The thing that still baffles me is that Infocom released H2G2 as a “Standard” difficulty game, akin to Planetfall, when I’d argue that it’s one of their most di

The thing that still baffles me is that Infocom released H2G2 as a “Standard” difficulty game, akin to Planetfall, when I’d argue that it’s one of their most difficult games. Maybe not quite as brain-bending as something like Suspended (which had you simultaneously controlling a half dozen different characters each with different senses and abilities while also solving puzzles all under a tight time limit; it actually came with a paper map and character tokens to help you remember where everybody was), but I’d certainly put H2G2 right up there with Starcross (sold as ‘Expert’ difficulty) in terms of its brutal puzzles. And it was notably more cruel, in terms of minor mistakes early on not being telegraphed as mistakes, but making victory impossible much, much later in the game. For folks with an interest, I second the recommendation of Galatea as a fascinating example and especially as a technical feat in terms of its flexible conversation systems. Still to this day probably the only IF game which has its challenges contained almost entirely in a regular conversation, rather than in using objects on other objects. Or for folks entirely new to modern interactive fiction but who are interested in dipping their toes in, I’d perhaps recommend they try Photopia[0] as a good first game; it’s super newbie-friendly and has very few puzzles, while still telling a compelling story. (link is to a “play in the browser” version of the game, but a Google search will link to a downloadable version if you prefer that. Expect it to take under two hours to play through.) [0]: http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html http://adamcadre.ac/if/photopia.html