What's your favourite adventure game manual?

[AGA]

Hot on the heels of the box-art thread comes this: which adventure has the best manual in your opinion? I loved Zak McKracken & the Alien Mindbenders' National Enquisitor (I think that's what it was called, cba to check) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade's Grail Diary... The Zak one was hilarious, the articles were great and lent some valuable clues to the game itself. The Grail Diary was great because it seemed so authentic...

[Tamara]

All three of the discworld ones. Without a shadow of doubt.

[Val'Gahk]

I liked the Space Quest 5 newspaper. I think it was called "Space Inquirer". With totally fake news and some copy protection codes dissimulated in the pages. (hope it was SQ5 and not SQ4 or someone will use that post to attack me for pleasure)

[AGA]

I unfortunately missed out on a lot of great manuals because I bought a lot of my Sierra and LEC games on budget, which means the great original manuals weren't always included. For those of you who might wanna check out some of the things mentioned here, try http://www.replacementdocs.com (unless this is against forum rules, in which case, bite my nose off)

[Nellie]

The Discworld manuals were great, but the best one I ever read was the Kingdom O' Magic manual. Super funny stuff.

[saucyminx]

I love TLJ manual. The art cover, the content... everything! I love The Last Express manual, too. It's not much but to me it's simple but nice. Nice of them to add the historical bits. And oooh! I must add that Grim Fandango has a great manual, too. It's so colourful and artistic! When I first got it, I keep flipping through it over and over.

[SamandMax]

The Grim Fandango one was pretty good. I can't really remember any more of them, I don't really pay attention to them.

[Egarthen]

The Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist manual is hilarious. It's set up like an old pharmacist's reference book, chock full of made up diseases and whatnot. Humorous stuff.

[sillycanadian]

Freddy Pharkas would have to be my favorite. I still read that one every once in a while. I enjoyed Space Quest 5, and in the same vein I loved the EcoQuest2: Lost Secret of the Rainforest manual which came as an eco-bulletin, with educational messages about the environment as well as some in-game tips.

[nordic_guy]

I liked the Sam & Max manual when I first flipped through it, but I don't usual read manuals so I might have missed a few.
I must agree on the Grim Fandango manual, though.

[BacardiJim]

Chaos: A Fantasy Adventure Game

I know, nobody ever played it. But it is the single funniest game manual I ever read.

[Ninja Dodo]

The asylum warden's diary notes about Alice (for American McGee's Alice)

I also thought the manual for the King's Quest Collectors Edition was pretty good.

[jannar85]

Runaway. Because it made me laugh.

:)

[Erwin_Br]

Space Quest 5 newspaper was indeed great fun. The Discworld Noir manual was very hilarious, although not very colourful. (pun intended)

Basically, I love thick manuals with glossy paper and lots of pictures and colours. Like Curse of Monkey Island's one, for example.

--Erwin

[James]

I don't want to sound like a broken record - but Grim Fandango had an excellent manual.

[eriq]

The LOOM spellbook was beautiful and the who can forget the lovingly detailed map of Europe and the Middle East in Conquests of Camelot. Along with the "Liber Ex Doctrina" book of flowers, that was by far one of Sierra's best manuals. The box was gorgeous too and if you purchased it when it was released, you have the embossed version of the box that's all glossy which is truly stunning. Christy Marx's husband (may he r.i.p.) hand painted the materials for that game which is one of my favourite games to this day for its perfect balance of historical knowledge and graphic adventure fun.

And I always thought the Indiana Jones manual was great as well as someone mentioned. That grail diary was just awesome. I wish I had that today.

Willy Beamish had a fun notebook with stickers.

Oh, wait one more... Rise of the Dragon had a beautiful comic-style manual and the packaging was slick as were all of Dynamix games including one of my favourites "Heart of China". Does anyone own the original Heart of China materials? They are printed on really really nice papers and I always thought the box for that game had an epic feel to its design.

[AGA]

...Corey Cole's dead?! When, how?!

[pleto4_ryan]

mostly said...

Grim's i loved, big, colourful and wonderful to sit and read it ;)
The last Express
Journey's
Zak's
Grand theft auto's
etc (i'll have to look at them again :P )

[Ginny]

Yeah, GF has a great manual, but I lost it. But I'm not that annoyed cause the idiots in Hed-Arzy (or was that another compnay) translated it into hebrew, and the box too... I plan to someday (soon I hope) get a collectors edition (if there is one) of GF, or just the normal one in english.. Which reminds me, I remember when we were still on the temp forums, I asked someone who was getting the LucasArts pack (FT, GF, The Dig, S&M I think..) if the games came in original boxes with manuals. Does anyone have this pack?

However, the GF manual was a bit too short for my liking, I love very lengthy manuals. That's why I love Sierra's Zeus (strategy) manual. It's written interestingly and is long :) Also Paraoh and The sims have long manuals. Of course, it's possible the GF manual was shortened in Israel :( bah, well If it's a long one then I'm happy :) I also liked the TLJ manual, though I had to read it on the screen cause my game had a DVD box. Unlucky me. It's ok though, as I plan to rebuy that someday too ;)

[eriq]

...Corey Cole's dead?! When, how?!


woops. OMG how embarassing. I edited it. I meant Christy Marx's husband Peter Ledger. eek!

[Ninja Dodo]

Ginny,

No, it's just DVD cases with the manual on the CD.

[Kolzig]

Hmm, I only know those that I have in my possession, and I can say now that my favourites are:

King's Quest 1
All leisure suit Larry manuals

don't remember all of my manuals etc. right now but i think those are the "best".

[remixor]

I've lost about 90% of my original manuals and boxes (which is very frustrating to me), but one that I have left which I really like is King's Quest VI. It's not particularly amazing, but I really like how they did the copyright protection.

[Ginny]

Ginny,

No, it's just DVD cases with the manual on the CD.

Aw, damn. I'll have to buy them all seperately then, or at least Grim ;)

[tabacco]

I think my favorite was the one that came with the Hitchhiker's Guide game from Infocom. Not just the game, either, but all the stuff that came with it (bit of fluff, etc.).

[AGA]

woops. OMG how embarassing. I edited it. I meant Christy Marx's husband Peter Ledger. eek!

Ah good, you had me worried then! :D

[Claire]

The Grail Diary is certainly the top games manual for me - who could doubt its authenticity when it had tea-staining, newspaper clippings and Henry Jones signature on the front? Certainly not me! As a slightly naive 7 year old, I lived in perpetual fear of Nazis attack.

Second is the Loom manual, which eriq said has a really nice illustrated book of spells. Also, although not manuals, the graphic novels that came with some of the Gabriel Knight games were also great.

[sillycanadian]

Also, although not manuals, the graphic novels that came with some of the Gabriel Knight games were also great.

That reminds me. I really loved that comic book that came with GK3. Of course I hated the fact that its inclusion meant a lack of an expository opening movie.

[Tanukitsune]

My favourites are:
-The Roberta Williams Anthology, it even has interviews and fun facts...
-Leisure Suit Larry Collection
-Sam & Max Hit the Road.
Man, I finally know thw
e big downside of having nearly all of my games in collections, the manuals are usually shorter, and miss some of the funny stuff... :sad:
If PDF manuals count, how about Masterpieces of Infocom?

[D.C.]

The Police Quest Collection has a pretty cool instruction manual with all its elaborate police facts and etc. :) I also like the Grail Diary. :)

[remixor]

Geez, after seeing "THE GRAIL DIARY!!!1" about 2394 times, I'm pretty happy I've got a copy of that game coming in the mail within a few days :)

[X0rG]

My favourite would have to be the Kings Quest 6 manual. I liked the bit where they explain what all the symbols on the cliff meant.

[Esseb]

As with AGA most of my games are budget releases, so I've got a very small pool to select from. Out of that pool however Broken Sword wins with it's, in hindsight very short and cursory, book on the real templars which really fleshed out the game. I've read later releases of the game only included the manual sadly.

[Bard09]

These have already been mentioned, but when I think of my favorite AG manuals, I instantly think of Freddy Pharkas and Willy Beamish. They're almost an adventure in themselves :)