My gaming experience started on PC but I was too young for your Zorks and Ultimas and such. The first game I remember playing extensively was the copy of Mechwarrior 2 that came with our old IBM computer.

I've always been interested in retro gaming and now that I'm delving into classic PC games I've come up with a few observations.

One is that a lot of the much older games almost require you to read the manuals. A lot of back-story tends to be contained in there which makes a lot of things in the story in-game make a whole lot more sense. It also helps you understand how the game interface works when those interfaces haven't aged particularly well.

Another thing I've noticed was that playing Zork the first time (on Black Ops) was interesting but I did feel a bit lost at times. After reading the manual which recommended drawing a map I found that I enjoyed the game a whole lot more. Right here in front of me is a tangible piece of the world I'm exploring right now; this map was drawn by me while exploring The Great Underground Empire.

It got me thinking, I've grown up in a time where the game can quite easily provide all these things in-game: all the exposition necessary, an explanation on the controls and interface, and an in-game map and so much more.

But honestly having to read the manual and drawing my own map made the whole experience so much more engaging than what I typically get from games today. Reading the manual felt like reading an old legend, drawing the map made me feel like I was really exploring that land of myth. Actually, even the text-based nature of it all made the land itself all the more distant and other-worldly, like I was directing some kind of robot that describes his environment to me while I sit safe at home.

So I was just wondering if anyone else had any thoughts on this, personally I felt like I was pulling a piece of the game world into our own and making it real, has anyone else had a similar experience? Also, what can games do to give players that kind of tangibility? Obviously forcing the player to draw their own map would probably annoy more players than immerse and be called-on for bad game design to boot but are there other ways games can achieve this?


Hm, this turned out a bit longer than I intended...

I originally had an adverse reaction when I was reading through the manual for M&M1 and learned that it was intended for people to draw the map by hand. However, as I thought about it longer, I figured it would be better to view it as an opportunity to immerse myself in the game. At the very least, I'm going to give an honest attempt at appreciating that aspect.

I'm one of those almost extinct dinosaurs who enjoy mapping a game, at least as long as the levels are complex, like in games like Chaos Strikes Back and certain levels of the Wizardry games. For large, simple levels I prefer an automap, though.
To me the most fun game ever to map was Chaos Strikes Back, since part of the fun of that game was actually figuring out where the hell I was.
Best automap I've seen was in Ultima Underworld. Mapping a true 3D game by hand would have been rather difficult.

Really depends on the implementation. Many games, both old and new, are just really crap and investing yourself in such a manner for a product that eventually turns out to not be worth it is a waste of time.

However, making notes is not just for 'older' games. I played a lot of Orcs Must Die 2 with my brother when it first came out and for the final level I ended up writing out tactics in detail for every wave.

When I used to play Counterstrike semi-competitively I used to be the strat caller and had a whole notepad full of tactics for each map.

Having all this tangible stuff makes the game extend beyond just the screen of your computer. part of the reason to have things like story or maps outside of the game was technical limitations, part of it was copy protection and part of it was to immerse you better into the world. It is no easy task to immerse someone to see and entire world filled with adventure when all you have is pixels and bleeps. If you have a map or a lore book, even if it is just a glorified manual, makes the game still go on after you turn off the computer.

Today the best you can hope for is a few pages of obligatory safety warnings, instructions on how to turn the thing on and some legel notice. At this point they maight as well not even print the manual and save the trees. With digital distribution any company could offer a really nice elaborate PDF in coulour and everything but hardly anyone bothers.

All that said however, while drawing your own map can be charming it can also become very tedious. I noticed how quickly I'm breezing through Legend of Grimrock thanks to the automap. At least in Grimrock you have the choice between automap and old-school mode, but the old games are very inaccessible due to the lack of any auto map. I have actually drawn a full map of my first playthrough of th original Zelda (a year ot two ago) and it was quite fun, but for the original Metroid i just printed out a map from the internet. I don't even know myself what it i that make me want to draw a map in one game an not in another.

Manuals on the other hand are awesome. The manual for Zelda 3 has *six* pages of backstory. If Nintndo was still making Zelda games made today we would have hours of exposition. Oh wait, that is exactly what they are doing. Origin games have awesome manuals, the manual is like an ingame item brought to our world, like a journal, a book or a magazine, and all the technical stuff is one the reference card. It really makes you feel like you entred that world and then you found that item. Manuals allow to put all the exposition parts like lore and backstory n paper and then have the game star immediately, no time wasted.