PERSPECTIVE
Shoot first, ask questions later
Any graduate student in linguistic or literary studies looking for a neglected corner of prosaic endeavour on which to work could do worse than embark on an analysis of the humble manual. A washingmachine manual; a hi-fi manual; a videogame manual. The primary purpose of a manual, of course, is to convey practical information, but the best of them do far more than that.
The higher purpose of any manual, really, is to employ literary and visual devices to thrill the user before they even experience the product. This is true whether it’s a manual for a Sony MiniDisc recorder, a hi-tech coffee machine, or a videogame. You can ignore it and dive right in, but aficionados prefer to delay the gratification, and experience an extra kind of gratification in doing so. The booklet nestled in the jewel case of Metal Gear Solid, for example, is a triumph of this art, blending cinematically angled screenshots with more abstract diagrams and gorgeous hand-drawn concept art, with written advice on what to do in situations you probably hadn’t experienced before in a videogame. (“When Using a Cardboard Box” and, frighteningly, “Torture Event”.) It even explains the use of the tech goodies you might find (PSG1 rifle, Digital Camera, etc), so increasing the player’s appetite to find them.
It is regrettable, then, that manuals went out of fashion in favour of ubiquitous tutorial levels, because these two modes of pedagogy do not work in the same way. The wellwritten manual gives the player a splendid overview; the tutorial parcels out information piecemeal and meanly. With a manual you are a general gazing at a map of the theatre of war; in a tutorial you are just one blinkered grunt treading warily through the jungle.
Luckily, the Guardian reported recently, there is something of a revival of proper manuals in videogames, citing Microprose’s HighFleet: Deus In Nobis (92 pages of beautifully aged discussions of tactics and strategy) and the beautiful chapbook that is the manual for Bithell Games’ The Banished Vault, featuring gorgeously eldritch ink artwork, which can be bought separately as a real paper book. Another purpose for the manual, then, is as an elaborate sales appetiser for the main event: Bithell reported that ten per cent of those buying the manual went on to buy the game itself.
With a manual you are a general gazing at a map of the theatre of war; in a tutorial you are just a blinkered grunt
Excellent work, there, particularly since modern manuals, when they even exist, are so rarely printed on paper. You can buy a thousand-quid synthesiser or guitar processor, as your correspondent has done all too often, and receive only a single-leaf ‘quickstart’ guide before being directed to download a godforsaken PDF to get the information you actually n
