{"id":1471,"date":"2026-10-28T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2026-10-28T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T18:00:00","slug":"old-game-manuals-made-the-journey-home-part-of-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wade.one\/blog\/2026\/10\/28\/old-game-manuals-made-the-journey-home-part-of-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Game Manuals Made the Journey Home Part of the Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

A proper game manual could get the adventure going before the game had even started. You could sit there looking at the controls, the characters and an unnecessarily dramatic description of a door, already deciding what you were going to do first. The journey home had become part of the entertainment.<\/p>\n

The best sort had little things to pore over: a map, a strange creature, a drawing of an item that looked much more impressive on paper than it probably would in the inventory. Even a page explaining the buttons could feel important if somebody had put a suitably serious illustration beside it. Pressing jump was apparently a matter of international consequence.<\/p>\n

I have a soft spot for the notes pages too. A few ruled lines at the back suggested that this adventure might require actual field research. Passwords, routes, discoveries, or perhaps a drawing of the main character with a larger hat. The possibility was there, and the booklet trusted you to supply something useful.<\/p>\n

A digital game can deliver its own kind of excitement, but a little book gave the anticipation somewhere to live. I would happily make room for more fictional maps and overly committed descriptions of ordinary objects. If the manual can make a wooden crate sound mysterious, I am ready to find out what is in it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A proper game manual could get the adventure going before the game had even started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[296,189,297],"class_list":["post-1471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming","tag-game-manuals","tag-nostalgia","tag-retro-gaming"],"yoast_head":"\nOld Game Manuals Made the Journey Home Part of the Game - 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