(Continued from my previous post.)
Via the manual in a later Addison-Wesley edition. From the Museum of Computer Adventure Game History.
My first piece of progress since last time was fairly unique to the Hobbit-playing experience in general. Recall I had tested various versions of the game, including Macintosh and ZX Spectrum, before settling on the MSX version of the game. In the Macintosh version here is what it looks like at the start of the Misty Mountains (just east of Rivendell):
I was then informed (see above) there were exits going north, south, and west, and mapped things out appropriately. Even though I switched over to the MSX, I still had a partial map going and kept with that, not noticing that in the MSX version that same room had exits going north, south, west, and east.
But wait, it gets even stranger! I went back to check the Macintosh version again just in case, and this time the exit was there.
Sometimes it appears and sometimes it does not. This is not dependent on time; I’ve had it happen upon waiting and I’ve had it happen upon just making a beeline straight there. It is not dependent holding the map, looking at the map at any time during the game, or even having it physically present. This quixotic behavior seems to be a general feature of the game; I expected having the creatures running around with their own agents to cause chaotic effects, but I never expected sometimes to have an exit be possible and sometimes it just not be there.
I don’t know how to make progress otherwise; I can reach the sword, rope, large key (from the troll) and golden key (from randomly walking around the mountains) but otherwise can make no progress when the game is in this state. However, I am fairly sure there’s some intentionality going on because there’s a geographic exit later that does a similar disappearing trick.
Going east on the MSX version, through the exit in question. I don’t think FOLLOW ME actually does anything, or at least the companions only follow the command half the time, which matches roughly what happens when they just are left on their own.
My next map shot is most definitely a work in progress and there’s some cryptic spots I’ll clear up in context:
Passing by to the north is a “dry cave” with a “crack” — that will be useful later; for now we can pass further east until arriving at Beorns House.
Tolkien’s own illustration.
In The Hobbit Thorin’s group arrived at the hall needing aid after dealing with goblins (by this point in the game I hadn’t met any, I’ll meet many more later) and wargs (in game, I had seen one that got killed by Elrond). Quoting the Tolkien Gateway:
Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins approached Beorn while the dwarves waited. Sitting upon the veranda the wizard told their tale as pairs of dwarves arrived, thus holding Beorn’s interest and preventing him from shooing away a crowd of beggars. Beorn aided the company once he confirmed their story. Months later, at Yule-tide, Gandalf and Bilbo returned with Beorn after the Battle of Five Armies to Beorn’s Hall. There they stayed until spring when the wizard and the hobbit could recross the Misty Mountains on their way to Bilbo’s home.
Here, it’s just a room with some food. There’s no character interaction, nor does any character you bring in seem to do anything interesting while here. (Please note, however: any assertions I make about what characters can or cannot do is quite unsteady at the moment.)
There’s a “heavy curtain” revealing a cupboard and the cupboard has some food. Adding the curtain seems like overkill unless it is part of a puzzle somehow.
This place serves as a nexus to essentially four branches. I will take the north branch first, out to the Great River.
Farther past the Great River are some mountains and then a very curious direction that says THE PLACE IS TOO FULL FOR YOU TO ENTER.
I’ve left and come back multiple times with no luck. What’s even more baffling is I went back later with the Macintosh version and found it described as a “barren empty high place” with no exits other than the way back.
Southeast of the mountains is a room described as “forestriver”; trying to enter the river causes poor Bilbo to get rammed against a portcullis. I am assuming it is possible to raise this portcullis later for a possible route.
Rewinding back to our nexus and taking the northeast branch:
This is another part of truly disappearing geography, although less puzzling than the first. I have sometimes been able to go east and I assume a “wood elf” who appears sometimes is responsible for opening it; sometimes the wood elf additionally will toss Bilbo (and anyone else who happens to be around at the time) in prison.
No progress on an escape yet but I haven’t tried that hard, as I was working on a goblin cell instead you’ll see later.
On the occasion where I was able to bust through there was a “west bank” but the same sort of issue with the river came up. So let’s go back to the Nexus and take the south branch:
This leads to Mirkwood proper. Heading east eventually leads to a “waterfall” but I haven’t been able to see it for more than a moment because a spider comes down and has Bilbo for a snack. This is true even when invisible wearing the One Ring (spoilers! yes I managed to get the One Ring later).
Finally, back to the nexus, there’s the northwest branch, leading to “Goblins Gate”.
Inside is a big messy maze and I have not mapped everything out.
The main issue with mapping at least at the start was in some cases a goblin would nab Bilbo and toss him in the goblin dungeon. The dungeon has some “sand” with a trapdoor found via DIG SAND but the trapdoor is locked, and neither of my keys (large or golden) fit the lock. The trapdoor does not react to BREAK or similar verbs (at least as far as I could find); I was even inside with Thorin and having him whack the trapdoor didn’t help either. (SAY TO THORIN “HIT TRAPDOOR” actually works — it just doesn’t cause any forward progress.)
Here’s part of the map in progress, and I hope you understand why it won’t be helpful to show the whole thing yet:
Despite all the rooms being a “Dark Stuffy Passage” it does seem like the exits are unique; that is, if a room has exits northwest, west, and southwest, that’s going to be the only room in the maze like that. However, I really don’t trust that and it is so easy to befuddle things — especially with goblins randomly tossing the player in the dungeon — I’ve been having to check carefully just in case. I may have found the important things anyway. First of all, Gollum:
I tried SAY TO GOLLUM “SPACE” and got strangled from behind, which I guess means the answer was wrong.
Secondly, a certain golden ring which just happens to be lying around:
You can WEAR RING and it sort of seems to work. Here Gollum is acknowledging the invisibility:
However, goblins can still throw you in the dungeon even with it on (it ends up being “unworn” when this happens). I also wrapped back to a “goblin hall” that I had been unable to get to due to always being thrown into the dungeon while trying to enter but now the game just decides there isn’t an exit there anymore.
I managed to wander with the ring over to a “crack” and a goblin helpfully opened and went through the crack. I was able to follow, which dropped me right at the place west of “Beorns House” that I started at. Unfortunately, as I already mentioned, the ring doesn’t help with Mirkwood, nor does it help with either river. I think I have to get caught by the elves next so I’ll muck about there next time; the only catch is sometimes I don’t find an elf! I’m assuming some of the went the wrong direction and fell off into a river.
I’m not doing a general system evaluation yet, but look: the fact characters are somewhat inconsistent is interesting, but in terms of concrete gameplay, it’s just been a pain to deal with because I haven’t been able to predict anything. Sometimes — sometimes — I can kill a goblin with a sword, but that’s as far as I’ve been able to get with anyone.
I assume answering Gollum’s riddle(s) might get me something, but since I already have the One Ring and managed to escape, I’m not so sure about that.
Oh, and sometimes my items disappear for no reason. I had the golden key, now I don’t. Character took it, I assume, and dropped it somewhere? I’ve also had the One Ring just go poof on me once while running about outside but at least that feels thematic.
Hopefully more progress next time, and still, just as a reminder since many people know this game, no hints whatsoever, thank you. I’ve managed to be unspoiled for 40 years so I might as well enjoy the result now.
Renga in Blue 
Oh this confusing game. :D
If it comes before life and leaves after death, could it just be the air?
just says I DO NOT KNOW THE WORD “AIR”
Oh, dear…
I’ve long since forgotten whatever the riddle is supposed to be, but the way it kills you when you get what is the most obvious correct answer strikes me as needlessly obtuse. Have you tried logical synonyms? Void, emptiness, nothing.
Or, because you had the ring already, answering the riddle gets you attacked because Gollum would never let anyone go away with his precious?
I’ve been answering the riddle before getting the ring (that’s where my save file is)
void, emptiness, and nothing are not recognized words
only similar one is “empty” (which gets used for other stuff in the game) and it does let you say it and get killed
Have you tried DARKNESS?
just to be comprehensive:
works, doesn’t answer riddle:
space
empty
water
dark
darkness
light
wind
pause
A through Z (except X, Z)
not recognized:
nothing
life
death
dirt
earth
void
emptiness
love
hate
word
the letters X and Z
gas
beauty
good
evil
bone(s)
breath
sky
instant
moment
dot
circle
btw, one thing I _can_ do, quite easily, is KILL GOLLUM.
sort of the Zork Grand Inquisitor method of answering the riddle
I hope it’s not spoilery* to say that I’m pretty sure the canonical answer is on the “works, doesn’t answer” list, so something weird may be happening.
*anyway I’ve never played the game
Kind of a weird question, perhaps, since the book is so well known, but is it clear what we’re trying to do here? I mean, what the win condition will be? For the Infocom HItchhiker’s Guide I guess it is not at all clear that the game will end once you have reached point X, but the it’s very well sign-posted that you need to get through the thing just before what leads to that.
This reminds me a bit of The Mysterious Mansion Adventure, where you had a stated goal, but the way to win seemed to have nothing to do with that goal–just progress through puzzles until you get to the confined space where the only thing you can do is use the command that was clued (sort of) a while back, and you win for being a good puzzle solver even though it makes no sense in the story. Except here, maybe the victory will make sense in the story, but the puzzles are so chaotic that it may not be clear when you’re progressing.
It could be Gollum is fishing for a different way of the answer being delivered, but no luck with my parser experiments
re: goal, I’m not totally sure! My guess is that weird chest at the start (with nothing in it and that can’t be carried) is meant to store whatever thing we get from the dragon, except that you can’t actually go backwards into the Hobbit Hole after leaving, so dunno.
”Your mission is to seek out the evil Dragon and return the treasure he hoards back to your home and place it for safe keeping in the chest. As a secondary mission. you must look out after Thorin and protect him . Should he be killed during the Adventure, it is most unlikely you will be able to survive the dangers ahead of you on your journey!”
(from the Hobbit manual)
Never played the game nor looked at code/clues/hints etc.. But I do have a guess on the riddle answer. It may have even been the answer on a similar riddle the CRPGAddict encountered if I remember correctly.
This actually bugged me, so I looked it up in a walkthrough. Spoilers in rot13.
Gurl nyy fnl gb vtaber be xvyy uvz. Nyy bs gurz, abar zragvba na nafjre. Pnyy zr penml, ohg V jnag gb xabj, jung’f gur qrny urer? Vf gurer na nafjre be vf ur nyjnlf whfg tbvat gb ebgngr lbhe urnq guerr uhaqerq fvkgl qrterrf?
So weird not to see this played on the Spectrum.
Definitely no spoilers, but I’d say with the random elements in the game you sometimes you need to persist with certain actions.
I suspect at some point, when you’ve made more progress, you may play about with the Wilderland program that allows you to view the inner workings of the game. http://veronikamegler.com/WL/wl.htm
Like many people in the UK, The Hobbit was probably my first experience of playing an adventure game. I still have my original “Guide to Playing The Hobbit” book.
At the time The Hobbit could easily be described simultaneously the best adventure game and also the worst adventure game… with the reasons why it was considered the best being the same reasons why its also the worst! Thankfully, for my personal preferences, adventures moved away from the “simulation”/”living world” elements The Hobbit, if not pioneers, then lent heavily into.
Brace yourself. You’ll find copious references to The Hobbit in many, many UK adventures that came afterwards. Endless streams of parodies. Endless references to escaping from the Goblin’s Dungeon.
(I should point out that, despite myself and my father playing this game for probably a hundred hours… and having the guidebook… I don’t think we ever actually “completed” it.)
yeah, I have this one entire screen with me unsuccessfully bashing at the trap door
and then another one where it breaks open in three tries (I was experimenting with adverbs, which I think might do nothing, but maybe they twiddle the percent, not worth it for the typing time though!)
btw, I’m up to the dragon
probably update today but it might not land until tomorrow
hardest thing was I managed to get the item out of the goblin dungeon cell but I have no idea why I needed it
THE PLACE IS TOO FULL FOR YOU TO ENTER
According to the official clue sheet:
“The Place Too Full to Enter is a left over diagnostic which we used while debugging the program. We forgot to take it out after testing and it should be ignored.”
So the way to deal with a bug which prevents you from entering a room is … to ignore it?
Yeah, that’s not really dealing with the bug, is it? I look forward to actually getting to see the entire Guide.
I think there might be a random element to the riddle guessing, so that even if you give the correct answer, there is a chance that Gollum kills you anyway. In the version I played, Gollum used to give me a different riddle, the one usually attributed to the Sphinx about an animal with a particular number of legs in the morning, etc. If I don’t misremember, giving the correct answer to this one would usually mean Gollum let me live, only to immediately ask me the same riddle again and kill me when I gave the same answer a second time.
One does not simply walk through the front door into the dragon’s den… Oh wait, you did. :)
The key does have a use for a burglar like our hero; again see the source material. Or consult Elrond and Thorin; who when he isn’t sitting down and singing about gold tends to be swiping the key and wandering off, or telling you about its heritage.
One of the main issues with The Hobbit for me stems from the fact that it wasn’t trying to be a “traditional” adventure, in the way adventures were at the time. They wanted it to feel like a living, breathing world which you interacted with using “proper” sentences. Unfortunately to achieve the deception and create the world side of things it relied heavily on random elements. The “intelligent” characters only do what you ask them to when they feel like it. They’ll take things from you. They’ll wander off. They’ll get themselves killed. Random elements like the “pale bulbous eyes” add sudden deaths to places and largely are got around by making sure you wait to avoid them.
For those of us who like a predictable game, with a reliable solution where things either work or don’t work (rather than don’t work sometimes because of random elements but it’s not obvious that that’s the reason they don’t work) The Hobbit isn’t fun.
However, for many people it’s the best (and often only) adventure they’ve played because the thing that appeals to them is exploring that world, with everything seemingly alive and getting on with things without the player. They liked the unpredictability. The sense that every game was different, or at least you didn’t know what might happen next.
(As mentioned in a comment I made on a previous post, if anyone is interested in that side of things then there’s a program that allows you to simultaneously play the game and view what is happening with all the characters in the background).
And as I recall, due to the way the map abstracts space, characters who “wander off” may well wander clean across the continent.
Pingback: The Hobbit: Hero of Heroes | Renga in Blue