Invisible Tutorial

Teaching mechanics through deliberate level and encounter design without any explicit instruction text, the player discovers the rule by experiencing its consequence.

In games, this means

World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros. teaches running, jumping, enemy stomping, and power-ups through geometry and enemy placement alone, no text, no prompts. The Goomba is placed exactly where a walking player will collide with it, teaching that enemies are dangerous. This is the gold standard of tutorial design: players feel clever for figuring it out themselves.