The Hobbit (Beam Software, Melbourne House) – Video Game – Philip Mitchell and Dr. Veronika Megler.

Released in 1982 for ZX Spectrum home computer, and later published on almost all available home computers, and quickly became a commercial success. In its first two year, The Hobbit sold over 100,000 copies. It is believed The Hobbit is the most successful text base game ever, largely due to the parser.

The Hobbits parser programming was capable of analysing a sentence composed in a natural manner. Prior to its release, text-based games used simple verb-noun parsers, such as: “open door” or “get key”. But ‘The Hobbit’ allowed for players to construct much more casual and intuitive sentences, such as: “ask Gandalf about the curious map then take sword and kill troll with it”. The Hobbit was the first text-based game to successfully introduce pronouns, adverbs, punctuation and prepositions, thus allowing the player to interact with the game world in ways not
previously possible.

The Hobbit won the 1983 Golden Joystick Award for best strategy game.