The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game)

Lore & Background

The game loosely mirrors a portion of the series' plot, representing most of the events in the first book. Arthur Dent wakes up one day to find his house about to be destroyed by a construction crew to make way for a new bypass. His friend Ford Prefect, who is secretly an extraterrestrial, helps to calm Arthur down and hitches them a ride on one of the ships in the approaching Vogon constructor fleet, moments before the fleet destroys the Earth to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Aboard the ship, Arthur learns that Ford is a journalist for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and has been on Earth researching the planet for the Guide. The two are discovered by Vogons and subjected by the captain to a reading of his poetry. The two manage to survive this, and the Vogons throw them into the airlock and shoot them out into space. By a huge improbability, they are picked up in the last moment before they die of asphyxiation by the spacecraft Heart of Gold while it is traveling on Infinite Improbability Drive. After getting safely aboard the ship, Arthur and Ford meet Ford's friend Zaphod Beeblebrox, who had stolen the Heart of Gold as his first act of office as the Galactic President, as well as Arthur's friend Trillian (Tricia McMillan), whom Zaphod had picked up from a party on Earth. Zaphod wants to travel to the legendary planet of Magrathea, believing it to hold a great secret. The game ends as Arthur and the others are about to set foot on Magrathea.

Reader's Guide

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy gained a reputation for deviousness. Computer Gaming World reported on rumors that 'several important people within the [video game] industry cannot (snicker, snicker!!!) even get out of [the] first room!' Jerry Pournelle advised non-readers of the novel against playing the game, and warned that 'even if you've memorized the book, these puzzles are hard'. Perhaps the most notorious instance involved getting a Babel Fish out of a dispenser in the hold of the Vogon ship, which would translate the Vogon language to English. This tricky puzzle appeared early in the game and required the player to use a variety of obscure items in a specific fashion, some which had to be obtained in earlier, but non-revisitable, sections of the game, to create a Heath Robinson (or Rube Goldberg)-like chain of events. The puzzle further had to be 'solved' within a limited number of turns. Failure to 'solve' the Babel Fish puzzle did not kill the player, but rendered the remainder of the game unwinnable. That particular puzzle became so notorious for its difficulty that Infocom wound up selling T-shirts bearing the legend, 'I got the Babel Fish!' Adams stated that the puzzle's difficulty, and the notable game play change that it begins, was intentional; 'Just as the player gets comfortable in the narrow neck, the bottom drops out!' The game was very successful, selling 59,000 copies in 1984—in second place among Infocom games, after Zork I—and with 166,000 copies it was the company's best-selling title in 1985. Its sales had surpassed 250,000 copies by November 1989, and ultimately sold 400,000 copies, making it one of the best-selling titles of its time.

Did You Know?

• The game is Infocom's fourteenth game.
• The feelies included a pin-on button with 'Don't Panic!' printed in large, friendly letters.
• The Babel Fish puzzle was so notorious that Infocom sold T-shirts bearing the legend 'I got the Babel Fish!'
• The game sold 400,000 copies total.

Origins & Development

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy video game was the product of a direct collaboration between Douglas Adams, creator of the comedic science fiction series, and Infocom designer Steve Meretzky. Released in 1984 as the fourteenth title in Infocom's interactive fiction lineup, the game translated Adams' beloved characters and absurd scenarios into the text-based puzzle format that defined the studio's output. The launch was notably wide in scope, with versions shipped for the Apple II, Macintosh, Commodore 64, CP/M, MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, and the Atari ST, giving the title access to a broad cross-section of the mid-1980s home and personal computing audience. Having Adams himself involved in the design process meant the game's humor, references, and narrative voice stayed closely aligned with the source material, while Meretzky brought the structural craft of Infocom's puzzle architecture. Together, their partnership produced a title that felt less like a generic video-game adaptation and more like a playable chapter of the books themselves, a quality that set it apart from many licensed games of the era.

Narrative & Plot

The game's storyline loosely follows the events of the first novel, placing the player in the shoes of Arthur Dent as his ordinary life unravels. The adventure opens with Arthur discovering his house is scheduled for demolition to make way for a new bypass, only for his friend Ford Prefect to reveal his true identity as an extraterrestrial journalist researching Earth for the Guide. Moments later, a Vogon constructor fleet arrives and obliterates the planet for a hyperspace bypass, and the two are swept aboard one of the vessels. After enduring a Vogon poetry recital and being ejected through an airlock, they are improbably rescued by the Heart of Gold, a ship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive. There they reunite with Zaphod Beeblebrox, the newly elected Galactic President who stole the vessel as his first official act, and Arthur's friend Trillian. The group's destination is the legendary planet Magrathea, but reaching it requires Arthur to coax the ship's computer Eddie into cooperation, fix the Nutrimatic to brew real tea, redirect two incoming missiles into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias, and finally retrieve tools from Marvin the Paranoid Android's closet. The game concludes as the crew prepares to set foot on Magrathea's surface.

Gameplay & Infamous Difficulty

As a text adventure, the game casts the player as Arthur Dent, issuing typed commands like 'look,' 'inventory,' 'north,' 'take screwdriver,' or 'put robe on hook' to explore and solve puzzles. A turn counter advances with most active commands, and some puzzles demand completion within a fixed number of turns or the player must restart from a saved state. Passive commands and mistyped inputs do not consume turns. Once the player acquires the in-game Guide, a wide variety of topics can be queried for puzzle clues. The 20th- and 30th-anniversary editions added graphical location maps, though all commands still required typing. The game earned a notorious reputation for deviousness. Computer Gaming World reported rumors that industry figures could not even clear the first room, and Jerry Pournelle cautioned that the puzzles remained hard even for those who had memorized the book. The most infamous challenge involved extracting a Babel Fish from a dispenser aboard the Vogon ship, requiring a Rube-Goldberg-style chain of obscure items gathered from non-revisitable earlier sections within a turn limit. Failure did not kill the player but rendered the game unwinnable, since a later puzzle required a Vogon-language passcode that only the Babel Fish could decode.

The Feelies & Physical Novelty

Infocom was well known for including 'feelies,' physical novelty items tucked into the game's packaging to deepen the sense of immersion. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy shipped with a particularly memorable collection. Players received a pin-on button bearing the words 'Don't Panic!' in large, friendly lettering, a small plastic packet of 'pocket fluff' (essentially a cottonball), and an official-looking order for the destruction of Arthur Dent's house. Alongside these came an order for the destruction of Earth, written in 'Vogon,' which was actually an English cryptogram rendered in a thinly disguised Greek alphabet, nearly identical in content to the English version. The package also included an 'Official Microscopic Space Fleet' (an empty plastic bag), a pair of 'Peril Sensitive Sunglasses' made from opaque black cardboard, and a brochure titled 'How Many Times Has This Happened to You?' advertising the fictional Guide itself. The final item was a packet labeled 'No tea: Just like the tea professional hitchhikers don't carry!' which, true to the joke, contained nothing at all. Together, these props turned the unboxing into a small piece of interactive comedy that extended the game's humor beyond the screen.