Don't Panic

[Lobo Baggins]

Oh, sorry about not making sence. Always happens when I try type fast.

That was a hint...

[ThryllSeekyr]

Just not used to plkaying these text adventure games I guess.

Right now I have just be ejected from the Vogon ship, I was floating in space and am now in a Dark place right next to a Star Drive.

??????

[I, Cosh]

I don't know what the problem is, even if I didn't get past the pub. The parser on that is quite advanced: I remember when adventure games would only accept two words at at time.

GO NORTH
GET STICK
KILL DRAGON
FUCK OFF

[The Adventurer]

This thread demands DUNGEON MAN!

Link: http://www.homestarrunner.com/dungeonman.html" target="_blank">Dungeon Man!!

[Adrian Bamforth]

"Right now I have just be ejected from the Vogon ship, I was floating in space and am now in a Dark place right next to a Star Drive."

Just read the screen carefully.

ADE

[ThryllSeekyr]

Well, I have finally made it onto the Starship heart of Gold. I have found the The Heart of the Improbility Drive and had a cup of advanced tea substitute. Though I did abiot cheat by looking up the walkthru cheats for this game.

As for how advanced this game was at the time. I once read somewhere that this game was suppoosed to understand full sentences and understand respond to foul language with a witty retort. That was my understanding, but this java version does no such thing.

Never the less it's still a fun diversion.

[IndigoPrime]

:: As for how advanced this game was at the time

Clearly, you weren't playing too many text adventures in the mid 1980s, when this game first appeared. Back then, most parsers were like the ones
The Cosh mentioned: two-word affairs (in fact, 'understanding' only the first two or so characters of each word), leading to very limited interaction. The Infocom stuff was a world apart, with very sophisticated storylines and phrase construction, and pretty large vocabularies. It won't understand everything you throw at it, but it gets a whole lot more than most 20-year-old text adventures!

[The Adventurer]

Which is why we remember the Infocom set and not the others. Infocom Adventure games were like the difference between Doom and Quake at the time.

Course then Kings Quest hit and technology made another jump forward. and so on and so forth, until the Adventure game genre was as dead as a dodo*.




*not quite, Telltale's new Sam & Max adventure game kicked some ass

[ThryllSeekyr]

Your right. I didn't play them a awful lot. In fact the last time I have played a text adventure was the full version of Zork which I got off a game demo disk. But that was long time ago.

The problem with 'The Hitch-Hikers' game is that Arther is the protagonist of the game as well as the story. In the story the reason he is the main character is that he is the human that most average people can relate to. He is basically me, or us. When we are watching the t.v. series or that movie, most of us will be imanging bourselves as the him.

The only time Arthur is really making all his own discisons and not being influenced by anything else happens from the moment he gets out of bed till Ford comes to his rescue when he is lying infront of the bulldozer. From then on in he is following the lead of Ford, the Vogon guards, then Zaphod, Marvin, Slartibartfast and few other characters that Arthur throws in with.

The only time I can recall him doing something was when he descides to press the button on the improbability drive and consulting the.

In the game.....

Apart fom buying sandwichs in the pub and feeding that stray dog and consulting  the electronic book. At other times Arthur is essentially being  Ford, Zaphod, Marvin, Slartibarfast, Ext.

He's merely the plot device used so that we can intyeract with the other characters, until such time that the Mice decide that he possesss the key  or the great answer to the great question.

Not that I 'm too sure if this may have been possible during the time of this text adventure. It would have ben better if yoiu were given control of the opther characters as well. Just like in Final Fantacy.

Well, I hope you see the the point I made here.

[Pete Wells]

Hey Thryllseekyr, there's a walkthrough for the game at the link below if you get really stuck!

Warning, this could really spoil it for you but may save your computer's monitor, items of furnature or your sanity (if you still have it!)

Link: http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/hitchhikers_guide_to_the_galaxy_d.txt" target="_blank">Spoilers Ahoy!

[ThryllSeekyr]

Those walkthrus and cheats are pretty easy to find. But thanks all the same.

I had already found one. Though, I only read a small part of  it as I don't wann spoil th wqhole game for myself. Besides that game does cheat abit. It lies to you when trying to gain entrance to the S.S.H.O.G. from the hard vacume of space.

[Adrian Bamforth]

There were some good adventure games back then, I particularly likes Snowball adventure and Dungeon adventure, though playing some of then again can be infuriating. I never had a Spectrum back then so I had a go of The Hobbit game a while ago. Pretty soon you get locked in some kind of cell and I'm sure Gandalf then keeps walking in and out of the cell like any other location, oblivious to the fact I'm stuck in a locked room.

We had so much more patience then.

ADEhttp://www.bhlegend.com/screenshots/Spectrum%20Hobbit%20Screenshot%2002.gif">

[I, Cosh]

Snowball and the other Level 9 games are the ones I remember. Had a go at Worm In Paradise on a BBC emulator a while ago and got absolutely nowhere.

What were the secret agent ones that were out around the same time? Rick Random or something? The incredible advance they made was being able to parse a full sentence with prepositions and sub-clauses! GET PENS AND USE RED PEN TO PUSH KEY THROUGH KEYHOLE. Obviously, you had to already have slid the sheet of paper under the door to catch the falling key.

The only things I've played in recent years which even come close to that level of complexity in the puzzles are the Broken Sword games.

[Floyd-the-k]

thatte dungeone game lookes greate

the HHTGTG game is as frustrating as I remember. I used to have that on my PC. loaded onto some super large floppy disks.  

is the Dan Dare Spectrum game available out there in Cyberspace?

[Adrian Bamforth]

"Snowball and the other Level 9 games are the ones I remember. Had a go at Worm In Paradise on a BBC emulator a while ago and got absolutely nowhere."

Yeah, the sequels are infuriating, I couldn't get anywhere either.

ADE