~8 minute readHitch-Hiker's game
THE WELL-RESPECTED American software house Infocom has teamed up with best selling author Douglas Adams to produce a game based on his characters and ideas, and the result can only be described as excellent.
Hitch-Hiker started life as a BBC Radio serial, then a series of books and records, followed by a TV series and a stage play. It is shortly to become a feature film. To produce this many spin-offs, the product has to be good, and Hitch-Hiker is certainly that. For those who are not familiar with the 'plot', if it can be called that, (ie for those who have lived in a cave for the past few years) here is a brief resumé.
The actual Guide is a small, pocket-sized computer that no self-respecting Galactic Hitch-Hiker should be without, and with it you can access complete details to anything you require in the known Universe. The story hung around this device involves a human called Arthur Dent, who wakes up one day to find his house is scheduled for immediate demolition to make way for a bypass. This is a minor problem for him though, as his friend Ford Prefect does not come form Guildford, as he had thought, but from a small planet near Betelgeuse, and he has bad new for Arthur -- the Earth is scheduled for demolition to make way for a Galactic by-pass, in about 12 minutes. The story is based on Arthur's adventures after Ford rescues him from Earth's destruction, meeting many weird and wonderful creatures, all of which are mentioned in varying degrees of detail in the Guide itself. Douglas Adams' sense of humour is like no-one else's, and has been successfully transferred to the computer game itself.
The review copy was running on my Apple II, but by the time you read this there should be versions on various other machines, the main one of interest to Micro Adventurer readers being the Commodore 64. As Infocom are American, owners of other machines available in Britain, such as Spectrums, Amstrads and Beebs, can only envy their CBM-owning friends.
The Apple version I had cost £49.60, which is about average for Apple software from the States (and which explains why I have little of it!), though the Commodore version should sell for less. The packaging for such an expensive piece of software is quite different to other (non-Infocom) games -- it's in a large box, as you'd expect, and part of the box consists of a 25 page colour manual, containing various bits of information. To start with there is an advert for the Guide itself, in typical Adams' style, along with ordering information. Before you start writing your cheques, I ought to point out that it costs 59.99 Altarian Dollars and is only available from somewhere around the Ursor Minor Beta area!
Next in the manual come the instructions proper (if that is the right word) including useful tips and a sample session. The most important part of this is the list of main verbs to be used for the game, which is invaluable. In the box itself there are some very important tools for all Hitch-Hikers, namely a 'Don't Panic' badge, a piece of fluff, a Microscopic Space Fleet (which some could mistake for a small, empty polythene bag), and a pair of Peril Sensitive Sunglasses (which are, naturally, always black). Also included are the demolition orders for Arthur's house, and similar orders (but in a language like no other) for the destruction of the Earth. Oh, I almost forgot, there is a disc in the box too! I would have thought that Infocom would have included a towel (the most important item ever), but I don't suppose it would have fitted into the box.
The game itself plays similarly on all the machines it runs on with certain inevitable differences. On the Apple version, all output is upper-case only, to suit the hardware, but CBM owners will hopefully get the luxury of lower-case on their version. This is a disc-based adventure, and Apple drives could not be called fast, but Commodore drives are even slower, so there could be additional delays on the 1541 drive.
The game starts with the player as Arthur Dent, waking up one morning. The first objective is to get up successfully, which is rather tricky in itself, because the previous night's drinking session has given you a heavy hangover, which has to be dispersed before the rest of the game can start. Even at this early stage the Adams touch becomes apparent, with numerous witticisms. For example, if you spend too long in the bedroom, the message 'Shouldn't you be taking more interest in the world around you? While you've got it . . .?' will appear.
Having cleared your head, you go downstairs, only to discover the demolition orders lying on the doorstep. When you go outside you are faced with a large yellow bulldozeer, and Mr. Prosser from the Council, ready to knock your house down.
On my first playing, at this point I reached for my copy of the book, which gave the solution to the problem. Before this, I had tried various unsuccessful attempts to stop the bulldozer, and when the house gets knocked down a flying brick kills you. However, mere death does not end the game, as your corpse gets picked up by an ambulance, and you get taken to the mortuary. By this stage you have little control over what you can do. Eventually, the game ends when the Vogons come along and destroy the Earth.
Should you get off Earth before the Vogons get trigger happy, you appear in a dark place. If you take too many attempts to solve the problem, a hint is given, and later another one will appear, which is just as well as the HELP command just gives an advert for Infocom Hint books and maps (at only $9.95!).
The dark place turns out to be the Vogon ship, which is unfortunate as Vogons are not nice (well, nice aliens don't tend to destroy planets, do they?), and problems soon arise, not least of which is the dreaded Vogon poetry.
If you survive it, you have the bad luck to be thrown out of the Airlock into space. I won't explain how (though ardent HH fans will, with all probability, know), but you and Ford get picked up by a passing spaceship, manned by a certain Zaphod Beeblebrox (who has an additional head and arm), Trillium, a girl from Earth, Marvin the paranoid android, and Eddie, the shipboard computer. You can communicate with all of these, with limited success, though Marvin has a special feature -- whenever he enters the room you are in, 'You feel a wave of depression' and he doesn't talk about much else. The ship, called the Heart of Gold, is pretty small in the game, but offers more problems, and it's as far as I've got so far.
Early in the game Ford gives you the Guide, and says 'I shouldn't tell you this, but you can't finish the game without it', then at any point you can 'CONSULT GUIDE ABOUT . . .' whatever you like. Most of the time you get useful information, but sometimes an amusing excuse appears for the lack of hard facts.
You can quiz the computer itself about certain things, such as basic question like 'Who am I', but trickier enquiries like 'Where is Ford' usually produce a not very helpful 'Beats Me', reply.
The former question is not as stupid as it seems as you change characters during the game, although I've yet to experience that myself.
Hints are occasionally given as are useful tidbits -- if you get near to solving a problem, it can say 'No, but you're getting closer', and if you are way off, it will say things like 'Complete waste of time'.
During descriptions, references are sometimes made to footnotes, and by typing Footnote x as a command it prints out further information on the subject. I recommend that you don't print the footnotes before the text refers to them, as I did, as it can spoil some of the fun to come.
Certain events can happen 'real time', for example the 'Careless talk costs lives' sequence, when a sentence at the wrong time produces a story, followed by 'You destroyed most of a small Galaxy. Please choose your words with greater care'.
As you would expect, the game is littered with objects, all of which seem important. When you get an Inventory, always included in the list of items is 'No Tea', 'just like the tea professional hitch-hikers don't carry. One object is consistently called 'The Thing your Auntie gave you and you don't know what it is', which thankfully can be abbreviated in commands to the Thing. I'm sure it's going to be important, but until I re-read the books or get to a suitable point in the game I won't know.
At the end of the game you get given your score (it is recommended that you put on your Peril Sensitive Sunglasses before reading it) which is given out of 400, along with the number of moves taken. To date I have scored 40, though I once managed a record low of -47! This means that I have only just touched the surface of the program, so I will have something interesting to occupy me during the cold Winter (and my Apple overheating will keep me warm too!). The game starts by following the books closely, but diverges soon after, while using the characters and concepts from them.
With the repeat of the radio series over Christmas, the release of the fourth book, logically (?) called Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish and the feature film shortly, HH madness will again reach fever pitch, and this game successfully captures the humour, lunacy and fun of the original. It is quite simply the most enjoyable adventure I have ever played, and is a must for adventure fans with the required machines. It is sure to convert those remaining few who are not Hitch-Hiker fans, and is bound to increase sales of the books and records, which are, after all, cheaper than the Infocom hints books. The Apple price of £49.60 is expensive, and the CBM 64 version is this country is bound to be cheaper, but the game is superlative all the same. I think that those who currently hero worship Scott Adams are shortly to give the same high regard to his namesake Douglas.
This article appeared in
Micro Adventurer
Feb 1985
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