Comments on: Don’t Panic: The Infocom Drive Surfaces

By: Sandy

Sandy — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 07:30:38 +0000

Geez, I remember spending too much time playing Infocom games… mostly the Zork series… on my old Commodore 64.

Scary to think that back then, you had to type in a command, hit enter, and then wait for the diskette to access the response before it would appear. It only took a second or so, but it reminds you how much fun can be had with only 64K of memory.

By: Katie

Katie — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:28:55 +0000

I printed off a walk-through of the HHGTTG text game, hell bent on getting through the whole thing because I’m a HUGE Hitchhiker’s Guide fan. The game is so damned hard, I couldn’t even beat it with the walk-through! Well…maybe it was really hard, or maybe I’m just an idiot.

By: stef

stef — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:27:06 +0000

i remember Leather Goddesses of Phobos…i was in like 5th grade when i discovered it in a batch of floppy discs we got with the Apple IIGS we bought from someone in europe…i have quite missed that game… this is the first time i’ve heard it mentioned since…well since ever…i have never known anyone who has ever heard of it…

By: Fruppi

Fruppi — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:25:49 +0000

Just for reference, there are playable versions of the original Hitchhiker’s game out there on the internet. I can’t remember where any of them are off the top of my head, but I know the one that’s lurking somewhere on the BBC website is illustrated…so it’s not a pure text adventure, but still the same cool game.

By: Kinglink

Kinglink — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:32:31 +0000

And yes I know there were sequals to Zork III, ( Beyond zork, Zork zero, and 4 others that don’t carry the name zork (Enchanter, Sorcerer, Wishbringer and Spellbreaker) none of them have quite the same flavor as Zork).

The new “fmv” versions that came out were awful in comparision.

By: Higgins

Higgins — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:30:47 +0000

Sadly, I went and played one of the prototypes…it’s pretty minimal. But it is neat that it exists at all. The comments thread on the blog post is almost as long as the article itself, and seems to have stirred up a lot of 20+ year old emotions among the parties involved!

By: Kinglink

Kinglink — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:08:47 +0000

Oh now this is going to be some good stuff. Infocom was king for a reason and two prototypes of a sequel to hitch hiker’s guide? Doesn’t get much better than that (ok maybe a sequel to Zork III.)