Jennell Jaquays on Interplay's Lord of the Rings RPG

[Infinitron]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkien's_The_Lord_of_the_Rings,_Vol._I_(1990_video_game)

It was originally going to be an original fantasy IP called "Secrets of the Magi": https://www.facebook.com/jennell.jaquays/posts/828226757269318

More ‪#‎ThrowbackThursday‬ (because I missed it last week and I won't be able to do it again next week). Back in the late 80s, Interplay Entertainment was one of my clients. Brian Fargo recruited me to work on designing a fantasy adventure game for them (this was after Bards Tale and Wasteland). I jumped in with designs for a title that I called Secrets of the Magi (targeted for the Commodore 64). I busily began designing game play and writing design documents. This project morphed into Interplay's Lord of the Rings vol. 1, which I designed the lion's share of the content for (sharing those duties with Scott Bennie near the end of the project). Anyway, here's some gameplay area diagrams and ideas for a variety of keyboard movement controls from my design documents (Did I mention I'm packing down my apartment this weekend?)

David Shepheard Cool! Did you design any sort of world background for Secrets of the Magi before it got turned into Lord of the Rings?

Jennell Jaquays I primarily focused on system mechanics before the switch. I haven't come across any content docs. I do remember that I wanted to create a spell crafting system though.

BTW, it's amazing how little-known or at least little-discussed this game is on the Codex.

 

[felipepepe]

Cool, looks like Shadow Sorcerer:

We should tweet this to Fargo for comments.

 

[V_K]

Pity it didn't happen. Following too closely the book's plot is the worst part about this game.

 

[octavius]

That, and the simplistic combat.

 

[Viata]

I find this so nice to see. Simple yet on point.

 

[abnaxus]

Wasn't Arwen blonde in this game?

 

[LESS T_T]

More stuff: https://www.facebook.com/Jennell.Ja...1073741830.1473304302937677/1617012328566873/

Once again, it's Thursday and time to share a bit of my project history. Up today, a scan of some original notes for Secrets of the Magi: The Final Spell, a computer FRPG that I was developing for Interplay in the late 80s. I had been give Origin's Times of Lore as a visual target for making an original fantasy title for Interplay, planning for it to go on the C-64 computer. What details I remember involve structuring a game around crafting spells from components and adventuring to find those components. The "Final Spell" would be what the player needed to win the game. Somewhere, I have a few surviving documents for this, but history has claimed all the digital records and most of the paper ones. I came across the attached page in a notebook while unpacking my library today. It depicts some early thoughts for building a map and the way that maps would fit together into a world.

I didn't work on this project long before Interplay asked me to change directions and craft the maps and adventure content for what would become Interplay's Lord of the Rings: vol. 1 (essentially the journey from the Shire, through Mordor, Lothlorien).

The page was taken from a lab notebook that I liberated from a trash can during my departure from Coleco. I removed the former owner's contents and started recording my own. It includes design notes for a project that I was creating for Odgon Micro Design (an education time travel adventure for which I was actually writing scripting!) , the Dragonquest versions of several characters in the Shattered Statue game adventure, and design notes for the second Central Casting book. ‪#‎TBT‬ ‪#‎ThrowbackThursday‬

The page was taken from a lab notebook that I liberated from a trash can during my departure from Coleco

I wonder how many historical materials have been thrown to trash cans in this industry.

 

[taxalot]

LOTR Vol 1 was one of my first RPG. I will always remember it fondly and I really mean to replay it. I understand it's pretty meh when you know of other games, but I had no knowledge of Ultima or anything back then. The world felt huge to me, and that you could different approaches to solve one problem was mind blowing to me.

I was ... 9 or 10 when I started playing and could hardly understand english. I owe this game a lot. I actually started playing it before reading the book ; I'm not sure how old you guys were when you read it but reading it LOTR at 10 was an exceptional experience for me. I am pretty sure I owe this book my love of reading and writing since nobody actually reads books in my family

I still re-read it once in a while and it's always a great experience, even knowing the story by heart. It's really more about the travel and the characters than it is about the story. LOTR is pretty great litterature and you guys are pretty shitty to call it dated

 

[k0syak]

I sometimes have flashbacks with music (PC SPEAKER) from this game :-O

 

[Dorateen]

That's some fine adventuring music right there.