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Game Technical FAQ

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game 30th Anniversary Edition Technical FAQ

Where’s the 20th Anniversary Edition gone?

The old Radio 4 servers have been demolished to make way for a hyper fast cloud based system. The 20th Anniversary Edition game is currently drifting in the ether holding its breath and sticking its thumb out.

Where have all the public games I saved on the 20th Anniversary Edition gone?

They're back! More than a quarter of a million of them! If you can what you called your saved game, just type restore, enter and the name of the game and you can resume play from where you left off only months ago.

What if I can't what I called my public game?

Even if you get it wrong, it won't count as a turn, so there's no harm in having a guess. Even if you didn't save one in the first place.

So I should just type a game name in at random? Seriously?

Why not? What's the worst that could happen? OK, so yes, you might be instantly killed and it's probably a good idea to save where you got to before you do so, but after that, there is literally no reason not to.

Can I resave my public game once I've restored it?

Not as a public game; the Radio 4 servers they were stored on no longer exist. You'll need to save them again locally.

I've restored a saved game, my moves and score have changed, but my awards are the same. What's going on?

Your score and moves depend on where you are in the current game, which is the one you've restored. Awards are awarded to you for something you've done, and are not restricted to a single game, there are many awards for the different ways you can be killed in the game and making awards persistent means you can collect more than one of these. If you restore a game where you're close to the end, you may get the points, but you won't pick up all of the awards you would have got along the way.

Public saved games are all very well and good but about my private saved games from the 20th Anniversary Edition? Where are they?!

Don't worry, they're safe. Extremely so. The game promised never to reveal the names you'd saved them under to anyone, and it's being absolutely true to it's word. Unfortunately that means we can't access them either.

And where have my 30th Anniversary Edition saved games gone?

The server housing the saved games became old and unsteady, and was retired to run a Speak & Spell in its dotage. When it left it took all of those saved games which were not retrieved to local storage with it.

But I can save and restore games on the 30th Anniversary Edition though, yes?

Yes! You can then the commands 'Save' and 'Restore' at any point in the game to save and restore games, and they will be stored on the device you're using. This means that a game saved on your home computer won't be available on your mobile and vice versa.

Hey! Why can't I see any images when I'm playing on my mobile?

To echo the original version and to minimise data use, images don't appear by default on a mobile. If you miss them, just type VERBOSE and you'll give the game license to add in all the pretty pictures it desires. If your tastes are more minimalist, just type TERSE and you'll be back to text only.

Hey! Hey! Why can't I tweet from my tablet or mobile?

Complicated technical reasons.

Hey! Hey! HEY! Why doesn't my brand of tablet work at all?

Even more complicated technical reasons.

Hey! Hey! Hey! HEY! Why doesn’t my Bluetooth keyboard work?

You’ve got an iPad, haven’t you?

Yes, how did you know?

It’s complicated. And technical. And because of the reason.

I don't believe you! I think you're just jealous that I've got a tablet.

That's not a question.

Isn't it?

No.

OK, are you going to do anything about these complicated technical reasons?

Yes.

When?

Soon?

You don't seem too sure, how soon is soon?

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so, and since our developers have gone off for a celebratory lunch following the release of the high score tables, the definition of soon may be even more flexible than usual.

What if I have a question that isn’t on this FAQ?

You could try asking @h2g2game.

Aren’t you @h2g2game?

No.

The Game - 30th Anniversary Edition