Game Groups > Game Engine: Inglish

The Inglish system was developed for Beam Software's 1982 adaptation of The Hobbit.

As well as its sophisticated language parser (not quite English, but very close!) and the the ANIMACTION and ANIMTALK routines allowing NPCs to have lives of their own and comply with requests -- if in the mood -- it featured vector illustrations and a physics model by Veronika Megler:

"Objects, including the characters in the game, had a calculated size, weight and solidity. Objects could be placed inside other objects, attached together with rope and damaged or broken. If the main character was sitting in a barrel which was then picked up and thrown through a trapdoor, the player went too."

The technology was used in all four of the games in the Tolkien Software Adventure series as well as in 1984's Sherlock.