Disappointed (Crack'ed - Save the Whales - Pick Up)

[Cybertom]

Hi There,

 

i asked myself if someone else noticed that the manuals of Crack'ed Save the Whales and Pick Up are only Xerox black and white copies (my copies do).

 

I mean look at the other nice Releases from Marc they are all with a great colored manual - that's great !

 

I think for so nice boxes and cart labes they could have printed color manual too

 

greetings

Tom

[Atari Joe]

people should do better than that when they do the new protos. i know matt reichart and then justin too they do that to make them nice full color but the copies are sad maybe they shoudl do the color. thanx joe.

[rolenta]

I designed the instruction manuals for Save The Whales, Crack'd, and Pick Up. The original files that I sent to Sean were in color. I was surprised when he told me that the finished copies would be in black & white but I guess it was less expensive to print that way.

[Cybertom]

I'm sure it was but i'm also sure that the most buyers would spent a few bucks more to get a colored manual (i would do !)

[rolenta]

I designed the instruction manuals for Save The Whales, Crack'd, and Pick Up. The original files that I sent to Sean were in color. I was surprised when he told me that the finished copied would be in black & white but I guess it was less expensive to print that way.

[Scott Stilphen]

Len, could you possibly post scans of your color manuals on your site, or somewhere?

[MattyXB]

I have know it, because I have see the scans here on AtariAge. They are Black & White too. I hope I get soon Save The Whales. The Manual is not so importent then a new game.

 

But if rolenta can upload the color manuals it would be very nice.

 

PLEASE.

[Snider-man]

Heh! I'm colorblind so it makes no difference! (Sadly, it makes playing Pressure Cooker a bitch...)

[liquid_sky]

i bet.. i suck at it anyhow!

[rolenta]

The manuals can be found here

[Scott Stilphen]

Thanks Len!

[s-kelly]

Had we only been doing one or two games, we very well may have done color manuals, but doing four titles like that was VERY expensive and we simply did not have the cash to front for the expense of color manual printing.

 

 

Sean Kelly

[RCorcoran]

I'm disappointed by the fact that my copy of Pick Up doesn't work (on any of my 4 different VCS's)...

 

I need to write CGE Services and see if I can get a replacement.

[Snider-man]

Pick UP wasn't working on my heavy sixer (neither did MArble Craze). HOwever, they both work fine on my Jr. Try that. Some of the older machine seem to have trouble with some of these newer games for some reason.

[JCroniger]

I have Crack'ed, Pick-up and Save the Whales. All work fine on my Vader. Also, I think the boxes look great!

[Atari-Jess]

sniderman,

 

is it black and white colour blind or just a few colours

 

im just curious, i hope im not offending you or anything

[tyranthraxus]

Hi There,

 

i asked myself if someone else noticed that the manuals of Crack'ed Save the Whales and Pick Up are only Xerox black and white copies (my copies do).

 

I mean look at the other nice Releases from Marc they are all with a great colored manual - that's great !

 

I think for so nice boxes and cart labes they could have printed color manual too    

 

greetings

Tom

 

A complaint about manuals... come on now! Everybody just throws

away the manual after you buy it I've got a stack of loose games

as proof

[mvigor]

I also thought that this was very cheap.

[MattyXB]

Thanks, with my old Acrobat Reader it has not work, but I have download the newest version, and now it work fine.

 

Many thanks.

[+Allan]

Printing in color is very expensive. Especially in low volume like a couple hundred. Don't be to harsh on people when they choose black and white. Even Atari started printing in just two colors with their manuals. I'm sure this saved them thousands. Remember for every color the paper needs to go through a press an additional time. So obviously, the more colors the more runs. Plus for every color there has to be made a seperate printing plate. (A long and complex process.) And that's just the end process.

 

Allan

[mvigor]

I'm actually quite familiar with the process. I just don't see why they went to the huge expense of making these beautiful glossy boxes and beautiful glossy cart labels and then stopped short by making B&W manuals.

 

If you're going to go, go all out. If nothing else they could have had them printed up at Staples or Kinkos for $2 each on a color laser copier.

[mos6507]

"I'm actually quite familiar with the process. I just don't see why they went to the huge expense of making these beautiful glossy boxes and beautiful glossy cart labels and then stopped short by making B&W manuals. "

 

Because the manual is INSIDE the box and people will buy based on the box. So the box has to look nice, and the cart if you demo the cart plugged into the VCS, but the manual can be a pleasant surprise, so to speak.

[Snider-man]

Let me see if I have this straight. Three games - never before seen in ANY format, not ROM, not proto, not anything - were made available for purchase for the first time since they were programmed, and everybody here is complaining that the manual isn't in *color?* Personally, I bought Pick-Up and Save the Whales. Looked at the manual once to familarize myself with controls and gameplay, and jammed them back into the box, to never to see the light of day again. I'm glad I *didn't* pay an extra $2 for something I never see anyway.

 

Here's food for thought as well: Weren't later Atari releases bought out with a black and white manual? Hell, wasn't the LABEL ART in black and white (and brown/red)? I feel these releases were better presented than those released in the latter years of the 2600.

 

"That's just my opinion. I could be wrong."

[NoahsMyBro]

While I am in no way faulting Sean or the rest of the guys that brought these games out for not producing color manuals, it is disappointing to me. (And, for the record, I haven't recieved my copy of Pick Up yet (it is ordered though), so I'm only basing this on what I've read here.)

 

I think the boxes & labels look terrific, and a black & white manual does seem a little cheap to me.

 

As for Atari doing it too, well, when they began doing that I thought it smacked of cheapness! I had been buying their products for as long as I could remember, and the first time I saw a cheap, one-page-folded-over, b&w manual I was slightly disgusted and annoyed at such an obvious cost-cutting, who-cares-about-the-finished-product maneuver. My Space War & Superman manuals were multiple pages, full color, etc...

 

Now, I understand Sean & the gang haven't got mega-corp resources and again, I don't blame them. They did what they had to do. I'm just saying that I share the same disappointed feeling as those complaining about it, and that I don't think the fact Atari themselves (such management geniuses to begin with) did it is reasonable justification. I think the fact that it was simply too expensive to pull off is reasonable justification.

 

I also think the fact that Leonard is making the full color source freely available is a classy gesture too, and helps remedy any disappointment.

[Chris++]

Can you still read it? Then it's okay. Unless someone wants to e-mail Rob Fulop and tell him you're disappointed that his limited-run Cubicolor only came with a B&W page of documentation, I'm with Tim. The manual's there to instruct the player, not appear decorative.

 

Of course, I'm boring that way anyway. I want to read the info and I don't fetish the cosmetics. Anyone who's visited my site knows that I concentrate on textual content over fancy, slow-loading images.

 

 

CF