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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.
Where's my towel? Always be prepared before starting an adventure!
This was one of those rare insta buys for me. I've always wanted to try this, so no excuses now.
I have the box copy of this game too, but I never got far and haven't played it much since shortly after I bought it (many years ago). I think Douglas Adams is best experienced in book or radio, but this is a worthy addition for a collector.
Awesome release, guys! I've never read the book or played the original game, but my attention was drawn to this hidden gem from this Kotaku article: http://kotaku.com/the-secret-douglas-adams-rpg-people-have-been-playing-f-1681986562 (yeah, I'm having trouble using the hyperlink tags in the edit box :P). I'll have to buy this as soon as all my bills are paid off.
Post edited September 18, 2015 by Gameslinger
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TheCycoONE: I have the box copy of this game too, but I never got far and haven't played it much since shortly after I bought it (many years ago). I think Douglas Adams is best experienced in book or radio, but this is a worthy addition for a collector.
Did it come with any feelies? Like a microscopic space fleet or a Titanic branded towel?
Did anyone realize this game's official website (http://www.starshiptitanic.com/) is actually still up?
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dennisjjunk: Did anyone realize this game's official website (http://www.starshiptitanic.com/) is actually still up?
. The [url=http://www.starlightlines.com]http://www.starlightlines.com/ domain linked from http://www.starshiptitanic.com/game/travel.html has lapsed, though, so the Employee Forum may no longer exist.
Such a blessing to see this available on GOG.
Never been able to make this game run on modern machines earlier, so I'm really looking forward to buying this!!

Sam
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ScotchMonkey: Did it come with any feelies? Like a microscopic space fleet or a Titanic branded towel?
I'm pretty sure mine only came with the 3 CDs in a large plastic jewel case and the manual. Foxhack thinks he got an audio tape with his but I am sure I would have remembered something like that. Maybe there were multiple runs or regional variations in what was included.
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I don't recall 3D glasses (I thought you could just use them in the final puzzle if you happened to own some), but I do think I remember an in-universe flyer besides the manual.
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VanishedOne: . The [url=http://www.starlightlines.com]http://www.starlightlines.com/ domain linked from http://www.starshiptitanic.com/game/travel.html has lapsed, though, so the Employee Forum may no longer exist.
As far as the employee forum goes, Gizmodo had a (semi-)recent article about it (at http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/01/the-secret-douglas-adams-rpg-that-people-have-been-playing-for-15-years/, and, thus, the employee forum is still up, just at a different domain (at starlightlines.net, instead of .com)
Post edited September 19, 2015 by dennisjjunk
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Fairfox: You can even still download the wallpaper zip files... although only for PC, not for Mac where the links are broken. Douglas Adams hated Mac CONFIRMED.

(Although joking aside he didn't like Mac, at least until the far-from-finished Mac OS X.)
I don't think it's fair to the non-Douglas Adams fans to claim joking aside, and then keep joking. Douglas was a huge fan of the Macintosh from 1984 forward (he claimed to have bought the first Macintosh in the UK)

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Fairfox: It seems to run well, at least for me; for someone who also bought it and, like, knows things about computers, can anybody here let me know how they think GOG managed to get it to run? It doesn't use DOSBox, of course, and it obviously doesn't use nGlide or anything like that.
I'd guess that it was a matter of writing a patch to handle modern display driver needs.

For the record, here are the original patches http://www.starshiptitanic.com/game/patches.html (some/all of the actual patches behind the links may not work. I haven't tested, though I have local copies of some of them)

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Fairfox: I thought it came with the strategy book and a pair of 3D glasses.
My Windows copy came with the 3D glasses, but not strategy book. it may not have been released at the time the game was first released - though that's speculation on my behalf. My Mac copy came with both.