J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I Design Documents

Did you know that Interplay’s 1990 RPG The Lord of the Rings, Volume I was originally going to be based on a new IP and titled Secrets of the Magi? Neither did I, but that’s exactly what we learn from this brief write-up on Jennell Jaquays’ Facebook page that also includes some gameplay area diagrams and a summary of the suggested keyboard controls from way back in 1988. Interesting stuff:

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.