I’ll admit it: the only Infocom game I finished was Planetfall but if you need to read about the making of an unreleased Infocom game in the Douglas Adams Universe, has Andy Baio got a story for you. He apparently found a shared network drive from 1989 that was once part of the Infocom network. In it, he found email archives as well as the unreleased game, which is far from finished.
Programming guru Steve Meretzky and Douglas Adams worked on the sequel after planning a game called Bureaucracy, based on Adams’ experience trying to change his address. After they finished the game — without Adams’ help — they attempted to start up the sequels with little progress. The game production ended in a flame war and the game was never released, much to our detriment.
Andy’s article is both an examination of a beloved part of our collective nostalgia and a great look at the programming process. Check it out. You can even play the game here.