Ever kept a journal as part of your gameplay?

[GM80]

I know new games (such as Oblivion) offer an in-game journal system to keep track of quests, maps, and other pertinent information. That's a relatively recent development, though, and I wonder what good (or bad) memories everyone has of playing through games that required that extra effort on your part.

My first "game journal" was kept during Starflight for the Sega Genesis, and it detailed the journey of my character across the galaxy, meeting aliens and gathering resources. My last one, which I just found in a drawer (prompting this topic), was for Ambrosia Software's EV Nova. Quite similar to my Starflight journal, it was written "captain's log" style, detailing which ports I had visited and what I had done there. That was probably about 5 years ago, and I haven't played a game that needed journaling since then.

Kind of neat to look back and see those. I could envision almost every second of the gameplay as I had recorded it. Maybe I'm just OCD, or maybe I'd like to hear what everyone else did back in the day.

;)

[The_Kodiak65]

i never did that......but i should have.....i have save files on NES and SNES games from 10-11 years ago, and i have no idea what to do next....maybe if i kept a journal, i'd have an idea on what i needed to do.....

[Technosis]

No, but I sort of envy anyone who has the time and dedication to do it :-)

[GillianSeed]

You pretty much had to for older RPGs. I remember keeping a little Ultima IV:Quest of the Avatar notebook for scribbling down hints, spell reagent lists, map coordinates and shrine mantras.

[Vectorman0]

I wrote down three pages of questions/notes on my most recent playthrough of MGS2. That's the only time I have ever done it though.

[Jorpho]

Yeah, I take notes sometimes, but never a full, elaborate journal. FFVIII was my most recent experience that required illegible scribblings on scrap paper.

[ryborg]

I used to always make my own maps when I was a kid playing Metroid, Legend of Zelda, the Zork series, etc etc. Does that count?

[Mianrtcv]

Sort of kept a few, for various games. More like cheat sheets, just for short term memory.

Was playing Triple Play on the genesis years back... Me and my buddy played co-op. We realized that stats (home runs and possibly doubles)would plateau at a certain number. We had tons of hits/homers, we kept a running tally of homers/doubles for players that maxed out. Yes, "The King" as he once referred to himself, did max out...none other than Jim Leyritz. Didn't need these so they were recycled.

Also used rosters for Madden many times... otherwise I was drafting the wrong positions and then getting either a bad draft or backlog at certain positions. Also I played games late at night and need to utilize as little short term memory as possible. Kept a few of these. Decent teams, no wonder I rarely had cap room (never took the various shortcuts to get cheap players).

I used just a cheat sheet for Dungeon Magic on the NES after using the symbols to create a spell. This I hung onto. I keep on telling myself I will play it again. Then Borat screams at me "NOT!"

There are others but I forget. I usually kept everything really brief. Not so much journals as they are referrence cards.

[Nebagram]

XYXZYZ would be the man to ask this question to. ;)

Personally, I don't- I have a damn good memory to begin with so I've never had any need to. There are times when I've come back to a game following months away though, and yes, there has been a bit of a blank at times. Annoyingly.

[roushimsx]

I remember doing this for Legend of Zelda and Zelda II, but anymore I just draw out maps here and there or scribble down a few random notes.

[Steven]

YES!

I keep one for my SNES experiences, which help me to review games today, months after I've beaten them (and maybe forgotten some of the finer details, which I jot down in my journal). I have 11 pages of notes on an obscure game like B.O.B, that chronicles my journey through it. I think a gaming journal (basic or elaborate) in addition to a gaming log, is an excellent idea.

In fact, I need to add pictures of my journal and talk about it in my "Log It!" piece, which has long been in need of updating.

[Azraelscross]

i've been inspired. next time i play Escape Velocity i'm gonna do that. i've never done it before but i can see where it'd help with older RPGs. I'll probably end up doing it when i get a chance to play some old ones. I can see it coming in handy with those games

and it would probably come in alot of handy with the game features i do once in a while. Specially since i've started writing them instead of copy/pasta off of wiki and changing it to make it more streamlined

[cyberfluxor]

A few years back I had a notebook and wrote down everything I did in a game, which really read back very boring unless you experienced it. I was using it as a guide to get through levels on games without save points or passwords and I wasn't about to download/purchase a walk-through because that makes you lazy and not solve the more difficult parts of the game (and other things). Only recently have I actually been buying walk-throughs, mainly for RPGs I own and games I really enjoy but no plans on a huge library of guides.

If I get the time this summer I'll be kicking VG ass and will bust out a notebook and note what's going down. NES and SMS are the two systems I'll be concentrating on first. :)

[Steven]

A few years back I had a notebook and wrote down everything I did in a game, which really read back very boring unless you experienced it. I was using it as a guide to get through levels on games without save points or passwords and I wasn't about to download/purchase a walk-through because that makes you lazy and not solve the more difficult parts of the game (and other things). Only recently have I actually been buying walk-throughs, mainly for RPGs I own and games I really enjoy but no plans on a huge library of guides.

If I get the time this summer I'll be kicking VG ass and will bust out a notebook and note what's going down. NES and SMS are the two systems I'll be concentrating on first. :)


Agreed, cyber. I've read back my gameplaying experiences, and if you didn't play it yourself, you'd find it very boring.

A journal allows you to accurately depict your feelings on a game when it occurs. People change over time, so a journal is great, especially if you're into reviewing games/doing online pieces.

I keep a journal right by my gamestand. Whenever I beat a level, I stop to write down some notes/thoughts. I also log the date and time of the game played... so many years from now, it'll be even more fun to look back on. (e.g. Wow, I beat Super Metroid 2/3-2/10 2007)

BTW, cyber, your feedback on B.O.B has been recorded ;)

[Daria]

I am so doing that the next time I pop in an old RPG. Sounds kinda like fun actually. The closest thing I've ever done is draw maps for first person games.

[cyberfluxor]

BTW, cyber, your feedback on B.O.B has been recorded ;)

LOL okay. :)

[FantasiaWHT]

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Phantasy Star (maps)
Shining in the Darkness (maps)

[Stark]

Panzer General (PC) I made a record in a notebook on each battle and what I ended up with at the end. A battle log if you will.

[Gentlegamer]

I used to always make my own maps when I was a kid playing Metroid, Legend of Zelda, the Zork series, etc etc. Does that count?Me too . . . at one time I had a complete map of the entire game of Willow!

[p_b]

I had a book full of maps from Bard's Tale III. And I wrote a map of all the levels in Kid Icarus for the Gameboy. I even sent those maps to a magazine for use in their hints section, as they were paying good money (at least I thought it was good money at that time...) if they printed it. Never heard anything from them though....and they didn't print it either :-(

[DefaultGen]

.....

[rbudrick]

No, not really, but there were many games where I wrote down the start and end time every time I played it so I could tally up how long it actually took me to beat. I still have a few of those sheets hanging about.

-Rob

[Azraelscross]

how exactly would you draw a map for old dungeon crawlers and such? dumb question i know...

[FantasiaWHT]

how exactly would you draw a map for old dungeon crawlers and such? dumb question i know...

Grid paper if you were smart. Take a step, draw in a line...

You could get away with making guesstimations, but the problem with that is if you make a whole bunch of turns are your guesstimates aren't accurate, you might literally draw yourself into a corner

[The Great Dane]

Yes, I have done this plenty of times in the past. The most recent game I have been writing lots of information down for is Fire Prowrestling Returns. I do this for the character creating side of the game. I love to make wrestlers, mainly my own original ones, and I need to write down lots of information in order to be able to navigate through the Japanese text in the edit menus. I have lots of pages dedicated to this game.

[Steven]

GM80,

Thanks for inspiring me to update my "LOG IT!" piece. In the past, it talked about keeping a gaming log. Today, I've added "keeping a gaming journal" to it:

http://www.rvgfanatic.com/7506/78601.html

http://www.rvgfanatic.com/mediac/400_0/media/DIR_290201/SNESLogs.JPG

Last thought: keeping a gaming journal can provide an added incentive to finish the game! At least for me.

[Hardcore]

I, on a wild hair, decided to chronicle my Morrowind character's journey.
http://morrowindlog.blogspot.com

I never finished once I got stuck...then stopped playing the game. I was cheating too. I should start playing again.

[Windy Miller]

I used to always make my own maps when I was a kid playing Metroid, Legend of Zelda, the Zork series, etc etc. Does that count?

Same here, except replace Metroid with the likes of Jet Set Willy & Urban Upstart. I also drew a map for Lost in Blue (DS) when it was first released. :embarrassed:

[shoes23]

Thank god those days are over! I have a rather old notebook filled with maps and notes for the first 2 Wizardry games. The games were more tedious than fun, but at that time I had aspirations to play through the entire series, beginning with the first one. I made it halfway through the second game before calling the entire thing quits.

[ubikuberalles]

I've never kept journal per se but I've made notes for the various text adventure games I played (Zork, Enchanter, etc.). Those notes weren't even in a bound notebook, just loose sheets of paper I had handy at the time.

Everyonce in a while I would keep a record of the high scores of the various games I played. Again, loose paper and I would always lose them and have to start over. Maye next time, if I feel the need to keep track of something, I'll put it in a spiral or bound notebook.

[notoriusvig]

I used to write my daily happenings from my game playing over at http://www.free-conversant.com/gaming_journals/

Right now it mostly has shmup players and it hasn't been updated with an entry since last year.

[PentiumMMX]

I have for some games...

[rcgamer]

I always thought doing the grid maps and writing down useful information in a notebook was part of the fun. The first game I think I did this for was phantasy star on the sms. I also used to keep track of my nfl 94 stats in a notebook.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've been keeping a log of every significant score and game I've played since January 5th this year. It's not a list of every highscore for every game (the highscores for games I care about are saved other places), but a kind of mostly-accurate guide to what I've been playing and how I was doing at the time. Gonna see if I can't keep it going until I *DIE* (and maybe even longer) :D The last week I've been too engrossed in Elder Scrolls III/IV to keep it up to date, though, but a simple update will take care of that.

Here's a random day's entries for it (my style of entries changes a bit; I should put it all in a spreadsheet or something before it goes too crazy):


2/13
AM - Uru, Island Relto page, 25th GZ Marker (last available)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - crashes at 83%
4:33 - Black Widow (Arcade, GameTap) 29,275
4:40 - Robotron 2084 (Arcade, GameTap) 90,725
5:23 - G-Darius (MAME) 499,400 Zone A Rank: Iron Eagle
6:11 - Gynoug [J] (Fusion 3.51) 233,600 Round 2

7:46 PM - Strife (PC, zdoom 2.1.7)
7:56 - Gynoug (Fusion 3.51) 267,000 Round 2
10:31 - Cho Ren Sha 68K (PC) 882,878 Round 2
10:48 - Daisenpu (MAME 0.112) 159,670 Area 23

[Ed Oscuro]

I, on a wild hair, decided to chronicle my Morrowind character's journey.
http://morrowindlog.blogspot.com

I never finished once I got stuck...then stopped playing the game. I was cheating too. I should start playing again.
I'm pretty hardcore on Morrowind; in fact, I've done a little bit of work on the UESP:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page

If you need any help with stuff or want some tips on the game, feel free to contact me.

By the way, if you're playing on PC, you should check out Tweakguides, since they have a great article about the game.

[AMG]

I've never done a full blown journal like that.

The most notes I've ever wrote was while playing OoT for the first time. I had two pages of songs, gameplay notes etc.

[Red Hedgehog]

I would often write notes about video games I was playing, especially in RPGs. These notes were generally any useful information I got from people or lists of quests I was supposed to do, or doors or passages I couldn't get past at the time that I would need to come back to. Or passwords. And I would often make maps on graph paper as well. These certainly wouldn't be at all intelligible to anyone who hadn't played the game.

In December, I started up more of a full-fledged journal where I write my thoughts on a game after each gaming session with it. This is much more for reflection than for remembering what I need to do in a game - I still use a separate note pad for that.

[Kroogah]

I have an entire notebook of Pop'n Music scores. I wrote them down while playing so I could enter them into Pop'n Navy, as seen here:

http://vjarmy.com/popn/viewuser.php?user=614&game=11

[XYXZYZ]

XYXZYZ would be the man to ask this question to. ;)



http://videogamecollectors.com/albums/XYXZYZ-s-gaming-setup/stationary1.jpg

http://videogamecollectors.com/albums/XYXZYZ-s-gaming-setup/maps.jpg
:D

I haven't been recording anything other than scores for some time now, lately I've only been playing arcade type games that aren't complex enough to need to remember anything.

Actually, not that long ago I finished rough mapping Ys books I & II entirely. I need to make legible, pretty versions now.

And this reminds me, I need to update my codebook with PC Engine stuff...