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/ \
| THE HOBBIT |
| |
| typed by |
| James Bond (007) |
| The Sledge Hammer Workshop |
| ************************** |
\____________________________________/
INTRODUCTION:
Welcome to Middle-earth. This is the world of Bilbo the hobbit, of
Thorin and Gandalf, of dwarves and trolls and wizards. This is the
magical and mysterious land of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.
You are about to play one of the most sophisticated adventures ever
designed for the microcomputer. Addison-Wesley and Melbourne House are
very proud to be able to present the Hobbit Software Adventure, based on
Tolkien's brilliant fantasy novel.
In the Hobbit Adventure, you play the role of Bilbo Baggins. You will be
able to roam freely throught Middle-earth, explore and discover this
enchanted land. You will meet all types of creatures, some friendly and
helpful, others very dangerous. Your adventure will be exciting and will
hold many surprises each time you play.
If you are unfamiliar with honbbits, you should know that they are "a
little people," about half the size of humans. Since they spend a great
deal of their time eating (at least six meals a day), they tend to have
large and fat stomachs. Unlike most creatures of Middle-earth, they are
not very magical, capable of preforming only the most ordinary kind of
trick. Hobbits wear bright-colored clothing but no shoes, since their
feet have leathery soles and thick fur on the tops to protect them. They
are a quiet and simple folk and do not care for anything unexpected. No
self-respecting hobbit has any use for adventures.
Like other good hobbits, Bilbo just wanted to be left alone in quiet
comfort. But there was always a little spark of adventurouness in him, a
tiny bit of the not-entirely-hobbitlike Took-clan, inherited from his
mother, Belladonna Took. Perhaps this was why Bilbo was singled out by
the dwarves and mistaken for a burglar, and why he found himself
reluctantly agreeing to join Gandalf and Thorin on the most incredible
adventure any hobbit could imagine in his most unhobbitlike dreams.
As the adventure opens, Gandalf the wizard has talked you (as Bilbo)
into entering a new and exciting adventure helping Thorin the dwarf.
Your Mission is to seek out the evil dragon, return the treasure he is
hoarding to your warm and comfortable hobbit-hole, and place it in a
chest for safekeeping. As a secoundary mission, you must look after
Thorin and protect him. If he should die early in the game, it is most
unlikely that you will be able to survive the dangers ahead of you.
It is also important for you to know that, as a hobbit, you are a rather
small and milad creature, and most others you will meet along the way
will be bigger and stronger than you. You will therefore need to
exercise all of your cunning and skill to survive.
Best of Luck, Bilbo, and may you return with wounderful tales to tell on
a cold winters evening in front of a log fire.
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COMMUNICATING WITH THE PROGRAM:
In the Hobbit Adventure, the computer will act as a translator between
you and the program. You will tell the computer what you want to do in
Inglish, and the computer will translate the request and the program
will execute it.
The computer will also be your source of information about where you
are, what you can see, and what other creatures in the adventure are
doing.
If the computer is not sure of something you mean, or if there is an
ambiguity in your instruction, it will come back to you with questions
for clarification.
The Hobbit program has a large vocabulary (see the section on the
Inglish Language). It knows over 500 words and can preform over 50
different actions (combining verbs and prepositions), so it is capable
of very sophisticated communication. The use of Inglish to interact with
the computer allows you to enter your instructions in familiarly
structured sentences.
THE SCREEN DISPLAY:
The screen display is divided into two windows. The bottom five lines of
the screen are the "communications window." Everything that you type in
will be shown here. This is also the place where the computer will
indicate when it does not understand something you typed. For instance,
if you mistype the word door as "DOR," the program will come back with:
I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE WORD "DOR."
Other messages will also appear when the program is unable to execute
your instructions. Each window will scroll independently of the other.
The rest of the screen is the "adventure window." This is where you will
find out what is happening in the adventure, what you can see, and what
the other characters are doing and saying.
The adventure window is displayed on the screen in upper- and lowercase.
Every action that takes place, whether performed by you or one of the
other characters, will be shown here. Descriptions of locations and of
objects and their contents, etc., will also be shown.
Usually, the text that is displayed on this screen is short enough to
fit in one window. Occasionally, however, the screen must scroll to fit
all of the information. When this happens, the screen will pause and the
word MORE will appear. Press any key to see the rest of the
information.
The adventure window is also the area where graphics depictions of the
various locations will appear. Over 80 locations described in the book
are represented in this adventure. When this happens, the bottom two
lines of the adventure window will remain text to let you know what is
happening, and the rest of the window will change to pictures.
Through the pictures of the locations containe many details, it is
possible that Bilbo can see things and people in the area that you
cannot see on the screen. Don't be decieved by thinking that the screen
shows everything. It is always a good idea to take a look around.
- *********************************************************************
THE INGLISH LANGUAGE:
The Hobbit program can understand the following words (valid
abbreviations are given in parentheses).
THE INGLISH VOCABULARY:
Movements:
NORTH (N) NORTHEAST (NE)
SOUTH (S) NORTHWEST (NW)
EAST (E) SOUTHEAST (SE)
WEST (W) SOUTHWEST (SW)
UP (U) DOWN (D)
Action Verbs:
BREAK FILL SAY
CLIMB FOLLOW SHOOT
CLOSE GIVE SWIM
CROSS GO TAKE
DIG KILL THROW
DRINK LOCK TIE
DROP PICK TURN
EAT PUT UNLOCK
EMPTY OPEN UNTIE
ENTER RUN WEAR
Special Commands:
EXAMINE LOOK (L) QUIT
HELP NOPRINT SAVE
INVENTORY (I) PAUSE SCORE
LOAD PRINT WAIT
Prepositions:
ACROSS INTO THROUGH
AT OFF TO
FROM ON UP
IN OUT WITH
Adverbs:
CAREFULLY QUICKLY
SOFTLY VICIOUSLY
RULES OF INGLISH
Inglish is one of the most sophisticated language-recoginition programs
developed for the microcomputer. It allows you to communicate with the
program in a language and structure that is familiar to you.
The rules of Inglish is simple. The main thing to keep in mind is that
each instruction must be in the form of "verb-the-noun," where the noun
(or pronoun) can also be implied.
Each sentence must have a verb.
RUN; CLIMB; WAIT
are all valid sentences, with an implied pronoun of "I."
The meaning of the verb may be altered by the use of adverbs.
RUN QUICKLY
VICIOUSLY BREAK THE DOOR
English grammar applies, and the order of the different parts of the
sentences is usually not critical.
WITH THE SWORD CAREFULLY ATTACK THE TROLL
ATTACK THE TROLL CAREFULLY WITH THE SWORD
Adjectives that describe nouns must come before the noun. If it sounds
right in English, it is probably valid in Inglish.
OPEN THE GREEN DOOR is correct, but
OPEN THE DOOR GREEN is not.
Prepositions usually come before the noun in Inglish.
ATTACK WITH THE SWORD
PICK UP THE GOLD
The preposition could go before or after some verbs, or even at the end
of the sentence if it sounds more natural.
TURN THE LIGHT ON
PICK THE GOLD UP
USE OF AND:
You can use the word AND in all its normal meaning in Inglish. This
means, among other things, that you can enter more than one sentence or
perform more than one action at a time.
TAKE THE LAMP AND THE ROPE OUT OF THE BARREL
DROP THE SHORT AND THE LONG SWORD
TAKE THE TREASURE AND RUN
PUNCTUATION:
Sentences can be separated by the use of punctuation. You can use
commas, semicolons, and periods as you normally would.
Quotation marks are used when you are speaking to another character.
(see the section on Conversing.)
The only limitation the computer puts on what you can enter is that the
command must not be more than 128 characters long.
Keep in mind, however, that if you enter a very long instruction, other
characters in the adventure could use that time their own advantage.
USE OF EVERYTHING, ALL, EXCEPT:
It is sometimes not convenient to have to enter a long list of objects
when the words EVERYTHING or ALL would suffice. You are able to use
these words in Inglish just as you normally would.
You may also specify what you want to manipulate by using EXCEPT in
conjunction with ALL and EVERYTHING.
EAT EVERYTHING
BREAK ALL THE BOTTLES
OPEN ALL EXCEPT THE GREEN DOOR
LIMITATIONS OF INGLISH:
To describe an object, you are only able to use the object's name and
its associated adjectives (if any apply). For instance, if you see some
delicious foamy beer in a bottle, you could say:
DRINK BEER
or DRINK DELICIOUS BEER
or DRINK FOAMING BEER
or DRINK DELICIOUS FOAMING BEER
all of these would result in quenching your thirst. You cannot, however,
use the position of an object as its description.
DRINK BEER IN BOTTLE
would not be acceptable.
You cannot have more than one indirect object object in a sentence.
Basically, this means that you cannot do one thing in more than one way
in the same sentence.
PUT THE ROPE ON THE TABLE and
PUT THE REOP ON THE CHAIR
are both valid, but
PUT THE ROPE ON THE TABLE OND THE CHAIR
is not.
By the same general rule, you cannot say things like
ATTACK THE TROLLS WITH EVERYTHING
SPECIAL COMMANDS:
There are a number of special commands unique to the Hobbit Adventure:
LOOK (L) gives you a graphic depiction of your location. Then, by
pressing a key, you will receive a text description of the location,
including all exits and objects (other than any you are carrying).
INVENTORY (I) describes everything you are carrying.
EXAMINE (object) enables you to have a closer look at any object you
come across.
WAIT passes the time.
@ (no return) instructs the program to repeat the last command. (This
must always be the first input of a sentence.)
NOPRINT disables the PRINT command. (PRINT and NOPRINT may not be be
avaliable in all versions. Check your reference card.)
SAVE allows you to save your current game on disk. After you have saved
the game, play will continue normally. The next time you play, you can
pick up where you left off.
LOAD loads a previously saved game from the disk.
QUIT restarts the game.
SCORE tells you what your presentage is so far.
Pause suspends the game until another key is pressed.