The Guide to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an older text base piece of interactive fiction that dates back to 1984. If you science fiction with a slice of comedy peaks your interest this is the game for you. This game seems to have a fairly liberal language reader, also know as a parser, so it is not nearly as strict as some of the other works of interactive fiction at the time. The descriptions within the game are also more thorough compared to other works. I found the small graphical touch in the 30th anniversary version was enough to help the experience while keeping the game feeling like a text based interactive fiction.

The game starts with your character waking up in bed. From what I can gather he seems to be hungover or possibly still drunk from the night before. This conclusion is derived from the fact that when you get out of bed everything you try to touch or react to act as if they are moving strangely. The learning curve was a little higher than I expected being that I was killed by a yellow bulldozer that flattens your character's house before I was finished examining the contents of the room.

During my second attempt I managed to put on the gown that is on the chair beside the bed. Once I accomplished that I opened the pockets and took what I assumed to be some sort of instant hangover cure. Finally I was able to exit the room and the house without the door dodging my movements. I attempted to stop the bulldozer but inevitably got hit by a brick in the back of the head and died.

Eventually, after dying many times, I managed to get to the Pub with a guy named Ford, drank some beers, and eventually ended up on a spaceship after using Ford's small black device.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy overall was extremely fun and entertaining. I would not recommend this to a person that is brand new to the world of interactive fiction. The main reason being that many times throughout the game you only have so many turns to accomplish your goal unlike games such as Zork where trial and error have no penalty for the most part. If your not familiar with the Hitchhiker series or are new to interactive fiction, you will die alot.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Opening

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Continued Play