A Closer Look at the Evolution of the Instruction Manual

A Closer Look at the Evolution of the Instruction Manual

Read the Damn Instruction Manual!  Used to be, you never had to utter these words.  Once upon a time, the instruction manual that came with your brand new video game purchase was at least %50 of the enjoyment of the game, more if you bought games in the Swordquest series…  The instruction manual was not only your guide to how to insert your game cartridge into the cartridge slot on the gaming console you have been the owner of for several months as if you just found the thing on the street this morning and thought “what the heck, let’s take this in the house and see what happens.”  The instruction manual opened the door to the world of the game (and heck, video games in general) and helped create a mystique about what adventures awaited you inside that little plastic box.  It also gave you something to look at while your obnoxious cousin dominated the game even though he said he’d never played it before.  The instruction manual used to be an integral part of the gaming experience.  Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

Often these days, the instruction manual is that piece of colorful filler paper tucked behind that warranty card, that in-house game catalog, and those three postcard-size ads, two for games you already own.  Besides, who needs to dig through all of that nonsense anyway?  Nowadays the manual is as superfluous as the comparative simile.  Thanks to the advent of the in-game tutorial, chances are pretty good it has been a while since you’ve seen an instruction manual.  Most games feature an introductory level that in some way introduces you to the basics of the game play, either overtly or in the more well-crafted games, subtly.   And now Ubisoft is looking to put the final nail in the Instruction Manual’s coffin as they recently announced that they plan to stop producing manuals altogether! Because technology has allowed us to “jump right in” to our newest purchase, we no longer spend much time with any of the peripherals that come with the game, if they even come at all.
 
This fact has become more pertinent to me most recently when playing the X-men game for the NES for last month’s Closer Look.  I was struggling with the game, as you might imagine or can relate to, and was reaching a frustration point, when I realized, “hey, this game has a manual, maybe there is something in there that will help me out.”  It was then I realized that the manual was not obvious to me at the start.  After fetching the manual for X-men, I started thinking about the good ol’ days when the manual was an intrinsic part of my video game experience.  Thus, this time around, I thought we’d all take a good hard look at the evolution of the video game manual, why it came to be and where it might be going.

For me it all started with the Atari 2600 and something I’m going to call the golden age of video games and their manuals.  The early video game manual was as much a part of the video game experience as the game itself.  Where else are you going to learn about the world of Mazeon circa Astro Date 3200, its deadly inhabitants the Automazeons and their nefarious commander, the aptly named Evil Otto?  How else will you learn about Old Man Graves and his strange connection to a shattered urn?  Certainly not by popping Berzerk or Haunted House into your VCS.  Nope, back in olden times, video games were all action.  If you were looking for story, you would only find it in the instruction manual.  And what a story you might find!  The tales found in instruction manuals from the golden age are rich and well written and smartly craft the backdrop for the action happening on your TV screen.  Take for instance this brief sample of text from the aforementioned Haunted House manual:

“To this day, no one has had the courage to go into the mansion to search for the pieces of the urn.  It is common knowledge that the ghost of old man Graves still haunts the mansion. Some of the neighbors claim to have seen lights flickering in the windows.  Some say that they have heard eerie sounds, doors slamming, and heavy footsteps.  Some even claim to have seen shadows running through the mansion.”
Not too shabby for a video game manual, huh?  And that’s just a sample of the whole story! 
Oh, the hours I spent reading and rereading those manuals, soaking up all of the words and the excellent art!  That’s right, video game manuals used to feature more than text and screenshots!  The illustrations from the Atari manuals, while a bit dated, are still masterpieces of video game art!

And this creative effort is not contained solely within the pages of the manual itself.  Some games from this era also featured peripherals in addition to the instruction manual to help heighten the experience.  Games like Yar’s Revenge and those in the Swordquest series were also accompanied by full color comic books chronicling the adventures that were being lived out in the games.  Much like the manuals, these comics were not quick and dirty afterthoughts, they were well-crafted pieces designed to be enjoyed and savored as much as the games.  Heck, some games ended up not being half as good as their manuals! (looking back at you Swordquest!)

As time rolled on and the level of complexity in games increased, the instruction manual took on an all-new, all-important role:  strategy guide.  Currently the term “strategy guide” means a separate peripheral that is priced at about half the cost of the game itself and, depending on the publisher, contains anywhere from %50-%100 of the vital information needed to get the full experience from the game.  This wasn’t always the case.  Long ago in the age of the Nintendo Entertainment Center, “strategy guide” meant the last 5-8 pages of the instruction manual that provided either a walkthrough of the game’s first level, or maps, or just general strategies for playing and succeeding at the game.  The instruction manual for The Legend of Zelda (LoZ) is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Not only did the back of the manual provide a step-by-step guide to completing the first labyrinth, but the game came packed in with a second strategy guide/map to help you get even further in the game.  All of that at NO EXTRA CHARGE.  Get out.  No, I’m serious.

The good people at Nintendo were no idiots.  They realized that their system was ushering in a new era of games with game play that far surpassed what most previous systems could attempt.  Thus, adapting the instruction manual to be both instructional and insightful was the next logical step in the evolution of the booklet.  So in addition to containing instructions on basic game play and expositional story, the manual now served as your guide to discovering everything a game had to offer.  Even games that didn’t need full strategy guides featured hint sections or advanced strategy sections.  These were extensions of pre-existing “helpful hints” sections from the previous era of instruction manuals.

 






From that point, video game manuals sort of peaked a bit.  The era of the SEGA Gensis/Saturn and the Super Nintendo didn’t really see too much innovation in the evolution of the manual.  Game complexity increased a bit and manuals got thicker to accommodate a greater density of instructions.  Some manuals were simplified as in the case of Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Genesis, while others nearly tripled in size to fully explain the intricacies of the game play, see Jet Grind Radio.  But all in all the manual itself was coasting along just fine through the Silver Age of video gaming.

Titles like the epic Final Fantasy VII featured instruction manuals that were a synthesis of the old and the new.  The FFVII manual featured a whopping 65 pages that ran the gamut from basic controls to menu screen organization and even a mini-walkthrough of the first section of the game.  Like video gaming, the instruction manual was at its height.

As the modern era of gaming was being ushered in, developers didn’t seem to really know what to do with the instruction manual any more.  Some developers just stuck with the format, providing guidance on how to play the game and explaining what the different game modes were all about.  (see Super Monkey Ball)  The advent of the strategy guide at the middle and end of the Silver Age, pretty much meant the demise of those sections of the manual.  Why would a developer put such information in the back of a free booklet when they could turn around and sell you another booklet for more money?  Likewise, the capability of coding in-game tutorials into the games themselves meant that there was less need for reliance upon the printed manual to fill that role.  The story was also being told through the game itself now, so paragraphs or pages of exposition were no longer a necessary feature either. Thus, game developers started getting a little more creative with their manual design.

Take the manual for Shadow of the Colossus, an incredible game.  Using screenshots from the game and lots of moody pencil sketches, they manage to take two pages of basic control instruction and turn it into 31 pages of manual.  Very cool, but very unnecessary.  Particularly since the game features what amounts to an in-game tutorial anyway.  To be honest, I think I looked over the manual all of once, maybe twice and that was to see if it made any mention of collecting lizard tails or eating fruit to increase your stamina and power.  There is none, despite the fact that these are vital aspects of game play.  I guess I should have bought the strategy guide…  So with no idea of what to do with the seemingly obligatory manual, the people at Sony decided to get a little artsy.  Mixed results.

Looks great, but a whole page for Running?

Now with the modern era in full swing, the instruction manual is even more of a lost soul.  Some games have sparse manuals (Cooking Mama Cook Off) that pretty much pay lip service to the elementary purpose of the document, while others keep the tradition alive by still presenting the manual in its full glory (Okami).  That said, chances are pretty good you haven’t opened an instruction manual for a modern game, or maybe any game, in a long, long time.  And if the people at Ubisoft have anything to say about it, you may never again!

 







In a move Ubisoft is calling “eco-friendly,” which I think we all know is bullshit, the game developer is stopping altogether the production of printed manuals to be inserted into the game packaging.  Instead, Ubisoft games will feature in-game digital manuals that will serve the same function.  First of all, in no way shape or form do I buy the notion that Ubisoft’s cessation of printed manuals has anything to do with their concern for the environment.  This is an economic move, pure and simple, and I think they insult the intelligence of everyone by saying otherwise.  I mean seriously.  I will be interested to see if Ubisoft also does away with those paper advertisement inserts as well…
But secondly, and more importantly, are we now seeing the next step in the evolution of the instruction manual?  I think we could very well be.  If you follow the progression it only makes sense for this to be where the manual’s evolution leads.  Initially, the limitations of video game technology demanded that a separate instruction sheet be sold with games so that people would know what to do with this new fangled “video game tape” they just purchased.  As video games became entrenched in the culture and increased in complexity, the manual evolved to go beyond basic instruction and became a resource for getting the most out of a game and understanding its depths to the fullest.  After a strong lifetime in the Silver Age, the manual’s evolution stagnated.  Technology and the growing video game economic market was leaving it behind with the development of strategy guides and in-game tutorials.  Thus the instruction manual of the modern age had become irrelevant filler paper that took up good space where ads could go.  As we develop newer and better video game technology that can play Blu-Ray movies (for some reason) and browse the internet (as if I don’t have a computer that does that…), the need for a paper instruction manual does seem to evaporate away.

So I guess we are looking at the next generation of instruction manuals: the digital age.  It may make sense and it may be the natural progression of things, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to miss my outdated paper instruction booklets.  It makes me sound old, but I wonder if the kids of this and coming generations will ever really appreciate the glory that was to be found between those magic pages.  Printed instruction manuals may be transitioning into the annals of video game history, but they are an integral part of its origin and I think there is certainly something about them that old schoolers like myself will also always remember fondly.
So if you have the means and the opportunity, for the love of all that is good in the universe, one last time maybe, READ THE DAMN MANUAL!!! While you can….


I’ll see you back here next month when I jump back into the games and show you what I just picked up off the WiiWare…

A Closer Look at Going Home Again in the World of Video Games

A Closer Look at Going Home Again in the World of Video Games

Thomas Wolfe broke the bad news to us about thirty years before Pac-man gobbled his first dot, “You can’t go home again.” Wolfe wasn’t writing about video games at the time, but his themes of change both personal and environmental extend even into our modern technological age and yes even to video games.  I have experienced this phenomenon numerous times in my long love affair with the pixilated media, but it became even more salient recently upon purchasing Mario Kart Wii.

Allow me to start by saying that Mario Kart Wii is perhaps the greatest kart racing game I think I have ever played (and that puts it up there with Crash Team Racing for the PSX).  The game is ground-breaking in terms of innovation and game play.  One of the coolest features in the game is the ability to play older tracks from previous incarnations of the Mario Kart franchise.  It was this that sent me down the inevitable road to disappointment.  So enamored was I with the sleek controls and bright colors of Mario Kart Wii that I was prompted to revisit the previous best Mario Kart racer I had ever played: Mario Kart 64.  Mario Kart Wii features a couple of tracks from that blast from the recent past and playing those gave me a longing for those days of yore.  Thus, back to the N64 went I.  And therein lays my mistake.  Thanks Thomas Wolfe.

As the video game industry becomes more and more advanced and modern games get deeper and their complexity increases, the merits and faults of classic games are becoming glaringly obvious.  One of the consequences of our rush toward into the future of gaming is the difficulty of returning to classics we once loved.  This difficulty is multiplied when the classics we are revisiting have been updated in more modern versions of the game.  Hence my disappointment upon plugging Mario Kart 64 into my console.

It’s not just the fact that Mario Kart Wii implements a new, unique and innovative control scheme, although that does make going back to a D-pad or analog stick a bit mundane.  But Mario Kart Wii is such a leap forward in terms of graphics and game play that going back to Mario Kart 64 is very difficult.  Mario Kart 64’s graphics were awesome for their time, but when held up against the bright, detailed tracks of Mario Kart Wii, they seem cardboard cut-outs in a 3-D world.  What’s more, the kart dynamics are sluggish and awkward next to the seemingly flawless kart mechanics of Mario Kart Wii. In the Wii version the karts (and motorcycles) are a seamless part of the environment and they move and interact with the other karts and background elements naturally.  In my revisit of Mario Kart 64, the karts felt clunky and looked like they had been pasted onto the background, as if you took the background away and they would just keep on going through space without need of a playfield.  The game still played pretty well, though not as smooth as the Wii version and the fun was there, but somehow diminished.  It didn’t take very long for the 64 version to go back on the shelf and the Wii to get fired back up.  Thanks again, Thomas Wolfe.

Sadly, this isn’t the first time this has happened to me.  Now that I think about it, there have been several times in my gaming history that I have attempted to revisit older games that have had more modern updates and found the older games wanting. Rogue Squadron and Rogue Leader present another example of this phenomenon.  I loved Rogue Squadron for the N64 and played it to death, but after moving on up to Rogue Leader on the Gamecube, trying to play Rogue Squadron is like trying to wear great looking pants that are three sizes too small.  No matter how badly I wanted to run those missions again, the controls were just too clumsy and awkward.

Nice, shiny, and slick!

Still nice, but a bit clumsy

Even Spidey knows these two are worlds apart!

And the phenomenon isn’t just limited to games; genres can undergo this as well.  Fighting and sports games are perfect examples of how modern games can render older games completely obsolete.  Soulcalibur and Soulcalibur II changed the face of fighting games forever, particularly 3D fighters.  Even great older fighting games like Tekken do not hold a candle to the majesty of Soulcalibur, which when released was actually better than its arcade counterpart!  If Tekken cannot hold up, lesser fighters are reduced to an unplayable mess.  Don’t believe me? Try playing Star Wars: Masters of Tera Kasi.  Similarly, the constant evolution of the Madden football franchise is practically geared toward outdating its previous incarnations.  With each new year a newer and flashier version of Madden Football is released with more whistle and bells, online support, updated player rosters and the previous year’s game is forever lost in the discount bin of the local second hand video game store.  Hell, you can build a house out of unwanted, outdated sports games for the N64 alone!  I personally own Madden '93, 2000, 2001 and 2008 and have played them only during the year in which they were released with the exception of Madden '93 which still rocks!).  For kicks, I once put Madden ’00 in my PS2 just to see what would happen.  First and foremost, this happens to be one of the games that is not backwards compatible with the PS2, so that was interesting enough, but second, the game was practically unrecognizable when compared with more recent versions, even next generation versions for the PS2 (even when played on an original Playstation)!
 

The phenomenon isn’t limited to video game consoles either.  Perhaps one of the most glaring examples of games being outpaced by their modern counterparts can be found on the PC.  Computer technology is obsolete by the time it hits the market and I cannot tell you how many times I have purchased a new PC one year and a new game the next only to find that my computer isn’t powerful enough to run the damn thing.  That quibble aside, computer games possess a special vulnerability to this phenomenon due to the very nature of their medium. My wife loves, and I mean loves in that very unnatural way, the Sims games for the PC.  She owns practically all of the expansion packs and other accoutrement for the original game and a healthy compliment of add-ons for sequel offering Sims2.  While the original Sims still holds a special place in her heart, she simply cannot play it very long anymore, not after playing Sims2.  According to her, Sims2 provides a much fuller gaming experience, filling in gaps in the original game and building upon its foundation.  These new additions and enhancements create a rich experience that satisfies in a way that the original no longer can.  In my own experience I can attest that I found similar difficulties with Roller Coaster Tycoon.  Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 is for all intents and purposes almost exactly like the original Roller Coaster Tycoon with some crucial upgrades and improvements.  Graphically, the games are nearly identical.  The game play is foundationally the same.  Yet there is enough of an improvement that it is very hard to play the first Roller Coaster Tycoon again.  The coaster building and landscaping interfaces are much improved.  The new kinds of attractions and amusement park themes are rich and diverse.  And these things are just enough to make it hard to return within the confines of the original game.  Damn you Thomas Wolfe!

In studying this phenomenon there appears to be at least a semblance of reason to it.  It seems there are some games that are immune to the syndrome, some games that are particularly vulnerable to it, and some games that float in the middle.  The games that seem the most vulnerable are those mentioned above including but not limited to racing games, fighting games, and sports games.  These games tend to get outdated by improvements in their next iteration.  There may be some appeal to the earlier versions, but chances are good the improvements make dull the luster from the older game.  Sometimes this is due to a new level of depth or complexity that is made possible by later versions; Gran Turismo certainly takes a beating from this.  Sometimes it is due to game play improvements that a more powerful gaming platform allows; hence my aforementioned trouble playing Rogue Squadron.   And sometimes, as with sports games, it is just the nature of the game to have the newest version outpace the older ones, as with Madden and other sports titles.

Whatever the cause, there are certainly types of games that suffer from being outmoded by their latter counterparts.  The interesting thing to me is that graphics are rarely the determining factor.  Sure, nearly 99% of the time, the newer game is going to look better than its older cousins, but that is not generally enough to render an older game obsolete.  My wife makes a hard case for the original Tomb Raider succumbing to this phenomenon due to its incredibly blocky graphics, especially when compared to more recent releases such as the Anniversary version for the Wii or other modern systems.  Being a die-hard fan of the early series, I contest this, but I can see her point to some extent.  Still I maintain that the original game is fun enough on its game play merits that I can look past the polygons and still enjoy the ride.  That example notwithstanding, it seems that graphics are a minor player in this particular phenomenon.

I did notice one interesting exception to this phenomenon, however, directly related to my Mario Kart experience: sometimes if you go back far enough, you can in fact go home again.  While I was not able to recapture the magic of Mario Kart 64 after playing Mario Kart Wii, I did find that I was still able to enjoy Super Mario Kart for the SNES.  So perhaps some games are able to skirt the phenomenon if their history is rich enough and if the most recent game is sufficiently removed from the original offering.  I would like to try to make the same case for the Madden NFL series.  As mentioned above, I still have Madden ’93 for the SEGA Genesis and I still play it and it is still fun.   As long as you are not too wrapped up in using fifteen year old players and viciously limited playcalling, the game still has much of its original appeal.  Since nearly all of the players featured are retired and the divisional alignments are no longer valid, the game is almost like playing an even earlier football game like Tecmo Bowl, where teams and players really had no bearing on the game play at all.  So while I cannot plug Madden ’01 into my PSX and relive the magic, I can dig a little deeper and get back to a place where the earlier versions still retain some of what made them great.  This unique situation may also shed some light on why some games are immune to this phenomenon.

And thankfully, there are a whole slew of games out there that appear to be immune to this “can’t go home again” syndrome and interestingly enough these games are predominately adventure/RPG games.  No matter what year it is, I can always plug The Legend of Zelda into my NES and get the same charge out of it I did back in 1988.  The same goes for Castlevania, Metroid, Pitfall II, Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy VII, and a host of others.  These games do not seem to diminish at all from having newer chapters added to their lineage.  In some cases the mystique and charm is actually increased by the addition of the newer games. And the determining factor seems to be story.  Most of the games I have mentioned either are rooted in a specific story or are a chapter in a larger story that has unfolded as more games are added to the series.  This is definitely true for the Zelda and Metroid series.  The fact that the game develops as a story also develops makes each game unique and doesn’t ask it to stack up against later games in the series.  Of course Link to the Past isn’t going to be the same as Phantom Hourglass, they are two totally different games with totally different stories that ask you to do totally different things, all the while preserving the flavor and character of the overall series.  As long as the games are well made and the game play is good, chances are they are going to stand the test of time and the release of bigger and better games in the series.

The other games I mentioned, Super Mario Bros., Pitfall, Castlevania, survive for an entirely different reason.  While those games may part of a larger story or world, subsequent editions in the series function more like extensions or supplements to the original game.  Super Mario Bros. 3 is just as much fun as Super Mario Bros. despite SMB3’s obvious superiority because the games don’t really compete for the same spotlight the way their kart racer cousins do.  Furthermore, Super Mario Galaxy can be just as fun as either of those two older games, because it has taken the basic concept and applied it in a way that neither of the earlier games could even attempt.  It’s still platforming fun, but it is sufficiently different without outdating its predecessors. Take that Thomas Wolfe!

The defining factor seems to be related to application of the theme.  If the theme is kept true, but re-imagined in unique and different way, then there is a good chance you’ll be able to go home again.  However, if the theme is kept true and the execution of that theme is maintained without significant change, but the primary adjustments are to peripherals like game play, controls, options, or graphics, then chances are going home again is going to be difficult and perhaps disappointing.  Preservation of the theme is vital to the success of any game series (look what happened when they tried to re-invent Lara Croft…).  The theme can undergo evolutions and changes, but it rarely survives a complete overhaul.  Even when the Castlevania series shifted from strict platforming to a non-linear exploration game, they kept the theme by remaining true the existing story and adapting the original platforming design to accommodate the new direction they were taking the series.  The same can be said for Metroid when they changed to a first person shooter perspective, the exploration that made the initial games such a success were maintained while the gaming style was diversified.  However, preserving the theme and updating the set dressing without evolving the theme in some way can quickly render an earlier version obsolete.  And in cases like the Sims and Roller Coaster Tycoon, evolving the theme can even be dangerous if doing so doesn’t change enough about the theme to make both the newer and older versions uniquely appealing.

It is a tricky thing going home again in video games.  Sure, you may have great memories of you and buddy staying up all night for one more game of Wrestlemania on the NES, but that may not mean that Wrestlemania is still as good as you remember, especially if you’ve played anything more recent.  Games that are modern versions of older classics that have updated the peripherals, controls, graphics, etc., but not changed the fundamental game play are going to make it hard to enjoy those original games.  Going home again is a function of gaming’s evolution as we move toward sometimes better, always more powerful games.  The true test of a game’s staying power is directly related to its development over time.  Games that develop naturally and grow beyond their beginnings manage to maintain their charm and appeal, no matter how much better the games in the series get. So, Thomas Wolfe, you can go home again, but you have to be careful which home you are going to.

Pitfall Harry says, "Thomas Wolfe is a punk."

 Join me next month, when I’ll take a Closer Look at the Spider-man game that ushered in a whole new era of web-slinging and see how time has treated it. 

A Closer Look at Sonic Shuffle

A Closer Look at Sonic Shuffle for the Dreamcast



I never had a Dreamcast during its brief lifespan. I had an N64 and a PSX, so the Dreamcast with all of its whistles and bells was a bit too much for my gaming palate at the time of its release. This means I missed out on some really great games. I managed to play SoulCalibur (maybe the best game for the system) at a friend’s house regularly, but beyond that SEGA’s last (?) throw into the console pool was lost on me. I heard tales of Virtua Tennis, Crazy Taxi, and Jet Grind Radio, but they were phantoms in the gaming night. So, when I married and my lovely wife added a Dreamcast to our console collection, a whole new world was opened to me.
Going through her collection of games one day, I spied an interesting property: Sonic Shuffle.

“What’s this,” I said, “some great Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Dreamcast?” “Not quite,” my wife replied. She went on to explain that it was a board game with Sonic characters. “Is it any good?” I asked. “Well,” said she, “it’s like Mario Party, without Mario or the Party.” We both laughed pretty hard at that, clever though she is, but when the laughing was done, I insisted that we give it a spin and see what happens. The following account is the result:



My turn (I’m playing as Sonic): I pick a “6” card and pick a distance of six spaces on the board to travel, however Sonic’s special ability is to occasionally double the amount of spaces I can move, so instead of 6 I get to move 12. I move 4 spaces, but then hit a spinning arrow and immediately backtrack 2. I land on a space with a picture of a helicopter on it. At that moment, a helicopter appears above me, lifts me up and proceeds to carry and subsequently drop me precisely 3 spaces behind the space where I started. Knuckles’ turn (controlled by the CPU): Knuckles selects an “S” card (from my row of cards no less!). A menu appears from which he selects “Roulette.” A spinning card appears on the screen and he stops it on a “5.” Knuckles then proceeds to move 5 spaces and lands on the same square that is occupied by Amy (the other CPU character). The word “DUEL” appears on the screen and Amy and Knuckles move to a screen filled with cards. Icons with all four characters appear amidst the cards. The screen says “GO” and all of the character icons begin to move about the cards. Some cards leave the screen toward Knuckles, some towards Amy, and then suddenly, they all fly back up and fill the screen again at which point the process repeats until finally all of the cards are gone either to one side or the other. A winner is somehow declared and it is Amy. The game shifts back to the main screen and Knuckles must sit out a turn. Next it is Tails’ turn (played by my wife). She selects a “6” card and chooses a space the appropriate distance away. Tails moves to this space, which is marked with an “!.” The screen goes black and the words “Mini-Game” appears. All four characters are whisked away to a screen that explains the rules of the mini-game. Apparently, one of the players is to be the “DJ” and the remaining three are going to be placed on a giant turntable. The DJ character controls the movements of the turntable and various arcs of electrical current that span it, while the other characters must run about trying to avoid the electricity and collecting rings. Get hit and you lose your rings. The game lasts one minute. Chaos ensues. The minute expires, somehow a winner is declared and a leaderboard appears listing the rankings plus the amount of rings awarded. Knuckles wins, and as a result he also gets to steal 10 rings from another character at random. A wheel appears, spins, and the arm lands on me. I am forced to give 10 rings to Knuckles. Finally, it is Amy’s turn (the other CPU, remember). Amy selects a “1” card from Knuckles row of cards and moves one space onto a red space with a gold ring. Amy flinches as she loses 6 rings, only made worse because the screen says “COMBO 2.” The action suddenly stops and a character called Eggman appears above the board in a metal contraption. He laughs and says that we have stepped on a collective amount of 10 red ring spaces and as a result he is going to make the red ring spaces bigger so that we lose even more rings! His contraption zaps the red ring space with a yellow beam and it shrinks. The game’s administrator, Lumina, informs us that Eggman made a mistake and made the red spaces smaller. Instead of his insidious punishment, we will actually earn more rings for landing on blue spaces and lose less for landing on red. And now it is back to my turn…

Lost yet? I am not kidding you; this is what can happen during one average round of turns from Sonic Shuffle. I’ve seen a game last as long as 4 hours. One game. But I am getting ahead of myself… (continued after the jump!)