> > Even if you don't solve the Babel Fish puzzle within the time limit, you can still get to the Heart of Gold, but you can't get any farther because you can't communicate with any of the characters.
> >
> > 10"Likes how AGL games are 'fair'"Kan
>
> Actually, the real problem is that you need the Babel fish to do something with the case and the atomic vector plotter. But the point is moot--without the atomic vector plotter, you can't do anything on the Heart of Gold (I think) and without the Babel Fish, you can't get the atomic vector plotter. And there are things earlier in the game that you are unlikely to figure out until you have done stuff later in the game, meaning that you need to replay the game to take advantage of that knowledge. Unless you have fed the dog, you have no idea what I'm talking about. :-)
>
> Don "Likes AGL games too, but those old Infocom games have their own charm..." Monkey

(Warning: possible spoilers, even though I've tried to eliminate any puzzle solutions from this post; even so, I thoroughly spoiled myself on this game and felt it didn't reduce my enjoyment; it's not that kind of game)

To be perfectly fair, you *do* get a second chance to feed the dog, in the Earth mini-scenario (one of the mini-scenarios you go to from the HoG). In fact, IIRC, once you get to the HoG, I think there's no way to permanently die or render the game unwinnable, since a death or "bad ending" in one of the mini-scenarios just sends you back to the HoG; notable exceptions are one *very* cruel trap laid in the Earth scenario (the reasoning makes sense, at least if you see it from Adams' POV, but it's still incredibly unfair) and, of course, the big ending puzzle, where it's possible to skip the most crucial part of the game without knowing it and trap yourself forever. (The idea is that you're supposed to try to figure out what all the fluff is for before you try to leave the ship, but, since the fluff wasn't *in* the original book and the original book continued for quite some time after the landing on Magrathea, I had no reason to think that that was the logical sequence of events and got myself well and truly stuck before figuring it out. The game doesn't even give you any sort of warning that you won't get a second chance to do what Marvin tells you. Darn those Paranoid Androids and their sulks.)

Of course, those are two pretty big exceptions, and the procedure for retrying a scenario is very long and annoying, even *with* the shortcut you get after solving one of the puzzles. It was very much one of Infocom's most annoying games. But, hey, some would say that's part of their charm. Though I myself would like it if everyone followed the AGL/LucasArts/Adventions convention of "no deaths, no unwinnable situations, and nothing annoying for annoyance's sake".

Ar"Don't get me started on the Catacombs maze in Leather Goddesses of Phobos. And what was up with the Bank of Zork?"thur