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I keep seeing that post about how modern developers making difficult and obtuse retro games without tutorials are “forgetting that video games used to come with manuals.”
Ya’ll.
Yes. Video games used to come with manuals.
And our parents and older siblings fucking threw the manuals and the boxes out.
By the time most of us got our hands on The Legend of Zelda: The Adventures of Link, the manual that explained anything had been in the landfill for a year.
I promise promise promise you that the people making these games didn’t “only discover them on emulator.”
These games were obscure and mysterious to us because as children we had to figure out what was going on by trial and error.
and even when it was your game first some of us were poor and got all our games and systems second hand.
like every system i owned as a kid was a gift from someone who got a newer one/bought at a yard sale and all the games i owned came from the corner stores that bought and sold used games because it was way cheaper then an actual game store
most of the games i owned didn’t have boxes let alone manuals. this wasn’t even an uncommon experience where i’m from.
when friends and i wanted to play a series or saw multiple game we liked we’d pool our money together and share because even at deep discount we couldn’t always afford more then one and if you saw something you were interested in and didn’t get it you probably wouldn’t have a chance later.
we relied on trial and error and sharing notes with each other until online game guides and forums about games became more common. i’d bet there are people developing games right now who had a similar experiences
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