Re:Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud
by robertlagrant on Friday October 30, 2020 @05:31PM
(#24947080)
The BBC game Exile had a "novella" that came with it - the story of how things came to be before the player arrives. The copy protection had you look up a page number, line number, word number to proceed. Fun stuff. (I just found the text! http://inventivity.co.uk/exileami/novella.htm) (And the game! http://bbcmicro.co.uk//jsbeeb/play.php?autoboot&disc=http://...)
In fact, how they squeezed what they did out of the BBC B is amazing.
Re:Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud
by jessaustin on Friday October 30, 2020 @03:13PM
(#24945773)
I definitely encountered other games for which you had to look up stuff in the manual, and maybe it wasn't done as well because I always hated it.
Re:Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud
by hnick on Friday October 30, 2020 @11:58PM
(#24949026)
I enjoyed it for Ultima VII, where the manual was written as a holy book / biography of the main religious figure (antagonist) of the setting. You needed to answer questions from the book to be allowed out of the starting town.
Re:Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud
by nitrogen on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:10PM
(#24946396)
I think in King's Quest it was looking up some specific code word in a random grid or something, before it would let you launch a boat?
Re:Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud
by npongratz on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:44PM
(#24946717)
King's Quest 5's copy protection (floppy version only) was enforced with a requirement to use a magic wand to cast a "spell" at various points in the game, where the "spell" is a series of letters that the player matches to symbols in the printed manual. Launching the boat was one of the points in the game where this was required.
https://kingsquest.fandom.com/wiki/Crispin%27s_wand#Behind_t...
Re:Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud
by IggleSniggle on Friday October 30, 2020 @05:03PM
(#24946871)
Yup, CotL was uniquely well done.
Re:Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud
by sickcodebruh on Friday October 30, 2020 @11:54PM
(#24949011)
Wing Commander made you look up ship schematics to answer trivia. I was maybe 10 years old and got a copy from the son of a family friend but he only gave me photocopies of a few of the pages, so it sometimes took a while before I could get in!
Re:Sierra was captured, then killed, by an accounting fraud
by stephankoelle on Friday October 30, 2020 @04:25PM
(#24946540)
Loved that part too, was really confusing at first, because I was not aware that the manual might have a use at all.
I think the files are on the game creators webpage, there was even a photo of her at the back of the box.
[0] - Conquests of the Longbow required you to use the book that came with it to look up lore like coats of arms, to identify plants by their leaves, find out about superstitions around gemstones, etc in order to solve the puzzles in the game. At the time, people generally pirated by passing around floppy disks, none of the kids pirating had access to xerox machines, and the information in the manual was obscure, so you really kinda needed to have the manual. But if you did have it, it almost felt like a natural part of the game, and the information was fun to learn. Of course, now you can easily find it online: http://www.sierrahelp.com/Documents/Manuals/Conquests_of_the...