So cute! Love this wuff

These do look really cool! I should buy one

One thing I think they do well is that they imply the mechanics- this isnt an instructional booklet, this is more of a guide that assumes you dont need to have the concept of menus or game hardware explained to you.

No but ive heard of them and theyre on my list of things to check out as reference

The idea of taking something written as like. Instructional or marketing, and trying to evoke the nostalgia that those things gave due to their adjacency to a different formative experience. Thats the goal. Maybe going into an artbook/guide vibe if it needs more of an implied narrative

Order tends to be

table of contents -> plot/characters -> controls and mechanics and everything else

Iirc tunic's fake manual was 100 pages total but that included a guide portion and like half of the games puzzles. And you get it one page at a time

Also notable is for the games that included a plot synopsis, they were basically copying the blurb on the back of the cd case, if not skipping it entirely and going into the characters section first

Format-wise, the game manuals I referenced were about 48 pages long (including the covers) and had a relatively similar order to their contents. Ff7's manual includes an early game "strategy guide" that extends the length to 72 pages tho

Important context- im in my 30s, my niece is in her 20s and has a daughter of her own, and said grand-niece was the one going rotato chips "so much"

"Oh that baby is going rotato chips"- whenever an infant or maybe cute animal spins around or flips over