Tales of Middle Earth

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"I shan't call it the end, till we've cleared up the mess." — Sam
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Tales of Middle Earth
Video game
DeveloperNicolas Casalini
PlatformWindows, Mac OS, Unix-like
Release date1998
GenreRoguelike
ModesSingle player

Tales of Middle Earth (previously known as Troubles of Middle Earth and commonly abreviated as ToME 2), is a single player roguelike computer game created in 1998 by Nicolas Casalini (at the time known by his username DarkGod). ToME 2 is an Angband variant, originally based on the ZAngband 2.2.9a source code, which now differs greatly from it. The game was also used as a base for many derivative games known as modules. Popular modules include FuryMod, Theme, and Annals of Ea.

Development History[edit | edit source]

The game was originally known as PernAngband, and was essentially a crossover that placed characters from Anne McCaffrey's fictional world of Pern into J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional world of Arda.

By the time of version 5.x.x, PernAngband had attracted a substantial online community. However, it came under legal threat from Anne McCaffrey and from Ubisoft, a company that had created several licensed Pern-related games. Casalini removed the Pern elements and changed the name of the game to ToME.

Important features of the ToME 2.x line which are not in Angband include:

  • Skill points based character progression
  • Special levels/quests
  • Multiple dungeons and towns with a large wilderness
  • New schools of magic-based spell system
  • More races, subraces and classes
  • Leveling artifacts and monsters
  • New monsters and items
  • Support for modules (partial variants based entirely on scripts)

After releasing version 2.3.0, Casalini started development on the next installment of the series (called ToME 3), going as far as releasing alpha version 19, but the game was never finished.

After Casalini married and dissapeared for a while, in 2009 he decided to work on a reboot for the game, releasing in 2010 with the brand-new T-Engine 4 as Tales of Maj'Eyal (or ToME 4 for short). He remade the game and setting from scratch, abandoning the original Tales of Middle-Earth. The older versions of ToME, back when it was based in Tolkien's works are still preserved and can be found in the web.

Gameplay[edit | edit source]

The game is set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Arda, although other influences include H. P. Lovecraft and Roger Zelazny's Amber universe. These are inherited from Chthangband and ZAngband, respectively.

The player creates a character from an extended list of races, race modifiers, classes and specializations, ranging from Dúnedain warriors to Elven magi. After rolling for the character's stats, the player begins their adventure on the village of Bree, which acts the first town level of the game. From here, the player can explore the wilderness of Middle-Earth, defeating monsters, finding items, and challenging dungeons. There are several locations from Middle-Earth available, with the four main ones being the Barrow-Downs, Mirkwood, Mordor and Angband. The ultimate goal of the game is to destroy Morgoth, Lord of Darkness on the last dungeon.

The game also includes a high score system, which could be submitted on the official leaderboards.

External links[edit | edit source]