Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Hitchhiker's Guide Game

I find myself endlessly inspired by this game which I realize is horribly frustrating and not actually fun in any way. That dog/cheese sandwich puzzle still makes me rage. But even though the puzzles are supremely complicated and many involve a time-delayed instant death, where an action (or lack thereof) in the early game ends up killing you later on, I have a hard time saying that they're unfair. Unlike, say, a Sierra game, all the information you need is somewhere in the game, you might have to examine a lot of stuff or consult the Guide a bunch, but the information is there. I also have this thing where the things I find interesting I also find very unfun, but a game being "interesting" in a way that actively makes it sound like a nightmare to play is something that I value. So I guess my new thing is doing stuff in list form. Here are the things that are interesting about H2G2:

-Footnotes. Just brilliant.
-The way that the game takes on the Murphy's Law quality present in Douglas Adams's work. For example, at one point you will have to use one and only one of the tools you had been painstakingly gathering, chosen at random. If you don't have all the tools, the one you need is always one you're missing. And no, you can't go back at this point.
-The way the game converses with you. This is actually the inspiration for a project I'm working on.
-The unreliable parser.

As a kid I managed to get as far as the time and space jaunting part using only my wits and the built-in hints. I think I may have beaten it in adulthood. Back then I had the ability to spend months on a game demo alone, which is something I thought I had lost but seem to have regained recently in The Binding of Isaac. I might see if I can't figure this out without cheating using my memory, also smartness.