Thursday 27 Dec 2001
                         
                         
             Hobbit - The True Story - redux, Director's Cut

                by Fredrik Ramsberg and Johan Berntsson


This is a small interactive adventure game for PC's using MS-DOS 5.0 or
higher, or Microsoft Windows of any sorts. The game was in fact, in its
entirety, written in MS-DOS 5 batch files, in 1993. After unpacking the game
in a directory of its own, this is what you have to do to be able to play it:

               * Include the name of the directory in the PATH variable
                 declaration in your AUTOEXEC.BAT. After rebooting the
                 machine, the game should always be available for play.

               * Type RESTART at a DOS prompt.

Please note: You can interrupt gameplay at any time, to do something else in
DOS -- As long as you don't turn off or reset the computer, the game will
always be ready for continuation. If you have trouble running the game, make
sure that you have enough memory space reserved for environment variables.
The space reserved can be extended using the MS-DOS command "command /e:nnnnn".

If you want to avoid the hassle of rebooting your machine, you can still play
the game by simply getting a DOS prompt, going to the directory where you
unpacked it and typing RESTART. However, that means you won't be able to
move to different directories while playing.



                                Story

This game is about what really happened to Bilbo Baggins on his famous
adventure. The story, in somewhat corrupt versions, has been told in a book -
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, and several computer games, among them Hobbit.
You play the part of Bilbo, and your goal is to journey to Smaug, the great
red dragon in the land beyond the river, and return with treasure. For an
assistant you have Thorin the dwarf and Gandalf the powerful wizard. They
will do everything within their power to guide you and to help you. Well,
almost everything, as long as they don't have to get into any trouble
themselves. Or get wet, for that matter. Or cold.

Sample sentences that the parser will recognize:
(Note that everything must be typed in lower case.)

>take chest
>show gandalf chest
>show the chest to gandalf
>drop the chest
>inventory
>i  (Short for inventory)
>get the chest
>ask gandalf about the spell
>talk to thorin about chest
>examine chest
>x chest (Short for examine chest)
>hint
>clue
>look
>l (Short for look)
>go east
>e (Short for go east)
>enter the chest
>wait
>save jake1
>restore jake1
>restart
>quit
                    The redux, Director's Cut version
                     
The new version restores a lost scene which had to be cut in order to get
a PG rating. This rare footage includes some nudity, but this was considered
to be rather mild by today's standards. The improved version also includes
two new commands, "save" and "restore", along with some added dialogue.
Compatibility issues have also been addressed, and the game should now
perform well under Windows 95, 98, ME, NT and 2000, quite possibly even XP,
for all we know.

                                General info

This game is a shareware product. You are absolutely free to distribute it
to anyone, as long as you don't take a profit from it. However, anyone who
enjoys it and decides to keep it should pay a small fee to the authors. This
fee will encourage them to write more shareware programs in the future.
Also, paying the fee is helping to establish this form of distribution, as
other programmers may start using it if it works properly.

The shareware fee for this program is simply the amount of money you think
it's worth. This may be sent in any way you like to the address below. Thank
you!

                           Mr. Fredrik Ramsberg
                               Sedelv 20
                             S-129 32 Hagersten
                               SWEDEN

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me using the
above address, or the e-mail address below:

                               f.r@mail.com

Thank you for playing this game!