From The Tolkien Games Archive:

This is one of the most classic text adventures of all time; at least in Europe. The original game had a large vocabulary and very good character interaction for its time. It was probably the first time ever that such traits had been paired with graphics in any text adventure. In 1985 it was selected #1 in the magazine Sinclair User’s Top 50 Spectrum Software Classics (but it only made 42 in a later Top 100 List in Your Sinclair). The game was also released as part of The Tolkien Trilogy.

The game was first developed for the TRS-80, but when the ZX Spectrum was released, it was decided to continue development on that system, because of the Spectrum’s superior graphics and other capabilities. The first Spectrum version was called 1.1 to make it look more finished. A version 1.2 was later released with several bugs fixed.

A rumour that Tansoft created the Oric-1 versions is not true. Tansoft only distributed that version.

In the United States, it was published a few years after its original appearance as The Hobbit Software Adventure, a much extended and improved version. This version is the first part of The Tolkien Software Adventure Series. In Europe, this version was only distributed for the C64 and still under the title The Hobbit.

Across all platforms, the game sold in excess of one million copies.

The popularity of the game has inspired many parodies of it. So far, I know about The Boggit, An Everyday Tale of a Seeker of Gold, The Tebbit and Hobbit – The True Story. In addition, there is a German simplified BASIC version of the game called Der kleine Hobbit.

There are also references to The Hobbit in many other games. The Tunnel Like Hall picture is reproduced in Bored of the Rings, Gandalf and Bilbo appear in Werners Quest, there is a grave-stone with the text “R.I.P. The Hobbit” in the Commodore 64 version of The Quest for the Holy Grail and Quest for the Golden etc… has so many references that it is almost a complete parody of the game in itself.

The game was rewritten in PL/I for an MVS mainframe by an employee at IBM.

Personal Opinion: to be honest I found that the game moved a bit too fast for my liking, especialy at the beginning. THe game is based on a classic piece of literature and so I expected to be gently introduced to the plot, not thrust straight into things. The NPC’s too were slightly annoying, seemingly wandering around at random.

But what the hell, it’s a classic game and I love Tolkien, so I had to add it and you have to download it.

You know it makes sense

Lode Runner, oh what a classic, and you thought I had no taste! This is one of the first games I was ever exposed to (except for those classic C64 games I woffle on about ).

My very first memory of this game being about 7 or 8 years old, sitting in the study at Maree’s house under a blanket with her with my pink pajama’s on. They had just got their brand spanking new ATARI? We used to stay up until like 10pm (boy did we think we were naughty for that!). Then we used to go to bed, and get up at some ungodly hour and get playing again in the mornings. Pfft, and you thought only boys had gaming sleepovers .

Lode Runner a good puzzle-meet-action game. 50 levels packed with action! I guess one reason I really love the game Jumpman was because it reminds me a lot of Lode Runner. This is your traditional climb-the-ladder game as you run around collecting boxes. You dig holes and trap the enemies which are, well, dumb enemies to put it nicely. You also dig holes to get yourself through parts of levels. You have to be careful though, because the holes do fill up, and that will trap your enemy, but it can also trap you. You can manipulate enemies (due to their stupidity to your advantage a lot, and also the holes you dig (get strategic with them ).

Did I mention the funky level editor? Why yes, there is a level editor, and you can create your own custom levels when you’ve conquered the 50 that are included. This is a great addition to the game, making it basically never ending. You can download the level editor as an extra above. Go on, knock yerself out

The graphics were what you would expect for a 1983 game, nothing spectacular, typical CGA. You can make out everything in the screen, which is what is necessary. You can see ladders, enemies, boxes, ground and yourself. What more could you need? I haven’t experience Lode Runner with sound, but expect your typical PC speaker to rock the casbar (or drive you spare).

I totally recommend you have a go at this game. It’s a classic, one of the best in its class. I have many fond memories associated with it, and it’s just a brilliant game.

From the Roguelike Games FAQ file:

A long time ago, on a computer system far, far, away, there was Rogue. Players wandered a dungeon, hacking and slashing at monsters, gaining treasures, becoming more powerful, and living their D&D nightmares.

Rogue was a good game; people still play it. It was even distributed with many copies of Unix. But rogue is a relatively simple and limited game compared to most of the descendants it has spawned…

Although the common features of rogue and its many descendants are “obvious” to many people, they are difficult to describe in simple terms. Generally, the games mentioned below are single-user, fantasy role-playing computer games, generally set in a dungeon, run with a simple character-graphic interface. In all of the games, the player controls a single character, who roams around getting more powerful, in order to fulfill a difficult quest. Sword-and-sorcery rule the day. Logistically, they’re all free games; executables, and generally sources, are available by FTP.

For more info visit The Roguelike Games Homepage and A Brief History of Rogue.

Rogue is a very simple ASCII based dungeon exploration game that sparked off a whole generation of imitations: Angband, Nethack, Ragnarok and ADOM to name a few. It’s charm lies in its very simple control system, graphics (B=a bat, S=a snake etc) and almost endless replayability.

There isn’t a whole lot else to say about it, just download it yourself and see.

This is a very, very cool game! I remember playing this when I was young, and thinking it was cool that I was allowed to play a game that had alcohol in it This is a great example of a game where you play and play and play just to see who can get the highest score (like jezzball hehe).

It’s a very simple game really. You are a bartender, and your job is to fill up the beer glass, then chuck it down the bar to the guy, who throws it back and you fill it and then throw it back, I think you get the idea. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is not a challenge, the game gets very hard and fast and you have to work hard for your precious points!

Lovely CGA graphics in pink, white and cyan! The PC speaker will be pumping out the fine beepy tunes in time to this game, although I must admit, the sound in this game is not as annoying as some.

Overall it’s a fun little game, not very big, and well worth the download. Great classic gameplay indeed!

This download contains both versions 1 and 2 of Tapper. You will require a slowdown utility, which you can get from our utilities page.

Zork 2 is a continuation of the story from.. yes, you guessed it, Zork 1. I should point out here that although the series should be played in order, each part is independant of the rest, so you no experience of the first 2 games is needed to play Zork 3 for example.

The story : arrying on from the first game, you are exploring a region of the underground empire ruled by the powerfull (and senile) Wizard of Frobozz. Your goal? To deftat the wizard and gain control of his powers.

Almost everything that I wrote about parser and appearance for Zork 1 applies to Zork 2. Of the game’s faults I think the review on The Adventure Collective says it best :

Zork II has long been regarded as one of the most difficult game in the Zork series. The puzzles are devious, and clues are too scarce. The game also suffers two fundamental flaws in adventure game design–the “resurrection” fallacy and the “dead-end” fallacy. The resurrection fallacy states that an adventure game must never require the player to die or fail in the game in order to gain information that is subsequently required during the replay to complete it. Many puzzles, such as the ones involving the “dehydration” cakes, the brick, and the “shrinking” candy, are examples in which the solutions must either be guessed or deduced only after the player makes an incorrect choice and fail to complete the game.

In contrast, the dead-end fallacy refers to any situation whereby the player cannot finish a game because a puzzle or an item has been missed which the player now no longer can access. This leads the player down the long path of a dead-end. The player must then restore to an older saved game to replay the key sequences. Puzzles, such as the ones involving the red sphere, the “dehydration” cakes, the “shrinking” candy, and the matches, are such examples.

Personaly I prefer the first game in the trilogy to this one, but it’s still worth the 10 seconds that it’ll take for you to download it.

This is another one of the first games I ever played. I remember when our school had this game on the old XT machines, and it was basically the only game they had =

You are a little digger, and you dig tunnels collecting gems. Then get as much gold as you can You can be strategic and kill the evil guys with gold bags, by dropping them on their heads. I do believe you can shoot stuff as well, but its much cooler to kill them with the gold, because you can only fire so often anyway.

I can’t really say that much about the game, except that it created a worldwide Digger phenomenon. People loved it; it is a classic indeed! Those dim orange, gold, red and green colours, the beeping and classy sounds!

There is a home page for digger at www.digger.org. Go visit and check out the remastered version. You might want to also join the Digger mailing list if you love the game lots!

As a lifetime fan of Jumpman, Lode Runner and Jetpack, I just had to add this game to the site!

Welcome to the life of a clown, your task is to gather up all the hats on each level! After which you shall proceed to the next level. But as this is a clown game, the levels are known as ‘rings’. Clowns perform in rings not levels!

But.. before you think that’s all to it, there are indeed obstacles in your way. I’ve figured that you have to be quite strategic if you want to collect up all the hats. The evil clowns that are out to get you can be quite clever. You also really have to get the knack of jumping from platform to platform, as that can be quite tricky. As you progress up through the rings the game gets harder, the clowns get more evil, and your l33t jumping skillz need to improve.

Big Top sets itself apart from Jumpman by having each ring span onto two or more screens. I thought this was rather nifty myself .

With sparkly CGA colours, and the PC speaker blatting out the sounds this game is all fun. The sounds aren’t too annoying, and the graphics are actually quite good considering the game is 20 years old at the time of this review.

Also, Big Top can be played with a joystick, if you think you can handle it!