When was the last time you took notes playing a video game?

I have to wonder if there are any games out there that people still actively have to jot down notes for in order to memorize and complete the game. I think for me the last game where I had to actively take notes for while playing was Persona 3 FES just so I could remember what persona fusion garnered me which new personas. It feels games now a days no longer require the need for people to write things down since most people have built in quest logs and such or you can easily go online to find the information needed to move forward.

It wasn't that long ago actually. Last night as I was finishing up the Neverwinter Nights OC I had to jot down some notes (in the handy notes window of the game no less) to remember where specific things were.

Probably Fez.

Fract OSC, and before that FEZ.

Does Etrian Odyssey, where half the game is note taking, count?

The Secret World made me look insane. Also the new ff14 puzzle quest.

Whatever the last game I played on the SNES that required passwords was nearly twenty years ago.

Year Walk. Unless you have an outstanding memory, that game demands you take notes

Been re-playing through the Mysts lately.

I'm trying to get into dota 2. I have a small notebook next to my computer with small tips and what not people tell me. Also some information about items.

Skyrim console commands I guess?

I've taken a lot of notes for a lot of games but the most recent, spectacular and disturbing is Terraria. They're not exactly notes, but judge for yourself...

I have a pad of graph paper full of these, including pages dedicated to scaled down versions for placement of each (can you spot my Helleavator?).

Most of them were built to completion, some (like the castle in the center) have been redrawn and renovated multiple times. I'd love to (and hope to) make some comparison shots but unfortunately my world (of 100+ hours) is currently on a misplaced USB key somewhere :P

(PS: My son added the dude in that first one)

I think La Mulana >_> Seriously, that game...that game...

I take notes on a lot of games but most of it isn't necessary for completing the game. I've got spreadsheets for stuff like the sale value of vehicles in GTA Online, the stats for every armour piece in Dark Souls 2 and a colour coded chart showing what loot is on which mule in Borderlands 2. Last time I took notes because it was necessary was Fez.

By the time we stopped my wife and I had a 200ish page binder full of WoW drop tables, gear stats, dungeon maps, build plans and spec charts. We also had the continent maps including flight paths and resource nodes blown up, printed and framed on the wall. To top it all off, my wife built the guild's website and DKP tracking system while I designed and posted boss strategy diagrams :P

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But seriously, mostly best of :)

Depends on what you mean. I mean, I take notes on all the games I play, but those are for reviewing purposes. In-game note things? Resonance of Fate comes to mind, but there might be something more recent than that.

Earlier today I was taking notes in order to complete inFamous Second Son's paper trail missions. Most of the time, though, I take notes when I'm planning out an RPG build.

Escape from Monkey Island. I had four pages full of acks, chees, oops and eeks by the end.
Damn you monkey kombat.

Fallout 3 / New Vegas console commands. Mostly just base IDs for ammo from mods.

I was taking copious notes while trying to learn EVE, only to have to give it up because of poor UI text scaling that didn't work with my display.

I'm currently playing Divinity: Original Sin and I have a spiral bound notebook on my desk just for jotting down notes or things to go back to later on. Also using the in-game map and leaving my own markers with notes for future reference. My memory isn't the greatest anymore, and taking good notes is a habit I got into way back during my first time in college. As I have gotten older and been through a few head traumas and what not, I have found that I just don't retain information as easily as I did when I was younger and keeping detailed notes on things is almost a necessity. I pretty much take notes on everything important that I need to study or remember, otherwise I will just forget things. I like to use spiral bound graph paper notebooks, the inexpensive ones you can find at Target or wherever. Handy for drawing little diagrams and maps since my artistic ability is pretty much nil.

I also keep some full notebooks for future reference. It's not like I have a house full of journals like in Se7en, but let's say I finish a class or something and I have two notebooks full of notes, I'll save those in a filing cabinet with the rest of that class's materials. Especially if it's anything technical or language related.

Oh, right, I took notes for Fallout 3 for the hacking minigames. You know, if there's one thing I really like about Fallout 3, it's the hacking minigame.

@beachthunder: Oh yeah, I did that the first few times until I realized it was just a letter counting / comparing exercise. And then those symbol boost bits made it incredibly easy to brute force.

I took down a few notes on Ogre Battle 64 when I was playing that game back in early June, basically simple stuff like who I was gonna try and give experience to on a mission.

I tend to jot stuff down for long ass games, particularly complicated rpgs, because the chances are high that I'll walk away from the game for a bit, so I keep track of what I was doing last, where I was thinking of going next, how I'm leveling characters up, stuff like that. It helps make getting back into it a bit easier. I didn't do it for Dragon Age Origins though, and I just jumped back into that game just a little less than a year, and before that I hadn't played it for maybe 2 years since I originally started it, and man, I kinda wish I had.

When I was doing the baseball minigame in Yakuza 3. Man, that last challenge was a buncha BS.

Fun game, though.

Skullmonkeys, to memorize the hot dog factory boss' patterns

Papers Please

Funnily enough, I'm taking notes as I too play through Persona 3 FES. Fusion is tricky business. I'm currently trying to make an Orpheus Telos that can take on the secret boss on hard mode and it's been a fucking ordeal. This notepad file has got pretty big.

I usually take notes when I plan out character builds in RPGs. Looking through my document folder I've got notes for FF1/5, Chrono Cross, Diablo 2/3, Dark Souls, Dragon Warrior, Etrian Odyssey, Fire Emblem, Kerbal Space Program, Persona 3/4, Quest 64, and Shining Force 1/2.

I never needed the notes to actually complete the game, mind you, just to help me tweak and optimize things. The last game I played where I needed to take notes to finish was Fez.

I made a quick map for the Monochome Forest in SMT4 since it was right around release.

It ended up looking like really bizarre and terrible chemistry notes, but it got the job done.

Heavy Rain for the platinum

I did a little bit in Wind Waker HD. Nearly anything with places I can't reach until later on I write myself little reminders. In general I write notes on the games I play all the time, especially if I'm going to write about it ina blog or something. Fez was the last game where I took a ridiculous amount of notes.

5000th post!

Star Control 2, had dozens of pages for names of aliens, planets, coordinates, clues and tips.

When you have a map like this:

you pretty much have to take a few notes.

I definitely do to remember where shit is in games mostly. Most recent I think was keeping track of where ingredients were for leg mats in D3. And then a patch ago they did away with all ingredients being necessary to craft legendary weps and gear. That sucked...I thought it was fun tracking all that stuff down.

I took notes the last time I played Tex Murphy, so like two weeks ago.

About a month ago I picked up Morrowind (again). I started a pretty rad spreadsheet of alchemy reagents and their effects.

A also have a much sadder spreadsheet of the currency gained from each series of fights in Injustice (mobile) for maximum grinding potential.

And about a week ago, a quick chronological list of the members of the something rancor trio for that one early puzzle in KotOR.

I like taking notes.

You're a monster.

That game is actually pretty good, but yeah... I agree.

Starcraft 2 I think. I just started doing my first build order in order to up my game and develop some strategy beyond intuition when I finally lost interest and the negative aspects of the multiplayer overcame my desire to become better at the game. I was in that weird place where I was levels of magnitude better than a casual player but levels of magnitude worse than the really good players so I just kinda got tired of it.

I take notes all the time.

I took notes on things I learned while watching Zemalf's XCOM Let's Play which I then used in my own playthrough. I wrote down Function combinations as I played through Transistor. In Divinity: Original Sin I took note of which npc sells what, who had the highest affinity, places where I got my ass kicked and should come back to later. In Dark Souls II I kept track of how many Sunlight Medals I offered to the shrine, and wrote down stuff like how much Faith I needed for a particular miracle or which bonfires were the closest to co-op areas.

Yeah, I'm a note taker.

Not that long ago i believe i toke notes on animal crossing trying to remember random facts about the villagers in my town. Normally if its a deep puzzle or just trying to remember a series of things i take some notes.

I have a map for Zelda drawn square by square and I recently took notes for dead rising to clear the game in a certain way.

FEZ. Solved everything except for the super ultra last obelisk puzzle by myself without any looking up of anything. Man, that game was fun and rewarding. Probably second only to Dark Souls as my favorite games of the last five years.

I wrote notes for Ultima Underworld not too long ago, mostly in the game's map-note function. M&M6 also required a bit of note-taking as well, and by the time I was done with Myst I had a few pages filled to the margins with nonsensical gibberish, shoddy math, and shittier maps.

I took (and probably still have somewhere) tons of notes for adventure games in the 90s. At some point Adventure games weren't that complicated anymore so it stopped happening.

I don't know when that was, though. Early 2000s or so.

Fez. What a game.

Wait, I take it back, I think the last time I took notes for a game was for FFXIV to remember auction house prices when I was crafting a lot. What a game.

Dark Souls 2. Every time I found something I thought could be important later on I made a note to come back to that place.

not notes as such but a couple of years ago when I got heavy into Microsoft flight simulator I was taking loads if photos on my phone of the ils frequencys so I could land my plane on autopilot.

dark times.

Skyrim was the last time I can recall having to take notes. Last one before that was Fallout New Vegas. Pretty much every open world Bethesda game since Morrowind has me taking tons of notes.

I take notes occasionally for the purpose of reviewing games. Personally, I can have a hard time keeping things in my head that I want to say about a game if I don't write them down, particularly with longer games. The last game I wrote things down for the purpose of getting through it? Probably Legend of Grimrock--I had always been fascinated by the idea of mapping things in games and used that game as an instance to do my own maps in Excel. It was pretty damn fun.

Also, I have Divinity: Original Sin waiting for me and that sounds like a game where I might want to write down some things to make sure I don't forget them.

The last time I wrote shit down in a game was playing Killer 7 back in... I think 2007 (I picked it up used for a song, and it is easily my favorite game I think). You need to be able to recall a bunch of information in the school like birthdates and maiden names and whatnot in order to proceed, so I scribbled them in a notebook that I carried with me.

I also definitely took notes back when I was reviewing games, which is a thing I keep meaning to get back into.

Fez.