Interesting Stuff

I also finally got The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: Text-Based Adventure game (copyright 1984) working under Linux. It’s amazingly entertaining, and I’d be happy to share the program with anyone interested (I know it works under Linux and Windows; I don’t know about Mac). Since it’s written by Douglas Adams, it has his characteristic wit and off-kilter viewpoint. For instance, if you check your inventory at the very beginning of the game, you find that

You have:
- a splitting headache
- no tea

What a wonderful way to think of an inventory! The game also lies to you at several points, which I think is hilarious. However, save often, and under different names, since I strongly suspect that it’s possible to get to a point where you can’t win unless you undo something you did a long time ago (though I’m not sure about this). One of the tricky things is that at various points, you have to control 4 different characters through different temporal episodes, and you can influence things that happen chronologically in the future, although you might not do them in the correct order in the real world. Speaking of which, here’s a spoiler for you, that I would never have gotten in a million years (don’t read if you don’t want a really useful hint): As Arthur, before your house gets knocked down, buy a sandwich at the bar and give it to the dog. You cannot do this as Ford. I accidentally stumbled upon this in a message board, but would never have figured it out otherwise. Also, remember that not only do you need to know where your towel is to be a hoopy frood, but you should have it with you at all times. My first game, I got all the way to Traal before realizing I’d left the towel on the Vogon ship, but had not yet realized that I could go back and get it eventually, so I restarted (the significance of the towel on Traal will make more sense if you’re already familiar with the HHGG lore).

Right. I now have to go finish my Algorithms homework.