Sharing the pinnacle of the adventure game experience with Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Co-written by Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky, this 1984 release from Infocom is the oldest game in this list.
Hitchhiker’s Guide has no graphics. It includes no music. It is nothing more than text that scrolls across your computer screen, inviting you to occasionally offer keyboard input into what Arthur Dent, your character, might be doing in rather bizarre universe that he inhabits.
And it is hilarious. Meretzky, already a seasoned veteran of text adventures, collaborated with the comedic genius of the (now) late Douglas Adams to create an experience that made me laugh out loud almost every time I booted it up. I don’t think I’ve ever played a computer game as genuinely funny as this one.
Want to give this game a spin? You still can play it, in its entirety, here.
November 19, 2008 at 6:44 pm |
Another of my favorites! (Scary, eh?) I have never had more conversations with my computer (aloud, natch) than I did when playing this game.
I should add that playing it always made me late. Just not late as in “the late DentArthurDent.”
November 25, 2008 at 3:18 pm |
Just for the record, Steve wasn’t a seasoned veteran, which makes it all the more amazing what he accomplished; I don’t have exact date he began work on Planetfall but it came out in 1983 and Sorcerer was 1984; he was then collaborating with Adams that same year.