, or why one method might be more efficient than another. They turn mistakes into teaching moments instead of skipping over them in the edit. They make space for you to experiment, not just follow along.

But too often, the online ecosystem rewards speed over substance. YouTube’s algorithm loves short videos with flashy results. A thumbnail showing “INSANE Unreal 5 effect in 5 minutes!” will always perform better than “Understanding Niagara particle emitters from first principles.” The result? A wave of content that prioritises wow moments over real education. We end up with creators who are great at showing — but not at teaching.

And that’s a problem, because game development isn’t a checklist. It’s a web of connected systems. Without understanding why things work, we can’t adapt, troubleshoot, or innovate. We can follow a tutorial that builds a dialogue box, but when we try to add choices or transitions, we’re lost — because the original video never explained how the system thinks. It just showed us what to click.

The difference between a tutorial that shows and one that teaches is the difference between dependency and confidence. A good tutorial gives you the tools to figure things out on your own next time. A bad one keeps you reliant on the next video. And before long, you’ve built a dozen unfinished prototypes that all feel like someone else’s work, not yours.

Creators in this space have such a huge opportunity to change that. The fix isn’t complicated — it just takes intention. Slow down. Narrate your thought process. Explain what each node or line of code actually does, and why you’re doing it this way instead of another. Include the “what if” scenarios — what happens if we tweak this value, or connect it differently? Leave a few rough edges in, even. Show what happens when things don’t go to plan.

That’s what real teaching looks like. It’s honest, it’s patient, and it gives learners the confidence to take the training wheels off.

And as learners, we can do our part too. When you’re following a tutorial, don’t just copy — pause it. Ask yourself what’s happening. Try changing a value, rewording a variable, or replacing a mesh. Break things on purpose and see how they behave. Write down what each part does in your own words. It’s slower, but it’s your learning, not someone else’s.

For me, that shift — from blindly following to actively understanding — changed everything. Once I stopped trying to memorise tutorials and started trying to interpret them, I started learning faster. More importantly, I started having fun again. Because I wasn’t stuck recreating other people’s projects. I was finally building my own.

The best tutorials don’t just show us what to click. They show us how to think. And that’s what every good teacher, in game dev or anywhere else, should aim for.