Anyone interested in a manual for a game for the Super Nintendo, you’re in luck! Kerry Hays, who goes by Peebs on Twitch, wanted to beat every game on the system but needed some help so Hays turned to the manuals. “We had wondered, some of these games, had anyone ever even beaten them before? They were so weird and obscure or difficult.” He started back in October 2020 with about 650. Then, Hays went to the internet for help. Kotaku’s coverage on the story may have helped with the collection as some wrote into the site saying that they have some submissions they wanted to send in. Writer Luke Plunkett said “There can be ton more people who are like, ‘Oh hey, I’ve got an old Super Nintendo manual lying around’ or ‘Oh, I’ve got some old Super Nintendo games at my parents house, I’ll go and see if any of the games they need are there.” Eventually, Hays’ collection spans upwards of 850 unique Super Nintendo manuals and is available online for free. The collection is available to look at on the Internet Archive.
Video game manuals have kind of gone by the wayside as the industry has evolved. The manual was where you would find the buttons to push and how the console works. Depending on the game, it could also include lore, backstory, and possibly a map. Nowadays, games have the intro cutscene and the tutorial during the first hour. Older games didn’t have the time or space to include these – hence the manuals.
Speaking on why he wanted to make the collection available online for free, Hays said “Preservation to me is everybody has access to this stuff when they want it and where they want it. It would be lovely to get paid, you know, a standard paycheck for this. That’s just not what it’s about.”
Hays also talked about what he wants to do next.
“Everybody keeps asking me, ‘Hey are you going to do this system and how are you going to do that system?’ And I’m like, ‘No, I think we’re going to do all systems,’ because why not?”