http://imgur.com/a/PxHCrHere's an interesting look at one of the binders that Nintendo Game Counselors used back in the day. If you remember, Nintendo had a hotline gamers could call for help on their NES/Super NES/Game Boy games, though I'm fairly certain that all ended upon the advent of the Internet. (The images include information on the Jurassic Park games, so I guess it lasted until at least 1993...)
They had binders full of information including maps (hence it might be of interest to us here, or any gamers really), several of which looked hand-drawn. I guess they weren't necessarily geniuses as apparently some people believed. Aside from the possibly-official stuff they had access to, maybe these counselors weren't any different than the rest of us drawing maps while playing games, back in the day. Like a paper version of GameFAQs, specifically for games on Nintendo platforms.
I think me or my brother maybe only called the hotline once or twice, though I can't remember why. The recesstime discussions about NES games was where I learned everything I needed to know before I got Nintendo Power, and since it wasn't until the Super NES era where I became a must-purchase-game-on-or-near-its-release-date kind of guy (i.e. when I had my own money), by the time I got to a game it was likely that at least one of my other friends had already played it, so I don't know how much usage the hotline actually got, but everyone seemed to be at least aware of it.
In the "training montage" scene in the movie
The Wizard (1989) when Haley calls the hotline, you can see the Game Counselor appears to have binders upon binders of stuff (though probably more than they actually had, if this look is any indication).
Would be cool to get a hold of these binders!
