(Continued from my previous posts.)
While I’ve made a fair amount of progress I’ve also hit two points that make me wonder if the game is too buggy to complete. Updates to the map are shown in red:
This doesn’t look like much compared to the overall map, but keep in mind the vast majority of the rooms are “filler” rooms like “you’re following a north-south trail” or “You’re wandering aimlessly through north-western Middle-Earth.” The southeast corner (starting to encroach onto Mordor territory) is denser than elsewhere.
Let’s start with Gollum and the riddle game. He gives the same riddles as in The Hobbit, but then kills the protagonist if a.) they don’t have the One Ring yet or b.) they try to get away. KILL GOLLUM was doable but this left me stuck in Moria. I was mostly getting thrown awry by the lack of a WEAR verb; in the spots where it is useful (and only in those spots) USE RING will work.
USE RING
You’re now wearing of One Ring of Power.Gollum curses as he runs right past you.
Unknowingly he leads you to the eastern exit of the mines of Moria.Towards the east you discover light, as in daylight!
Crouched in front of the exit sits Gollum, wting…
KILL GOLLUM
Gollum’s now dead.
(Bots incidentally said that any typos in the original have been left in the current version, so “wting” is authentic early 80s typing.)
I’d like to say this is the last of me dealing with Gollum, but there’s a part that made me think perhaps I was still doing this wrong. But for now, it’s possible to trek out to the Balrog, and (after some major verb-hunting) I came across HIT BRIDGE as the solution.
E
The Ring slips from your finger.You’re standing on the bridge of Khazad-dum, facing the mountains.
A huge black shadow with a heart of fire materializes in front of you!HIT BRIDGE
There’s a blinding flash of light.
A deep pit opens up in front of you.With a stonesplitting cry the Balrog vanishes in the abyss.
E
You’re passing through the Dimril Dale.
It’d be nice if the ring summons ringwraiths so I could mop them up with the sword, but alas, it behaves more like the ring from The Hobbit. Keeping in mind what was seen at the Mirror of Galadriel, I next went over to Mirkwood and Dol Guldur.
While at the entrance, you can USE RING to sneak inside, and find a dead dwarf in the dungeon.
USE RING
You’re now wearing of One Ring of Power.The guards do not see you.
ENTER
You find your way through a labyrinth of chambers and corridors.
Finally you reach the Tower’s deepest dungeon.
On the floor you see the remnants of what once was a noble Dwarf.Among the dust and bones shimmers a golden ring.
GET RING
It’s yours now.LEAVE
The guards do not see you.
One Dwarf-ring down, six to go. The fact at least one isn’t hidden in Moria makes me think they might be more spread out than I expected. Other than that ring, my inventory from this point has “a bow and 14 arrows”, “4 Men-rings”, “the One Ring of Power”, “the green jewel you found on the road”, “a tiny key”, “the mithril-coat from under the Mountain”, and “the sword from the Barrow-downs”. (The where-you-found feature is actually quite nice and I can’t think of other adventure games offhand that do that!)
With the Balrog taken care of it was time to explore more extensively past where I had met Treebeard. I incidentally discovered at the boat which has a long rope that you can just ignore the boat-ride aspect and take the rope (more on that later).
South of the Ent area is a corpse with a red arrow.
At your feet lies the beheaded corpse of a warrior.
The mutilated hand is still holding a red arrow.
Just southwest of the red arrow is the fortress of Rohan.
You’ve reached Dunharrow, fortress of Rohan.
The red arrow you carry is taken from you.
It’s the sign that Minas Tirith is in great danger!
The host of Rohan is prepared to follow you to the east.
(You actually want to wait on grabbing the red arrow and pass through the first time here, but we’ll come back to that.) This is another “you’ve gained a follower” type message although in this case you actually see the riders coming behind you as you go east.
You’re travelling through Anorien, north of the White Mountains.
The Rohirrim are riding with you.
E
You’ve reached Druadan forest.S
You’re passing through the Druadan forest.It’s inhabitants, the wild Woose, lead the host over secret paths
to Minas Tirith.You’re on the field of Cormallen.
Here a great battle is fought.
The Riders of Rohan charge the enemy from the north.
For a moment the powers are balanced.Then a black fleet appears on the Anduin. The Corsairs of Umbar are coming!
The Western forces are outnumbered many times.
Minas Tirith is destroyed.
Only you manage to escape the onslaught.
If you head southwest from here, you can have an unfortunate encounter with the Corsairs.
You’re at the Mouth of the Anduin.
The Black Fleet of the Corsairs has gathered here.
Fierce men suddenly jump from their hidingplace and grab you!
While the riders aren’t able to go down and take care of the Black Fleet, there is another group that can: the Oathbreakers. Now we get back to where I said it’s better to skip bringing the arrow to the fort the first time through; that’s because you can pass into a cave and find the ghosts of the Mountain-men who broke an oath to their king and were cursed. So now we’re Bilbo, Frodo, and Aragorn all at the same time!
You’re standing in front of a cave.
ENTER CAVE
After a seemingly endless journey through the whispering dark
you are out in the open again.You’ve reached the Black Stone of Erech.
ASK HELP
From who?SUMMON GHOSTS
A distant voice answers you:
We shall follow you until our oath is fulfilled.
As far as I can tell, the exact command SUMMON GHOSTS is the only way to make this work (possibly the most extreme moment of book knowledge needed yet — at least Tom Bombadil gives his name if you hit the scenes in the right order and think to use CALL HELP).
Movie version of the Oathbreakers.
Now it is safe to pass by the Corsairs…
You’re at the Mouth of the Anduin.
The Black Fleet of the Corsairs has gathered here.
The men flee in panic with death at their heels!
Having fulfilled their oath, the Dead vanish.
…but only once, because if you leave and come back (or even just use the LOOK command) there are people left over that grab you.
Fierce men suddenly jump from their hidingplace and grab you!
That would normally be fine (as you don’t need to hang around) but there’s no effect on the big battle with the Riders either.
Then a black fleet appears on the Anduin. The Corsairs of Umbar are coming!
This honestly feels like an outright bug? The death-message does change so maybe you need a second wave to mop up the Corsairs, but this entire section is confusing; and maybe the result of everyone dying was intended, and there’s no better result? That means there’s no point in summoning the Oathbreakers at all, then.
Official WETA figurine of Minas Morgal.
Once past the battle, you can visit the Ruins of Osgiliath and beyond; one of the ringwraiths is down at Minas Morgal…
You’ve reached the haunted city of Minas Morgul.
A tall black ringwraith materializes in front of you!
KILL
With a ghastly cry the ringwraith falls.
Among the now shapeless garments you discover a golden ring.
…and nearby is “Sheloop”. I was truly confused for a while by the spelling of Shelob.
You’re groping through a dark tunnel.
Suddenly you hear a rustling sound behind you!
KILL
In the dark there’s no escape from Sheloop.
To the north is the Black Gate; my attempts at sneaking in were rebuffed by Orcs.
You’re facing a large rampart of stone.
In it there’s a single gate of iron, and upon it’s battlement
sentinels pace unceasingly .
None can pass the Teeth of Mordor and not feel their bite,
unless they are summoned by Sauron, or know the secret passwords
that will open the Morannon, the black gate of his land.
You can head up north farther to swampland, and here is where I think perhaps I dealt with Gollum incorrectly.
You’re wandering through the Dead Marshes.
W
You’re following an east-west trail.W
You’re lost in the gloomy hills of Emyn Muil.The only creature that might have helped you out of here is dead.
You die from hunger and thirst.
Remembering that I could get the rope from the boat early, I rejiggered my sequence so that rather than killing Gollum at the exit I could TIE GOLLUM instead. It does get understood as a command earlier (it says he “dexterously” avoids you) but unfortunately it fails to work at all at the exit: the game says “He’s not here.” Given that KILL GOLLUM does work this strikes me as an outright bug, and makes me concerned this may have been the right action, just the game is broken.
There’s still a lot of elements to whack at so I can’t say I’m giving up yet; if nothing else I can go back and try to figure out how to communicate with those elves. Regarding the Palantir from last time, no amount of touching or gazing or rubbing has had any effect at all; I also haven’t been able to use the One Ring to avoid the patrols, nor call eagles or Ents after getting captured. However, this game does sometimes requires super-specific phrasing (see: SUMMON GHOSTS) so I can’t say anything is completely ruled out yet.
Renga in Blue 
Brief update:
Once again couldn’t play much today, but here’s my current ring count:
6 Men-rings (found another Nazgul)
3 Elven rings
1 Dwarven ring (same one as you)
1 Ring of Power
Solved the Gollum puzzle, so thankfully no bugs there. Still very concerned about the Saruman/Treebeard and Minas Tirtith stuff, though. All kinds of flaky things going on with the latter.
Basically just need to do more mapping and then muck around with stuff. Hopefully will have more time later.
found the extra Nazgul with Gollum, have not worked out how to do any progress from there, though, since Gollum refuses to go either direction which seems to make progress (either West from when you capture him, or SE from the Nazgul — which normally is blocked but it says he refuses to go that direction, indicating a path?)
maybe all that is a feint and we’re supposed to do Shelob next and the only reason for capturing Gollum was getting at the Nazgul
re: the whole fight, if you pass through the “City of Minas Tirith” directly you can avoid having the battle happen altogether
I noticed there’s two corsair spots, but attacking either one before the big battle has the same result in the end
feels like it’s just a “scene” for no reason? you can with the right route avoid recruiting either group and just pass on through
ADDENDUM: found that you can follow the boat river a bit more and land right on the west side of where you capture Gollum. So there’s no reason to go west from there, which makes me even more suspicious the only reason to capture him is to get that man-ring
ends up getting access to a ton of “wander” rooms so it’s slow going checking everything
wow, gollum’s mechanics are deeply weird
the two directions he refuses go are west and southeast
as long as you don’t use those two, any other direction is fair game
you can take him to the battle at the Black Fleet, for instance
can take him into Shelob this way but it doesn’t help
Was able to grind away at this a bit more, and am now at a real impasse:
The ring count and inventory remain the same, with a score of 449.
I think I’ve finished the map, with upwards of 860 rooms (counting barriers). There seems to be nowhere else to go, although two major mysteries remains that I’ll describe in a minute.
I think Gollum is just there for the Nazgul, and is essentially “on rails” (although it seems a bit broken) just like the Riders of Rohan. However, when you kill the Nazgul it mentions that he escapes, so it’s possible that he shows up again later.
I believe now that the Riders/battle and Oathbreakers stuff is probably just there for points. I don’t remember anymore about the battle, but I noticed that my score jumped when I cleared out the Corsairs, even though it seems useless otherwise.
Everything involving Saruman/Orthanc seems either hidden behind incredibly specific commands or is outright buggy/broken. The Ents seem impossible to summon, and the palantir impossible to interact with.
I think the Shelob puzzle is that you need a light source to deal with her. There must be a lamp or something somewhere, because “LIGHT” returns “You have no light source”. Burning the wood there does nothing.
The entrance to Sauron’s lair indicates that secret passwords are needed to get in, but there’s no indication of how you might get them.
The actions required to find the last 3 Nazgul are still unknown. The real mystery is the Dwarf situation, though. Where are the other 6? It seems something at least should be in Moria, but where? Maybe, as you indicated, a light source or some other item is necessary to reveal them, but the game text doesn’t indicate that.
What other inventory items might be missing, and what’s the purpose of the staff and the jewel?
As mentioned above, there’s two map issues. First, why is the southwestern area so empty compared to the rest? It gets completely blocked off very quickly, and the “Foreign shore” areas seem to lead nowhere. Second, something strange is going on with the map wrapping around. I have it mapped properly to an exact 36×36 grid, as the game’s author himself indicated, and the east/west wrapping seems totally consistent. However, something fishy happens at the northern edge. No matter where you are on the map, when you head north of the edge of the grid, it becomes the “Northwestern part of Middle Earth”, and it seems you can wander endlessly in any direction except to the south, where it actually counts your steps back from the north and will eventually land you back on the edge of the grid where you started. But the strangest thing is that just once, shortly after I first started the game, I wandered around randomly up there and eventually got a message like “Your way forward is blocked by an abyss”. I have no idea at this point exactly where that was, and I’ve never been able to trigger it again.
could you rot13 me something on the elves?
you can find gollum again back were you find him and recapture; you get stuck with him, though
1. Juvpu nernf ba gur znc jbhyq or nffbpvngrq jvgu Ryirf?
2. Juvpu Ryirf va cnegvphyne jbhyq or nffbpvngrq jvgu rnpu nern?
3. Erzrzore gur tnzr vafgehpgvbaf ba ubj lbh fubhyq nqqerff gurz.
Regarding Gollum, similar stuff happens with the Riders. You can encounter them again after the battle has already taken place, but once you bring them to the area they won’t move anywhere and you’re softlocked. The red arrow has also never left my inventory. I think the way the game tries to handle these set-piece encounters and the movements or items associated with them is semi-broken and may end up making the game unwinnable in some cases.
finally worked it out and WOW…. that devolves straight from “kind of difficult to figure out the phrasing” into a Tolkien trivia game
I came across HIT BRIDGE as the solution.
Another one that makes sense in retrospect — Gandalf strikes the bridge with his staff — but what a pain in the ass to try to guess.
This is starting to feel rather like a tour or theme park ride where you get to briefly inhabit and experience each of a whole bunch of scenes as if you were switching characters. That plus the bespoke SUMMON GHOSTS makes me wonder about SUMMON ENTS, or maybe BREAK or DESTROY (etc) DAM, since that’s the “epic” thing that the Ents do in that scene?
Just southwest of the red arrow is the fortress of Rohan.
You’ve reached Dunharrow, fortress of Rohan.
The red arrow you carry is taken from you.
See, now you’ve basically become the messenger sent from Gondor, or his surrogate.
(possibly the most extreme moment of book knowledge needed yet — at least Tom Bombadil gives his name if you hit the scenes in the right order and think to use CALL HELP).
Following the logic of “do what was done in the book”, I think this is actually correct: when they are trapped by the Willow, Frodo does not know that there is anyone there to call, and simply cries for “help” in general. In the barrow, Frodo calls for Tom by name because now he knows it (and Tom had taught him a rhyme for the purpose).
Now it is safe to pass by the Corsairs… …but only once, because if you leave and come back (or even just use the LOOK command) there are people left over that grab you.
there’s no effect on the big battle with the Riders either.
Then a black fleet appears on the Anduin. The Corsairs of Umbar are coming!
This honestly feels like an outright bug?
Does the game actually end there? Because in the book, the black fleet does still come, causing some momentary panic… only this time it is manned by the victorious Aragorn et al. and not the Corsairs. They commandeered the fleet so as to sail up the Anduin and arrive at Minas Tirith in time.
“Sheloop” is a bizarre error considering how steeped in lore this game is everywhere else!
Your comment about the bridge might answer my question about the purpose of the staff. Maybe without it you can’t dispatch the Balrog. Still no idea about the jewel, though.
I tried “SUMMON ENTS/TREEBEARD” and every conceivable variation of that in all the related areas and nothing works. This and the erroneous responses to any attempt at interacting with the palantir makes me think these sections may just be broken.
It actually alternates between Sheloop and Shelob depending on the situation. I wonder if Sheloop might actually be from the early Dutch translation of LOTR? It sounds kind of Dutch (which is the game author’s native language), and IIRC Tolkien himself really despised it. I’ve been knee-deep in the old Tolkien translations issue for the past few months relating to the game preservation project/articles I worked on, so the idea did cross my mind. Probably just a typo, though.
ok, big discovery on the light source
Fb gur terra wrjry zhfg or gur Ryrffne (gur Rysfgbar).
Now I wonder if “HOOM HOM” or similar works for the Ents.
If the staff you have is Gandalf’s (used on the Balrog’s bridge), then it should also be a light source.
Yeah, one of the dead ends I ran down was trying to get the staff to light (it starts out glowing) but no dice. I guess we’re every character except Gandalf.
Okay, I finally got it. But the method doesn’t seem to work to pass through the next section, but the book indicates it should? “SHOW” is recognized, but just returns “So what?”.
I think my new post probably clears up your question?
I also have now confirmed that breaking the bridge at the Balrog doesn’t work unless you have the staff.
Yeah, this was an element in another LOTR game I recently played through, so I’ve been trying “USE STAFF” or maybe “LIGHT STAFF” from the beginning here, but nothing ever happened. I guess I missed the correct phrasing. I’ll avoid the hints and try to work it out myself for a bit, now that I know it works.
just to keep you from wasting time, to be clear, the staff does not light up