Both Tea And No Tea - Updated Hitchhiker's Game

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!"

Comments

Remember

[BlightThePower]

Pick up the junkmail. I remember this because it was one of the most frustrating moments of my young life when I finally realised where it was needed. Of course I get more frustrated than that on the drive to work every morning alone, but I still remember it.

Re:Remember

[peatbakke]

You think that's frustrating?

Don't feed the dog a sandwich.

That really blew my stack, about thirty hours later ...

Re:Remember

[Otto]

You think that's frustrating?

Don't feed the dog a sandwich.

That really blew my stack, about thirty hours later ...

That one wasn't actually fatal, as getting eaten by the dog merely thru you back into the DARK prematurely. From the dark, there were 5 possible exits, and if you waited for the one where you became Ford Prefect, you could feed the dog a sandwich in that scenario, and then go do the warship scenario and this time you wouldn't be eaten by the dog.

There were actually only a few unrecoverables, and all of them were very early in the game.
-Get crushed in the house.
-Don't follow Ford's directions and get blown up with Earth.
-Forget to get the junk mail and you could not get the Babel Fish, or try too many times on the Babel Fish Dispenser and it ran out. And then you got killed because you couldn't understand what was being said by the Vogon later.

But once you find the "dark" after being ejected from the Vogon's ship, you're essentially in the clear. Everything else is doable from that point onward, as long as you have your gown and your towel. Dying means that you go back into the "dark", and you can replay any of the failed scenarios by merely waiting until the right moment before exiting the dark.

Game tip:

[El_Smack]

Take the mail from your (Mailbox? Front step?) It will come in very helpful when you need to get a fish in your ear.
Mods: if you don't get this, just ignore it, OK? It's on topic, I swear.

Re:Whales and petunias ...

[LWATCDR]

Actually it was the the bowl of petunias that said "No not again".
The Petunias was a soul that kept comming back to after Aruthor Dent kept killed it time and time again.

Re:Another generation of frustration

[g_adams27]

> Seriously, this was probably the most annoying Infocom game ever published

Oh, I don't know about that. I still don't follow the logic behind the 2-piles-of-cubes puzzle in Spellbreaker. And have you tried "Suspect"? Man!

Well, Ok, you're right about the first 1/3 of HHGTTG. If you haven't gotten everything you need off Earth before it blows up, then you're in trouble (although if you failed to feed the dog, there is a second chance for you later in the game!). And if you don't get the Babel fish before you're hauled off to the poetry slam, then too bad for you.

But once you make it to the Heart of Gold, you're pretty much free to explore without time constraints. Yes, you can "die" in many of the scenarios you'll teleport to with the Improbability Drive, but all that does is send you back to the H.O.G. Then you just try it again.

Best Puzzle: "You can't see anything, smell anything, taste anything, or feel anything..." (etc.) Brilliant. :-)

Worst Puzzle: "put junk mail on satchel". Ok, maybe the three previous steps for getting the fish were somewhat logical, but the "confuse-the-upper-half-of-the-room-robot" step was ridiculous!

Re:This game is EVIL!!!

[Deep Fried Geekboy]

The secret is not to take the towel.

Where do I put all my stuff???

[g_adams27]

You know that thing your aunt gave you that you don't know what it is? Put your stuff in it. All your stuff. It'll fit! (well, except the really big stuff). Then throw it away. It'll show up in your hands, your pocket, or at your feet a few moves later.

Voila! No more accursed "Your load is too heavy" message.

Man, what I wouldn't give for something like that!

Re:THAT game

[neurojab]

>You see nothing. The lights are off. ...

Try turning on the light.

Re:wicked..

[Anonymous Coward]

Text adventures (or Interactive Fiction) are here. http://ifarchive.org/, http://ifcomp.org/ and rec.arts.int-fiction & rec.games.int-fiction. Some people have gone the annoying, so-called "puzzleless" route, but there are still good games out there that aren't puzzleless.

Most Evil Game Ever, and here's why.

[loqi]

The goddamned button on the thumb! Once you get ahold of that thing, you have one turn to press the right button. If you so much as look at the device, you're Vogon toast. Granted you only have to do this once before you know it, but any game that more or less says, "hehe, not this time" is pretty malicious.

Also, all that other impossible stuff.

Link to obligatory H2G2 IF game solution

[Dthoma]

Full game walkthrough here.

Re:Another generation of frustration

[tuffy]

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?

I think you get a second chance by having Ford feed the dog. Eventually you (as Arthur Dent) wind up in your own mazelike brain. By removing your common sense, you'll be able to take tea and no tea at the same time (since it won't be able to say you can't do that).

Re:Obligatory Quote - The Babel Fish

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So humans could not have possibly evolved? I know quite a few biologists who would argue that point.

We're talking about arguing with creationists, not biologists. Creationists do indeed claim that human beings were created from mud, not monkeys (well, dust anyway, but in honor of DNA, mud alliterates better). And agreed- to any *thinking* Christian, God is not dependent on faith- but most creation fundamentalists only memorize the 30 or so verses that their Health & Wealth preacher preaches on and ignore the rest of the Bible anyway, so you're pretty safe on not running into that quote from Acts that is so close to all the communism stuff in Acts 4 & 5.

And agreed- it's a completely spurious argument, but so is creationism to begin with.

Re:Another generation of frustration

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Ah yes, the Ravenous Bug-Blatter Beast of Traal. A mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous.

Re:Whales and petunias ...

[Alranor]

Ah yes, Agrajag

To be played by Douglas Adams himself in the upcoming radio series :)

Re:Another generation of frustration

[MalaclypseTheYounger]

Try 'enjoy mud' outside of your house when Prosser tries to knock your house down.

Hilarious.

Re:Another generation of frustration

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

Read all the infocom newsletters at http://infodoc.plover.net/nzt/!

or http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXinfoco mXNZT+TSL.html

They even include the fan comics they published...

-If

Re:/. Icon

[Tim Browse]

I can't let that one go by...Douglas hated that mascot - absolutely hated it.

I'd go for a 'Don't Panic' icon.

Re:Another generation of frustration

[Jeremy Erwin]

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.

Odd. I just finish playing it-- and "take common sense" worked fine.

Re:Obligatory Quote - The Babel Fish

[king-manic]

Let us break down your evidence:

1-
Sure I've heard it's proof, but I've also seen proof that your evidence is highly incorrect.

Creationists (most) place the age of the earth at 6000- 8000 years old. This derived from calculating dates from the bible. (Chinese history goes back to 6000 bc so 8000 might be possible. Except most geological techniques and research into the age of earth place it at 4.6 billion years old. evidence here: age of earth

6000-8000 years doesn't give the mechanism for evolution (mutation) to work. however 4.6 billion give it ample time.

Creationism hold that while the mechanism for evolution (mutation/selection) can be observed now and they cannot deny any evidence that it happens and is observable, they claim simply that our current diversity is not the result of that and they label it micro evolution. They deny evolution happens by reclassing their argument to ignore all current proof. (i.e. if I have a population of people, and I kill everyone with 10 fingers and 10 toes at their 14 birthday, eventually only people with more or less toes and fingers will be around). This is perhaps their weakest argument. To say that X happens. and there is evidence X happens in the past. Then to say the past only extended to yesterday, and thus there is no time for x to happen and thus all evidence of X happening is fake, is a pretty dumb argument.

there's more but I'll move on to your next statement

2-Creationism makes more logical sense than does evolution

No, for the above reason, creationism takes more assumptions, and more unsupported assumptions. This logically, there is more support for evolution and thus evolution is our current theory.

3-but you do have to believe that there is a God for it to be proven

You must assume a god (or aliens or what ever) to have creationism. But evolution happens now, and stands on its own.

4-Either way, they're both theories at best.

Poor American education system victim. A scientific theory isn't just a "theory". A scientific theory is the current working model of a certain observed phenomenon. It is the current model because it is well supported. There may be competing theories and they will remain competing until one or the other is disproved. The community may favor one or the other.

A theory had passed the scrutiny of those reviewing it. And it has some substantial proof behind it. Theories that are accepted are rarely proven wholly wrong but are instead amended. Newton's theory of gravity(the equations) is not wrong, but only right in the local parameter set. that is at very large scales and very small scale it's off. but Einstein's general relativity solved a few of these problems while Hawking et al is trying to iron out the remaining anomalous behaviors at certain levels.

Creationism is not a scientific theory. it has not been peer reviewed its evidence is whole theological/rationalization. At best, creationist is a poorly supported idea from a certain group of individuals. At worst evolution is our best current working model of how life came into it's current diversity. Ammendments will be made as evidence comes to light.

PS. I am a devout Christian. My faith does not conflict with evolution.some may use evolution against faith but they two integrate nicly. Science is a outward growth of theological studies. It is studing gods work.

Best thing was "Consult Guide"

[grantdh]

Absolute funniest bits though were if you typed in "consult guide about (whatever)" eg:

consult guide about heart of gold

Back would come this long spiel asking how you'd heard about it, it didn't exist and would you please check yourself in for reconditioning.

All sorts of other gems lurked within, just waiting for you to ask about them.

A close second was saying to Ford Prefect:

Say to Ford what about my house

response: It's not a house, it's a home

Crack up :)