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Both Tea And No Tea - Updated Hitchhiker's Game

Posted by timothy on from the cream-and-sugar-please dept.

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!"

11 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. Remember by BlightThePower · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
    1. Re:Remember by peatbakke · · Score: 3, Informative

      You think that's frustrating?

      Don't feed the dog a sandwich.

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

    2. Re:Remember by Otto · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  2. Game tip: by El_Smack · · Score: 4, Informative


    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.

    --


    There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
  3. Re:Whales and petunias ... by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  4. Re:Another generation of frustration by g_adams27 · · Score: 4, Informative


    > 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!

  5. Re:This game is EVIL!!! by Deep+Fried+Geekboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    The secret is not to take the towel.

    --

    I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.

  6. Where do I put all my stuff??? by g_adams27 · · Score: 3, Informative


    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!

  7. Re:THAT game by neurojab · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    Try turning on the light.

  8. Re:/. Icon by Tim+Browse · · Score: 4, Informative
    I can't let that one go by...Douglas hated that mascot - absolutely hated it.

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

  9. Re:Another generation of frustration by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.