The BBC has an online version of the classic Infocom Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxyavailable to play. They’ve added some (static) graphics and a nice interface, plus all the clues you’ll probably need after not playing it for umpty years.
It’s been on internet archive and elsewhere for 800 billion yrs. HOWEVER, I’m still going to go play it again over at The Beeb.
nice i never got any f’n where on that game i hs … and when the teacher ordered the hint book idiots lost the pen for it and used a highlighter which killed off the print
I’m trying to remember if it had documentation-based copy protection, the way a number of the later Infocom games did. (For example, in Leather Goddesses of Phobos, you had to type in something like “Kweepa” at some point every 11 turns or so; you only know this if you read the comic book that comes with the game.)
Here’s a clue:
Don’t forget your toothbrush when you leave Earth - otherwise, you might end up stuck in the game forever.
At some point, Marvin asks you for something, and it’ll be something you don’t have if he can.
Here’s another, which is something I didn’t like about the game:
There is a location where it lists the directions you can go in, but if you choose one of them, it says, "We were only kidding about (being able to go there), and IIRC, you actually have to go in a direction not listed.
There is also one where you have to type in “look” more than once before you actually find what you need.
The version of Hitchhiker’s that I had on my Mac didn’t have that copy protection.
I remember trying to play it on my Mac in 1984. Most maddening game evah.
I was never able to finish any of those Infocom games without the hints. Maybe it was because I was still an adolescent and not clever enough yet, but I have no idea how people did it.
Part of the problem was, as has been discussed before, there were ways you could get stuck without knowing you were stuck, wandering around the game world forever trying everything you could think of, having no way of knowing you missed the chance to get an item you no longer have access to and needed to restart the game.
I had this for the Apple ][. I remembered not liking it for some reason, then started playing using the link above, and now I remember. Sometimes, you just have to type the same thing over and over again – right at the beginning, you type “wait” like four times to get the tractor to stop. Other text-based games that I played never did that.
Anyway, cool interface anyway!
I remember being thwarted for a week by telling the computer to go “Port” when it needed to go “Starboard”. Nothing wrong with my thinking, it was just Douglas’s sense of humor crashing my reality. I don’t think I ever finished it.
I remember playing with a friend in high school on his commodore 128. i remember making it to the Vogon ship, but don’t remember after that. I just gave this a look and I like the interface better then just the command prompt of old.
Oddly enough Hitchhiker’s was the only Infocom game I ever beat without hints. It took a long time, and I lost track of how many times I restarted.
This wasn’t a game; it was an exercise in torture. Do I really want that frustration again?
How much do you hate yourself?
Just don’t panic.
As much as a relapsed smack addict who just stole $40 from my daughter’s jewelry box.
I have my towel.
Very good then. Don’t forget the junk mail.