[rchase]

Quite challenging.

That game is impossible to solve without spoilers, so far as I'm concerned. And lord knows I tried. As far as Infocom goes, the only ones I managed to solve unassisted were Zork I and II and Planetfall, all of which are considered on the easy end of the spectrum. The later games were much more complex. Along with HHG2TG, Lurking Horror was really difficult too.

Tons of fun all of them, though.

Gosh I miss my C64.

[SoSoRoCoCo]

H2G2 was medium difficulty compared to Starcross and Deadline, it just required patience. And MAN was it satisfying to win as a 13 year old. Long before accomplishments were measured in twitch response rather than deductive logic.

Spellbreaker, OTOH, was potentially impossible. It had two puzzles early in the game that were solvable by irreversible methods that made the game unwinnable. (One was casting Girgol to stop time allowed you to solve the Ogre puzzle, but you needed that spell at the very end, can't recall the other).

[Apocryphon]

How were you even supposed to get past the initial room in the Vorgon ship without a guide?!?

[ghaff]

I really liked Planetfall and it's one I made it through to the end without too much help (also pre-walkthroughs/pre-Web). Steve Meretzky was the author of both that and Hitchhikers--the latter with Adams of course. I also really liked his A Mind Forever Voyaging but that's probably closest to an interactive novel that Infocom ever did; the puzzle content is fairly light.

[spc476]

Interesting. I found Planetfall moderately difficult, but the Lurking Horror was easy (I almost finished it first time I played it---I think it took me two sessions). A friend of mine played HHG2TG (I never did) and almost gave up on it.