A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

As part of our interactive fiction unit, students in my intro to new media studies course recently spent some time with Douglas Adam and Steve Meretzky's classic 1984 IF Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was recently re-released by the BBC and subsequently nominated for a BAFTA award. You can play the game in two different editions online. The BBC also has a good interview with Steve Meretzky online. Hanna Wallach recently attended an event in London that featured Meretzy in conversation with another well-known IF developer, Michael Bywater, and provides an excellent two part write up on her blog. Part I, Part II. My favorite bit of Hanna's account:

One of the developers of the BBC’s relaunch of the HHGTTG game noted that Radio 4 had an interesting response to IF. When the idea for the HHGTTG relaunch was first suggested, they weren’t interested because they considered the piece to be a game. When they were told that the piece was actually interactive fiction, they decided that it was sufficiently literary, and went ahead with the relaunch!