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1984: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- acheron 5y agoYou are carrying: no tea
- radiowave 5y agotake all put all in thing
- cik 5y agoA grue ate your face.
- Stitch4223 5y agogive croissant
- hnlmorg 5y agoThe Z-Machine (which is the VM that powered the linked game) is also interesting in it's own right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine
- anthk 5y agoOFC. Also, recommended modern games to play: - Anchorhead. Like Alone in the dark, but CLI. - Spider and Web. Spies-based game based on replaying the same scenes over and over, with gadgets and psychological twists. - Vicyous Cycles. Same, but in a different way. - Curses. Time traveling game, medium-hard. - Jigsaw. Simialr to curser, but much harder. - Slouch over Bedlam. Victorian setting + steampunk.
- hilbert42 5y ago"Hitchhiker’s is hard to summarize, but one of its overarching themes is that technology, in the hands of big business and bloated bureaucracies, does not make life better: in fact it makes it far, far worse." Seems Adams was ahead of his time, I wonder what he would have thought if he were alive today given the antics of Google, Facebook et al. Incidentally, my printer is called Marvin for obvious reasons (Adams almost mandated that name for these cantankerous devices, especially networked ones).
- mckirk 5y agoGiven how heavily Adams struggled with procrastination, I wonder how he'd have fared in today's distractopia... he might not've gotten around to writing much. But what I wouldn't give to have him still around even just for the occasional quip.
- MattKimber 5y agoI have a mental image of people setting great store in which platform Douglas Adams has moved to lately, given his tendency to hop between media and delight in the new and interesting. I can certainly see him both being delighted by Twitter and also becoming incredibly bored with Twitter, over not too long a time period...
- ctdonath 5y ago“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.” - D. Adams
- soylentcola 5y agoUntil my most recent workstation build, my two computers were Deepthought (the higher-end desktop) and Marvin (smaller and more finicky laptop). Never did think of an appropriate name for the new desktop though. edit: thanks for all of the suggestions!
- capableweb 5y agoThe successor of Deepthought is Gaia/Terra/Tellus, so maybe one of those :)
- dylan604 5y agoEarth2.0
- capableweb 5y agoYou're doing a Microsoft and skipping one version? Why not just "Earth"? Deepthought wasn't Earth.
- alexandargyurov 5y agoGreat article. I would definitely recommend checking out 42: the wildly improbable ideas of Douglas Adams[0] edited by Kevin Jon Davies if want more Douglas Adams in your life [0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unbounders/42-the-wildly-improbable-ideas-of-douglas-adams https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/unbounders/42-the-wildl...
- fullshark 5y agoYou can play the game here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-game-30th-anniversary-edition https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN...
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago>overarching themes is that technology, in the hands of big business and bloated bureaucracies, does not make life better: in fact it makes it far, far worse. That is not what I got out of the radio series and book. In my opinion, it is rigidity, legalism, or by the letter vs spirit of the law what The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy warns against. This fits with the author's initial dislike of computers. The Vogon's are a perfect example.
- riffraff 5y ago> “Imagine if everything ever written on a typewriter had been written by the guys who invented the typewriter,” I had not heard this quote before, and while I enjoyed the article, I would deem it worth reading just for this. Thanks for sharing!
- SavantIdiot 5y agoThere's a certain sense of loss I feel at playing a game that cannot be cheated. In the mid-80's playing interactive fiction there was no way to get help unless you could convince your parents to buy you invisiclues. You had to solve these games the hard way: on your own. Sure, there are games like that today but they require hand-eye coordination or grinding, not involved word-puzzle solving and thinking in many different ways. I still play interactive fiction every November when the IFComp publishes its games[1]. [1] https://ifcomp.org/ https://ifcomp.org/
- soylentcola 5y agoAll of my Infocom games were on bootleg floppies that came with the second-hand Commodore 128 my dad bought for the family when I was a kid. Thankfully at least Zork included some photocopied maps and manuals buried in the pile of papers and user guides that also accompanied the computer. Still a bit sad that "Hitchhiker's" wasn't in the box of questionable disks we got, but "Planetfall" seemed to be inspired by the story (at least the beginning when you're on the ship, ducking Ensign Blather and trying to avoid death in a safety webbing).
- crocsarecool 5y agoYes! I love the story with video games - it’s the main draw for me, especially as I get older. It often feels like the plot is held up by having to go do six mundane tasks. I’d be happy having a game where you just walk around and talk to people. Have it almost be like a book, but with the added extras of art and music. Maybe there’s a genre for this, and I just don’t know how to look for it properly.
- lupire 5y agoIt's the "interactive fiction" genre.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago"Interactive fiction" is another term for text adventures; they have no art and they do have puzzles. Were you thinking of "visual novels"?
- OnACoffeeBreak 5y agoThis is off-topic, but I've always wanted to bring this up with fellow geeks... Integer code of the asterisk ('*') ASCII character is 42, which, is the answer to life, the universe and everything. The asterisk character is used as a wildcard character to indicate anything and everything. Adams never revealed the origin of 42. [0] So, just because we really don't know, I'd like to think it originates with ASCII table and the asterisk. 0 - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/03/douglas-adams-42-hitchhiker https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/03/douglas-adams-...
- b3kart 5y agoNice. Seriously, humans are the greatest pattern matchers.
- hathawsh 5y agoThat's a good one. My favorite is this one: - F is the 6th letter of the alphabet. - I is the 9th letter of the alphabet. - S is the 19th letter of the alphabet. - H is the 8th letter of the alphabet. 6 + 9 + 19 + 8 = 42. IOW, the dolphins probably manipulated the experiment so that humans would give them more fish.
- avaldes 5y agoMichael Drosnin furiously taking notes
- zxter 5y ago> Adams never revealed the origin of 42. Actually Stephen Fry claims that Douglas Adams told him. But it seems he is taking it to the grave to honor his vow.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Why_the_number_42 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27...?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fiftyacorn 5y ago
- anthk 5y agoI tried the unnoficial Spanish translation and it's really bad. I may try the original English version, but I think it will be very difficult to grasp some words without WordNet.
- jandrese 5y agoThis article was fairly glowing, but the game is extremely difficult. Not only do the puzzles range from hard to "who would ever figure that out?!?" but the interpreter is the old Infocom one that only understands the one wording for any action. For example, there are 10 objects scattered in the game that you have to collect for a puzzle at the end. They are never mentioned when you look around the room. At the end of the game Marvin will ask you for one of those objects. You might be thinking "ok, so if I miss one I still have a 90% chance of completing the game right.", but the game checks and if you're missing one he will always ask for that one object. You have to collect them all. There's a bit in the article where the author talks about the clues for the Babel fish puzzle, but even he has to admit that the last part is basically just completely random based on what you happen to have in the inventory. Also, he doesn't mention that the puzzle is timed. If you don't complete it in a set number of moves you die. It is a game that is relentlessly unfair to the player. I know this is a lot of words about an old game, but the Hitchhikers Guide series was one of my favorite books growing up and I was so excited when my parents bought this for the Commodore 64. I played it many many times, had the Babel Fish puzzle and others down pat, but still only made it maybe 1/3 of the way through the game before getting completely stuck.
- e3bc54b2 5y agoOriginal English version in my observation as a non-native speaker uses very simple and straightforward, relying on absurdity of situation and wordplay instead of beautiful language. You should be fine.
- sehugg 5y agoThe Digital Antiquarian has a two-part series on HHGG and the events leading up to the Infocom game: https://www.filfre.net/2013/11/the-computerized-hitchhikers/ https://www.filfre.net/2013/11/the-computerized-hitchhikers/
- BLKNSLVR 5y agoAlso off-topic: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. I read both the books and they were good. There was a short lived British TV series starting Stephen Mangan that was great and seemed at least partially based on some events and descriptions in the books, and two seasons of a US TV series on Netflix that was off-the-fucking-wall crazy in a not-quite-Douglas-Adams way, and unique to the point that I was pleasantly surprised that it got a second series. Thoroughly recommend for anyone that considers themselves bored with television. Unique doesn't feel like a strong enough word.
- mdiesel 5y agoThe TV show was great because it really got me feeling that everything was random, then everything was connected in some ridiculously complex way, exactly how it should for a holistic story. I'd recommend the TV show for anyone that has gotten a bit too good at predicting endings a few episodes before the end. This one doesn't follow the traditional story arcs.
- setpatchaddress 5y agoSeconded. Both Dirk Gently series are good, both should have had additional seasons.
- bityard 5y agoI thought I was the only one who actually liked the Netflix version. It was delightfully surreal. At the time, all I found were intensely negative reviews complaining about the fact that the show had nothing at all to do with the books. Which is admittedly true. But it is still one of those shows where the characters are entertaining enough on their own that you don't even care about the plot, which isn't half bad. I would not have minded a third season.
- _carbyau_ 5y agoIf you enjoyed the "off the wall" and uniqueness maybe check out "Love, Death + Robots" on Netflix. 10min story bites - cruisy, drama, comedy, horror. Little bit of everything except the usual.
- Vaslo 5y agoI played this as a little kid and had never read the book and had absolutely no idea what was going on. I got a hint or cheat book to complete it.
- FredPret 5y agoI read the book and still had no clue what was going on
- stakkur 5y agoI don't think the article explicitly mentions it, but Adams was a rabid Mac fan, and arguably the first in the UK to buy one in 1984. This page (https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/d/Douglas_Adams.htm https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/d/Dougla... has some nice detail about it: "Adams was a Macintosh user from the time they first came out in 1984 until his death in 2001. He was the second person to buy a Mac in the UK (the first being Stephen Fry - though some accounts differ on this, saying Adams bought the first two, and Fry bought the third). Adams was also an "Apple Master," one of several celebrities whom Apple made into spokespeople for its products (other Apple Masters included John Cleese and Gregory Hines). Adams's contributions included a rock video that he created using the first version of iMovie with footage featuring his daughter Polly. The video can still be seen on Adams's .Mac homepage. Adams even installed and started using the first release of Mac OS X in the weeks leading up to his death. His very last post to his own forum was in praise of Mac OS X and the possibilities of its Cocoa programming framework. Adams can also be seen in the Omnibus tribute included with the Region One/NTSC DVD release of the TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide using Mac OS X (version 10.0.x) on his PowerBook G3." For Mac heads, this too: https://lowendmac.com/2016/douglas-adams-author-and-mac-user/ https://lowendmac.com/2016/douglas-adams-author-and-mac-user...
- einpoklum 5y agoChoose your own adventure... I was sure that meant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy but apparently it's another book series.
- grawprog 5y agoNot long ago I got this urge to go back and replay the Hitchhiker's Guide game. >Then there were the puzzles, and it’s impossible to talk about Hitchhiker’s without talking about the Babel Fish puzzle. Going through that part again and trying to remember it and figure it all out was a bit of a challenge. But I don't think the puzzle itself is really all that hard, it's the whole beginning on the vogon ship, all of it, that makes it so hard. You've got a hidden time limit, then the poetry section, then you're thrown back in the room with an active time limit and you're supposed to remember to do the other puzzle quickly that you hopefully noticed while figuring out the Babel fish stuff, or you get a delayed game over that'll leave you wandering aimlessly around the heart of gold scratching your head. On a related note, if you like Douglas Adams and quirky adventure games, I highly recommend his later game Starship Titanic. I played the hell out of that game when I was young, I don't know if I ever beat it. It's not the classic that hitchhiker's guide is, but if you enjoy Adams and frustrating obtuse adventure games with a strange sense of humour and somehow missed this game, I recommend checking it out.
- II2II 5y agoSuch difficulty was almost forgivable in the Hitchhiker's Guide since you usually ended up meeting a humorous fate, yet it still led to frustration. I recall thinking that you pretty much had to read the book at the time to simply understand the significance of what was coming up on the screen. Many games had wonderful worlds to explore, but I am firmly in the camp who believes that obtuse puzzles took the adventure out of adventure games (may they be text or graphical) which led to their premature demise. Thankfully modern IF writers seem to live by a different set of rules.
- bleair 5y agoI'm pretty sure I read the game was "a carefully crafted artificial intelligence test" as in how artificial is your intelligence. :)
- raintrees 5y ago"It was the ultimate procrastination device, of course, but also a tinkerer’s dream." Reminds me of one of my favorites of Douglas' quotes: "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." I was also able to get Starship Titanic working a couple years ago... Had an old Compaq computer with Windows 95 as the starting basis. Much fun to revisit.
- w0mbat 5y agoI used to hang with Douglas back in the day and we worked together a bit. Douglas once told me he got sent a very detailed PhD thesis that described how The Hitchhikers Guide was an elaborate parody of John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" (1678). The main evidence was that "Pilgrim's Progress" is known to be partly inspired by a pamphlet called, "The Plain Man's Path to Heaven", written by, get this, a puritan named Arthur Dent. Douglas was embarrassed to reply that he'd never read "Pilgrim's Progress", or heard of that puritan, and the Arthur Dent name was a complete coincidence. Things like that happened to him all the time.
- jraph 5y agoWow, this is painful. None of the student or the advisors thought about getting in touch with the author during the whole PhD? How come? I went through a PhD. Should I have worked on an hypothesis that could be tested just by sending a mail, this would have been about the first thing I would have tried to do I think. You know, just to be sure. And I would not have missed the occasion to communicate with Douglas Adams, of course, at least to make this PhD more worth it! edit: at least, a multi year effort to produce hundreds of pages filled with absurdity was not completely unfamiliar to Douglas, I guess.
- alanbernstein 5y agoYou might even call that... infinitely improbable.
- DonaldFisk 5y agoThe source code for the game is here: https://github.com/historicalsource/hitchhikersguide https://github.com/historicalsource/hitchhikersguide