History

In 1971, while hitchhiking in Europe, Douglas Adams was lying in a field near Innsbruck and it occurred to him that somebody should write a hitchhikers guide - the ultimate hitchhikers guide - a guide to the Galaxy.

Much to his subsequent surprise, this became the inspiration for an earth-shattering science-fiction/comedy radio series for the BBC, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, first aired in 1978. From this was born a wholly remarkable book which snowballed into a trilogy (albeit in 5 parts), a BBC television series, and an infuriatingly ingenious computer text-based adventure.

Realising that computers were not yet powerful enough to fully realise his vision, Douglas allowed his ideas for computer entertainment projects to rest until the world was at last ready for them. He returned to the computer entertainment scene in 1999 with the release of Starship Titanic, an interactive adventure game.

Following this, his team moved on to development of an immersive 3D adventure game based upon The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

The Game

Control the hapless and disoriented Arthur Dent as his trip downstairs to fetch the morning paper is interrupted by the destruction of the Earth and begins a quest to thwart the plans of an invasion force of Krikkit robots, bent (as always happens in such stories) on the total annihilation of all life in the universe.

Assisted by his friend Ford Prefect (who is not actually an out-of-work Actor from Guildford as he claims, but actually from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse) and the unlikely crew of the Heart of Gold - Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch President of the Galaxy; Trillian, Earth's only surviving astrophysicist; and Marvin the Paranoid Android, a robot who makes the worst known case of clinical depression seem like the merest self-indulgent whim - Arthur sets out on a quest that takes him from the most squalid surroundings of a Vogon Constructor Fleet spaceship to the extensive swamplands of Squornshellous Zeta, to the planet-construction yards of the legendary Magrathea, and the fabled Argabuthon Halls of Justice, with perhaps just enough time to see some sights and crash a party or two along the way.

To top off an otherwise pretty below-average day, Arthur somehow has to cope without a decent cup of tea.