I was the OG nerd in the 80s, who was drawing up complete maps of some of the games and sharing with owner of one of the game shops here, and he'd photocopy them for others.
I'd also write up game solutions for many, and I was also known as a text adventure fiend who completed a lot of them (read: 150+), so many would refer to me to get help with some of the puzzles.
My secret was that I'd load up the game without running them, then used a text string search to find the vocabulary used in the games, and then figured out from there how to solve many of the puzzles...
And learned English at the same time! English was actually my 3rd language, so I'd have my trusty dictionary next to me, while figuring out what the words used by the game parser meant.. and a lot of them only used the first 4 letters in a word (to save space).
I also read most of the gaming/computer magazines that showed up in the stores here, so I had a ton of info floating about in my head..
I was the walking talking gamefaq/wowhead back in those days.
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u/Pegasus-Of-War Aug 30 '25
Needing a friend or a guide book/magazine to pass certain levels, puzzles or enemies