There was a manual for Galciv2?

Wow, that would have been really handy during my first 50 or so floundering games. I guess that’s the trouble with digital downloads, you don’t really have any concept of what you get with the game, aside for buying the right to press “Go!”.

I used to love large printed manuals and used to think them de rigueur for a top-flight game. It suggested to me the developers truly enjoyed the game themselves; and wanted to share a backstory, developer notes as well as providing the more mundane hotkey info or basic tutorials.
I never, ever, regarded them as filler.

However I don’t much miss them too much anymore. Gaming forums usually provide lots of feedback on backstories, developer ideas, tutorials, etc.

The large well-done manual had its day but that day appears past. They’re not alone: my father sometimes says that my downloaded books or music can’t download bookjackets or cool album covers with liner notes . But it’s hard to miss what you’ve not really experienced though.

I do want good documentation somewhere though. If it’s online, frankly, that’s usually most convenient. I do like if there’s some place where I can “get in on” the game’s mythology and backstories: they do matter to me, if only to whet my appetite for replacing their myths with mine.

On top of that is the other illustrations which accompany unit descriptions which add flavour to the manual. Of course, I am alluding to what Bruce Geryk indicated with his thoughts on the Dominions III manual, and his inability to get line drawings.

Unfortunately, I do not remember what the Warcraft III manual was like. However, with Diablo, Diablo II and Starcraft, I remember the game documentation to be a great addition to the game.

I suppose one question remains though. Is it the size of the manual which counts, or how well it serves its purpose. Is there much point having a 300+ page manual which is poorly written, and does little to explain game mechanics when the content can be written concisely and effectively with much less. Or is it the further eye candy and additional information that turns an ordinary manual into something to be treasured. The time and money devoted to writing and publishing such a manual, would it in fact be better off spent on game design and beta testing, paticularly as the number of PC configurations, consumer demands and expectations grow.

Likewise, I do think Christopher hit upon a good point however. Back in the day, game boxes were once large, almost A4 designed ‘behemoths’ which naturally took up more room on the game store shelf. However, with the advent of games simply coming in DVD jewel cases, and the need to maximise profit by minimising shelf space, and box production, there really isn’t much room for those large game manuals anymore. And with electronic distribution growing, what proportion of users will be keen on printing off an entire manual, paticularly if it has a lot of filler such as backstory and developer notes. The best option now I believe is a “Civlopedia” design, extensive in game help being made available, hyperlinking to various other pages when indicated, and crucially, easy to navigate. Clearly Sid and his team are well and truly ahead of their time when it comes to game development.

And for another example of poor game documentation, look no further than Supreme Commander. I still have little grasp on how it works. All I know is build unit, send it to crush enemy. I am sure there is some depth to Sup Com, I just fail to see it.