Starship Titanic Part 7

What we have here is a pretty comprehensive guide to help you on your way to solving the mystery that is Starship Titanic. We've outlined how to achieve certain objectives, indicated where you can find certain items and information, and given a brief resume of the characters. Once you've got your 1st Class upgrade it's up to you..

Mar 07, 2011  The reason is.the reason 0o. This video is unavailable. Watch Queue Queue. Seven years is a short time but the rate of change has been significant, and there is. Chapter 9 re-visits the issue of narrative and game in Starship Titanic.

Getting started

Your Lovely Home

Click on your Start button and select Programs/Starship Titanic/Play Starship Titanic. You will find yourself in Your Lovely Home, the first puzzle in the game (ie How To Start The Game - gettit?). If you move your cursor around the screen, you will see it change into different directional arrows. Clicking with the left arrow will move you left, etc. This is how you navigate throughout most of the game -simple point-and-click. Hint: to navigate more quickly, hold the shift key down as you click through the game. This will skip the animated transitions and page you through from view to view.

Turn around to face the computer on the desk. Click on the CD-ROM drive. Click-and-drag the top CD (with the Starship Titanic logo on it) into the drive. It will close and trigger the prologue of the game, in which you meet Fentible the DoorBot. Fentible will introduce himself and take you aboard. You're in good hands, so just do as he says.

The PET (Personal Electronic Thing)

Among other things, Fentible will hand you your PET, and show you how to use it for character interaction (CHAT-O-MAT mode) and inventory handling (PERSONAL BAGGAGE mode). The other modes, moving down the list of icons along the right, are: REMOTE THINGUMMY, which houses specific controls for different devices you'll encounter throughout the game; DESIGNER ROOM NUMBERS, with which you can store and recall specific locations throughout the ship; and REAL LIFE, which includes your basic Load, Save and Sound options and Exit controls.

Generally speaking, the PET is context-sensitive, and will page to the appropriate mode at the appropriate time. However, you can always switch modes manually (ie to summon a Bot and ask a question) by clicking on the appropriate mode icon at any time.

The Embarkation Lobby

Fentible will let you off into the Moonlit Embarkation Lobby. The ship is basically in stand-by mode, having vanished into hyperspace before it could pick up any passengers. You are the first. Navigate to the right until you face the 'plinth' - a pedestal with a big button on it, reading 'WELCOME TO THE STARSHIP TITANIC. PLEASE PRESS THE BUTTON FOR OPENING CREDITS'. Press the button for opening credits.You are returned to a fully activated Embarkation Lobby. Go over to the desk and click on the bell. You will meet Marsinta, the DeskBot. Talk to her - she'll check you in and give you your room. Stay and chat if you like.

Checking in

Marsinta has given you a Super Galactic Traveler Class state room - a fancy name for 3rd Class designed to make you feel better about being in steerage. Note that the DESIGNER ROOM NUMBERS mode of your PET shows the specific location of your assigned room, including class (3rd), floor number, elevator number, and room number.

Getting your 2nd Class upgrade

The Top of the Well

Exit the Embarkation Lobby through the big door to the left of the DeskBot. You'll be in the Top of the Well. Step forward and turn left so that you're facing a rotunda of immense marble columns. Take one step forward and:

• Turn LEFT if your room is on Elevators 1 or 2
• Turn RIGHT if your room is on Elevators 3 or 4

Move two steps forward, moving around the Well, and turn toward the centre of the Well depending on which side you're on. If you keep turning, you'll see that you're facing a pair of elevators. Step forward so that you're directly facing one of them. If you click to the DESIGNER ROOM NUMBERS mode of your PET. and click the 'chevron' code on the right, it will identify your current location and the number of the elevator you're facing.

The elevator

Navigate until you're facing the correct elevator, then click the REMOTE THINGUMMY mode of the PET. then click on the icon resembling the elevator, then on the button to 'call' the elevator. You'll be brought inside.

Once there, turn to the left to face Nobby, the LiftBot. Tell him what floor you want to go to and he'll take you there: 'my room', 'floor 38', '38. please', '38' or several other variations will all work. Stay and chat if you like.

Super Galactic Traveller Class

Each SGT floor has 18 different rooms on it. They're stacked six across and three high, and numbered in ascending order from left to right, as follows:

• Bottom level: rooms 1-6
• Middle level: rooms 7-12
• Top level: rooms 13-18

For example, if your assigned room number is 15, it's on the top level, third from the left.

The mini-lifts

(If you're staying in rooms 1-6, you can just go straight through the appropriate door marked SGT.) However, if you need to get to the middle or top level, you will have to take the appropriate 'mini-lift'. To do this, navigate to face the appropriate door (you can use the DESIGNER ROOM NUMBER mode to identify where you are in the starship), then turn right. First click on the cylindrical column which is jutting out from the wall. This will allow you to enter the mini-lift. Then click on the appropriate button to take you to the middle or top level.

The SGT puzzle

Enter your room. You will hear a message advising you to turn to channel 3 on the TV for a prize. How to get to the TV? Your room is so small that it's modular, and only certain combinations of furnishings can be accessed at any given time. The object here is to get the bed open with enough under it to support your weight so that you can climb on it to access the TV (which is peeking out in the upper left).

Notice that the PET has changed to REMOTE THINGUMMY mode, in this case providing controls for your SGT state room. Click on different items and then the switch to the right to toggle them open or closed. Solution:

• Deploy personal maintenance hub
• Deploy executive horizontal work surface
• Deploy fully recumbent relaxation device
• Inflate fully recumbent relaxation device

Now click forward to climb onto the bed, and again to zoom in on the TV. Select the TV on the PET to activate its controls. Click the switch to turn it on, then the up arrow twice to find channel 3. You'll get the 'WINNER' message, telling you to get the magazine from the Succ-U-Bus in the lobby.

The Succ-U-Bus

Climb off the bed and exit the room. (Take the mini-lift down to floor level if necessary.) Turn right and head to the end of the lobby, until you're facing a tinted glass cylinder. This is a Succ-U-Bus. These pneumatic tube delivery systems are located in every area of the ship. You can use them to send and receive game objects to and from specific locations.

Click on the glass to activate the Succ-U-Bus. It will slide open and he'll turn on. Chat with him if you like. (Note: The Succ-U-Bus is voiced by none other than Douglas Adams.) Switch the PET to REMOTE THINGUMMY mode and click on the Succ-U-Bus icon. The SEND and RECEIVE buttons will appear. Click on RECEIVE and he'll spit out a canister.

The in-flight magazine

Click on the canister to reveal the magazine and drag it to your PET. Exit the room and return to the elevator. Call it with your PET, and ask Nobby to take you to the Top of the Well. There, exit and retrace your steps back to the Embarkation Lobby. Click on Marsinta's bell to activate her.Hand her the magazine and she'll upgrade you to 2nd Class. Stay and chat if you like. Aside from your new 2nd Class state room, you now have access to:

• The Sculpture Chamber
• The Creators' Chamber
• The Bar
• The Music Room
• The Promenade Deck

Getting your 1st class upgrade

The Sculpture Chamber

Exit the Embarkation Lobby to the Top of the Well, turn left again and navigate all the way around to the other end. Turn left and head up the stairs and through the door. You should see an enormous computer cable in the middle of the room. This is the Sculpture Chamber.

The Bots' Cellpoint settings

The Sculpture Chamber contains representative sculptures of each of the main Bots, each with levers on it which control the Bots' cellpoint - or behavioural - settings. When talking to the Bots in CHAT-O-MAT mode, you'll notice that the three crescent dials on the left-hand side of the PET flicker and fluctuate, and sometimes shift dramatically. These are the cellpoint indicators - kind of like mood rings for the Bots. When there's a dramatic shift, that particular Bot has dropped a cellpoint setting and changed behaviours -eg Fentible has fallen into 'forgetfulness' mode.

The DeskBot sculpture

Turn right and find Marsinta's sculpture (the third on that side). Click to zoom in on it. There are two levers - click on the lever on the left to crank it. Step away, then navigate back to the Embarkation Lobby. Activate Marsinta.You may recall that she wasn't exactly hospitable to you when you first checked in, but now you ought to notice a major shift in her mood (from 'discretion' to 'pleasantness'). Want an upgrade to 1st Class? All you have to do is ask: 'Can I have an upgrade?' or similar and she'll give it to you. Aside from your new 1st Class state room, you now have access to:

• The 1st class Restaurant
• The 1st class Canal
• The Arboretum

Right, so that's more than enough help to send you on your way. Good luck exploring the rest of the ship.

The Charters

The robots on board the Starship Titanic are not ordinary bots, they're genuine 'personality transfer' robots, the result of deep and very costly brain scans designed to produce Bots that behave like people (without the unpleasant bits).

Fentible The Doorbot

Long, long ago, Fentible's personality was a senior partner in a law firm. Amiable, charming and trustworthy, he was perfect material to be copied into the DoorBot - apart from the occasional bouts of forgetfulness and the rather surprising mood swings!

Krace The Bellbot

When Starlight Travel bought Krage's personality, they couldn't have made a bigger mistake. You're only supposed to have your brain scanned once, but his sneaky real-life counterpart has found a way to do it once a week, so that he can use the money to finance all sorts of dodgy habits. Krage's idea of heaven would be driving an open-top down an ocean highway - surfboard on the back, BabeBot in the front, six-pack in the cooler, and one of those romantic lime-green sunsets to look forward to!

Fortillian Bantoburn O'perfluous The Barbot

Fortillian's personality has run bars all over the galaxy, but like most members of the Blarghish race he remains stubbornly and romantically Blarghish - one day he's going to return home to Blarghland and buy a little pub out on the stormy West Coast. Most of the time he's charming and funny - the perfect barman. Catch him in the wrong mood, however, and he'll either talk you into an early grave or beat you to death with sarcasm, satire or just plain insults. But then isn't that what barmen are for?

Nobby The Liftbot

Like thousands of lift operatives the galaxy over, Nobby was once a soldier. He's no longer sure which war he fought in (he's seen so many action movies he gets confused), but he knows he did because he came home without an arm. Nobby's had every illness in the book and is determined to let you know the details. Traveling with Nobby is torture unless you have a deep interest in military history or the secret workings of the body.

Marsinta Drewbish The Deskbot

Normally it takes years to teach prospective desk clerks that unnerving, shriveling 'who is this worm that desires to stay in my hotel' expression. Marsinta was born with it. She can hear a mini-bar being raided at a thousand yards. If she caught you at checkout with a complimentary shampoo, you'd be body searched and tortured 'til you admitted all the other offences. Persuade her that you're actually rather important, however, and she'll purr, go into fawning, ingratiating overload and start mumbling phrases such as: 'How may I make your sojourn exquisite?', 'A Platinum upgrade is not good enough for you' and 'I am unworthy to check you in, oh honorable passenger'.

Shorbut Sweet The Succ-U-Bus

Normally, you get paid when you donate your personality - the 'better' the personality, the more money you get. When Shorbut offered up his, they looked at it for a couple of minutes then told him not to worry, they'd take it away for free. Shorbut's always worked in muck and he's always worked in the bowels of planets. Being a Succ-U-Bus is a promotion. But it hasn't gone to his head -he hates his work, he hates life, he hates being disturbed. He does like sleep and chickens, but nobody knows why.

Starship Titanic is a computeradventure game designed by Douglas Adams and made by The Digital Village. It was released in 1998. It takes place on a starship of the same name which has undergone 'Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure' and crash landed on Earth on its maiden voyage (in an allusion to the 1912 disaster involving the real-world RMS Titanic).

The player acts the part of a human (whose house the starship crashed into) who goes aboard to help fix the ship, and must solve puzzles to collect the parts of the sabotaged onboard computer, Titania. Once all the parts have been collected and inserted in the correct places, Titania comes alive and talks.

Gameplay[editedit source]

One of the most significant parts of the game is the conversation engine (dubbed 'Spookitalk') used to interact with the robot staff on board the ship. Players type what they wish to say into the Personal Electronic Thing (PET) at the bottom of the screen. The robots' responses appear as text in the PET and are also spoken. The conversation engine works by interpreting user input and selecting relevant pre-recorded speech responses.

The Spookitalk engine was developed exclusively for the game by creator Douglas Adams and several programmers from The Digital Village, the company working with Adams to develop the game. The engine has the ability to converse with the player in an almost lifelike manner, partially because it incorporates over 10,000 different phrases, pre-recorded by a group of professional voice actors. The recorded phrases would take over 14 hours to play back-to-back.

A feature of the game and the starship itself is the 'Succ-U-Bus', a communications system which moves physical containers through a network of tubes by vacuum. Messages and objects can be placed in the containers, and the system is used to deliver items to the player from other locations. The name of the system is a play on the word 'succubus'. Similar systems called pneumatic tubes exist in the real world; for example, those used by supermarkets to offload cash from tills to a secure area.

Among the voice actors for the game are former Monty Python members Terry Jones as the Parrot, and John Cleese (under the pseudonym of Kim Bread, itself an in-joke as this was the nickname John Cleese wished to be credited as when appearing in a Doctor Who serial written by Douglas Adams) as the Bomb.^[1] Adams himself is the voice of the Succ-U-Bus, and plays the part of the ship's creator, Leovinus, in one of the closing scenes. If you turn on the television in the prologue of the game, Douglas Adams will appear and tell you to get on with the game.

Visual style[editedit source]

Starship Titanic features a predominantly Art Deco style in its architectural design, as well as in the design of its robotic characters and ship components. Much of the stylized concept art is credited to Oscar Chichoni, an Oscar-winning Argentine illustrator who specializes in highly-detailed, mechanical subject matter, and Isabel Molina, a registered British architect. The two formed a creative design partnership in 1994, and served as the concept and design directors for the game.

Related media[editedit source]

A novel entitled Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic, based on the game, was written by Terry Jones. The book follows a group of three humans who are taken aboard the Starship when it crashes on Earth and returns to the planet Blerontin where it was launched, with various subplots including an onboard bomb, a love-triangle between the characters, and an attempt to commit insurance fraud by the investors in the ship.^[2]

The Starship Titanic and 'existence failure' were first mentioned in Life, the Universe and Everything, the third book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 'trilogy'. This may suggest that the game takes place in the same fictional universe as the Hitchhiker's Guide stories. However, details regarding the ship's construction in Life, the Universe and Everything do not match those in the novel Starship Titanic. If a player in Starship Titanic mentions characters or quotations from the Hitchhiker's Guide series, the game will accuse the player of mixing up different universes.

Prior to the game's release, the publishers launched a web site purporting to be that of an intergalactic travel agency called Starlight Travel, which in the game is the Starship Titanic's parent company. The site combined copious amounts of Python-esque writing (by Michael Bywater) with methods commonly associated with alternate reality games to generate interest in the site, and in the game, long after the initial site visit. A typical example of this occurred when a site visitor filled out a personal information form, including email address and 'favorite frog' (from a convenient - and long - drop-down list); approximately one week later, a spam email for something other than Starlight Travel would arrive, and would include a reference to the specific frog that the visitor had selected. Another example involved a series of three emails; the first called the reader's attention to a password-protected area of the Starlight Travel site, the second urged the reader to delete unread any future emails, as confidential information was being erroneously emailed, and the third revealed the confidential password for the restricted site: '1'.

The Doctor Who 2007 Christmas Special 'Voyage of the Damned' takes place on a Starship by the name of Titanic (in fact, the original working title for the episode was 'Starship Titanic'^{[citation needed]}); this episode has several references’ to Douglas Adams' writings, including several key plot line similarities between the episode and ones used in the game and book. However, Douglas Adams is not mentioned in the credits.

See also[editedit source]

References[editedit source]

1. ↑Wish You Were Here, The Official Biography of Douglas Adams, Nick Webb, p. 326.
2. ↑Jones, T. and Adams, D., Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic (1997) London: Pan Macmillan Publishing

External links[editedit source]

• 'Starship Titanic' at MobyGames
• Douglas Adams on Infinite MHz - Douglas Adams Interview from 'Infinite MHz'