Play The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Online

I first played The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on MS-DOS back in the 1980s; it was published by Infocom in 1984. This text adventure fit right in with the era’s command line games, where imagination filled the gaps left by simple text descriptions. You start as Arthur Dent, an ordinary human whose house is about to be demolished to make way for a bypass, and things only get stranger from there.

You control Arthur by typing commands like “get towel” or “ask Ford about Vogons,” navigating screen by screen through a universe full of unpredictable humor and peril. The main goal is simply to survive, though the game delights in thwarting you with sudden, ridiculous deaths and puzzles that require lateral thinking. You interact with items like the Electronic Thumb and the perilous Babel Fish, while constantly consulting the in-game Guide for sarcastic advice. Progress is slow and often frustrating, but each small victory feels earned. Playing it is like being part of an interactive comedy where the universe is actively working against you.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".