Installation Manuals

An instruction manual, in the context of computer and video games, is a booklet that instructs the player on how to play the game, gives descriptions of the controls and their effects, and shows a general outline of the concepts and goals of the game. more...

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It is also common for manuals to contain a brief summary of the storyline of the game, especially in games with complex storylines, such as role playing games. Manuals can be large, such as the hundreds of pages in the Civilization II one, or small, such as the single sheet of double sided A5 paper included with Half-Life 2.

Personal computers

Computer games typically have larger manuals because some genres native to personal computers such as simulators or strategy games require a more in-depth explanation of the interface and game mechanics. Furthermore, instruction manuals for personal computer games tend to include installation instructions to assist a user in installing the game, but those instructions could also appear in a separated piece of paper or in a different leaflet. As some of these manuals are so large as to be cumbersome when searching for a specific section, some games include a quick reference card (usually a list of keyboard commands) on a separate sheet of paper or in the back cover of the manual.

A common use for printed manuals until the CD-ROM became the main medium for games was to use it as a copy protection device: some games required the player to find the "word x in the y^th paragraph of the z^th page" or to input a code found in the borders of a certain page. These mechanisms were highly unpopular, as they only affected legitimate purchasers; pirates would simply use a crack or have the codes printed on a single sheet to bypass the mechanism. While this practice has fallen out of use in recent years, CD-keys serve a similar purpose and are occasionally printed somewhere in or on the manual.

Other manuals go much farther then being simple guides: some games based on historical or well developed fictional stories often include extensive information about the settings, like WWI combat simulator Flying Corps, where every campaign was thoroughly described with historical information. In some genres, this led to the aforementioned large manuals traditional with computer games.

Decline of printed manuals

The trend in recent years is towards smaller manuals - sometimes just a single instruction sheet - for a number of reasons. Console games are no longer sold in large cardboard boxes; instead, since the early 2000s, DVD cases have been used (as today's major consoles use DVDs), which leave no room for a large manual. Printing is also expensive, and game publishers can save money by including a PDF of the manual on the disk (computer games) or in-game help (both computer and console games). As more "spare" buttons become available on controllers, screen resolution and an obstacle course to teach movement and target practice to teach shooting and introduce different types of weapons; in real-time strategy games, they are one or more missions that teach not only the issuing of basic commands (build, upgrade, move, harvest resources, attack) but also the uses of basic units.

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