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Comment by lyu07282 | Hacker News Reader

> do not start with infocom games

Generally yes, however Hitchhiker is the one huge exception to that. Its very accessible, well written and the BBC released a version for the web:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN...

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This must be a different version than the original, then. The original was exceedingly cruel, as Douglas Adams wanted to play practical jokes riffing on genre conventions.

I always liked it for the same reason you disliked it, but having read the book and the added room visuals in the BBC version might make it easier too. Liking Douglas Adams humor is also a big factor I imagine, I thought it was very funny.

It is very funny! That's why I felt no shame in looking up hints/walkthrough: I'm there for the writing and the exploration, not the puzzle which requires you to pick up a random item 1h before it's apparent you need it... :p

I remembered a comic panel that I'd seen in the New Zork Times back in the day, and I just found it...page 7 of this:

https://infodoc.plover.net/nzt/NZT4.4.pdf

The comic pokes fun at the ridiculously cruel babelfish puzzle. Which, I'm proud to say, I solved back in the day without assistance, after a full day's worth of effort, and requiring at one point to completely restart the game because of an apparently useless item I didn't pick up at the very beginning of the game (if you've solved it, you'll know the item I'm referring to).

But...while that was a nice achievement, I still got stuck later in the game, trying to fix the Nutrimatic.

I solved it as well.

... but I'm pretty sure my game copy had "Invisiclues" or whatever installed.

I'm curious why some of the games in the 90s re-releases had this and some did not.

I'm not aware of Invisiclues ever having been "installed." I'm only familiar with them as booklets with "invisible" ink. And, at least initially, they were created at least quasi-independently of Infocom by someone who later joined Infocom.

Oh yea! There was something in the manual, or in the installed hints about that invisible ink thing. Before my time.

The re releases I played they were under "hint" or "hints" or "help" or something.

There was an are you sure / really sure admonishment, then breadcrumb bit by bit hints towards solution.

May have been re-releases. I had a lot of the original games with feelies and (effectively) anti-pirating code wheels and the like. I think I have one of the CD re-releases and I play for a bit now and then with a Z interpreter.

Yes rereleases as I stated above. ( or meant to ) I recall my father being quite excited when he saw them. Not sure what games he played first on the Commodore, if any.

They amused me for a time at 9-10, then later at maybe 14-15 or so I got into them again playing on a Palm VIIx with a folding Stowaway keyboard. I also read through HHGTTG on that same device.

https://archive.org/details/sci-fi-collection-the-usa/ and the like.

I have fond memories of some z-machine interpreter on the Palm that I found easier to play with than anything on my desktop computer. There were lots of shortcut buttons and thanks to the stylus it was still easy to use those (vs a touchscreen using ony fingers where you need huge buttons to hit). You could also tap any word in the output to bring up a context menu of actions (e.g. to examine or pick up objects mentioned in room descriptions) and that list of actions was a combination of a configurable global list and a game-specific list you could add actions to. Could play through entire games and barely ever have to type anything. Had a folding keyboard, but no memory of using that for interactive fiction.

That sounds like an amazing interface. Would love that on my touchscreen device.

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