Thu

Apr 17
2008

Marc Hedlund

Marc Hedlund

Waxy on "Infocom's Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker's" (playable samples included!)

Andy Baio strikes again:

From an anonymous source close to the company, I've found myself in possession of the "Infocom Drive" — a complete backup of Infocom's shared network drive from 1989. This is one of the most amazing archives I've ever seen, a treasure chest documenting the rise and fall of the legendary interactive fiction game company. Among the assets included: design documents, private emails, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made. For obvious reasons, I can't share the whole Infocom Drive. But I have to share some of the best parts. It's just too good. So let's start with the most notorious — Milliways: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the unreleased sequel to Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. For the first time, here's the full story: with never-before-seen design documents, internal emails, and two playable prototypes.

Man. Disclosure: I know and like Andy a lot, and I've already linked to him once this week. But come on. This is awesome.

What I like most about what he's doing with the Waxy.org site is that he's creating an interesting kind of online journalism. In an earlier entry this week he headlined a scoop "Exclusive:" and I told him I liked that -- it signaled that he wasn't just echoing things found on other blogs (what I'm doing now). He continues to find things that are new and interesting to the world in which he's writing, so unlike the echo chamber that so many others do -- which, he says, is just what he is trying to do. That's fantastic, and I'm really happy to see him, and support him, pursuing that goal.


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Comments: 3

  Brent [04.17.08 08:55 PM]

Thanks for posting this! I've cut back on the number of feeds I follow and I might not have seen this otherwise.

  Zwiebelmarkt [04.17.08 11:56 PM]

I'd loved to play the infocom games in the past. It's a pity new games never reach this quality of fun. I don't need huge masses of graphics and sound - if the core idea of the game is good enough :)

  Toby Boyd [04.18.08 04:25 PM]

Poignant to see that even twenty years ago teams of developers did an awful lot of complaining and buck-passing via email. But there's no doubt the whole trip down memory lane is swell. Now where is a torrent of The Infocom Drive?

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