Amazon Studios recently released the synopsis for their upcoming, billion dollar Lord of the Rings TV series which set the Middle Earth fan community aflame and got us thinking about the earliest games adapted from JRR Tolkien’s famous books.
The Fellowship of the Ring: A Software Adventure is a text adventure released in 1985, based on the book The Fellowship of the Ring, by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was Beam Software’s follow-up to their 1982 game The Hobbit which had proven to be a big success.
In the early years, two of Beam’s programs were milestones in their respective genres. The Hobbit by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler employed an advanced parser by Stuart Richie and had real-time elements. Even if the player didn’t enter commands, the story would move on. It sold more than a million copies at the time.
You can play the game online here.
As a bonus for those who are interested, here is the synopsis for Amazon Studios’ LOTR series:
Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.
Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
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Play The War of the Worlds free now.
StoryFix Media creates interactive fiction games and novels.
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