What are some good games that encourage the player to take real life notes?

I suppose I might also add "Use the manual as reference material"
Good example is the Ultima series which requires that the player know how to use the map and find coordonates, as well as use the manual to cast any magic at all (proper regents etc). I really do feel immersed into those games when I play them because they ask that of me.

I also really enjoyed Freelancer for similar reasons, taking down notes of what resources bought and sold for at different stations. I got bored of it after a bit, but it was a fun detour in the game to go down.

Fez is obviously one, but there was basically a whole bombcast about that. I don't mind older game recommendations, but if there is any newer games that have a similar demand incorporated then I'd love to hear it.

La Mulana was the last one for me.

I might be mistaken, but I think Legend of Grimrock carries that mentality. I've heard of people drawing maps for it, like old-school dungeon crawlers...which i guess it is.

I'd say Etrian Odyssey, which was sort of the same, except you made your maps on the bottom screen of the DS

The Secret World is a bit of black horse in this department: sure, it's an MMO with average combat mechanics but the puzzle quests can be if quite challenging -in a good way - if you're disciplined enough to stay away from forums and wikis and stick to "real-life" sources and your own wits and skills. It actually has a built-in browser that automatically excludes the official forums, but I found it more suitable and spoiler-free to just Google whatever the puzzle was focused on instead.

I remember one notable example being a deciphering puzzle requiring you to create and keep expanding on a key as you moved between locations, where each new instance gave you new sign translations through context that you could only get if you made sure to write down what you learned at the last instance, because the game sure didn't. Another early quest required you to translate morse code in a radio broadcast to coordinates. Solved that one by downloading a smartphone app and holding it up to my speakers.

One last I remember was a quest where a part of it consisted of solving what was basically puzzle focused on higher education skills - one part was a number series puzzle I suspect you get a leg up on if you've studied mathematics, another had pretty advanced coding puzzle I i recall correctly and the final one I solved on my own because it was a medicine/biology puzzle and I happen to be a med student.

TSW went along the pay-once-play-forever route around Christmas and is currently part of the daily sale on steam for 50 % off at $/€15. Downsides are that it's quite a bit higher speced than most MMO's and adventure games, that the install size is 40 GB, and that you're still going to have to do at least as many kill or fetch quests as puzzle quests. Personally though I think the puzzle quests, and even the writing for that matters, especially in the first three zones that are very Steven King, are good enough and in total numerous enough to justify it.

FEZ.

Riven: The Sequel to Myst.

When I was a kid, my best friend's dad was playing it and had a notebook where he was working out base-6 (or something like that, don't totally recall) math to solve a puzzle. Blew my goddamn mind.

If you want to get all the endings in 999, a notebook is essential because you're going to be repeating the puzzles a few times each. As an added bonus, you end up with a notebook that Kevin Spacey in Se7en would be proud to own.

When I was playing through Persona 3: FES I took notes on the personas using a notebook. I lost it a few months back and that's probably the main reason why I haven't gone back to complete it.

Hm, wait, I can't remember - did 999 come with an inbuilt notes section, or was that just VLR?

Eye of The Beholder 1, 2, 3 - These are the games that Legend of Grimrock is based off of. They are a little bit archaic, but because of the way the games are designed you have to keep a notebook around at all times. There is no quest log, no map, and you have to keep vigilant at all times.

Fez was the big one this gen.

Lots of games I played as a kid on the NES and most old RPGs required hand drawn maps if they didn't come with one. I also used to keep level codes in notebooks on most NES games that didn't have saves.

I like when games give you a notebook in the game. Some earlier DS games like Phantom Hourglass & Hotel Dusk used this really well.

Etrian Odyssey requires you to draw your own maps on the bottom screen of the 3DS. The only thing it does for you is paint the tiles you've been on green. Also, the 3DS has a mode where you can go back to the home menu and write notes for a game.

Not on PC, but I had to take notes during the Zero Escape games.

@beachthunder: Not in 999. I haven't played VLR yet, but from what I've heard it has a lot of those convenience features.

I'll just talk about the most recent game I'd played called Cry of Fear. Its a free pc game on steam. I made a blog about it if you want to hear more detail..http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/falserelic/blog/can-t-believe-this-game-actually-manage-to-scare-t/101671/

But be warn this is a survival-horror game, and its not for the faint of heart. It's a fun game, but I don't think alot people can handle it. I'm a survival horror fan and played a shit ton of horror games, but this game got me afew times. If you don't have a strong will then just ignore this game, last thing you need is a heart attack..

Uplink is kinda like that. You don't really need to jot things down in a notebook, but it helps when you want to siphon money to yourself, or when you try to track down another hacker. If you use a physical notebook instead of an iPad as I did, you will end up with pages of IP addresses and account numbers.

I've got a composition book for Fez laying around somewhere.

I'd also drawn out a map as to where the notes could have been in Slender until it got to be too much for me.

Holy crap, thank you guys. I'm sorry for disappearing, ended up being stolen away and have been couch surfing the last week. I'm going to be bookmarking this post for when I actually have a computer to play on next week! :3

Only VLR had implemented the notebook, though I actually used a lot more paper for VLR. Even though the in-game notebook was great it was still limited to only two pages.

Last couple games I played that were like that were the Zero Escape games for puzzles and general story clarity. Also as a lot of people have already said, Etrian Odyssey requires you to make your own maps.