Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

In the early 80s, Computer Concepts was a BBC Micro-focused company in the UK mostly known for applications and graphics software, like a Graphics Extension ROM and a LOGO package (LOGO being a beginner language specifically for making computer graphics).

However, just like any company getting their footing at the time, they threw out lots of products; this October 1982 ad emphasizes a word processor (Wordwise, we’ll come back to it) but also five games: Asteroid Belt, Chase, Chess, Reversi, and what the ad calls Hitch-Hiker’s Guide although the cassette box from the Museum of Computer Adventure Games just says Hitch-Hiker.

An adventure based on the characters of the book ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’. The aim of the game is to collect five specific objects that are located in such places as the ‘Restaurant at the End of the Universe’, Arthur Dent’s house and Betelgeuse Spacedome. The computer can understand plain English commands such as North, Shoot and Get. Clues (sometimes very subtle) are given that indicate the whereabouts of these objects or the method of getting to new areas or locations in the game.

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You might think this is another one of those companies that’s disappeared after producing a handful of dodgy games, but no, they actually did quite well for themselves because of Wordwise. A 1984 ad that mentions a change of address:

The Micro User, August 1984.

That second address is not a normal house. It is a full estate, one built between 1768 and 1773 that has its own Wikipedia page and was used as the set for movies. It was bought by (and still owned by) Charles Moir, who became very rich from his company.

Before Computer Concepts, Moir had been interested in electronics and he’d belonged to computer clubs. After he had finished school, he avoided university and was tinkering with his dad’s business instead. But aged 17 fate took a hand: Moir met Acorn founders Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry. By the age of 21 he’d written Wordwise programming in his bedroom.

Demand for those early machines exceeded expectations and sometimes supply: the BBC’s target for the BBC Micro, for example, was 12,000 units but in the end 1.5 million went to eager young geeks. BBC Micros sat in 85 per cent of British schools.

Moir tells us: “The BBC Micro became huge and the product I did, Wordwise, became very popular on the back of that. All of a sudden I was making a fortune much to the amazement of my parents, because I was 21.”

From the official estate website.

The company is still around as Xara and owned by a German company.

As far as the author of today’s game goes, Peter Smith, I haven’t found any evidence he had a special relationship with Computer Concepts. He was a math teacher who eventually went full time into software development. His other 1982 text adventure which we will be getting to (Time Traveler) was published by an entirely different company, Software For All. He later did children’s software through BBC Soft (the BBC’s own software house), with titles like Picture Craft, Maths With a Story and Through the Dragon’s Eye.

All this (from two people who either create or land with very respectable companies) makes the content of Hitch-Hiker even more puzzling, as this not only is it a unlicensed product of the Douglas Adams book, it rips in a minor way of a different company’s version of Hitchhiker’s! (This is still two years away from Infocom’s game.)

To back up and explain, we’ve had so far a 1980 version of Hitchhiker’s with the serial numbers crossed out (Galactic Hitchhiker) but for the obscure UK101 where it wouldn’t cause a fuss. We also had a made-with-permission-from-Pan-Books 1981 text adventure by Bob Chappell and published by Supersoft. Supersoft made the mistake of trying to republish the game in 1983 when people were paying more attention to these “electronic game” things, getting themselves a knock on the door from literary agent Ed Victor and a lawsuit. It was settled out of court (despite the letter giving permission) and Supersoft had to rename their game Cosmic Capers.

You might think that a company with deep pockets would also be a target, but Computer Concepts seemed to shy away from games when 1983 rolled around and the sweet word processor money started to pour in, so nobody paid their game much attention. (Compare with how the VisiCalc folks initially published Zork.) The game seems to be rather rare besides.

Supersoft didn’t make a fuss either, even though the opening room seems to be taken directly from their game:

The Five Artefacts Inn is not some sort of Hitchhiker’s lore, but rather simply the location the treasures go in Bob Chappell’s game. (It had an interesting take on “treasure” in the Hitchhiker-verse; a high-value check was not considered a treasure, but a towel was.) There’s also a “rubbish tip” early which shows up in the Chappell game…

…but that’s it. Things go in rather a different direction. For example, the Vogon is not actively trying to kill you. You can try to GET him and the game will say “I’m not getting that villian.I’d shoot him” but there’s nothing in the starting locations that suggests a weapon:

While Supersoft Hitchhiker’s was weirdly laid out I still got the impression of different specific zones; here I have no idea why we’d start next to a small dog, improbability drive, cut price cheese-cake at a intergalactic market, sparkling crystal, strong cup of tea, and pack of galactic peanuts. The level of surrealism isn’t quite up to Fantasyland but it’s nearing that level.

The only real obstacles are a “horrible hay monster” (GET MONSTER: “Sorry I’ve gotten hay fever”) and a warp transporter which says it uses crystals. That means, you would think, the crystal would apply for teleport (and maybe get this game kicked off but I’ve tried many, many verbs with no luck.

USE CRYSTAL, ENTER TRANSPORTER, POWER WARP, ENTER WARP, BEAM UP, THROW CRYSTAL, INSERT CRYSTAL, PLACE CRYSTAL, etc.

INSERT CRYSTAL at least has a prompt about what I want to insert, but typing CRYSTAL just gives no reaction. The game takes the standpoint of simply refreshing the room description if a command isn’t understood, with no hint if it was a verb problem, noun problem, or it just is deciding to be fussy.

I do think this parser has more chinks in the armor than Windmere Estate did so I expect to be able to break through for my next post.