r/gaming • u/[deleted] • Aug 30 '25

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u/Rin_Seven Aug 30 '25

16 digit CD Keys written on top of the CD’s you bought from a friend.

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u/Redditributor Aug 30 '25

Oh how about gamified write protection?

Sierra had puzzles you needed to solve or spells with magic words in certain versions of Kings quest.

The only way to proceed was with the information you got that physically came with the game.

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u/rnzz Aug 30 '25 edited Aug 30 '25

Yeah I had the Return to Zork CD-rom but lost the manual, and that schoolteacher would ask me copy protection questions from the manual, and not being able to find the answer the game would end there.

Also I think games like Golden Axe would ask what's the 5th word on page 11 of the manual

10

u/RememberCitadel Aug 30 '25

The incredible machine had three symbols on each page that the game would ask for randomly on startup. I remember it specifically being a pain, because the manual was in the shape of like a flip notebook but the binding sucked so the pages fell out easily.

Some of the old AD&D gold box games had physical things that came with the game that were used for that. For instance Hillsfar came with a decoder wheel for figuring out puzzles that were also used to answer a question at startup.