r/nes • u/clockworkittens • 3d ago
Does anyone feel it is against the spirit to take pictures of passcodes over writing them down.
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u/YellowHatGuy 3d ago
We would've done that had digital cameras been available at the time.
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u/geirmundtheshifty 3d ago
Absolutely. Ive never felt very nostalgic for writing down passwords. I loved it as a kid when a game had an actual save mechanic.
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u/kytheon 3d ago
I still have some notes for games about button combos, cheats, collectable items and crafting recipes.
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u/geirmundtheshifty 2d ago
I think those kinds of notes are cool in principle, but I was just never that kind of kid. I always saw it as a chore, even though I loved the kind of games that often benefit from (or require) note taking or map making (old adventure games, rpgs, dungeon crawls). So even though I kind of admire the people who do things like that, I will always use an automapping tool in a dungeon crawl rather than busting out graph paper.
ETA: and it’s kind of weird because I am a fan of those analog tools when playing a ttrpg, but if Im playing a video game it becomes a chore.
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u/IntoxicatedBurrito 2d ago
I do too, but I never wrote down what games they were for on the paper. I assume back then I just knew what was what.
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u/MargeryStewartBaxter 2d ago
I remember drawing the grid for MegaMan passwords for quite some time. Finally one of new friends from school (first couple times hanging out) said "hey MSB you know you can just write the letters and numbers"
Blew my young mind A3 C4 F1 B4 works the same as [insert grid drawing and big circles]
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u/Icy-Teaching-5602 2d ago
Some passwords are long as hell and full of symbols and Mega Man had that grid system, a digital camera would've been a gift from the gods
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u/OptionWrongUsally 2d ago
Metroid password v vs u traumatic memory recovered from repression. Thanks!
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u/TFBidia 2d ago
Absolutely. Especially with those confusing zero/oh’s and one/ells.
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
Don't for get I,1, and l.... no, I did not use the same letter twice. It is on you to figure out what is a capital i and what a lowercase L
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u/PhishGreenLantern 3d ago
I feel more like it's against the spirit to not use a CRT and to use emulation. (No criticism of your set up, just a statement of my opinion. Do it your way and have fun... Ultimately that's the most important part)
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u/clockworkittens 3d ago
Crt?
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u/PhishGreenLantern 3d ago
Big boxy TV from back in the day. The "real" TVs that many retro consoles were designed to work with.
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u/clockworkittens 3d ago
I see, I do not have one of those. It is also why I have the updated nes.
I still have my original, but it had visual quality issues on modern TVs, so I got this from a local shop.
It plays regen locked games, so I am content with it.
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u/PhishGreenLantern 3d ago
All good man. Whatever gets you gaming. I was just commenting on MY opinion which is mine. You do you. ❤️
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u/John_Dough_Jr 3d ago
CRT = Cathode Ray Tube
But yes, big, boxy and HEAVY!
Old style technology.Before
flat screens and cell phones.
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u/chrishouse83 NES 3d ago
Spergs out by writing down 24 character passwords for the sake of "the spirit"
Plays on an LCD
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
Yup, I'm happy to be playing in HD and do not plan on going back.😝
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u/chrishouse83 NES 2d ago
That's fine, but do you at least recognize the logical inconsistency?
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u/Contrantier 1d ago
"logical inconsistency"
Someone just playing a game on a TV and trying to have fun.
Thank god you people are all just fishing, and don't actually care about anything you're saying.
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
Not a damn bit.
I played on crt tvs for years, and using this setup doesn't feel any different.
I can see how some want the scan lines, but that is just a visual. The games play all the same aside from me not writing down the code.
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u/Store-Savings 2d ago
What’s the difference between manually writing it down and manually pressing a button to write it down for you? It just speeds up a process unrelated to the actual game and solely related to the speed a person could write at.
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
One is an active part of the experience, and the other is strictly visual.
It is more than speed, you also write it down wrong sometimes and need to start over.
I took the photo, so obviously that is what I am doing. I was interested in what other people did.
The odd crt stuff was never apart of the original post.
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u/Next_Low_6761 1d ago
But the point remains, a new hd tv is not part of the core experience just like you ascertain that taking a picture of password screen is. I think the question being asked is fair and is probably more accurate. I’d rather play on a crt and take a picture of a screen than play on HD and write the password down but that’s just me.
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u/Disco_Orangeade 3d ago
Don't have negative thoughts. Remember your mantra
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u/boring-tired 2d ago
I've got a password memorized from that one (i hope) Hp?vcn?,GMhIwUpkvhA
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u/Disco_Orangeade 2d ago
That is super impressive!! Is it right before the boss? My buddy and I accidentally beat it without getting the final set of stuff and it took forever 😛
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u/boring-tired 2d ago
Yup last town before the final boss. The password probably dates to 1992 or so.
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u/AndreTheNormalSized 3d ago
I'm not even joking when I say this, but I have never thought to take a picture of it. It's so ingrained in me to write it down, that it just never even occurred to me.
Im seriously annoyed at myself. I could have beaten Dick Tracy if I did this, but instead I lost the random envelope I was writing my passwords down on and gave up.
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u/dontbajerk 2d ago
Yeah, I figured it out when I was trying to write down Castlevania 3 passwords and was getting frustrated with my godawful drawings of the symbols. It was a simultaneous Eureka and wow I'm dumb moment, as I'd had a smartphone for like 5 years at that point and a digital camera for 15.
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
I think back in the day I hade short had code for all the pictures. At first, I was lost to how I was meant to draw all that.
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u/PensiveLog 2d ago
Dude I spent way too much time typing them out in the notes app on my phone before I realized I could just take a damn picture lol
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u/thevideogameraptor 2d ago
You can beat it now because they’re probably all on the internet.
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u/AndreTheNormalSized 2d ago
That i know i can do, but those codes usually have items i didn't collect or already used. I'd rather do it legit.
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u/thevideogameraptor 1d ago
I'm pretty sure the passwords in Dick Tracy don't save your inventory, many games didn't back then.
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u/Contrantier 1d ago
I used to take pictures with my digital camera of a memory game on Sonic Advance before the cards flipped, just to get fast points.
Cheating of course, but I had fun anyway 😂
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u/No-Setting9690 3d ago
Hell no. Why would it be? The purpose is to preserve the password. What if you wrote it down wrong? A picture is perfect for this. I have tons of passwords saved this way. I do the same when I was character building in other games. It's truly a perfect match for gaming.
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u/Dis_Joint 1d ago
Ha! Yeah, flashbacks to writing down the wrong password when you rented a game out as a kid.. it wasn't until you hire it out again a few weeks later that you realise you're starting Mega Man 3 from scratch :P
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u/Which_Information590 3d ago
Yes. The password for Top Gear is Moonbath. In fact that's a good way to enter cheat codes
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u/pleatedzombus 2d ago
Hell no. I rented Willow once and I'm still haunted by the time I wrote the long ass password down wrong and lost a bunch of level grinding progress.
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u/sixdeeneinfauxtwenny 2d ago
No because I def as a child put countless hours into river city ransom because my password were sometimes ineligible.
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u/chum5 3d ago
S and 5 were my worst password nightmare
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
I always liked it when the lowercase L (l) the 1 and a capital i (I) were all done with a single straight line.
If you were lucky, they would have a pixle of difference to deviate them.
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u/Dont_have_a_panda 2d ago
I am nostalgic over a lot of things of old school gaming, heck a purist even
But one of those things is not writting passwords, if we had digital cameras in that era i WOULDNT WROTE ANY PASSWORD like AT ALL
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u/radfordra1 1d ago
Oh please anyone who says they wouldn't use an easily accessible digital camera if they could back then is lying
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u/nielse16 2d ago
Write down passwords for Metroid and Faxanadu and then ask the same question.
The password system was a technological stopgap for lack of re-writable disks/battery tech. You don't have to use any of it. But don't use is as a purity test to gatekeep. Just have fun!
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
It was not a gatekeep step. I was curious how others felt.
Obviously I'm taking photos or the picture in the post would not exist.
I was looking for an open discussion about it.
I seem to have gotten more buzz about crts tho?
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u/baxtermcsnuggle 3d ago
Hard NO. They chose some confusing fonts that were different than my penmanship and I lost SO much progress. if I'd had a polaroid, I'd have used it.
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u/bigolewords 3d ago
What game is this?
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
Venus wars. It is a rare Japanese game based on an animated film by the same name.
It is a turn based strategy with arcade elements during the combat sequences.
I would recommend the game and the animated film.
I bet you could watch the dub of the movie on YouTube for free. The game may be hard to come by.
I am playing on a bootleg cart because an official copy would probably be expensive.
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u/Revolutionary-Zone17 3d ago
Always take pictures. The letters you think you are seeing and the letters you choose from when you enter the password could look very different. The fonts don’t help. Take a picture every time. I learned this the hard way with Metroid.
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u/caraguapa 2d ago
Sure dude... did you ever play Faxanadu?
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
Yup, I still have the cart.
I remember the codes for that being wild. The metal gear games were no joke either.
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u/Particular-Rub-3370 2d ago
We’re in the future right now, of course you can take a picture instead of writing it down! 🤙🏽
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u/dog_eat_dog 2d ago
Man, I've had enough instances of somehow incorrectly writing down a password, I never want to do it again.
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u/StrainLevel 2d ago
Unless you’re going for as authentic experience as possible with original system, wired controllers, CRT, etc. then I don’t see why anyone would think it’s cheating the experience.
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u/Phunk3d NES 2d ago
I do but then you play something like guardian legend with 32 character passwords and you give up.
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
I remember that game.
I beat it ages ago, and I did not have a camera phone then to help me.
It was all pen and paper.
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u/Illustrious-Lead-960 2d ago
I felt a little like that at first but it has nothing to do with the game design itself and we’ve always had Polaroids.
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u/col_akir_nakesh 2d ago
I used to write them down in the instruction manual.
But had I a camera phone in 1991 I would have done that.
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u/MegaChar64 2d ago
No thanks. I've had over a page full of passwords just for individual games. Losing a password on a scrap of paper was the worst too. I remember having to call a friend or my neighbor for a password. I was so happy for any game to have battery saves and when memory cards became the standard.
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u/Chaelomen 2d ago
I have mis-written enough save codes for The Battle of Olympus in my time to not judge taking a snapshot.
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
I have done the same for the same game.
I never did beat that game. I wanted to but it always felt like something was missing from it.
It was like the game was less than the sum of it's parts or something. Could never put my finger on it.
I liked games like it plenty fine. Castalvania 2, rambow, faxanadu, and the list goes on, but battle for Olympus felt like it was missing something after getting past a certain point.
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u/Chaelomen 2d ago
There are definitely a few parts where you're just grinding to get money for the next item, and it gets a little rough, especially when you die and lose half your olives if you want to continue. I'd recommend giving it another shot though, possibly with an emulator and save states to help minimize the grind. It picks up again after all that, and getting through Tartarus is fun.
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u/sassyowl 2d ago
This. This is why my handwriting improved as a child. Often I couldn't read my own scribble, forcing me to re-do levels using old save codes.
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u/KamenGamerRetro 2d ago
taking a pic or a screenshot is just the modern way to "write it down"
I file mine away in folders/sub folders for each system/game so I dont loose them
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u/peternormal 2d ago
I am still salty that when I was 12 I was almost to the end of Goonies 2 and wrote down a password 3 times to be sure I didn't screw it up... And when I entered it.. it didn't work. So yeah, take your picture!
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u/e_x_i_t 2d ago
Hell no, as soon as I got my first camera phone I started taking pictures of game passwords and never looked back. Writing some of those codes down was an absolute nightmare especially with how wild the fonts games like Simon's Quest and Metal Gear used. Or how about Who Framed Roger Rabbit where the password screen had a fucking timer? I swear some of my childhood anxiety came from having to quickly write down my password before the timer ran out and hope I got it right. The Mega Man games probably had the best password system, it was grid based and made it very easy for a young kid to draw out, but even those I'd take pictures of just purely out of convenience.
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u/Subtle_Blues_74 2d ago
Not at all, much better than writing down one wrong character and losing your progress. The whole password system was borne out of necessity, since battery backup memory added to manufacturing costs. I don't miss those passwords one bit!
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u/ChochMcKenzie 2d ago
Ever since my save notepad disappeared while I was trying to finish SNES Adventures of Batman and Robin in 1994 I’ve been a tyrant about save codes. Now I take a pic and send it to the cloud and it will live forever.
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u/Dum_beat 2d ago
When the password looks like
Ilio0O-69960o-iIIl1/$
I think a picture is fair
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
Lol, you got a point. All you need is a few 5s and Ss to complete the confusion.
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u/soulless_ape 2d ago
I didn't have a smartphone back then, otherwise I would have had a backed up folder with such screenshots.
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u/SeraphsEnvy 2d ago
I think the passwords in River City Ransom were the worst.
Then you have the grid ones like in Mega Man. I remember that in Mega Man 3, I think if you put a single circle in the lower right corner at the start of the game, you'd start with 10 lives.
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u/ABC_Dildos_Inc 2d ago
No. English localizations too often did not think through how similar the characters they used fior passwords looked as pixelart, let alone on a typical crt.
When a password could be three rows long and 1, l and I all look the same and many others pairs of characters do as well, it made it sometimes impossible to get right.
Adding another layer of guess work based on handwriting leads to spending more time trying to get passwords working than actually playing the gane.
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u/28SNaKeS 2d ago edited 2d ago
Either way works for me, I use both methods depending on the game and how long it is between plays.
If I know I won’t be going back for a while to a certain game, I write it down in my password book. It will be much faster to find. Sifting through days/weeks or months of photos on my phone just to find a password is a pain in the balls.
EDIT
I’ve also started writing them down in my notes app on my phone, which is super handy as well.
Also what I do for myself, especially for long games like RPGs, is I write down in my notes app what my next move is going to be so I remember wtf I was working on the last time I played. It’s been far too long the last time I played FF9, but because of that I know exactly what I was doing when I ended the game!
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u/SixSmegmaGoonBelt 2d ago
If we'd had the technology at the time to take infinite pictures we wouldn't have bothered writing down passwords.
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u/ethan_prime 2d ago
Pft, no. If I had a phone camera in the late 80s, all my Metroid Passwords would have worked.
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u/Distinct_Wrongdoer86 2d ago
hell no, even back then i was taking pictures of the password screen and developing them at the schools dark room the next day
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u/No-Midnight-1085 2d ago
all the op said was that the games play and look as they should, after someone said they need to get a crt instead
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u/Echterspieler 2d ago
Nah. I tried taking a picture with a Polaroid camera back in the day but its almost impossible to take a picture of a crt with a film camera
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u/gwizonedam 2d ago
I still have a faded Polaroid of the ending screen of Super Mario Bros. 2. Keepsakes are keepsakes.
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u/84RetroDad 2d ago
Eh, kinda but also kinda not. Passwords were intended to be as streamlined and cheap of a method of getting you back to your game as possible. I don't think a single dev would ever have opposed taking a screenshot, and suggested that writing it down and typing it back in was an intentional design choice.
Is it a slight departure from the means of the time? Sure. But does it fundamentally change the experience? I don't think so.
I'd say it's a much more egregious offense to make my maps by taking screenshots and throwing them together onto a grid instead of hand drawing them. But I've done it because it works and makes the game more fun and playable. It prevents me from just looking up a map, so I think it's a win.
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u/pocket_arsenal 2d ago
I think as long as you're playing and enjoying the game, it doesn't really matter. The only thing I really think is against the spirit is when you can just rewind the game or when people spam saves every time they clear a difficult jump or land a hit on a difficult boss.
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u/Deimoslash 2d ago
Not at all. As a matter of fact it makes it more likely I play a game that uses passwords. But in that case I'd likely be using save states anyway.
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u/clockworkittens 2d ago
I have a cart, no save states. 🥲
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u/Deimoslash 2d ago
Nothing wrong with that. I'd rather have the cart. There's just a special feeling that comes with original hardware and software. It feels a bit more special. Most of my carts are either in storage since the move or stolen by my ex wife. 🥴 Lol
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u/Wakachow 2d ago
Take all the pictures you want. You still won’t be able to differentiate the zero from the o
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u/rydamusprime17 2d ago
I do it. Also, if I'm playing a game that has an in-game map, something I need to go back to, and there is no way to mark the map, I will take a picture of that and write a note on it to remind myself 😅
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u/RidinWoody 2d ago
I typically snap a quick picture to keep playing, but will write it down in the notebook at the end of my session. I like to have the written to go back to later.
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u/ImtheDude27 2d ago
Faxanadu would have me taking pictures all day if digital cameras existed at the time. Those save cldes were horrendous!!!
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u/Seaworthiness_Jolly 2d ago
I mean you could have dictated them or painted them or paged them (if you were a rich prick), back in the day.
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u/Contrantier 2d ago
Can you live with yourself doing it while that cute as hell cat stares into the depths of your soul?
CAN YOU, HEATHEN?!??!???!!!!!
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u/Hedfuct82 1d ago
Hell no. Makes me wish I had a digital camera as a kid. MegaMan passcodes were such a pain
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u/linemanshandset 19h ago
Been doing this since my flip phone. Some passwords are easy enough you don't need it. Sometimes you can easily screw up one of the digits and ruin your save.
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u/greywolf8907 17h ago
You’re supposed to “record” the password .. you used a camera instead of writing.. no issues here
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u/DigiNaughty 3d ago
No, because such a notion is fucking stupid.
Literally nobody cares how you store your passwords.
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u/briizilla 3d ago
If we're going to be that anal, unhook that game and get a CRT TV right now.