The Definitive Top Ten Rules for Creating the Best Unreal Engine Video Tutorials

A disciplined framework for ensuring video success, and a shaper of dev minds in the 22nd century.

1. Never, Under Any Circumstances, Talk to the Viewer

Set up multiple cameras around the room as though you are filming a prestige documentary about your own genius. Cut between them at random. Look past the lens, above it, or at a monitor that is clearly not showing the tutorial.

When you do speak, address a vague, unseen presence, as if your real audience exists somewhere off to the side. Under no conditions should you make eye contact with the viewer. Eye contact implies responsibility, something you are trying to give them. Occasionally nod, as though someone intelligent has just agreed with you.

If possible, place a FLASHING RED DOT in the corner, like a security camera, next to REC, like you are a character in metal gear solid.

Making the audience feel like a voyeur will pull them in.

Continuity is your enemy. Wear completely different outfits between cuts with no explanation. Change shirts, jackets, lighting, even time of day if possible. One moment you are in a hoodie, the next in a blazer, then back again.

Do not acknowledge it. Do not justify it. Let the viewer wonder whether time has passed, whether footage is missing, or whether they themselves have made an error.

Optional Advanced Technique: Change outfits mid-sentence via a transition. Begin a sentence in one outfit, finish it in another, and carry on as if this is the most natural thing in the world.

Use as many jump-cuts as possible. The audience must feel like your mouse has a flux capacitor inside of it.

2. Audio Must Compete for Survival

Your voice is only one of several audio layers, and not the most important one. Add a constant bed of aggressive thrash or death metal at near-equal volume like the audience has stepped off a helicopter in a war zone. This shows them you mean business.

Sabotage your microphone. Place it too far away, slightly behind you, or partially obstructed by something soft and unhelpful, like your cat purring. Allow desk vibrations, chair creaks, the bowling alley you live beneath and distant room noise to contribute meaningfully to the mix.

The ideal outcome is that the viewer leans in, thinking: “I almost understood that.”

3. Interrupt Yourself Relentlessly

Every 30 to 40 seconds, break your own momentum to remind the audience to subscribe, like, comment, follow, and financially support your ongoing existence.

Do this mid-sentence, mid-thought, and especially mid-instruction. If you are about to explain something useful, stop immediately and pivot to promoting your continued right to draw breath.

Rotate platforms for variety. Deliver each mention with urgency, as though this is the last time anyone will ever be able to click a button.

4. Move the Mouse Like It Owes You Money

The cursor must never be still. Ever. This really should be number 1.

Circle buttons without clicking them. Hover over menus you do not open. Open panels you do not use. Close panels you clearly need. Occasionally select the wrong thing and then continue as though it was intentional.

If your cat is available, introduce it as a co-presenter. Allow it to bat at the mouse, step on the keyboard, or obscure the screen. This adds an organic unpredictability to your already unstable workflow and shows you mean business.

5. Edit the video like you’ve Just Discovered Power-Point Effects for the First Time

Transitions are not tools. They are the content layer reality matrix abstraction logic paradigms.

Use wipes, spins, zooms, slides, dissolves, and anything else that suggests motion where none is required. Insert them mid-sentence, mid-click, or halfway through a word.

Make them long. Longer than necessary. Longer than comfortable. Ideally, a simple cut should feel like a small cinematic event in the middle of the super-bowl.

Aim for the aesthetic of someone who has just discovered presentation software and is determined to justify its existence. Use a John Woo reference with slow motion if possible.

Add sound effects, so that when you delete a node in the editor graph, an appropriate whip-crack or western rifle ricochet is heard at full volume.

This should continue to reinforce to the viewer that you mean business.

6. Replace Teaching with Your Life Story

At any point during a technical explanation, pause and introduce something completely unrelated.

Holiday photos are ideal. Especially if they feature you and your cat. Expand on them. Describe the location, the weather, the emotional resonance, and the personality of the cat in that moment.

Do not connect this to the tutorial. Do not acknowledge the interruption. When finished, return to the task halfway through as though nothing has occurred.

The viewer should feel like they briefly changed channels without touching anything. This shows them you mean business.

7. Explain Every Joke So Nobody Misses It

Humour cannot be trusted to land on its own. Reinforce it aggressively.

The moment you say anything even slightly amusing, trigger a cascade of cartoon sound effects in the style of Looney Tunes. Whistles, honks, boings, cymbals, guitar-slides. Preferably layered.

Ensure the effects are louder than your voice and slightly mistimed. If the audience is still aware of what you said, you have under-committed.

Apply effects even when nothing funny has been said, just to maintain tonal instability.

8. Speak Fluent Devspeek

Clarity is inefficient. Replace it with language that sounds important.

Do not “click a button.” Instead: “Engage the modular UI interaction layer within the broader workflow ecosystem.”

Refer to everything as part of a “pipeline,” whether it is or not. Use acronyms freely. Do not define them. If possible, invent them.

The goal is that a marketing department would nod approvingly while a learner quietly loses the will to continue breathing.

9. Philosophise the Obvious

When demonstrating the simplest possible action, introduce an unnecessary intellectual detour.

Before or during enabling a plugin, ask: “But what is a plugin?”

Do not answer. Instead, compare the process to making coffee, or perhaps to the nature of existence. Deliver the analogy with complete seriousness.

Spend several minutes developing this thought. Then abandon it entirely and complete the task in three seconds without explanation - before arranging blueprint nodes in the shape of a phallic object.

10. Make Reality Optional (Units Edition)

Consistency is for amateurs.

Begin in metres. Switch to feet without warning. Then inches. Then yards. Combine them within the same sentence:

“Set this to about 2 metres… or 6 feet… maybe 72 inches… you’ll feel it out.”

Ensure none of these values match what is displayed on screen. Never convert. Never clarify.

For advanced comprehension, assign different units to different axes. Width in metres, height in feet, depth in inches. Let the viewer build their own internal chaos.

Closing Observation

If executed correctly, the viewer will reach the end with a strange and powerful impression:

• They were present
• They were attentive
• They tried their best

Top Comments

u/scubadiver43 “I followed this guide exactly and my watch time doubled. Nobody knows what I’m saying but they refuse to click away.”

u/toasterwizard9000 “Switched from clean cuts to 14 transitions per minute. My audience retention graph now looks like modern art but technically, it’s higher.”

u/definitely_not_a_cat “Introduced my cat halfway through a Blueprint tutorial. Comments increased by 300%. Nobody mentioned Blueprints.”

u/pipeline_overlord “Started using devspeek exclusively. I no longer understand my own tutorials, but I’ve gained three marketing consultant enquiries.”

u/feet_or_meters_idk “Mixed metres, feet, and inches in the same video. People are arguing in the comments trying to fix it. Engagement is through the roof.”

u/zoom_transition_enthusiast “Added a transition every 5 seconds. One viewer said they felt ‘physically disoriented’ but stayed until the end out of spite.”

u/boing_sound_effect “Put cartoon sound effects over everything. Someone said it ‘rewired their brain.’ Subscriptions up 18%.”

u/where_is_the_button “Stopped clicking things and just hovered aggressively. Comments now full of people yelling instructions at me. Feels collaborative for the first time.”

u/holiday_slideshow_guy “Added a 2-minute holiday montage mid-tutorial. Viewer retention dipped, then spiked. Nobody trusts me anymore so they don’t skip.”

u/exists_in_3d_space “Started explaining plugins using plumbing metaphors. I’ve confused myself but the comments say it’s ‘deep.’”

u/this_is_fine_engine “Interrupted myself 6 times asking for likes before finishing a sentence. People started timing it. Now it’s a running joke and it created a meme!.”

u/another_camera_angle “Added a second camera to say the same thing slightly differently and in reverse.”

u/subscribe_or_else “Asked people to subscribe mid-word. Not mid-sentence. Mid-word. Honestly feels more honest.”

u/coffee_is_a_plugin “I don’t teach anymore, I just ask ‘what is gamedev really about?’ and stare into the distance. Comments do the rest.”

u/temporal_inconsistency “Changed outfits every cut. Someone asked if it was symbolic. I said yes. It wasn’t.”

Please use this guide interfrastically, and I look forward to seeing you are the free Unreal Engine event in Barbados later this year.