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

www.perplexcity.com

Why am I only now hearing about this?! If it hadn't been mentioned in an offhanded manner on the h2g2 Muses list, I never would've known about it.

I have so much catching up to do!

Hmmm, looks interesting. I've registered - seems there's already a Bagpuss, so if you see Bagpuss42 wandering around, that's me.

The muses list is still running??

yes

Hey, I'm a muse aren't I? Spurious Logic if I recall correctly.

Happy Dude! Thank you for pointing me towards this.

Although, maybe I shouldn't thank you. I'll never have spare cash again with all the cards I'll be buying.

your welcome, although I only provided the link somebody else raised the subject

True, but you still provided the window of opportunity.

Payday! Time to buy one of those decks of cards.

I've still got two unsolved cards - better have a look at them, I don't want you catching me up.

Oh, don't worry. I'm no puzzle solver.

*Hastily hides his Infocom games behind the book case*

*pretends not to be looking things up using Google*

Eh. It's alright. I was a big fan of Invisiclues.

*Googles Invisclues*

For those who don't google and who come after: a type of hint book created for Infocom text adventurs where most of the puzzles are explained, but only if you use the magic marker that can unveil the invisible ink on the page. The kicker is: there isn't enough ink in the marker to find *every* solution, so you had to be ABSOLUTELY SURE That you wanted to know the answer.

Oh, those maniacs at Infocom. Always looking for new ways to make their fans paranoid.

Oh, genius (I only found a general description through Google). Mind you, in the 80s every other kids' puzzle book seemed to have one of those pens.

Yes, but how many of those puzzle books would have fake solutions to puzzles that don't exist in the game?

So many of the Invisiclues hints were actually designed to "look important" to trap people who decided to read the hints without getting to that point in the game. They frequently had long, involved solutions that, in the end, turned out to be nothing more than an excuse to waste the stuff in the magic markers.

I wonder if I should suggest that approach to UHS.

One of my favorite amateur text-adventures, Enlightenment, actually has a built-in hint system that can help the player solve the puzzles in a manner similar to Invisiclues. He even went as far as to program "fake hints" that people can read in the style of the old Invisiclues books.

HOW DO I PICK UP THE SWORD WITHOUT HARMING MYSELF?

1) WEAR ARMOR
2) WEAR BOOTS
3) WEAR HELMET
4) WEAR RUBBER GLOVES
5) PICK UP TONGS
6) PICK UP SWORD WITH TONGS
7) PUT SWORD IN SCABBARD

HOW DO I DEPRESS ALL THE BUTTONS ON THE INFERNAL MACHINE?

1) The buttons pop up if you stop pressing them.
2) Have you noticed that you can refer to several different parts of your body?
3) Have you noticed that you won't stop pressing a button until you do something that makes it impossible to?
4) PUSH LOWER-RIGHT BUTTON WITH RIGHT FOOT
5) PUSH LOWER-LEFT BUTTON WITH LEFT FOOT
6) PUSH UPPER-RIGHT BUTTON WITH RIGHT HAND
7) PUSH UPPER-LEFT BUTTON WITH LEFT HAND
8) STAND ON TIPPY-TOES
9) STICK OUT TONGUE
10) PUSH CENTER BUTTON WITH TONGUE