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Unlikely, but here nonetheless.

<span class="bold">Starship Titanic</span>, a long-lost Douglas Adams adventure, is available now for Windows, DRM-free on GOG.com.

Douglas Adams told a very brief story once, it took up one standard page at most, depending on whatever font was selected for the exact copy you might have stumbled upon at the library, your aunt's place or wherever it is that you browse through assorted bookshelves. This was just one of his very many stories, and while some were told before and some after, it was this particular one that just happened to inspire the proper person who just happened to be born at the right time, the right place, and was presently in the right kind of mood to make a video game.

This is the tale of a glorious, flying monument to humanity's rather presumptuous dominance over life, the universe, and everything. And this, is how the unlikely story of the Starship Titanic was born:






"The designers and engineers decided, in their innocence, to build a prototype Improbability Field into it, which was meant, supposedly, to ensure that it was Infinitely Improbable that anything would ever go wrong with any part of the ship. They did not realize that because of the quasi-reciprocal and circular nature of all Improbability calculations, anything that was Infinitely Improbable was actually very likely to happen almost immediately. The Starship Titanic was a monstrously pretty sight as it lay beached like a silver Arcturan Megavoidwhale amongst the laser-lit tracery of its construction gantries, a brilliant cloud of pins and needles of light against the deep interstellar blackness; but when launched, it did not even manage to complete its very first radio message - an SOS - before undergoing a sudden and gratuitous total existence failure." -- Douglas Adams in Life, the Universe and Everything.






A strikingly similar and perhaps slightly ironic, was the fate of the Starship Titanic - the game - which has also vanished from any understandable plane of existence. Only recently has it been located by a GOG.com user who goes by nothing more, and nothing less than tfishell. Thanks guy, for putting us in touch.

Embark on an improbable adventure aboard the <span class="bold">Starship Titanic</span>, DRM-free on GOG.com.
This one is totally new to me. I didn't realize that Adams did more video game work after the 80s! Looks pretty interesting.
To the wishlist it goes, for now! Great seing a clássico and semiobscure AdventureQuest game here.
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gloombandit: Just think you ought to know, we're all feeling very delighted.

Now, I'll just leave this beauty here.
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jorlin: Thank you so much for sharing this link. A brilliant speaker who actually has something to say. What a loss...
Indeed. He is well remembered and sadly missed by lots of us, even today.

There are a great many talks/interviews/PAs on YouTube that should appear with that page - I shall be busy watching those all week-end.
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Foxhack: *realizes he has the game, complete in box*

... wait a sec. This doesn't include the tape, does it? My copy came with an audio cassette. I think.
As an avid Douglas Adams collector, I'm very curious about what that may have been, though as I have two copies of the game (Windows and Mac) and neither include a tape - nor have I heard of such a thing before, I suspect that it may have been a local deal, rather than part of the general release of the game.

All the same, more info would be great!

.../Nemo
Yay! I still have my copy of this, but glad to see it's available in general again. I'd like to be able to get the Douglas Adams/Infocom adventures legitimately if there was any way that could be sorted out. Obviously Infocom's part of the ownership will reside with Activision, but I've no idea who or what else owns any other rights?
Way awesome, and thank you once again, tfishell.

It is so satisfying to see that wishlist votes and community effort can actually make a difference.

<3 GOG!
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SirPrimalform: Yay! I still have my copy of this, but glad to see it's available in general again. I'd like to be able to get the Douglas Adams/Infocom adventures legitimately if there was any way that could be sorted out. Obviously Infocom's part of the ownership will reside with Activision, but I've no idea who or what else owns any other rights?
On the evidence of http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-game-30th-anniversary-edition the BBC might have a finger in the pie somewhere.
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Post edited September 18, 2015 by Fairfox
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SirPrimalform: Yay! I still have my copy of this, but glad to see it's available in general again. I'd like to be able to get the Douglas Adams/Infocom adventures legitimately if there was any way that could be sorted out. Obviously Infocom's part of the ownership will reside with Activision, but I've no idea who or what else owns any other rights?
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VanishedOne: On the evidence of http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1g84m0sXpnNCv84GpN2PLZG/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-game-30th-anniversary-edition the BBC might have a finger in the pie somewhere.
Ooh, I thought they'd taken that down due to a licencing agreement expiring or something. Cool!

But yes, there's also the other game, Bureaucracy. I doubt the BBC has any involvement there as it was an original setting rather than HHG.
Post edited September 18, 2015 by SirPrimalform
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Kudos, Gog and tfishell! What a great game to add to Gog's library of classics.

For those who don't know, be sure to fiddle with the TV in the beginning scene for a cameo!
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nemothorx: As an avid Douglas Adams collector, I'm very curious about what that may have been, though as I have two copies of the game (Windows and Mac) and neither include a tape - nor have I heard of such a thing before, I suspect that it may have been a local deal, rather than part of the general release of the game.

All the same, more info would be great!

.../Nemo
Apparently the cassette tape included with some versions of the game is a sample of the audiobook.

You can find more infos about it on these sites:

http://web.archive.org/web/19980703012413/http://www.simonsays.com/titles/067157745X/index.html

http://www.giantbomb.com/starship-titanic/3030-4541/

http://www.discogs.com/Terry-Jones-A-Taste-Of-The-Audiobook-Douglas-Adams-Starship-Titanic/release/1631501
Oh man, I have so many memories of playing this when I was younger!
(I even read the novel from Terry Jones)
Great to see it here. :D
ahh cool, thank you.

I have all the HHG audio books as read by Adams, and the Starship Titanic book (hardcover from memory!), but appear to have missed that particular audiobook. I shall begin to hunt that down too :)


As a tangent to this, another game that Douglas Adams contributed ideas to was Labyrinth, though afaik he was uninvolved with development after the brainstorming stage.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth:_The_Computer_Game#Development]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth:_The_Computer_Game#Development[/url]
Sweet! Love obscure gems like this one. Never thought this would get a re-release! You guys continue to impress.