What games had the best feelies?

[Raccoon]

I'm not referring to anything that required you to pay extra, only items that came with the standard game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I remember noticing a World of Warcraft box on the shelf - that thick, cardboard box that stood out from all the other games - picking it up, feeling the indented textures under my thumb, unfolding the panels and looking at the gorgeous aesthetics within and thinking "woah!". Right away made me think higher of Blizzard games compared to the relatively "cheap" boxes other games had in comparison. I'm surprised that other companies didn't follow suit and put more effort into the boxes of their games. It's sad that Blizzard stopped making those boxes after Legion and went digital download only.

[MadPreacher]

All of the Infocom games had excellent feelies.

[maidenhaver]

HoMM2 is like a time machine, for me. Sometimes I miss our hotseat wars after school.

[rusty_shackleford]

Apparently 'feelies' is a rather North American(or at least English-speaking) term, as non-Americans in chat had no idea what the OP was even referring to.
It means the physical accessories that came with the game itself.

[Humbaba]

My shlong.

[MadPreacher]

My shlong.

Does that come with the tweezers and microscope?

[maidenhaver]

Apparently 'feelies' is a rather North American(or at least English-speaking) term, as non-Americans in chat had no idea what the OP was even referring to.
It means the physical accessories that came with the game itself.

I never heard it used that way. Thought op was just being a ******, but I see op is a cultured ******.

[Ratcatcher]

cultured ******.

I thought 'feelies' were smth like the weird dances kids do in fortnite so for me the op was a junior ******. The mo' you know.

[rusty_shackleford]

It appears Infocom did come up with the word, adapting it from Brave New World. More specifically, Stuart W. Galley came up with it.
Proof:
https://archive.org/details/InfocomCabi ... erVoyaging

A collection of digitized scans from a large cache of documents related to the game publisher Infocom, Inc. of Cambridge, MA. Assembled by Steven Meretzky of Infocom.

During his time at Infocom, Steve Meretzky meticulously gathered thousands of pages of notes, journals, maps, memos, forms and other printable materials related to all aspects of Infocom, and kept them in his basement for decades. During the GET LAMP production, Jason Scott scanned in roughly 9,000 pages of these documents across a number of months, borrowing the materials from Steve and scanning them as quickly as possible, at around 600dpi. From these scans, a portion was used in the GET LAMP movie to illustrate various scenes and descriptions by interviewees.

Page 46:

STU:
Ideas from "1984": Telescreens (technological invasion of privacy). There
could be mandatory Electronic Fund Transfers. Ministry of Truth (revising history for benefit of the rulers). Ideas from "Brave New World": Soma, feelies (technological opiates for the
masses). Artificial procreation (genetic engineering for benefit of the rulers). I think your assumptions about the advance of technology dictate your "futuristic twists." For example, you could assume major advances in intelligent software and genetic engineering, then imagine the consequences.

Two more references are made to feelies actually being produced for the game, and a project schedule has "Feelies Production" on it. So, I assume this was the first game that used the term "Feelies" and it just stuck around afterwards despite losing its original connection with Brave New World and instead taking on a new meaning.


I don't think this has ever been directly documented elsewhere and was the result of my own investigations.

Earliest usage of the term must have been ~1985 I guess? They might have included it in advertising.

[MadPreacher]

Infocom's Grey Boxes had feelies in them which started with Zork I. That was released in 1984.

Source

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't think Infocom invented the concept, just coined the word used for them.
I also can't confirm Infocom actually used the term in any of their advertising, but it was used internally.

[MadPreacher]

Don't think Infocom invented the concept, just coined the word used for them.
I also can't confirm Infocom actually used the term in any of their advertising, but it was used internally.

They didn't invent them as it was used in anime and music in the 1960s with the use of art books and the like.

I did find this 1986 print advertisement that discusses the props. It doesn't have the word feelie in it.

[MadPreacher]

Here's an article from The Escapist.