Computer Games, Old school style

[BobArrgh]

On the arcade consoles, I loved Joust, but I think Major Havoc was one of the best games I ever played.

When I first started working, back in the 1980s, I had an old CP/M machine and I played some sort of “Adventure” style game, similar to Zork. I was looking at the credits one day and realized I worked with one of the designers of the “Adventure” game (whatever it was called). Zork was a blast, too.

I used to play LARP on Unix computers, and at one time, was trying to port it to the IBM-PC.

On the IBM-PC, though, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards was flipping hilarious for its cheesy play and graphics. I also loved Leather Goddesses of Phobos.

Then, in the 1990s, I played The Incredible Machine at lunchtime at work. It was awesome!

[BigT]

@That_Don_Guy

The other problem I can think of (well, besides the fact that they never made a sequel) is…

Early in the game, you need to have your toothbrush with you when Earth is destroyed - otherwise, near the end of the game, Marvin will ask you for a toothbrush to fix something (actually, Marvin could ask you for one of something like a dozen items, and you needed to discover the way to see into the future to see what Marvin would do, but “the version I remember was,” if you didn’t have your toothbrush with you, he would always ask for that), but it doesn’t exist any more, so you can’t possibly win the game, and yet you are never told about this, so you might spend hours going over every possible detail, not realizing that the one thing you need no longer exists.

I read somewhere that this was fixed in later editions via the time travel mechanic of the Heart of Gold. But I don’t remember it ever taking you back that far.

The big thing I missed was the cheese sandwich and giving it to the dog. Fortunately, I figured this out when I pulled up a walkthrough to help me get that stupid Babelfish.