Submitted 2 weeks ago by black_lotus@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
Here’s a couple of examples Keep talking and nobody explodes — The most popular in the list I think
Uncle Chop’s rocket shop — the game where you are repairing your client’s rockets by following the in-game guidebook
Tin can — here you are also repairing the spaceshp but this time you are it’s capitan and you are in space in the middle of nowhere
Tunic
The first one that came to my mind !
EXAPUNKS!
It’s the dialup 70s, your body is turning into computer parts, and medicine costs 300 dollars a day.
Read the zines, learn to hack. Hack a restaurant. Hack a bank. Hack your body. Hack the planet!
Also other games from zachtronics: TIS-100 and Shenzhen IO
store.steampowered.com/app/370360/TIS100/
The instructions for this game come in the form is PDF written in an in-universe style.
From the same develeoper: store.steampowered.com/app/716490/EXAPUNKS/
See the game’s manual: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=25…
Highly recommend. It’s a great puzzle game. No coding knowledge is needed, but familiarity with assembly is helpful
Strange Horticulture -You run an occult plant shop and identify plants by leafing through a botanical guidebook, matching illustrations and descriptions.
HighFleet - Intercepting enemy radio transmissions means using the in-game codebook and manual tables to decode messages and triangulate positions.
The Signal State - A Zachlike about repairing farm equipment with modular synth racks; module documentation is your constant companion.
Retro Gadgets - You build electronic gadgets from scratch, and reading the chip documentation is basically the whole game.
Sethian - You learn a dead alien language by studying an in-game dictionary/manual to converse with a computer.
Carrier Command 2 - Co-op crewing a carrier where the in-game manual is dense and necessary, giving strong Tin Can/submarine-crew vibes.
Objects in Space - Space sim, flying a submarine-like ship, reading dials and signals.
Jalopy - Roadtrip / car maintenance game set in Eastern Bloc.
Keep talking and nobody explodes.
One player(s) has the bomb disposal manual and the other has the game controls to defuse the bomb.
I already know about this game, and I even mentioned it in the post
Ah. The formatting and lazy reading meant I only saw 2 examples.
Iron Nest? You drive a turret and you have to read instruction on how to operate it and where to shoot.
The DS version of Ni no Kuni included a physical spellbook you're meant to consult. JP-only, but the fantranslation made it into a PDF.
Subnautica and Subnautica 2.
The guide is an ingame tablet that’s literally your character’s survival guide book, recording data on wildlife and tracking your crafting tree.
Great games, but that’s more of just flavor text than a manual type situation.
Strongly disagree, the pdf holds all of the beacon markers that literally guide you through the game.
Also, it lists all unlocked recipes and their ingredients, which help guide player progression.
Not really a manual, but more of a 4th wall derailment into a fever dream of sorts? With a lot of reading while navigating a mystery? And some match 3 tower defence action in between?
Titanium court.
Oh! I’m absolutely loving Titanium Court, I’ve been playing it on and off for a couple of weeks, now. I’ve only recently gotten to Chapter 2!
I haven’t gotten to play it myself yet, and it may be more “meta” than you mean by this, but I understand that reading the original game’s manual is a big part of the gameplay of The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time.
Tunic, in a certain way.
Elite dangerous, you end up with spreadsheets fetching data from online sources if you go wild
DayZ everyone uses interactive map and it’s a good game for anyone with time to kill and some gluttony for punishment. I do need to add: “Players often describe DayZ as a psychological horror or “psychosis simulator” due to the extreme paranoia and auditory hallucinations of solo survival. In the r/DayZ subreddit, survivors frequently share stories of constantly misinterpreting wind and ambient environmental noises for distant player footsteps or enemy gunfire”
Project zomboid is really cool if you print out the world map
Not quite as strictly as what you’ve cited, but some of the older Sierra point-and-clicks relied on maps/pamphlets/etc that were packed in with the game. Most just used them as low-budget and thematically in-universe anti-piracy gating (the Dagger of Amon Ra), but some stretched beyond that. Conquests of the Longbow: the Legend of Robin Hood had royal family crests, language keys, and (of I remember correctly) a catalog of gems that were all perused outside of the game interface.
GOG has PDFs of all those documents if you buy the games there, so you can still experience it fully. Might be worth checking out, since it’s usually less than $5.
I love Zachtronics games that have been recommended a few times already. But for a different genre…
Ni no kuni is a RPG that was kind of that, with a big (originally physical) book of magic. But since it’s been remade on many platforms as a digital download, the book is there in a rather boring pdf reader-like UI and has been made a bit less useful.
It’s still rather charming having this in-universe codex-like book listing gameplay elements, items, recipes, bestiary, and bits of lore about the world (and some pages just telling random fables about whatever). Nowhere near required reading for the game though, just occasionally useful.
Retro Game Challenge (English version of Game Center CX) and its excellent fan-translated sequel.
For modern game, try elite dangerous. It doesn’t come up with pdf (or I don’t find it yet), but you have to do tutorials and watch a lot of YouTube to know how to fly your ship, especially without auto-pilot, auto-docking
I love Elite but I don’t think it’s what OP is asking for
It’s a bit off topic but I’ve had the most curious experience trying to play Elite Dangerous in VR when that came out. It is a complex game and you really need that “alt-tab” to read something in a browser or notepad or markdown viewer. But with a VR headset that wasn’t possible! Or very cumbersome, having to move your headset and balancing it halfway to look at your real screen, which is obscured by a weird game window to look at a document lol.
It was a frustrating experience and I eventually developed something like bit like VR claustrophobia, feeling like you’re actually trapped in a small tincan of a spaceship with no comfort and connectivity. I see the lack of a proper virtual reality desktop OS or VR accessible shell is a real problem for complex games.
Papers, please kinda fits
To keep with the space ship theme, there’s always pikmin
Ostranauts?
Its a space salvage game with a good atmosphere
I believe in Deaths Door, we had to gather pages that explained the game mechanics, but by the time you got the pages it was moot point. Tho I might mixing up some games.
I don’t remember a manual in game for Death’s Door. It’s a good game, though.
Are you mixing it up with TUNIC?
I have a game wishlisted which I think needs constant consultation with diverse information to be played. It's called Comet64, and you kind of have to program a special kind of computer called Comet64.
If by “in-game manual” you mean one that’s part of the game world (not necessarily displayed on a computer screen) check out the classic Infocom adventures. For example, Border Zone came with a printed terrain map and tourist guide, and Sherlock and The Witness came with newspapers, among other things.
By in-game manual I meant a manual which built directly into the game and a main character could read it, not just a player who opened a PDF outside the game. And also usually those manuals are stylized, like in papers please (which I forgot to mention in the post btw) or like in Uncle Chop’s rocket shop
Still There
Tunic.
Tis100
The origan X-Coms for pc
silverchase@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
As even further stretches, there is TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O, both Zachtronics games that have you do programming. The tutorial for TIS-100 just opens a PDF that looks like a crusty scan of an ancient computer manual, like you were learning to program on a C64 or something.
hahattpro@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Tis-100 is like learning new programming language and do some quiz with it. If you want similar experience, learn assembly languages, and do some exercise :)))
topherclay@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I loved Hypnospace Outlaw. Its so nostalgic and yet the surreal aspect of it gives it its own flavor that is separate from the nostalgia.
midimalist@lemdro.id 2 weeks ago
Thanks for reminding me of Hypnospace Outlaw. I finished it once and thinking of replaying it again when I somewhat forget about the story/plot. Time to reinstall :D