Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time) is an interactive fiction

Interactive fiction

Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...

 game by Julian Fleetwood released in 1998. It holds the distinction of being the video game with the longest minimum play time to complete - slightly more than three thousand years. It has never been (and in all likelihood will never be) completed without cheating. It was inspired by a description of a similar game in Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett

Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...

's novel Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind is the first novel in the Johnny Maxwell trilogy of children's books and fifth young adult novel by Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld sequence of books. The following novels in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy are Johnny and the Dead and Johnny and the Bomb...

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See also

• Only You Can Save Mankind
  Only You Can Save Mankind
  Only You Can Save Mankind is the first novel in the Johnny Maxwell trilogy of children's books and fifth young adult novel by Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld sequence of books. The following novels in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy are Johnny and the Dead and Johnny and the Bomb...
  
  
• Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors (Desert Bus)