BBC Radio 4 has an online edition of the old Microprose Infocom game The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
I played this game on my very first PC (a Corona PC clone with a massive 256K memory and two floppy drives). It was incredibly frustrating. I seem to remember dying a lot. I think that was the designer’s intent.
Update: Don’t know why I said it was a Microprose product, when the UI clearly states it was Infocom … senility setting in early, I guess.