Both Tea And No Tea - Updated Hitchhiker's Game 314
Ford Prefect writes "To coincide with the new radio series of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the BBC will be reviving the old Infocom Hitchhiker's text adventure game, to appear on Radio 4's website. It's not just a straight port, either - apparently 'the new version of the game will be illustrated by Rod Lord, who won a BAFTA for his graphics for the original Hitchhiker TV series.' Hoopy!"
Another generation of frustration (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're really going to redo the game, I hope they rework some of the more obtuse puzzles to make them a little less frustrating to the general populace.
Rod Lord's graphics are fun (Score:4, Interesting)
Though I hope the colors look better this time around
PS: I run it as a slideshow screensaver
The influence of Adams on Internet culture (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:THAT game (Score:2, Interesting)
You think the GAME was frustrating? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Another generation of frustration (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You think the GAME was frustrating? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Another generation of frustration (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're really going to redo the game, I hope they rework some of the more obtuse puzzles to make them a little less frustrating to the general populace.
They could easily have destroyed the game, but somehow it didn't. When the babel-fish twanged off into the wrong place for the umpteen billionth time, or you didn't know how to get the Vogon captain to recite the second verse of his magnum opus, it was your fault. It truly showed what it was like to be Arthur Dent, with what appeared to be the entire universe ganging up against him for some utterly arbitrary reason...
I originally discovered an illicit copy of the game many years ago on a bunch of old floppy disks being thrown out of a cupboard at my father's workplace. I never knew of its official Douglas Adams roots until years later, but from playing it I knew it was something special. I managed to get a lot of the way through - the version I had found didn't have any hints, which I suppose was quite impressive. More recently, a friend lent me another, um, copy which did have hints, and I finally got round to finishing it.
Annoying ending, but an excellent, if mind-breakingly difficult, game.
Play the old version here. (Score:4, Interesting)
I signed the applet myself. If you accept write permission, then you can save the state of the game to your hard drive and restore from it.
Text adventures... (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I loved the things, but hated the frustration of being locked into typing EXACTLY what the command processor/ parser wanted.
I would hazard a guess that if a larger publisher backed the development of a professional quality text adventure, that on a percentage ROI basis, it would be very worthwhile from a business standpoint.
Especially if it was marketed and promoted in a way that Myst was years ago. I mean Myst got a lot of non-gamers to play a "game" (actually Myst was basically a powerpoint presentation with cheesy 3D graphics, not actually a game).
Compare the development cost and time frame of a quality text adventure with something like DoomIII. The potential market is thousands of times bigger because you could run the game on pretty much anything with a screen and input device cable of text entry and the processing power to handle a REALLY robust parser and command interpreter. There's no need for 4-6 years of R&D. Success is driven by creativity, etc. rather than eye-candy.
Sure it's not for everyone, but if you eliminate the frustration normally associated with parsers, have a quality product, market it properly, it could be a very good business opportunity.
That is if game publishers weren't complete lemmings.
Re:BAFTA? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Another generation of frustration (Score:3, Interesting)
How do you get by not feeding the dog? As I remember, you end up in someone's brain, with synapses all around. Could you get out of that?
If early in the game you had typed "turn on ligt", the game responded "I don't know what a ligt is." Then later, it describes that two alien races are sitting down to a truce after a million years of war. Through a freak wormhole, the words "turn on ligt" are heard, which happens to be the worst insult ever to one of the alien races. They fight each other for another million years, but eventually they realize that it was an Earthling who said it, and they amass a fleet to destroy Earth.
No, it's not the Vogons, it's a race of microscopic (to our eyes) aliens. They appear, and are eaten by a dog outside a pub five minutes before the Vogons actually do destroy Earth.
Unless you feed the dog your ham sandwich.
H2G2 like the internet - not (Score:5, Interesting)
I've just come back from holidays where I re-read the full 5-part H2G2 trilogy that, despite being extremely familiar with, I enjoyed hugely.
Douglas should go down in the annals of literature because reading his stuff is as much about enjoying his words as it is about enjoying the story. You could read it 100 times and still smirk at his amazing sense of humour and wordplay.
Like a good wine, it's not just about getting merry.
To (mis)quote an excellent and early example:
"The jump through hyperspace is like being drunk."
"What's so bad about being drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water."
Absolute bloody genius, the like of which I don't think we've ever seen before or will ever see again.
I had the pleasure of hearing and meeting Douglas back in 1998 when I was studying at Oxford and he did an evolution lecture with Richard Dawkins (there was an evening!). He was a really, really lovely guy with loads of time for the geeks around him. Mention your love of the Mac to him and he was yours for the night!
I still miss him loads.
My favorite story about that game.. (Score:3, Interesting)
That game is hilarious, and evil. Modern game design simply doesn't delight in killing you nearly as much, or stranding you with no outs without restarting the game from scratch.
Personally, what I would like is a complete rip of all the text from the game.
-Z
Where to find new games (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:42 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
Written Ford Prefect falls "To with the series of new radiosenders of Douglas fir Adams' together; ; At leaders of Hitchhiker's at the galaxy the BBC reviving the old play of the l'aventure of the Hitchhiker's-Textes d'Infocom for deapparaître in the net location 4's of the radio. It's not only straight lines a port, everyone, which one - the new version of 'the of the play is illustrated obviously by Rod gentleman, the BAFTA for their graphics for the tev4. Originalseries.' won; ; of more hitchhiker; Hoopy!" ;
Re:nerd ID card (Score:2, Interesting)
I absolutely worshipped his writing... when I was 14.
Looking back, he managed to write two-and-a-half oustanding books in his five-novel trilogy. The rest of his stuff was better than a lot of what's out there, but were kind of like the Sherlock Holmes stories Doyle wrote after "killing" Holmes off, only to find that popular demand compelled him to cash in... er... give in and write some new material.
In the end, Adams wound up being the sort of niche celebrity who actually thought the world gave a crap about his opinions on religion, politics, technology, and Dire Straits guitar solos. All I ever wanted out of him was some light chuckles about bureaucracy and Isaac Asimov novels, and when he was in his prime, that was what he delivered, with a style of prose which was often imitated, but never really duplicated.
But the brilliant punch of describing massive spaceships that hang in the air "exactly the same way that bricks don't," has been diluted slightly by a thousand posers (I'm looking in your direction, Mr. Pratchett) who were less adept at playing with the language yet still insisted on doing do.
The jokes have worn even thinner still from being quoted by college-aged nerds more often than the Knights Who Say Ni.
HHGTTG was the "Tom Swift" series of a whole generation, and we will see "the next Beatles" long before we ever see an author worthy of being called "the next Douglas Adams."
But yeah... I'm fucking sick of it too. I hope this new movie suffers a pre-natal death and is forgotten about.
How Fitting (Score:3, Interesting)
Writing these things was my first real job (Score:3, Interesting)
I did a whole game for Magnetic Scrolls called REACH FOR THE MOON, which unfortunately never got published as far as I know.
They were a very fun company to work for. I think I did the whole thing on a Sinclair Spectrum which they shipped out to me. It paid surprisingly well, too.
Opening picture for C64 version (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone here remember this picture? Anyone has a copy that can be run on an emulator? I drew this picture and I'd love to see it again...
So... (Score:2, Interesting)
What's the copyright status? Abandonware?
Jw
Re:Obligatory Quote - The Babel Fish (Score:3, Interesting)
Douglas Adams' Other Interactive Fiction (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Another generation of frustration (Score:4, Interesting)
So I eventually broke down and looked at a hint book. When I found out what the solution was, I got really mad. The game had stymied me due to what was a simple one-word error in one of the descritptions.
The really annoying thing I found about the game, though, came later on. On the Heart of Gold, there are a number of different tools with random sounding names. Any attempt to ask the game what the tools look like gave you no information whatsoever, instead just telling you that you don't know what they do. Therefore there is no way to tell what to do with them, and no way to form any visual picture as to what these objects actually are. But one of them was necessary to "remove the common sense portion of my brain", and there was no way at all to clue you in as to (1) that such a task was even possible, and (2) that one of the unknown random tools laying around is related to this task in some way.
That game was the funniest text adventure ever made, but it was also the least playable one ever made. It sucked as a game. It was great as a good read if you use the hint book.
Re:Text adventures... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obligatory Quote - The Babel Fish (Score:2, Interesting)
When all of our computers can talk like Peter Jones, the world will be a better place.