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Lost Infocom Games Discovered

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the retro-hotness dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Archivists at Waxy.org have gotten a copy of the backup of Infocom's shared network drive from 1989 and are piecing together information about games that were never released. In particular, there is the sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy called Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and there are two playable prototypes of it. And yes, they have playable downloads available."

2 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Infocom was a damn good company by jd · · Score: 5, Interesting
    They botched up on the database, letting themselves be bought out was suicidal, and the "graphics" on Beyond Zork constituted intellectual genocide, but the quality of their imagination was staggeringly good. The descriptions bested anything Level 9 could do and the puzzles were supremely elegant. Scott Adams' adventures - the third major series of the time - paled into insignificance. And if Infocom was the Manchester United of computer games at the time, competitors like Acorn and Melbourne House were the Subbutio.

    With this discovery and restoration of such ancient treasures, it would be nice to think that the interest would spur some sort of reunion and one last game "for memory's sake". Actually, although I rank them second, I'd love to see that with Level 9 as well. It won't happen, although I guess Infocom fans ("Infocommies" according to the New Zork Times) could have a crack at writing an Infocom-like game for their interpreter.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. Re:Educational value: by WWWWolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'll use this in class to point out the importance of good backup strategies.

    Yep, it's amazing that the stuff still survives... as compared to source material that has now been lost forever.

    I wish Origin had had a Massive Unix Server for source control and whatnot. But they didn't have one.

    And security: this data should not have left the company.

    Agreed on a general principle - but if the company's IP has long since ceased to be profitable and its material is mostly just of great historical interest, the situation is quite different. It's a typical human reaction - It's easy to say "you can't have this", only thinking at the usual every-day rules, not thinking of the historical significance, condemning a lot of researchers, years hence, to look for scraps of information and hunt for hazy recollections... Yeah, it'd easy to be in Activision's pants and say "Yes, there is a chance this property is profitable and we'll get to making the Hitchhiker sequel eventually" without batting an eye, but let's face it, IF is dead as a commercial art form =)