I found The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game to be almost as frustrating as the other games that we’ve played (Galatea, Zork, Adventure, etc), but it differed from the others in a few ways which making the game more enjoyable to play.
First of all, unlike the other games, there are graphics that accompany the game, which helps you to figure out what is going on and what is in front of you. In the other games, you have to blindly guess, or map out everything so that you can figure out where you are and where you need to go. Not only that, but you can also see what objects you are carrying with you, so that way you don’t forget what you have. There is also a little compass that you can click to decide what direction you want to go in, so that you don’t have to type each command (walk north, walk east, etc) out every time.
Secondly, if you die (which I did, many times) it gives you "hints" as what to do the next time around, so if you replay the game, you know what to do – and what not to do – the next time around.
What is still frustrating is that you have to type in commands, and if you don’t use the right words or phrases which the computer recognizes, you won’t get anywhere. Half of the frustration of these types of games is the fact that you have to figure out how to word your commands in a "language" that the computer understands. The other half is actually figuring out how to win the game.
This game (Hitchhiker’s Guide) makes it easier to figure out which commands to use, because if you ‘click’ on an object, it will tell you what it is called (robe, thing, phone) so that you won’t use another word that it won’t recognize (bathrobe, present, telephone). That helps eliminate a lot of confusion about which words to use.
However, the fact that you still have to type in commands to move your character around detracts from the fun of this game. Like the other games we’ve played, I played this game a few times, and after having the computer reject my commands so many times, I gave up out of sheer frustration.