My nostalgic memories of older games were as much shaped by their packages as the programs themselves. Not only were the boxes bright with art and screenshots, but they were heavy with trinkets, posters, info cards, booklets... even late 90s game boxes—those huge flimsy things that held discs in paper sleeves—often had a map slipped in as a gesture toward immersion.

My favourite inclusion, though, was the sort of prop document one might call a "book from another world." Sometimes these were game instructions kept in-character, or copy protections in stylish disguise. But to me, a lonely bookish child, these were proofs of magic: they evoked the feeling that a book had slipped from a fictive world and landed in my hands.

For this photo, I've gathered a few prop manuals—neither exhaustive nor curated, just a fun selection. Because of the word limit, I've identified them in the image description.

Next time, more books... but different.

#RetroGaming #GameManuals #GameWorlds #Manuals

Small addition to my Mother Goose post: I hadn't remembered until I dug this out today, but the game's manual is formally titled a "parent guide." (And it's a surprisingly low-quality glossy paper manual, quite unlike those in other early Sierra games—I guess the cardboard map used up the feelies budget?)

#Sierra #MSDos #RetroGaming #BigBoxCollecting #GameManuals