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.
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.
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.
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.
