The Golden Era of CRPG Manuals
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But back when I discovered the hobby, memory and disk space (we used floppies back then) were at a premium, and so much of the cool detail of the game was found in. tah-dah! The manual. In the Temple of Apshai, it even went so far as to have the description of all the dungeon rooms and treasures in the manual itself. Even as late as the D&D Gold Box series (late 80's to the very early 90s), the manual(s) contained journal entries with a lot of additional information and clues to help you in the game. By that time, the amount of text wasn't the problem, but the lack of screen real estate at 320 x 200 for displaying text usually was. Some manuals even went so far as to be written entirely from an in-game perspective, going through great contortions to explain the controls without completely departing from the contextual fiction (as some in-game tutorials do today).Early CRPG days, I miss thee.
You weren't expected to be able to jump in and start playing without having at least read part of the manual first. That's something to remember when visiting the past through older games if you are lost and confused, it's because you failed to RTFM. It's amazing how a half hour of frustration can be prevented with five to ten minutes of reading. But because they were so essential, many of them placed such a high priority on being at least somewhat entertaining and just another facet of the gaming experience. But the thing I have been getting reminded of is how the game manual was not just a necessary evil back then it was part of the experience. The whole package was part of the experience, not just what appeared on your screen. Richard Garriott understood this when he was insistent on packing in a cloth map with the game.
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I think in many ways, modern CRPG design has been driven by the need to avoid needing a manual. This means for many designers that anything complex enough to require an explanation needs to be eliminated. (Streamlined.) While there are many kinds of games especially for inexperienced or (casual) players for which this is a virtue, it's not a one-size-fits-all universal truth. Many gamers take great pleasure in plumbing the depths of complexity. I tend to find myself somewhere in the middle-range myself. But (interesting) systems with enough complexity to prove (meaty) to gaming veterans, full of all kinds of exploration and interesting decisions within the rules of the game themselves can be a lot of fun.
