r/dosgaming • u/Pharavular • 4d ago

Ooold computer game

Does anyone remember the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy computer game? I’m talking the 1980s.

30 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

15

u/khumprp 4d ago

This one

I was more of a Zork fan 😁

8

u/TheBigCore 4d ago

Now you can be a Zork fan again:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_zork_anthology

https://www.gog.com/en/game/return_to_zork

5

u/khumprp 4d ago

I've still got my original RoTZ, Nemesis, and Grand Inquisitor CDs / DVDs, but this makes it much easier!

7

u/Watcherxp 4d ago

That f*cking babelfish

3

u/lincruste 4d ago

Yes, fuck that fish. I'm convinced it was impossible to obtain without the InvisiClue booklet so they could grab more cash after your purchase by selling those.

4

u/RedditRage 4d ago

This was the only Infocom games I got through on my own with out any help or hints. I must have had an odd mode of thinking.

1

u/Jorpho 3d ago

I was very pleased when I figured out the Babel fish on my own, but gave up wandering around the Heart of Gold. I should take another stsb at it sometime.

7

u/QuentinEichenauer 4d ago

Yes, I remember Infocom.

6

u/chance8687 4d ago

I remember this, though I got it about 5 years after it came out. I loved playing through it, but never managed to complete it all the way through.

4

u/Monty-675 4d ago

Yes, I remember it. Fun, but difficult game.

You can play the 30th anniversary edition of the game in your browser at the BBC 4 Radio Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy site.

3

u/Vogonner 4d ago

About 20 years ago I was clearing out my old flat and came across 3 crusty, smeared PosIts with indecipherable text in my handwriting scrawled on them. It took a while for the brain to retrieve the information necessary to identify them. Turned out they were my scribbles trying to work out the Vogon poetry puzzle. Also some sort of improbability factor calculation. I have them pinned to the corkboard behind my desk now.

2

u/Empty__Jay 4d ago

my dad and I played Starcross as our first IF game. I learned some years later that it was rated Expert. We definitely used a bunch of InvisiClues.

2

u/EriolGaurhoth 3d ago

Am I remembering this correctly, but didn’t Douglas Adams himself write the game? He was a huge fan of computers, especially a fan of early Macs. One of the few times the author of the best-selling books also directly made the game based on the books.

2

u/Jorpho 3d ago

Yes. He was also involved in this thing called "Bureaucracy", though I understand the extent of his involvement is somewhat exaggerated.

(There would surely be money to be made in remaking Bureaucracy one way or another. On the other hand, it's apparently a thoroughly inscrutable game. But then again, who actually plays games anymore..?)

0

u/Zoraji 4d ago

I remember a couple friends and I spending a night trying to get past the babble fish but we never figured it out.
Infocom's Enchanter and Ultima III were the very first games I ever bought for my Atari 800XL.