Reading between the lines: A look at Instructional Booklets

he written word: society lives by it, people relax with it and students learn to grow from it. As the saying goes, the pen truly is mightier than the sword.

Many of us will never forget some of the first words that taught us the beauty (and flaws) of all that language has to offer. For me, it all started with three fondly remembered words that spark joy for many classic JRPG fans:

"You Spoony Bard!" 

This blatant mistranslation made for a hilarious conversation starter that's still worthy of many Final Fantasy IV references to this day.

Books, novels, and magazines serve as a gateway to learning how to read and write over the years. And hell, we had some great reads in the classroom over the years compared to several other generations. I have fond memories of getting into titles such as Bunnicula, the Goosebumps series, and, eventually, George Orwell's 1984 (even if it's a bit real at times now). Not to mention that it would be criminal to forget anything by Beverly Cleary, who recently passed on at the age of 104.

Still, there's another outlet that I don't credit often enough for leading to my own expanded interests in the academic world: video games. 

Many of us probably heard the same noise over and over growing up: baseless statements such as "games will rot your brain" or "you'll lose focus on other things," all (ironically) coming from the same people who often obsess over, say, rich people homebuilding shows or who the next "Masked Singer" is going to be.

Keep in mind, though, that the common perception of "video game" likely falls into a rather bland, abstract category. Every game has the likelihood to be as violent or unhinged as Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty. Most people who haven't explored other avenues outside of what they hear about in contemporary media might not even know that games with reading, puzzles, or other cognitively rewarding tasks even exist.

Text, learning, and video games go hand-in-hand. RPGs often rely on text (if not entirely, back in the day) to make unobtainable graphical achievements possible within our own imaginations. But even in the virtual worlds before 8-bit, Atari often included loads of instructions and, sometimes, random backstories to go along with each new game program cartridge. And, obviously, the objective of reading these guides taught you something — even if it was to only "just" play a game.

Take this classic bit from the official Pac-Man Atari 2600 Game Program Instructions:

"The object of the game is to keep PAC-MAN happy and healthy in his home of Mazeland. PAC-MAN starts the game with four lives (turns). The longer he survives, the more points you score. You score a point for every video wafer that PAC-MAN eats." 

You have to give them credit for putting so much into this — especially the whole "Mazeland" and "video wafer" bit. At any rate, some of these books make for drier reads than others.

Things improved over time as developers learned that consumers weren't afraid of a bit more spunk. Take, for instance, one of my favorite video game instruction books of all time: the Doom 2 manual. The folks at Id Software were kind enough to meticulously document everything from the demons you encounter to the BFG 9000 (though they don't entirely explain what "BFG" stands for, of course).

For instance, there's a nice, flavorful description of the Pain Elemental — not to be confused with the red and popular Cacodemons:

 "What a name. And what a guy. Killing him is almost as bad as letting him live." 

They weren't kidding, either. Remember the Lost Souls? –described as "Tough. Flies. On Fire," you'll have to fight about five more of them after killing this chungus.

As much as I'd love to continue rehashing misquotes and instruction books from the past, it doesn't necessarily do much to outline the true educational aspect of all this. So back at it: what about video games and their unlikely partnership with the world of learning?

I spent hours as a child looking forward to the next narrative chapter in Final Fantasy IV. And with each new battle and encounter came a fresh set of words, sentences, and dialogues — some that had phrases I either only recently learned or had to ask my parents about. Thankfully, there were no super awkward conversations in a game such as this.

Kind of ironic, given what goes on at that one underground club in Tororia—you know the one.

So imagine my surprise when, between the third and fifth grade, video games somehow made their way into the classroom. Like, literally. Enter MECC, a company notorious for its video games that had the uncanny ability to both entertain children and actually teach them something. Adults must have found this perplexing at the time.

Key titles included Word Muncher, Number Muncher, and the Oregon Trail. Other developers, such as the Learning Company (so you know what you're getting upfront), came out with puzzle titles such as the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis.

Alas, many still classified several of these as strictly educational. Each game's end goal was designed to teach you something as opposed to making you relax or forget that the public school system needs a lot of work. But the broad range of what types of games identify as "educational" or at least worthy of research has changed over the past few decades — all as more studies, instructors, and colleges started to embrace video games as a virtual beast that would continue to reshape our world.

More universities and professors are launching their own studies to teach what video games can offer in an academic sense. My alma mater, Oregon State University, even established a "video game lab" (sadly shuttered thanks to the pandemic) in its liberal arts program to further explore the narratives, messages, and meanings behind the world of video games.

Others are catching on along the way while acknowledging the educational value available in these virtual worlds. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in addition to its game lab, has added several different titles in its own publication library that other universities, including Oregon State, have used across curriculum-related media studies. One such book, Second Person, examines several virtual design aspects and narrative storytelling strategies used across playable media. Another book, Atari Age, examines the hyper-masculine culture involved with the beginning of the pinball and video arcade world, in addition to exploring how the landscape continues to shift over time.

In its newsletter, the University of Pennsylvania boasts about "Gaming as a teaching tool," describing courses that bring students together from all walks of life to learn about video and tabletop game mechanics, design, and the learning process in between. It’s difficult to deny that video games have plenty of value as a learning and teaching tool. And yes, there are instances in which the mere use and existence of video games in your life won't matter for much more outside of sheer entertainment.

You're not going to earn a doctorate (let alone a certificate) for beating Super Mario Bros. 3 in less than 11 minutes. You might, however, wind up attending or even teaching a class that describes this particular skill and how it may have been very well qualified as the early days of live streaming.