Since somebody shared this nice comic about manuals in games in another community, I was thinking about them myself.
My most cherished game manual was the Diablo 2 one. The way they created a little story for each single ability was such an atmospheric wonder and probably started my fascination with lore instead of story. They were also probably the main reason why I took the necromancer and started to feel bored, when necromancer are automatically evil in a setting. Get creative!
My father had Falcon 4.0 and that was “just” a technical manual in itself. 5+ cm thick and full of schematics of the cockpit. I was in awe as a child about the complexity of that thing.
I think my favorite single moment, a personal anecdote, relating to video game manuals is from Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego for Windows 95. Which came with a full copy of the 1995 World Almanac. I was about 8 or 9 at the time. One of the clues was “I heard he was leaving Lesotho by car.” I went, “Wait, is that the little nation in the middle of South Africa?” I looked it up in the book, it was, and I won that round of the game based on that clue.
I think my overall favorite video game manual has to be the one from A Link to the Past. A lot of manuals had maybe a prologue or backstory in the manual, A Link to the Past has like three, including the creation myth of the in-game religion. Go read ALttP’s manual and tell me it hasn’t been the design document of the entire series since.
One more: For some reason, Illusion of Gaia for the SNES includes a full walkthrough right in the manual. They just outright spoil the entire game in the manual. Not sure why they did that.
You guys should check out Tunic!
It’s a cute zeldaish adventure where a manual a a core part of the Gameplay loop. Basicly you find pages of the manual ingame as you progress and learn about it this way. And the manual looks freaking georgous. A pure love letter to exactly that time. But be beware that Tunic is a knowledge based game. So any information might spoil something for you. Please inform yourself with caution.
If you enjoyed the game you can even order the manual as a physical prop as official march.
Not exactly a manual but I got stuck in Day of the Tentacle. Finally I caved and ordered the official hint book. Back then that meant sending them a letter. No idea how payment worked. My parents probably helped me with that.
It took an eternity to arrive. A fee weeks at least. In the meantime I tried to progress the game. The day before the book arrived I managed to do it (use physics book with horse). And once I was past that I managed to beat the rest of the game.
But it wasn’t in vain. The book contained the story of the game written like an essay by Bernard (basically the game’s main character). It was pretty funny. So I didn’t regret ordering it.
I read game manuals and strategy guides like my dad read the newspaper while eating breakfast on summer mornings. They had so much little bits of world building in the writing and design. Reading manuals on the ride home from the store set the tone before you even fired up the game for the first time
Games like Metal Gear Solid had mini comic book sections with loads of awesome artwork for their manuals
Manuals and guides are responsible for making me a gun nerd! Looking at the history and use cases for each one in the game carried over to the real deal. I remember guides for Rainbow Six, Medal of Honor: Frontline and Syphon Filter 2 being full of stuff like that
That original Dragon Quest manual was a great read. But if I had to pick I’d say it was the Warcraft and Warcraft II manuals. Those were great. So much kick ass lore.
Starflight on Sega Genesis.
Starflight was a formative game for me. It’s an open world space exploration game with ~800 planets in over 200 solar systems.
And it pretty much just drops you in the middle of it without any explanation. After a bit you get some news updates from your home base talking about a huge, imminent threat that’s destroying entire solar systems, but they don’t hold your hand, and the galaxy is massive, and it’s impractical to find the points of interest in such a large space.
I watched my dad play it as a kid. We spent hours exploring and gathering resources to upgrade the ship and explore further, but we never really scratched the surface of the main quest.
Then as a teenager I went back and finally read the fucking manual. The back half of it was a journal written by a space captain not unlike myself, which had been sent back in time from several months in the future. It gives tips, like how to communicate with the different alien species and the locations of some rare items. More importantly, it guides the player to the main quest, which is fucking amazing. All of this written like a captain’s log, so it’s a fun story in its own right.
Starflight manual:
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Second answer: Tunic. This one is cheating because the game is about nostalgia for manuals, but it’s so well done.
You find these beautifully illustrated manual pages throughout the game, and they become an essential part of figuring out the world. Part of it is written in a made up language, and every page you find gives you more context to translate it. Then there are abilities you have from the moment you start the game, but you won’t realize how to use them until the manual gives you simple button instructions.
Amazing game. If you love old school game manuals, you need to check it out.
They later released a version with a physical manual, but you shouldn’t look at the pages until you find them in the game.
Tunic manual:
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Ok yeah, Tunic is cheating! But it is simply awesome, I agree.
Fallout 1 &2
Simcity for SNES is the greatest manual ever put together. One Lemmings opinion.
Was that one the original, that is now Micropolis in Java?
