Play BBC's 30th anniversary Hitchhiker's Guide adventure game

As a 30th anniversary celebration, the BBC has recreated the 1984 (and later 2004) text adventure game The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

It can be played on the BBC website now.

"The game is still the same wonderful piece of interactive fiction that Douglas Adams wrote and Steve Meretzky programmed, but in finding it a new home, a few changes needed to be made," the BBC explained.

An HTML5 adaptation enabled a larger, "handier" interface with additional keys and functionality, and the ability to tweet from the game.

"Then things started to get silly. Having covered the basics, we decided to slip in an 'Any' key, just because we could. The $, % and ^ symbols were replaced with new ones for the Altarian Dollar, Flanian Pobble Bead and the Triganic Pu, not because they are needed in the game, but just because we felt like it.

"We then decided that rather than having a simple functionality where the user could tweet, we would allow the game itself to tweet, based on the actions of users in the game.

"This was when the games' personality started to shine through. This may or may not prove to have been a good idea..."

The original Hitchhiker's Guide game sold more than 350,000 copies in 1984, but was knocked off its perch when graphical point-and-click adventures came along.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the IP, began as a radio comedy in 1978, before being adapted into books and stage plays, comics and yet more radio plays. There's a even a film starring Tim from The Hobbit.