h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

oh dear, my sister only has the last edition which i enjoyed greatly, i didn't even know there was a whole history. is it worth looking into aquiring some of the earlier games?

Yes, definitely. Every game has a unique feel to it, yet somehow retains what makes it Zork. BTW, when you say latest edition you mean Zork Grand Inquisitor, right?

Anyway, four of the Zork games are now freeware. If you head to [Broken link removed by Moderator], you should be able to find a place that lets you download Zork I: The Great Underground Empire, Zork II: The Wizard Of Frobozz, Zork III: The Dungeon Master, and Zork: The Undiscovered Underground. Don't let the fact that they're text games disuade you, they're really great when you get into them!

thankyou muchly, it is grand inquisitor yes, please try again witht the link. i visited amazon and they have the other two later ones, don't think i can quite afford to buy them yet though

Sorry about that. Okay, I have the other website open right now, so if the link doesn't post, then something's wrong with the system.

Try http://www.tbzp.co.uk for those four games.

The rest of the Infocom games are available here.

Ah, but that's software piracy. Most of those games aren't even Abandonware, because Activision still sells them at http://www.activision.com

I recommend buying "The Masterpieces Of Infocom" collection. It comes with over 30 great text games, including all of the Zork text adventures that came before Return To Zork! It also has the winners from one of the Xyzzy Awards competitions, although those games are freeware by now. The only Infocom game that I'd just download would be Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Infocom game, because he repurchased the rights to that game and set it on the Internet himself. However, the Beaureaucracy(sp?) game that he made is still available from Activision, I'm afraid.

hmmm, might be a good plan. i downloaded the games but i have nothing to run them on. what should i do? assuem i am ignorant of everything to do with anyhitng.

I remember when Activision offered the 5 "Collection" titles (Mystery, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Comedy, and something else), but was only able to find 3 locally. I was able to find a collected series for Macintosh, but not Windows.

But you are correct. Technically, it is piracy.

Personally, I would just order them from www.activision.com because of the low price that you can get them for (it's almost as cheap as piracy, and many times more legit! ), but if you order it, they include the documentation for the games. Not in the way they originally came, I'm sad to say, but they did come nonetheless.

However, if you're bent on playing versions downloaded on the Internet, there are locations that sell interpreters for the games, as well as places where people have posted the documentation necessary to solve some puzzles. I don't frequent those sites too often, but I'm sure if you look around you can find them (I believe that my friend Garius Lupus knows where some of those sites are.)