I'm glad all of them are back because recognising the importance of preservation doesn't have to go hand-in-hand with celebrating every piece of the past as if it's a marvel.From the minds of Douglas Adams ( The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ) and Terry Jones (Monty Python) comes Starship Titanic, the hilarious novelization of the third-best adventure game of 1999.Īt the centre of the galaxy, a vast, unknown civilization is preparing for an event of epic the launch of the greatest, most gorgeous, most technologically advanced spaceship ever built – the Starship Titanic.Īn Earthling would see the ship as something really, really big, but rather less provincial onlookers would recognize it as the design of Leovinus, the galaxy’s most renowned architect. Interesting, yes, and a lovely piece of history, but stubbornly difficult and not as funny as you might expect. Sadly, I don't think it's a particularly good old game. I was chuffed to bits with it but didn't expect I'd be writing about the game ten years down the line rather than about very serious literary theory. It was a time in my life when everyone else was buying me very serious books about literary theory and Starship Titanic, in a battered old box, stood out somewhat. I had a copy at one point - somebody bought it from a charity shop as a birthday present when I was in my mid-twenties. The raising of the Starship Titanic is one of GOG's archaeological undertakings, the likes of which we covered in detail recently. "This is the tale of a glorious, flying monument to humanity's rather presumptuous dominance over life, the universe, and everything." 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. "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. Whatever the case, I know I either enjoyed Al-Qadim or persevered with it because I completed it and that was a rare thing.Īnd then there's Starship Titanic, which is the second Douglas Adams' game I played, the first being Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide text adventure. If anyone knows which collection Stronghold cropped up in, we might get to the bottom of this mystery. Any idea what I'm talking about? Al-Qadim was in the AD&D Masterpiece Collection but Stronghold was not. Wikipedia says not, which means it must have been a different collection - I think I had two, one containing some of the Gold Box games and one with Stronghold, the Dark Sun games and Al-Qadim. I'm fairly sure I bought it as part of the same Masterpiece Collection. No idea how it holds up but it's a fairly unique entry in the D&D world.Īl-Qadim is a mystery to me. Even so, I remember the interface being almost indecipherable and the graphics being a bit cack. It's a real-time strategy game, though more Civ than Command and Conquer, and I thought it was the bee's knees. It was the perfect game for that time though because it didn't have a story with a beginning, middle and (most dreadful of all) an end. I loved Stronghold but it's worth remembering that I played it at a time in my life when I pretty much had to love every game I owned, because I had to save up for months to buy the next one. And, last but not least, Starship Titanic, the game wot Douglas Adams did. Then there's Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse, a D&D-inflected Arabian Nights puzzle-adventure.
The game I remember as Stronghold has been released as D&D Stronghold: Kingdom Simulator, presumably to avoid Firefly-related confusion.
Three releases yesterday all gave me reason to reflect on sometimes misspent and sometimes well-spent youth. GOG are still capable of serving up a dangerous dose of nostalgia from time to time.
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