The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late and great Douglas Adams is a series of absolutely hilarious books and radio shows, that spawned a decidedly mediocre film and a mostly excellent text adventure by Infocom. Then again, you know all that. You probably also know that said game was created by Douglas Adams himself and Steve Meretzky, and -provided you've been reading this blog for some time- that the game has since evolved quite a bit. You might even have already heard something about a brand new remake. Even read a behind-the-scenes making of the thing.Happily, the H2G2 remake has now been released and you can download it from its official site. For free of course. As for its title, well, you'll be shocked to find out its none other than the rather apt The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Remake. Oh, yes, and it's a pretty radical remake too, as it transforms the parser-based, text-only game into a proper, graphical, mouse-driven, point-and-click adventure.
The surreal, colorful, low-res and quite abstract graphics of the remake are generally excellent and more than appropriate to the theme, whereas the new interface works like a charm. What's more, the remake is extremely faithful both to the book and the original game, and manages to fully and successfully translate the game and its puzzles into a new genre. It even makes the thing actually playable (without a walkthrough) by non-superhuman adventurers through the implementation of two difficulty modes, a streamlined interface, quite a few subtle clues, the removal of most dead-ends and some smart design ideas. As for the soundscape of the game, well, it's more than memorable and appropriate.
So, yes, I do suggest you try said remake. Even if you've never played the original. Even if you never actually found out who Douglas Adams was. Just don't expect it to be over in a couple or so hours. Expect t to be extremely funny.
Douglas Adams was a sort of pre-Pratchett to me, a brilliant chap with very British sense of absurd humour. Watch this fascinating lecture on parrots and lemures:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ted.com/talks/douglas_adams_parrots_the_universe_and_everything.html
Long, but definitely worth it!
As for the book, I am not that fond of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy myself, but it is there on my shelf, patiently waiting for re-re-read at some point. But I might try this game instead, if you claim it is good!
FCUK, I hate how Blogger treats links in comments! Maybe it is time to implement Discuss comments?
ReplyDeleteLink repeated:
Douglas Adams on parrots and lemures
Haven't finished the game yet, mind, as it still is quite tough, but, yes, it really is good. That video you discovered seems great too, though I need to find the time to watch all of it.
ReplyDeleteAs for me, I quite like all of Douglas Adams' work and am actually thinking about changing the comments system. It too will have to wait though.
OH. MY. GOD. I remember how frustrating it was to even get outside of your room before Earth explodes.
ReplyDelete"Get out of bed."
"Avoid bulldozer."
That sort of thing.
They need to do this for all the old Zork games, and... that one horror game where you're stuck in a college campus while it blizzards outside.
You've been eaten by a Grue!
You mean of course The Lurking Horror, don't you?
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, it's the same frustrating game, made just a tiny bit easier.
I'm sure you'll enjoy it ;)
Yes, of course! The Lurking Horror!
ReplyDeleteI owned the box set of all of their text games way back in the day for my family's Apple II.
There was also the detective one, 4 Zork games (one with some visuals, too!), The Lurking Horror, Hitchhiker, and I feel like maybe one or two others that weren't as great.
You lucky person (again!). Not only did you work for Sierra, you also had all those fantastic Infocom boxes. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, not all of them were that great admittedly.
Some people just steal all the luck. :P
ReplyDeleteI've seen that video of Douglas Adams, any proper fan of him should.
I didn't really think of myself as that lucky.
ReplyDeleteUNTIL NOW! Thanks. I guess it just takes a couple people telling you something before it can set in?
Maybe it's like my dad raising me on Jimi and Led and Dead instead of Abba and the Bangles.
Tehehe @ Bill...
ReplyDeleteOh, and cheers Dualnames!
@Dualnames
ReplyDeleteDear Sir,
Had I known that you were in fact intending to share the aforementioned video in the comments, I would have definitely refrain from posting it myself.
However, being completely and utterly ignorant of your motives, I did share the video myself, for which I would like to apologize, humbly, deeply and sincerely.
In my defense, I can only state that I did this with good intentions, hoping that more people would be acquainted with the video in question.
Kind regards,
Barts
@Barts:
ReplyDeleteDamnit, I'm a lovable person! Don't think I'm high and mighty cause I'm not. :P
I praised the link, cause every Douglas Adams should see it, and its a great find, and of course to add up as you said, definitely worth it.
Summing up: I love the link therefore everyone who posts it is lovable! ^_^
Sorry if you thought I was playing high-class adventure maker, but I'm not, and I wasn't.
Also may I suggest to read "Last chance to see" from Douglas, it's probably the best book I've read my whole life.