I'm wondering now if Planetfall had any references to the sequel, Stationfall, in it. I'll have to go back and play it through again to find out.

Some of the story files have several revisions, and you may find the kind of references that interest you in older revisions but not later revisions. There are patches that allow you to transform any known revision into another.

You can decompile the story files with the TXD utility from Ztools, at least enough to get all of the story text into a (somewhat) readable form. However, if the references are subtle (i.e. the name is not specifically mentioned) then you wouldn't be able to do something simple like a string search on the TXD output; but it's not always easy to be an Infocom historian.

As far as I know, HHGTTG and Zork III are the only ones with references. In the case of Zork III, there were two or three rooms that you could visit if you were lucky enough with the transporter. In HHGTTG, it was obvious that it was supposed to continue on Magrathea. I think that Stationfall hadn't been started at the time that Planetfall was completed.

Maybe I'm thinking about an entirely different company's games? I'm pretty sure the reference I was reading about interactive fiction. It might have been a description of some kind of vision in a crystal ball?

There is a version of King's Quest II where you can see a preview of Space Quest, if I remember correctly.

Eureka! I have been informed that Beyond Zork did indeed have a crystal ball that foretold the sequel to HHGG.

This thread is making me sad. I miss Infocom.

Jorpho wrote:

Eureka! I have been informed that Beyond Zork did indeed have a crystal ball that foretold the sequel to HHGG.

Really? I certainly don't remember that, and I just looked through the text of Beyond Zork and find no references to even a crystal ball, let alone HHGG.
Perhaps Return To Zork (which I have never played)?

Return to Zork was post-Infocom, wasn't it? It wouldn't be there.

Where did you find the text of Beyond Zork?

Return to Zork had the Infocom label on the box but Activision may have just been using the name. I don't know if any actual Infocom staff were involved.

Jorpho wrote:

Where did you find the text of Beyond Zork?

I dumped it by using TXD (z-code disassembler).