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RE: Comment by gan17
by Doc Pain on Sun 30th Jun 2013 23:43 UTC in reply to "Comment by gan17"
Doc Pain
Member since:

At first glance, I'd say yes, simply because I've yet to see any modern game ship with a manual as thick as those I got with Falcon 3.0 or 4.0, but flight sims aren't really that popular these days, and those that are generally come with on-screen help or tutorials in place of manuals. Maybe that doesn't equal better design, but it's definitely a better integrated experience.

Remember an additional function of manuals, found in this statement:

A manual is the best copy protection.

When games came in boxes, usually some floppies or CDs, and a manual, you sometimes needed the manual to progress in the game at a certain point. I can easily remember two occassions:

"Star Trek 25th anniversary": You were ordered to take the Enterprise to a specific planet. Pressing 'W', you would engage the warp drive and select that star from a map. The map was printed in the manual (center page) with the names listed on the side, whereas the map in the game would only show the stars, not their names. When you chose the wrong one, you were attacked by (powerful) eneimes.

"Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle" (at least the floppy disk edition): When you found the plans for the super-battery, you needed to know the exact levels for the salad oil and the vinegar as well as the position of the toast bread, so the battery could power the Chron-o-John. The required combinations would be found in the manual. Without the correct combination, the game would not continue.

At those times, scanners and photocopiers were expensive devices, not likely to be found in homes. So simply making a copy of the relevant manual pages was not as trivial as copying the disk. Oh, and the Internet was not as we know it today, there was no google to ask, no game forums to visit easily.

A good manual, sometimes containing a "strategic guide" or other kind of help, would also make the game easier to play by providing that specific kind of instruction. This can also be seen as a copy protection.

NB that none of those actually prevents copying the disks or CDs of the game. It restricts the usefulness of the copies. :-)

The functionality of the manual as an aid for gaming has become part of modern games. They do not require the player to discover how the game works and what it goals are, instead a guide (however it is implemented) is integrated into gameplay. I think this makes modern games easier to play because all required additional information is integrated "on the go".

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