io9
One of the coolest text adventure games of the 1980s was Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, based on Douglas Adams' bestselling novel of the same name. Though the game was wildly popular, and a sequel to it was rumored repeatedly, nobody has ever known exactly what happened to that sequel. Until now. Andy Baio, the investigative journo-technologist at Waxy, has received a mysterious network drive from which he recovered all the notes, plans, emails, and information about what Infocom was going to do with the sequel that would have been called Milliways. And he's published it for all to see.
Baio writes:
From an anonymous source close to the company, I've found myself in possession of the "Infocom Drive" — a complete backup of Infocom's shared network drive from 1989. This is one of the most amazing archives I've ever seen, a treasure chest documenting the rise and fall of the legendary interactive fiction game company. Among the assets included: design documents, email archives, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made.Some of the highlights include weird infighting emails between people obviously frustrated with the bureaucratic process of game design. And sad emails about how Infocom's finances are hurting. My favorites are moments when people talk about groups of two or three people designing a game — and complain when more are going to be brought in.
We also learn that the software infrastructure of the game might have actually become a character in the game itself. Designer Stu Galley wrote in an email:
I've been talking with Tim Anderson about using the New Parser in this game. It still needs a lot of development, and in the end it may prove to be slow in operating, but it promises to be very capable. Now here's the question: should the game itself make a big deal out of the New Parser? For example, the game could begin with the parser introducing itself to the player, asking the player to type a few sentences to "warm up" the parser, before getting on with the story itself. The parser could take on a personality, explaining that this is its first job, that it means well but it may not succeed. Perhaps it gets depressed and refuses to work at all. Perhaps the parser is in fact Marvin's new aural interface module, depressing him even further.Want the full story? Check out Baio's amazing writeup.
Milliways: Infocom's Unpublished Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [Waxy.org]
Comments
Truly, an interesting read. But I confess, I was even more amused by the LOST "What?" montage further down the page on Waxy. A new drinking game shall be born of it.
I used to love those games... It was pretty obvious they were am evolutionary dead end, even at the time, but that just made the experience more poigniant.
-Kle.
@Klebert L. Hall: Yeah sort of like the hypertext novels of the 1990s.
Yeah, me and a friend never could very far in that. And doesn't it turn out there are only like 18 moves you need to win?
This was one of my favorites, I always loved those Infocom games. For anyone who wants to play it, I always keep this link handy:
[www.bbc.co.uk]
Ugh. I still have HHGTTG for my TI 99/4A, and I never finished it. A real pain, back in the day. Cool SWAG package.
@AZTriGuy: Yep, I found that too, made 3 moves, and decided it wasn't worth my life-force being sucked outta me... thanks though.
I've been an insane Guide freak ever since discovering the "trilogy" at church camp one summer (don't ask) and I absolutely loved the game. They could release the original game and a finished Milliways on XBL and I'd happily buy them, one of the controller-mounted keyboards, and tell the wife and kid to zark off for the weekend...
but instead I'll have to content myself with the book, the audio tapes of the original radio broadcast, the downloaded-via-bittorrent files of the other bbc radio series, the complete trading card collection, and and and
belgium.
Let's see, 1989. That would make the drive how big? 130 megs or so?
@rbb: Well, the high-powered home PC I purchased in about, oh, 1991 or so came with a 40MB hard drive, and 4 MB of RAM. And a 5 1/4" and a 3 1/2" floppy drive. And a MCA video card.
Cool, but you can't cuddle with it like you can with these Zaphod Beeblebrox two-headed, three-armed teddy bears:
[www.boingboing.net]
It's not an evolutionary dead end, look at the xyzzy awards - there is some amazing interactive fiction. I think people will look back on it as some of the more radical fiction/writing of our time. It will end up feeding into interactive graphics games/movies. They have become so much less clumsy and obvious than the Infocomm era games!
Anyway this lost & found drive sounds great. I hope it gets archived well.
@Liz Henry: True enough,
and much of the non-linear game design of current RPGs, contemporary games and even quests in MMOs owe a nod to Infocom games and the old choose your own adventure novels.
Sure what was once done with text is now done with graphics, but it is still part of the same legacy.
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