Manuals, In-Game Text, and Credits - Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing - page 39

Where to Get Your Information
Before you start writing, you need to gather information. Sure, it would be easier to
make stuff up, but you probably want to remain healthy and employed, so it's best
togetitright.
The first thing you should do is go and collect a few manuals from compet-
ing games and study them for format and the kind of information they felt it was
necessary to give to the player. These manuals should be fairly easy to find: the
team working on the game you are writing your manual for probably has a few lying
around. Check with the Producer or Project Manager of the game to see who might
have one of these games gathering dust on a shelf in the corner somewhere.
Once you've collected some comparison material, read through them and see how
they are formatted: what information goes where and how much of it is there. Also,
take note of how much room the end-user license agreement (EULA) takes in the
back,aswellasthegamecredits.Makeamental note that you will probably have to
save that many pages at the end of your manual, as well.
Next, you need to find the proper information to put into the manual. This is
going to be a little harder than the previous task. First, go back to that Producer
or Project Manager and get their opinion on what they want to see in the manual.
Sometimes, this might be kind of a useless task, as they haven't thought of it. They
might refer you to another person on the development team, most likely the Lead
Game Designer. At this time, it is good to remember that you are writing your
manual during the busiest time of game development, as the team is rushing towards
the end at breakneck speed. Hardly anyone will have time to talk with you. It is also
a good idea to remember that everyone will have a different idea of what should go
in the manual. Congratulations: you have just become a diplomat.
The first place everyone will point you to is the game design document (GDD).
Supposedly, this document contains all the necessary information about the controls
and game features you will need to explain to the new user. The truth of the matter
is that this document is frequently outdated and useless. During the last six months
of an average 18-month development cycle, the game design document stops being
updated because no one has the time anymore, nor the patience, to keep it up to date.
However, it is a good starting point, and you can cut and paste sections verbatim
from it to help you form the basis of your manual. Remember, however, that the
design document was not designed for brevity, and it needs to be rewritten so that
the necessary information can fit into the tiny, tiny manual.
Once you've talked to the Producer and the Designer, and have been shown the
GDD, where do you go next? Usually, the answer is the Lead Tester. This person sees
the game every day, is aware of the frequent control and feature changes that happen
at a breakneck pace during this time of the development, and can usually spare a few
minutes to help you get the information you need. The Lead Tester remains a good
contact thereafter to inform you of sudden changes in control schemes and such so
you don't kick out a manual that is completely useless.