The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky

Science Fiction, Humor, Literary
1984

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Reviews and Ratings

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Number of Ratings: 180
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- Max Fog, January 25, 2024

- ENyman78 (Gold Beach, OR), October 29, 2023

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Funny, Hard, Canonical, July 26, 2023

by Drew Cook (Acadiana, USA)

Just this morning, I witnessed two online conversants discuss the "overrated" nature of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Typically, I interpret the term "overrated" as an oblique yet economical way of saying "most people like this more than I do."

Still, since it was Infocom's second best-selling game after Zork I, it could be both overrated and quite good all at the same time. For those who have never heard of this game, it is based on approximately half of the beloved Douglas Adams novel of the same name. While I think it is a commonly-held belief that Steve Meretzky performed most of the technical development while Adams was responsible for the text (and was a co-designer of puzzles, perhaps), most researchers today know better. In fact, we generally accept that the game is almost entirely Meretzky's design, barring the source text (all Adams, obviously) and some significant consultations.

Like all of Meretzky's Infocom games (we can debate Zork Zero some other time), it's a worthwhile play for anyone interested in 1980s interactive fiction. His humorous prose blends perfectly with parts written by Adams (whether original or taken from the novel). This is a very funny game as a result, and I would say the laughs alone are worth the price of admission.

However, from a historical perspective, there are interesting formal innovations that truly set it apart, content aside. First, it includes several metatextual features that playfully subvert what we then expected out of a narrator-player relationship. Additionally, it was Infocom's first modular design, featuring multiple, small maps and more than one playable character. These features would have felt quite new and exciting back in 1984, even if they were overshadowed by the game's signature elements: Douglas Adams as author, humor, and possibly unreasonable puzzle design.

What of puzzles? The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is surprisingly difficult for a "Standard" difficulty game. In fact, the conventional wisdom is that it is "Standard" only because "Advanced" or "Expert" would have discouraged sales. I personally think it's harder than Starcross, that other difficult science fiction game. Players can easily lock themselves out of victory. In all honesty, they probably will. These conditions can feel quite cheap, as one can reach the penultimate move of the game, only to discover the impossibility of the situation.

What is comparable? The "flouresce" spell in Zork II, perhaps.

The Invisiclues are readily available online. Do yourself a favor and keep them close at hand. They are at least fun to read, written as they were by Steve Meretzky himself. If you are only interested in puzzles, or somehow dislike Adams or Meretzky, give this a pass. Otherwise, this is a very innovative game with Meretzky's best writing to-date. Highly recommended for players interested in 80s IF, Infocom, or the evolution of IF narrative stuctures. Alternately, just use the hints and laugh your way through.

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Adventure Classic Gaming

The game is richly described, backed by an excellent forgiving parser, and more fun to play than you can shake a stick at. The only dark spot in an otherwise sterling effort is Adams' convoluted sense of logic, compounded by an unsatisfying ending. Other frustrations of the game owe more to the paradigm of game design from the early era of interactive fiction than anything Adams has done himself.

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- Kastel, May 25, 2023

- goffstown, April 19, 2023

- Oliver Matthias (Berlin, Germany), February 14, 2023

- RonFromPgh, October 16, 2022

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- Lance Campbell (United States), December 24, 2021

- Artran (Taipei, Taiwan), December 10, 2021

- Cryptic Puffin, December 3, 2021

- NorkaBoid (Ohio, USA), November 14, 2021

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Engaging Balance of the 'Interactive' and the 'Fiction', September 7, 2021

by ccpost (Greensboro, North Carolina)

I'm not a huge Hitchhiker's fan, but I still thoroughly enjoyed Douglas Adams' characteristically witty, sardonic prose. Though the game has a (deserved) reputation for being difficult and at-times cruel in its design, the world-class satirical writing and absurdly fun sci-fi narrative are more than enough to motivate the player to meet these challenges.

The first half or so of the game largely follows the plot of the first Hitchhiker's novel, and occasionally draws verbatim from the novel, though with enough wrinkles, puzzles, and knowing tricks thrown in to make it more than a straight adaptation. A working knowledge of the novel will certainly help a player of the game, though having read the book does not at all make this first portion of the game redundant. Adams (apparently a huge fan of IF) and Infocom veteran Steve Meretzky build in lots of charming, self-aware details like warning players to don 'peril-sensitive sunglasses' before viewing a low score after they've died, or a death sequence where the story continues following the deceased Arthur Dent in the ambulance and scolding the player to stay out of it. There's just a lot of learning by death in this game, but it's usually fun if infuriating!

The second part of the game diverges quite a bit in its design, moving from the more or less linear plot following that of the novel to a non-linear episodic design where the player departs from a central map to points across time and space. I really, really liked this except for some major details regarding the mechanics of this episodic structure that are not divulged to the player. It takes quite a bit of finagling (or consulting a walkthrough) to understand how to (Spoiler - click to show)handle the Infinity Drive and get in and out of the darkness, none of which is explained to the player. For many of the episodes, it's also not very clear what the objective is or what the player needs to do to make sure they don't end up in an unwinnable state. Nor is it clear how many episodes the player needs to go through before advancing to the concluding sequence of the game.

In full disclosure, I made heavy use of a walkthrough to get over these difficulties. Even still, I greatly enjoyed this game, and found its design inventive and its writing winning. I feel like a bit more direction about how to navigate through the episodes in the second part of the game would have added to the player experience without necessarily sacrificing any difficulty of the game. As it is, it feels like parts of the game design are cruel just for the sake of being cruel. Regardless, I highly recommend playing this -- and no shame for using a walkthrough at some key points.