A tiny slice of my childhood for you.

When I was a child, I was a real nerd - not that this should come as a surprise, mind you. I played chess, was likely the worst soccer goalie in the history of the sport, and read science fiction novels by the box-load. However, amongst the many tomes of fantasy and sci-fi novels I read was a series by Douglas Adams titled The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.


Some of you are no doubt familiar with the title. Maybe some of you actually read the tongue-in-cheek comedy series when you were growing up. Perhaps a few of you saw the movie adaptation that came out about three years ago (which is not bad, honestly). Regardless of whether or not the novels are familiar to you, they have always had a real cult following through the years. Truth be told, there was even a video game adaptation created in 1988.


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Video Game came around in the era of text-based adventures. Far before the Nintendo hit American shores and every five-year old was playing Mario/Duckhunt, fans of Douglas Adam's hit novels were playing an interactive version of the first book in the series. In the game, the player plays through the game by giving instructions to it. For example, in the first scene the player is in pitch black room. By typing in "turn on light," the player continues forward.

So why am I mentioning all this to you? Well, BBC Radio 4 has created a new version of the classic game in honor of the 20th anniversary of the first book. It's web based, so there's no downloading necessary. This version of the game even gives the player a visual representation of where they are in the game. I really recommend that you give it a try. Who knows, you might even have a chuckle or two.