Instruction manual (computer and video games)

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Several manuals (click photo for details)

An instruction manual, in the context of computer and video games, is a booklet that instructs the player on how to play the game, gives descriptions of the controls and their effects, and shows a general outline of the concepts and goals of the game. It is also common for manuals to contain a brief summary of the storyline of the game, especially in games with complex storylines, such as role playing games. Manuals can be very large, such as the hundreds of pages for Civilization II, or very small, such as the single sheet of double sided A5 paper included with Half-Life 2.

Contents

1 Consoles
2 Personal computers
3 Decline of printed manuals
4 Missing manuals
5 MMORPG manuals
6 Notable manuals
7 See also
8 External links

Consoles

Manuals for console games traditionally have fewer than thirty pages (although the page count increases with the number of translations included). As action, sports or puzzle games (genres mostly seen in consoles) are usually simple or intuitive, these manuals are usually short and concise. The smaller packaging of most console games places a limit on the manual's size, especially if the game includes both original and translated manuals.

The manuals for hand-held games are even shorter, and they focus on controls and screen elements. Nintendo's Game Boy series of systems refers to the instruction manual as an "Instruction Booklet" which reflects this shortness. For RPGs, the manual is unlikely to describe items, monsters, spells or much of the plot, since those elements unfold on the screen. In-game text in various places (tutorials, cutscenes, dialogue and status screens) usually duplicate and supplement the manuals.

was an exception in that it provided the names and brief descriptions of the 64 spells in each edition of the game, but the Bestiary and item statistics were only available in-game.

Personal computers

Computer games typically have larger manuals because some genres native to personal computers such as simulators or strategy games require a more in-depth explanation of the interface and game mechanics. Furthermore, instruction manuals for personal computer games tend to include installation instructions to assist a user in installing the game, but those instructions could also appear in a separated piece of paper or in a different leaflet. As some of these manuals are so large as to be cumbersome when searching for a specific section, some games include a quick reference card (usually a list of keyboard commands) on a separate sheet of paper or in the back cover of the manual.

A common use for printed manuals until the CD-ROM became the main medium for games was to use it as a copy protection device: some games required the player to find the "word x in the y^th paragraph of the z^th page" or to input a code found in the borders of a certain page. These mechanisms were highly unpopular, as they only affected legitimate purchasers; pirates would simply use a crack or have the codes printed on a single sheet to bypass the mechanism. While this practice has fallen out of use in recent years, CD-keys serve a similar purpose and are occasionally printed somewhere in or on the manual.

Other manuals go much farther then being simple guides: some games based on historical or well developed fictional stories often include extensive information about the settings, like WWI combat simulator Flying Corps, where every campaign was thoroughly described with historical information. In some genres, this led to the aforementioned large manuals traditional with computer games.

Decline of printed manuals

The trend in recent years is towards smaller manuals - sometimes just a single instruction sheet - for a number of reasons. Console games are no longer sold in large cardboard boxes; instead, since the early 2000s, DVD cases have been used (as today's major consoles use DVDs), which leave no room for a large manual. Printing is also expensive, and game publishers can save money by including a PDF of the manual on the disk (computer games) or in-game help (both computer and console games). As more "spare" buttons become available on controllers, screen resolution and disk space increase, and technology makes illustrated multiple-screen texts more navigable, players can be provided with more information on screen. Some games, such as the original Age of Empires, featured a basics-only manual while providing a comprehensive on-line manual equivalent to hundreds of printed pages.

Since many players skip the manual altogether, some developers have replaced printed "how to play" instructions with playable tutorials, as in Half-Life, where the process of learning to play the game is presented as your in-game character learning to use his in-game equipment. In action games, these tutorials typically consist of an obstacle course to teach movement and target practice to teach shooting and introduce different types of weapons; in real-time strategy games, they are one or more missions that teach not only the issuing of basic commands (build, upgrade, move, harvest resources, attack) but also the uses of basic units.

Missing manuals

While their use in computer games post-2000 is scarce, console games and older computer games are expected to have them. Games acquired in second hand markets often miss the manuals, after being kept, lost or discarded by their previous owners. As occasionally the manuals are part of the game experience, owners of games missing manuals try to find replacements in other second-hand stores or with other players or collectors. Alternatively, sites like [Replacement Docs] provide a large repository of fan-made and official PDF manuals to download. Those range from simple page scans (which is unpractical in longer manuals, due to larger file size and the inability to search text) to OCR-scanned and carefully assembled manuals to remain as close to the original manuals as possible.

MMORPG manuals

MMORPGs in particular continue to be packaged with a comprehensive and high-quality manual. World of Warcraft and Guild Wars include instruction manuals that are 150 to 200 pages; they explain everything from in-game lore to detailed overviews of the different character classes. In general, MMORPGs have a larger variety of features in which the player can focus on while playing than normal games and often take much longer to complete. The detailed instruction booklets that accompany the games help answer any questions that players may have in order to make public relations and technical support easier once the game is released. These manuals also invite potential players to explore an aspect of the game that was previously unknown to them. More than any other genre, the community and longetivity of an MMO are important to the developers because they often charge a monthly fee for playing the game, and comprehensive instruction manuals can only add to the game's appeal.

Notable manuals

Most games by MicroProse have extensive manuals.
Myst includes a pamphlet which fit in the compact disc case. The main "manual" is a booklet of blank pages for the player to take notes in.
MDK, which is presented as the diary of Professor Hawkins. ([example])
Grand Theft Auto III and other games in the series present the manual as a tourist guide to the fictional cities featured in the game.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, most of the manuals provided by Konami of America (and their sister company, Ultra Games) for their games were written in a very humorous tone and often contradicted the original information from their Japanese counterparts (as was the case with Contra, Castlevania and Metal Gear). Konami of America only began taking a more serious approach for their manuals around the mid 1990s, when they began using translated versions of the Japanese manuals instead of writing their own. Their counterpart, Konami of Europe, often used the same manuals as Konami of America, but they also made their own (and often accurate) manuals when an American version wasn't available (as was the case with Probotector and Parodius.)
NHLPA Hockey 93 suggests injuring opposite players as a tactic, stating "Player injuries — it's a part of the game. Knock key opposing players out of the game with an extra hard body check". Combined with other factors (such as a high number of fights and players that bleed when injured), it forced EA to tone down several aspects of the game in order to keep both their NHL and NHLPA licenses.
The Super NES game Home Improvement (based on the TV series of the same name) is particularly notorious for featuring a splash page that proclaims "Real men don't need instructions" as the sole content of its manual.

External links

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