The Making of a Game Manual
by Keith Cirillo
Have you ever taken a peek inside a game manual? You know, that little paper booklet inside the DVD case? We’re about to take a look inside the process that goes into creating one. Here, Microsoft game writer and UX Lead Keith Cirillo describes the ups and downs of putting together the game manuals that some consider the best in the industry.
Part I: Thinking Inside the Box
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Kameo: Elements of Power Manual
Click to download: Manual PDF
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We know most of you probably rarely open the manual for a game, believing there’s likely not much there to interest you, but have you ever stopped to think that the secret to the game just might lay hidden in the manual? Probably not, but now I hope you’re wondering what you’ve been missing and are thinking “Say, maybe that’s a good idea – I’ll have to go find a clue…” or whatever gem, maybe literally, you might need at the time to help you get further in the game. This is what we’re counting on—that if you do caress or crease the pages, you perhaps may find a clue, a nugget, a jewel, or some sort of buried treasure, but be assured we haven’t as yet tried to hide anything critical. Actually, we try to make it crystal clear.
For those of us who work in the User Experience (UX) group—a collection of writers and editors whose task it is to sculpt any written or spoken words for a game—creating the manual is something about which we’re very passionate. Given all the technology we have around us on a daily basis, it’s refreshing to work on the printed page which at times almost seems like “old” technology, especially here at Microsoft. But, it’s also technology that’s been around for hundreds of years and proven itself as a vehicle for distributing and relaying information. You could say it’s fully beta tested by a wide range of users. It still may have some bugs, but that’s food for another day’s thought.
In the case of Kameo or any of the Rare titles, I didn’t actually write the manual myself as I have for other games. This manual was written by my colleague Leigh Loveday at Rare. My function on this and other Rare projects is to manage the process throughout the creation of the print piece and work in close collaboration with Leigh and the UX team here in Redmond, including an editor, a print designer, and sometimes a localization expert. Otherwise the process was basically the same as for most other games except it spanned two continents, an ocean, and several time zones.
In the Beginning…
The manual creation process begins with knowing a game is coming down the pipeline, usually slated for the next year’s holiday timeframe. Before production actually begins, I’m privy to early builds of the game and start to evaluate the game’s genre and general flavor.
What makes this a great job is not only that I get to write for and about games, but I also get to play them on all the latest hardware. In the case of both the Xbox® and Xbox 360® launches, this has meant playing early builds of the games on early versions of hardware. With the launch of a new console the hardware needs to be upgraded as the game development progresses.
For the upcoming Xbox 360 release this has meant moving to a high-definition television in the office. You just can’t beat that since it’s nicer than the TV I have at home. Of course, there’s also the cloak and dagger element in that we can’t talk about the games outside of work and even use code names for the project. We don’t wear dark hats and trench coats though–not yet–but the industry might be heading that direction, you never know.
After I’ve gotten a feel for the game, I build a content plan that includes all components of the game text and deliverables, what I believe these pieces should be, and as many details as I can spec out. It’s a living document that helps us all get on the same page, so to speak, with respect to planning and resources. You could say it helps us get all our docs in a row, but maybe you shouldn’t say that.
Of Dates and Deliverables
Our schedule is based off release to manufacturing (RTM we call it) dates so I kick off an entire project at RTM minus nine months, and the print portion of the project at RTM minus five months. Due to it being ye olde print technology the trickiest aspect of the process is the manual is being created at the same time as the game is being developed but the manual must be sent off to manufacturing five weeks before the game is complete. This is situation is further exacerbated when a game is a launch title and doesn’t have the luxury of being on final hardware the whole time and also has no possibility of slipping without us being taken out back and horsewhipped, or worse.
At the manual kickoff we’re focusing on dates and deliverables—where we expect to be at a certain point in time—and individuals’ roles and responsibilities. Of course we’re also focusing on the design. The designer and I will have already discussed a few ideas so that when the meeting takes place between our UX team, the PMs, the designers and the art leads, we can think about these as well as what the tone of the writing should be. With Rare, all these meetings must take place via phone conference, and with the time difference I always imagine we’re having our morning coffee just as they’re having their afternoon tea or something like that.
Our goal is to try to capture the correct tone of the writing as well as the tone of the design in order to reflect the theme and tone of the game. With this in mind, we tend to gravitate to traditional metaphors, if they can be called a tradition, of a book, field manual, journal, diary, technical reference, or PDA. Whatever the metaphor or approach we end up choosing, we strive to make the manual match and enhance the game. With Kameo this was a ready fit since the primary feature of the game’s user interface is the Wotnot Book, inhabited by the grumpy but wizened old Ortho.
Early Design Phase
After the initial kickoff meeting we busily go off and begin our work. This is where the designer’s creativity comes into play because they have to translate everything from this one phone conference into design ideas that hit somewhere near the mark. At the same time, Rare’s writer drafts some rough text that the print designer on our side can use to populate design concepts which are distributed to Rare in PDF format.
A few weeks later the same group of people gets together via phone and we discuss the samples everyone has prepared, which are called comps. We try to reach consensus on one concept going forward, but it’s usually a combination of elements from the comps and a few additional elements to try out.
After design review the print designer can focus on one design approach and begins laying out the entire manual with that theme or approach in mind. The designer puts in as many creative elements as possible here in anticipation of receiving the first draft of the text, which will be flowed into the template for the first time. Unlike other publishers who might throw text over the fence to the print designer a few weeks before publishing the manual, we work collaboratively throughout the entire process. This way we’re able to really refine the tone of both elements throughout the process until it’s near perfect.
Continue to Part 2