As you can imagine, I was fascinated when I found that a blogger had got his hands on the drive holding emails, design docs and code for the never-completed sequel to the HHGTTG. There’s some really interesting stuff published, including a number of programmers outlining the conditions under which they would or wouldn’t work on the game. Clearly there was no controlling pointy-haired-boss culture at Infocom.

“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.”

There’s also some remarkably civilised internet drama, for those who like that sort of thing. The staff involved weren’t contacted before their emails were published, and have turned up in the comments. Pop over to Waxy.org to see the whole thing. Milliways: Infocom’s Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy [via Neil Gaiman's Journal]

I did find one gem in the comments that I couldn’t put better myself.

I’d like to let all the Infocom people here know that, despite the obvious drama, anger, and disappointment that seems to have gone on with at least some aspects of the job, your output caused many *many* people to laugh, think, and eventually create.

Just for one aspect, I suspect you’ve singlehandedly raised the problem-solving techniques and skills of a whole generation of us. Thank you for that.

– Dave Rutledge

Problem-solving seems to have largely disappeared from gaming, except where the problem can be solved by using a large weapon or a suspiciously shiny object from the next room. I miss having to think during my games.

• RPG Journal Part I – The Basics
• RPG Journal Part II – The Categories
• RPG Journal Part III – Information
• RPG Journal Part IV – Maps

Inventory

When I pick up an as-yet-unrevealed quest item, please please please, log it in the journal. I can’t stand it when you find odd items like A Toothbrush with no clue as to its importance. I learned my gaming habits from playing Steve Meretzky games. Did anyone else get caught out by leaving the screwdriver back in Arthur’s house in Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy? Or have their Simpleberry Bush confiscated in Spellcasting 201: The Sorceror’s Applicance? Growing up with those games has left me with a healthy inventory-centric paranoia.

(For those unacquainted with the games in question, you would get these items near the start of the game. They were fairly unassuming and sometimes used for other purposes during the game. They were also required near the end. You could leave them inaccessible locations throughout the game and only find out that you needed them back after days of intensive puzzle-solving.

A distasteful design practice now but apparently acceptable then. Personally, I think that the quality of writing more than made up for those particularly evil, evil, EVIL mechanics.)

A-hem… and back to the topic at hand. Flag up quest items, please. It can be a simple as this:

Found a mysterious flamey feather today. I wonder what it came from…

Short and piques your interest, yet doesn’t give anything away. Much more immersive than World of Warcraft’s utilitarian ‘This starts a quest.’

There’s one thing more crucial than logging the presence of a quest item. It’s this:

Where did I leave the damn thing?

Most CRPGs have an inventory limit. It can be astoundingly frustrating – you drop a seemingly-innocent useless item. Two weeks later you’re happily playing along and you get “Bring me the Helm of Arturoc from Godwin’s Cove”. You think “Ooo, yeah, I’ve been to Godwin’s Cove. I was carrying that Helm around for ages.” And then your heart sinks as you remember clearing all the junk from your inventory back in… where was it again?

This heart-breaking problem is easily solved by another simple journal entry:

Got sick of lugging the silly Helm of Arturoc around the place. Left it in Bethesda.

Hooray! Problem solved.

Check back soon for the quick summary of this article series.

We all trooped down to the Science Museum on Saturday to play “every game worth playing”, as the posters say. The part they omit from the posters is “and also Pitfall 2, which sucks ass.”

The Game On exhibition is at the London Science Museum until 27th February 2007. It was an… interesting experience, to say the least. Not comfortable. Here’s The Average Gamer’s survival guide, if you’re planning on seeing it:

1. Don’t go on Saturday. It will be rammed and there will be small children underfoot. Sometimes they will beg you to let them play even though you only picked up the gamepad a mere second ago. They will look cute and vulnerable. Don’t be tricked by their innocent gaze! You’ll have to pry the pad back from their cold, dead fingers.
2. Don’t bring WMDs, biological weapons or teeny tiny handbag knives used for cutting stray threads. They search all bags on the way in and will stop you from entering.
3. Bring lots of cash. It costs £8.50 for just the exhibit and you may decide to take advantage of their IMAX + exhibit deal. Also, the chocolate chip shortbread and brownies in the Natural History Museum next door are very tasty. (T-Rex is undergoing maintenance :()
4. Dress in layers. Poor ventilation + lots of people + a hundred PCs and consoles = really freaking hot!
5. Wear comfy shoes. This especially applies to any ladies reading. There is no seating once you enter the Game On section. Okay, there’s no seating if you’re over 2 feet tall. There are some teeny chairs next to the Pokémon SPs.

As for the exhibit itself… it was all right, I suppose, even though they left out pretty much every favourite game from my childhood (The Hobbit, Knight Tyme, Sorcery, anything by Bioware). I didn’t even see an Amstrad CPC 464. They had Lemmings but it wasn’t working.

Aside from that, the layout is very bizarre. They’re marketing it as a history of videogames but there doesn’t seem to be any coherent chronology. For example, in one corner they have Infocom’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . Next to that is Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Next to that is The Secret of Monkey Island. Eh??

(BTW, there’s a concept drawing of Pirate Cap’n LeChuck from The Secret of Monkey Island and you know what? He does look a lot like Davy Jones from Pirates of The Caribbean 2)

I did like the design plans for GTA3. Post-It notes everywhere!

Final Verdict: It’s all right if you have a tenner to burn or there’s a game that you know is there and really want to play (like TheFluffyFist and Tikipod on R-Type and, uh… Tweenies ;)). I wouldn’t make any sacrifices for it.