Hello everyone, and welcome to Inside the Guide, the only article on GameCola that discusses writing guides for videogames. You know, sometimes I write a guide and no one ever e-mails me about it. But other times, I write a guide and a LOT of people e-mail me about it. This month, I thought I’d give you a behind-the-scenes look by showing you all the e-mails I’ve gotten for my recent guide for Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy.
Email #1
Hi,
I am writing to ask permission to use your walkthrough for The Pagemaster (PC) on Super Cheats ::http://www.supercheats.com
All of the faqs and walkthroughs we add to our website are displayed with no advertisements and untouched in plain text format, full credit is also given to the author.
Please could you write back if permission is granted and we will grab a copy (or you could e-mail us one), upload it, and notify you where you can find your work on our site. If you would like us to create a free account for you on Super Cheats so you can manage any updates yourself, please let us know that in your reply and we will assign a username based on your author name and forward you the details, alternatively we are happy to add your updates ourselves. Please let us know in your email if you would not like us to add your updates to the version on Super Cheats ourselves, otherwise we will assume you would like us to keep your file updated on our site.
Also, if you would like to grant us permission for all of your existing and future walkthroughs, please say so in your email and direct us to where we can find your walkthroughs and we will add them to our site on your behalf.
If permission is not granted there is no need to write back, we just won’t upload a copy to our site.
Cheers,
Dennis
dennis@supercheats.com
http://www.supercheats.com
Dennis e-mails me this stupid form letter EVERY TIME I write a guide. I’ve told him about ten times that he can take my guides without asking first, but he still does it. Seriously, Dennis, why do you bother putting the “grant us permission for all of your existing and future walkthroughs” line in your e-mail when you don’t follow through with it?
So I sent Dennis a poem as a response, just to be weird.
Hey hey hey,
Use it away.
I’m not sure why, but he didn’t write back. Odd.
Email #2
Hi I am stuck on the “Runes” and can’t get that pesky biniary to come up. When I did get it open a piece of paper with clovers came out but no biniary slate. Thanks appreciate any suggestions.
Jo-Ann Vass
I had no idea what this person was talking about, because I never saw any clovered piece of paper in the game, and because there’s no “Runes” section in my guide.
So I made a random guess that the person was talking about the stone towers puzzle. Being the lazy fellow I am, I copy/pasted the instructions from my guide in my e-mail.
The copy/pasted instructions worked just fine, so obviously, she never bothered to read the guide before e-mailing me. What a waste of time.
Email #3
Hi,
I am the webmaster for www.gamerstemple.com. I’ve read your Nancy Drew Haunting of Castle Malloy FAQ and I like how helpful it is. I am writing to you to ask permission to host it on my site. I will not make any changes to the content and you will of course be given full credit for the guide. Thank you for your time.
– Ned
The Gamers’ Temple
www.gamerstemple.com
W-w-what??? A guy thought my guide was so helpful that he went out of his way to get permission to put it on his own Web site?
Wait a minute…Ned….
Oh, I get it! That’s Nancy Drew’s boyfriend, Ned Nickerson!
Well, I secretly bear a grudge against Ned because he asked Nancy out before I did, but I was gallant and agreed to let him use the guide. Because that’s just the nice kind of guy I am.
Email #4
I am playing nancy drew the haunting of castle malloy but when she wrecks i can’t get her to move can you tell me why.
Thank You
Note to People who E-Mail Me: I don’t understand vague e-mails. Wrecks WHAT?
In any case, the problem is that the person is stupid. The way to move Nancy is press up to move up, down to move down, right to move right, and left to move left. Duh. That’s really obvious, and there’s nothing tricky about it.
So I sent the person a “your problem is that you’re kind of stupid, but I’m too nice to say it outright” e-mail, explaining this unique, complicated movement system that has never been used before in any computer game ever. And I might have been a tad offensive, because I never heard from that person again. Problem solved!
Email #5
Hi there,
I was reading through the walk through that you provided. I did not see any tips for completing the gears puzzle. I have placed all of them, and got all but 2 or 3 of them to rotate. Any tips on where exactly to place them so that I can get further in the game?
Thank you so much for your help,
Darlene~
OK, finally, this is a legitimate question. The gear puzzle is a puzzle where you put twenty gears in the correct places, and the solution looks like this:
But obviously, it’s tough to write out a solution to the puzzle that isn’t overly long. Pictures work best here, so I directed her to the appropriate part of my video guide. Self promotion is the key to success.
Email #6
Dear Michael,
Wanna go out with me?
–Nancy Drew
Dear Nancy,
Not until you dump Ned.
–Michael
Email #7
I PRINTED OFF THE CHEATS FROM THE ONES YOU MADE BUT I WOULD LIKE HELP ASAP ON THE SLIDER PUZZLE OF THE DRAGON ONE I WOULD LIKE IT STEP BY STEP 1 BY 1 PEICE TO WHERE THEY GO NOT LIKE THE WAY YOU HAVE IT ON YOUR CHEATS PLEASE HELP ASAP IM STUCK ON IT I HAVE THE MISSING PEICE TO IT I JUST NEED IT 1 BY 1 STEP BY STEP
This e-mail confused me, simply because it’s in all caps and has random spacing. I don’t know what’s up with that. I was also slightly offended by the fact that she didn’t like my slider puzzle explanation, which was super helpful and tells you how to solve every four-by-four slider puzzle EVER.
So I decided to use the classic technique of “avoid dealing with this person by sending her to someone else.” In this case, I directed her to another walkthrough for the game. I use that technique a lot, especially when I don’t feel like replaying a game to see what the problem is.
Email #8
hi im from sweden so i dont whrite so god englesh.
i nedd help whith the maze.please help me. a i can reead good engles
nathali
Cool! E-mails from foreigners are always fun! Except I’m never quite sure how to word my responses, because I’m always afraid I’ll confuse the hell out of the reader. After all, I’m totally inconsistent when it comes to grammar. In my guides, I switch back and forth between third person (“Nancy finds a key”) and second person (“You can dance if you want to”) all the time, for absolutely no reason.
Sometimes, I try to use short sentences in my responses, to avoid possible confusion. This time, however, all I did was copy/paste the appropriate section from the guide (again), and I hoped the grammar wouldn’t confuse her.
And, of course, it did. She wrote back, asking for more help. So I sent her to my video guide on YouTube, telling her to just do the exact same thing that happens in the video. I’m usually lazy in my e-mail responses, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.
Eight e-mails is enough, so that’s it for this month! Now you all know my secret strategies for dealing with e-mails: copy/pasting my guide, sending people to another person’s guide, and, on rare occasions, actually helping the person who needs my help.
Gee, I sure hope none of those people who e-mailed me reads this article, or they might get upset. Oh well. No big deal if they do, I guess. Tune in next month for fun with the Prince of Persia!
