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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (computer game)
Encyclopedia
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an interactive fiction
computer game based on the comedic science fiction
series of the same name
. It was designed by series creator Douglas Adams
and Infocom's
Steve Meretzky
, and was first released in 1984
for the Apple II
, Macintosh
, Commodore 64
, DOS
, Amiga
, Atari 8-bit and Atari ST
. It is Infocom's fourteenth game.
house and subsequent demolition of the Earth by Vogons.
After being rescued from open space by the Heart of Gold and figuring out how to activate the Infinite Improbability Drive, the player is hurled through space and time, assuming the roles of Ford Prefect
, Zaphod Beeblebrox
and Trillian
at various intervals. (The question of the player character's identity at any time can be answered by the WHO AM I command.) For the majority of the game, Arthur Dent is the main player character.
An in-game virtual edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy provides a variety of major and minor characters, locations
, and miscellany from the series that can be referenced, if not directly encountered. Topics ranging from Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters to Galaxia Woonbeam can be looked up with the command CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT
The ultimate goal of the game is mentioned by Zaphod in an offhand manner: finding the legendary lost planet of Magrathea. While the other characters relax in the ship's sauna, however, Arthur has to jump through a number of hoops to collect a bizarre array of tools and four types of fluff before the Heart of Gold gets anywhere near the planet. The problem of managing this burgeoning inventory is neatly handled by a humorously ill-defined object called "That thing your aunt gave you which you don't know what it is", which has two important attributes: a nearly limitless capacity
for holding other objects, and a penchant for showing up in the player's inventory after seemingly being lost.
When the characters finally set foot on Magrathea, the game ends with the never-fulfilled promise of a thrilling sequel.
The original source files
in Z-code can also be downloaded, although an interpreter that supports Z-Machine version 4 and version 6 story files is required.
. This was later expanded with further graphics created by fans after a short contest. DN Games released another version of the game on May 25, 2010 using AGS (Adventure Game Studio
), having remade the original Infocom game to a point-and-click adventure game.
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...
computer game based on the comedic science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
series of the same name
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
. It was designed by series creator Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
and Infocom's
Infocom
Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
Steve Meretzky
Steve Meretzky
Steven Eric Meretzky is an American computer game developer, with dozens of titles to his credit. He has been involved in almost every aspect of game development, from design to production to quality assurance and box design...
, and was first released in 1984
1984 in video gaming
-Notable releases:* May 10, King's Quest , the first animated adventure game, the first in the King's Quest series, and the first to use the AGI engine.* June 4, Nintendo releases Donkey Kong 3...
for the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
, Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
, Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
, Atari 8-bit and Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
. It is Infocom's fourteenth game.
Plot
The game loosely mirrors a portion of the series' plot, beginning with the impending destruction of Arthur Dent'sArthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character, the hapless protagonist and anti-hero in the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....
house and subsequent demolition of the Earth by Vogons.
After being rescued from open space by the Heart of Gold and figuring out how to activate the Infinite Improbability Drive, the player is hurled through space and time, assuming the roles of Ford Prefect
Ford Prefect (character)
Ford Prefect is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams. He is the only character other than the protagonist, Arthur Dent, to appear throughout the entire Hitchhiker's saga.-Name:Although Ford had taken great care to blend into Earth...
, Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character in the various versions of the humorous science fiction story The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams who based him on his Cambridge contemporary, Johnny Simpson....
and Trillian
Trillian (character)
Tricia McMillan, also known as Trillian Astra, is a fictional character from Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is most commonly referred to simply as "Trillian", a modification of her birth name, which she adopted because it sounded more "space-like". According to the...
at various intervals. (The question of the player character's identity at any time can be answered by the WHO AM I command.) For the majority of the game, Arthur Dent is the main player character.
An in-game virtual edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy provides a variety of major and minor characters, locations
Places in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
This is a list of places featured in Douglas Adams's science fiction series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The series is set in a fictionalised version of the Milky Way galaxy and thus, while most locations are pure invention, many are based on "real world" settings such as Alpha Centauri,...
, and miscellany from the series that can be referenced, if not directly encountered. Topics ranging from Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters to Galaxia Woonbeam can be looked up with the command CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT
The ultimate goal of the game is mentioned by Zaphod in an offhand manner: finding the legendary lost planet of Magrathea. While the other characters relax in the ship's sauna, however, Arthur has to jump through a number of hoops to collect a bizarre array of tools and four types of fluff before the Heart of Gold gets anywhere near the planet. The problem of managing this burgeoning inventory is neatly handled by a humorously ill-defined object called "That thing your aunt gave you which you don't know what it is", which has two important attributes: a nearly limitless capacity
Magic satchel
Magic satchel is a term often used in reference to computer role-playing games. It refers to the use of a character's inventory in the game, which can often contain more items than is physically possible for the character to carry without any visible means to hold or transport them.A similar...
for holding other objects, and a penchant for showing up in the player's inventory after seemingly being lost.
When the characters finally set foot on Magrathea, the game ends with the never-fulfilled promise of a thrilling sequel.
Feelies
Most Infocom games contained "feelies", bonus novelty items included to enhance the immersiveness of the game. The feelies provided with this game included:- A pin-on button with "Don't Panic!" printed in large, friendly letters
- A small plastic packet containing "pocket fluff" (a cottonball)
- Order for destruction of Arthur Dent's house
- Order for destruction of Earth written in "Vogon" (actually an English cryptogram written in a thinly-disguised Cyrillic alphabetCyrillic alphabetThe Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
. The text was nearly identical to that of the English Order for Destruction, so it was not hard to solve.) - Official Microscopic Space Fleet (an empty plastic bag)
- "Peril Sensitive Sunglasses" (a pair of opaque black cardboard "sunglasses")
- How Many Times Has This Happened to You?, an advertising brochure for the fictional guidebookFictional guidebookSome fictional universes feature useful guidebooks which assist the hero and friends through difficult situations.Features of a great fictional guidebook: Such books are ideally compact enough to carry on even the most strenuous adventures, yet detailed enough to contain exactly the information the...
/encyclopediaEncyclopediaAn encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - No teaTeaTea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
Sequel
A proposed sequel, Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which was to continue from the ending of the original, had problems from the start in 1985, until it was cancelled in 1989. This was due primarily down to the facts that there was "no solid game design, nobody to program it, and the backdrop of Infocom's larger economic problems". The beginning stages of the game were leaked in April 2008, however the majority of it had yet to be written by the time it was cancelled.The original source files
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
in Z-code can also be downloaded, although an interpreter that supports Z-Machine version 4 and version 6 story files is required.
Remakes
For the 20th anniversary, the text-based game with some graphics appeared on the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. This was later expanded with further graphics created by fans after a short contest. DN Games released another version of the game on May 25, 2010 using AGS (Adventure Game Studio
Adventure Game Studio
Adventure Game Studio is a free software development tool that is primarily used to create graphical adventure games. It is aimed at intermediate-level game designers, and combines an Integrated development environment for setting up most aspects of the game with a scripting language to process...
), having remade the original Infocom game to a point-and-click adventure game.
External links
- The Java version of the game on Douglas Adams website
- Walkthrough solution from IGNIGNIGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
- Pictures and scans of the package, feelies and documentation
- Infocom Bugs List entry