The Hobbit (1982 video game)

The Hobbit
ZX Spectrum Cover art
Developer(s)	Beam Software
Publisher(s)	Melbourne House
Platform(s)	ZX Spectrum Commodore 64 Amstrad CPC BBC Micro Model B cassette (no graphics) BBC Micro Model B disc (incl. graphics) Dragon 32 Oric Atmos MSX Apple II PC Macintosh
Release	1982
Genre(s)	Text adventure
Mode(s)	Single player

The Hobbit is an illustrated text adventure computer game released in 1982 for the ZX Spectrum home computer and based on the book The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was developed at Beam Software by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler and published by Melbourne House. It was later converted to most home computers available at the time including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro and Oric. By arrangement with the book publishers, a copy of the book was included with each game sold.

The parser was very advanced for the time and used a subset of English called Inglish. When it was released most adventure games used simple verb-noun parsers (allowing for simple phrases like 'get lamp'), but Inglish allowed one to type advanced sentences such as "ask Gandalf about the curious map then take sword and kill troll with it". The parser was complex and intuitive, introducing pronouns, adverbs ("viciously attack the goblin"), punctuation and prepositions and allowing the player to interact with the game world in ways not previously possible.

Many locations are illustrated by an image, based on originals designed by Kent Rees. On the tape version, to save space, each image was stored in a compressed format by storing outline information and then flood filling the enclosed areas on the screen. The slow CPU speed meant that it would take up to several seconds for each scene to draw. The disk-based versions of the game used pre-rendered, higher-quality images.

The game has an innovative text-based physics system, developed by Veronika Megler. Objects, including the characters in the game, have a calculated size, weight and solidity. Objects can be placed inside other objects, attached together with rope and damaged or broken. If the main character is sitting in a barrel and this barrel is then picked up and thrown through a trapdoor, the player would go through.