[jvalencia]

I recall my favorite part of opening up a new Nintendo game was poring over the manual. I didn't actually want it for instructions. It was the lore and the pictures and the dreams of what I could do with the game that made it fun.

Now, people are so media saturated that they're begging to remove as much content as possible in order to just get the clearest bit of information. I can't help we've lost something in society when we're not really enjoying or having fun unless we get immediate and overwhelming pleasure triggers.

[klodolph]

What era were you doing this in? I love looking at these old manuals but every era was different.

I think the decline is kinda obvious… the manual is an expense, most people don’t want to read it, and it’s better to make the game explain its own story and gameplay. 1980s manuals had walkthroughs and explained the story because that kind of functionality was difficult to put in software. Today, games frequently have catalogs and encyclopedias you can access in-game, extensive cutscenes that give you the story, and tutorials for every important game mechanic.

It’s wild to look at the Final Fantasy II (you know, FF4) manual from 1991. It has half the story laid out with maps of towns and dungeons, followed by tables of the items and abilities in the game. Meanwhile, you look at Xenoblade Chronicles 3 from 2022. XC3 is absurdly complicated by comparison and has a much larger story, but it is playable without a manual because the game explains how to play as you play it. Somewhere in the middle, in the 2000s, you have the middle option—manuals that give you a list of characters in the story and tell you what all the buttons do.

Archive.org is great for these old manuals.

Worth mentioning is how games like Legend of Zelda were not anticipated to be beatable by ordinary players without help (help beyond what the manual provided). Phantasy Star 2 is in a similar category and I think you were expected to have the strategy guide.

Also worth mentioning is games like SimLife, where the manual is a proper software manual. It also has those weird cartoons about a family playing around with a gene splicer.

[lazystar]

Not OP, but I had a similar experience growing up in the '90s. StarCraft in '98 is probably the best example; the original manual is the only source with the backstory explaining how the humans in the game left earth in giant colony ships, got lost, and ended up colonizing the koprulu sector. Without that backstory, the game's story - and especially Brood War's story - are pretty hard to follow.

> Today, games frequently have catalogs and encyclopedias you can access in-game, extensive cutscenes that give you the story, and tutorials for every important game mechanic.

I was able to read the StarCraft manual on the bus to school, car rides, waiting rooms. If the info had been locked in the game itself, in some kind of sub-menu, I never would have read through it, because I was playing the game.

[klodolph]

> I was able to read the StarCraft manual on the bus to school, car rides, waiting rooms. If the info had been locked in the game itself, in some kind of sub-menu, I never would have read through it, because I was playing the game.

Kind of a fun exercise to think how a modern game would be different. I haven’t played StarCraft II so this is just my take on a modern version of this.

Put some more info into cutscenes and really hammer the important stuff home (repeat it), taking advantage of the higher-quality cutscenes we can make these days. Other info goes in the encyclopedia. Make an encyclopedia mechanic—each entry for a unit is unlocked once you destroy a certain number of those units in-game. Unlocking the entry gives you some slight mechanical advantage, like the ability to see which upgrades the unit has or the exact HP values. Once or twice during the game, design a segment of gameplay that requires you to complete an encyclopedia entry in order to pass.

I’m sure the kids in the 2000s could just play games on the bus.

[p1necone]

> I’m sure the kids in the 2000s could just play games on the bus.

I certainly played gameboy in the car, until I inevitably got carsick and had to vomit somewhere. Pokemon vs nausea was a tough tradeoff.

[rvba]

As much as I love StarCraft, they really could have explained this part of the story in a better way inside the game.

[bluGill]

Manuals served another purpose in the 1980s: pirates rarely copied the manual with the game and so someone who bought the real game could learn how to play it while the pirates had a large collection of games that were no fun because without the manual they spent a lot of time trying different buttons just to see what worked - often they never did figure out the secret moves and so the game wasn't even winnable even though they could make progress and it seemed like they just needed to get better.

[lupire]

Also the manual contained the copy protection "proof of analog information" challenge answers.

[ryanchants]

Yep, LHX Attack Chopper had all the specs of the helicopters and weapon systems and would ask you random questions about those on start.

[bluGill]

That was late 80's and early 90's

[jvalencia]

Late 80s early 90s. And yes I played all the games you mentioned when the games came out. I especially loved simlife, but it didn't age, at all.

[lupire]

Living rent-free in my head for 30 years:

"The family that transmogrifies together eats flies together!"

[amiga386]

Me too. And the Sega games too. It was something to read on the bus back home from the shop where you bought the game.

Also, the box art and booklet typically had much higher quality than the game. As a single example, look at Mega Man: https://retrovolve.com/an-illustrated-history-of-mega-man-bo...

And then there was a period in the 1990s when the FMV intro had higher quality graphics than the rest of the game.

These situations just don't exist these days. Although, admittedly, some people do buy game books and lore books because they're well illustrated (illuminated?)

[mandolingual]

We've "lost something in society" because we don't want to be immersed in lore and pictures and dreams of what we could do while our friends sit patiently around the table waiting for us to look up if we can build a dairy barn in the farm flash step?

[jvalencia]

This is referencing a rule. I'm not sure I'm arguing against a clear reference, I like those. But I've certainly been at a table where we open the box, the host hasn't read the rules and frankly doesn't want to. I would hope you'd be excited about the board game, enjoy the book that comes with it, and then invite your friends over to play :-)

[bluGill]

I've been that friend who was invited over to play with hosts that were really good and knew all the obscure rules. Not very fun when you discover your strategy fails because of some rule you didn't know of that they waited until you were committed to point it out.

[thaumasiotes]

> Not very fun when you discover your strategy fails because of some rule you didn't know of that they waited until you were committed to point it out.

At least half the time you get this feeling, they pointed it out with the rest of the rules and you just didn't notice.

[bluGill]

Sometimes that is true, but often it is "oh, I forgot to tell you about that obscure rule". It always feels malicious when it happens to you though.

[thaumasiotes]

> Sometimes that is true, but often it is "oh, I forgot to tell you about that obscure rule".

Yes, that's also true. But it's still very common that the rule that trips you up was covered beforehand.

The fundamental problem here is that, at the time you're having the rules explained, you're not in a position to know what is or isn't important.

[naming_the_user]

Realistically with anything more than the most basic of games I feel as if it's reasonable to expect that the first 1-2 games are just practice because as you say, there will definitely be something that you've missed.

[toolz]

I think you may be romanticizing the past a bit here. I got a Nintendo when it came out too and I never did any of the things you've done. You may have just imagined everyone was behaving in the same way you were, when it's probably just as likely they behaved more like me.

[ryandrake]

I remember getting Ultima V as a kid and it came with this beautiful cloth map, some little game related physical artifacts, and a big lore book you could read to get the backstory and context. I read that thing cover to cover before embarking on that awesome game. It was really something special. They don’t make games like that anymore. Now it’s “Here, have a half-assed binary, delivered online, full of bugs (because we rushed it out without QA) that’s going to need a zero day patch just to work, and search the web if you want (fan-written) lore and immersion.”

[smcin]

Agreed. We're not romanticizing the past, it's now a business model that the first version of a boardgame is early-beta-qiality as a market exploration tactic, to see whether and how much $ should invest in fixing it.

One example I cited [0] was Asmodee Digital's implementation of Terraforming Mars released in 2018, 2 years already after the physical version of the boardgame became a global hit... yet the digital version had such basic bugs, it wasn't like they couldn't have easily found free (or paid) playtesters to document them. Stupid stuff liked forced delays/ cutscene animations; in particular I heard the mobile interface was unplayable. By all accounts it was several years before it was half-playable. But by then there wasn't much revenue potential left.

It's sad when this happens especially if you're trying to evangelize for a game to your non-hardcore friends, because a bad initial experience can kill the word-of-mouth (like they did with the digital version of Pandemic [1] (delisted in 2022), or things like Essential Phone 1.0, or 'Cyberpunk').

I'd much prefer if studios said "You can buy the beta version now for $14.99, or wait for the general release in 6-12 months for $Y".

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42294364

[1]: https://www.ign.com/articles/pandemic-digital-game-removed

[jvalencia]

I concede this may be true. First time I played D&D, I bought the rulebook and pored over it until I knew the rules and details -- and had a blast. Now, being a DM, no one reads the rules.

[clown_strike]

It's not the same. Instruction manuals were unambiguous. (SimLife's was really fun from what I remember.) You got one and it said everything it needed to.

D&D (and many other TTRPGs) have become too Judaic for my liking. You can read the Torah cover to cover, but like any religion you'll inevitably be told you don't actually "understand" it unless you also buy and read the Talmud and all these journals and attended these seminars. Literally "Rules Lawyering: The Game." All these add-ons revising canon and adding some crappy fanfic or art just feel like cheap cash grabs. It's just not good enough for what it costs.

Nintendo never sold you add-ons for the instruction manual expanded universe. Subscribing to Nintendo Power might net you cheat codes or a poster or something--bonus content--but they were never integral to understanding the games.

[bluGill]

In both religion and TTRPGs every once in a while someone says lets throw away all those supplements and get back to the original. Some of them then add supplements (either their own new ones, or the old ones) back as they realize something they want to change/clarify.

You of course should pick exactly the same stance on the above as I do. But like any true gentleman I never tell you my stance is.

[vundercind]

I loved my tiny little NES manuals (the artwork!) and big-ass PC RPG manuals like the one for Fallout 2.

[parpfish]

I loved being able to rent a game for weekend from our grocery store’s vhs department. I’d spend the rest of the trip home eagerly reading the guide while my mom shopped and I’d be so hyped to play the game by the time we got home.

It’s a good thing the games were plug and play in the console back then, I wouldn’t have had the patience to install and download a 3GB patch before starting

[kelseyfrog]

> I recall my favorite part of opening up a new Nintendo game was poring over the manual.

Have you by chance played Tunic? If not, there is a mechanic you may be particularly interested in. :)

[ziml77]

That mechanic is so creative. I love the gave but it's hard to describe what's so great about it to others without also revealing that brilliant mechanic which is really fun to encounter for the first time without expecting it.

[vundercind]

A conversation vaguely pointing toward a key game mechanic that might have something to do with metatextuality but which mustn't be described for fear of spoiling it is a damn good way to get me to buy a game.

(Just purchased. Easy buy vs. wishlist decision since it's currently half-off on Steam)

[jvalencia]

I did! And I enjoyed the mechanic, it was cute, incremental, and terribly fun.