- [Mysterious Woman] You are in a gloomy empty land
with dreary hills ahead.
- [Narrator] The creator of the best text adventure
game ever,
has disappeared.
- [Mysterious Woman] And now I'm on a hot,
dangerous path in the Misty Mountains.
- [Narrator] This is the story of the quest to find her.
- [Mysterious Woman] Go West.
(video game music)
- [Narrator] In 1982, Time Magazine's Man of the Year
was the Machine of the Year.
The personal computing revolution was in full swing.
What was once a massive machine,
exclusively for scientists,
was now small enough to invade people's homes,
and lives.
The Commodore 64 lead the charge.
Its advanced computer power and wild popularity,
challenged developers across the world,
to make bigger and better video games.
One small team in Australia
set an ambitious goal:
to create the best text-adventure game ever made.
Remember, back then, there were no computer mouses,
just keyboards and words.
So, what could set them up for success?
Adapting one of the biggest fantasy stories of all time.
“The Hobbit.”
Our story, starts in Melbourne, Australia.
With this man, Alfred Milgrom.
A video game pioneer.
- In those days,
we were still trying to define what a computer game was.
There weren't any guidelines.
There wasn't a pool of people who knew about games.
I went and hired people from Melbourne University.
- [Narrator] Two students joined the team.
- Phil was the programmer for the gang.
Veronika was the one that created the puzzles.
She's the one who took the text of “The Hobbit,”
and turned it into an adventure game.
And she did a brilliant job.
- [Narrator] The game begins with a simple sentence.
- [Mysterious Voice] You're in a comfortable,
tunnel like hole.
- [Narrator] Then, the player types in commands
to move about an open world.
In 1982, simple games like Pac-Man were coming out.
But, Veronika and Phil were creating a complex
digital universe.
- Almost immediately, it was a huge hit.
People were having parties to play “The Hobbit.”
Overall, we ended up selling something like, a-
quarter-of-a-million copies.
- [Narrator] But one thing was missing, Veronika.
- Veronika, we lost touch not long after “The Hobbit”
was published.
- [Narrator] Do you know what happened to her?
- No idea.
- [Narrator] Did Veronika know her game was a
worldwide phenomenon?
That she had super fans in Russia, in England, in Spain?
That people were learning English just to play the game?
- My name is Jesus Martinez Del Vas,
and I love video games.
For me, “The Hobbit” was the beginning of a new world.
The world for micro computer, and the world of Tolkien,
it was a turning point for me.
I always wanted to contact the people that was behind
the game.
- [Narrator] And Jesus, he wasn't the only one.
Fans from all over the world were searching for Veronika.
She wasn't really missing, but, it was the 1980s,
they had no way to get in touch with her.
Until,
the birth of the internet.
With a quick search, fans now had Veronika's email address,
and Jesus was one of the first to write to her.
(dial up noise)
- [Jesus] Dear Veronika, your game has changed my life.
I learned English because of your game.
- [Man] Thank you for making “The Hobbit” all those years ago
with Phillip Mitchell.
- [Woman] Hello Veronika. - [Another Man] Dear Veronika,
the woman that shaped my life.
- [Third Man] “The Hobbit” game did, and still does
mean a great deal to me.
- [Woman] Many thanks
for the countless hours of entertainment.
- [Man] I hope karma has rewarded you in your life
for writing that game.
- [Another Man] Because for all the price I've paid,
and I'm still paying,
for all the rejections and isolation.
- [Forth Man] Being a geek is indeed what I am,
what I love to be, and what I'll always be proud to be.
Thank you.
(electronic music)
- "P.S. escaping the Goblin dungeon was a nightmare."
And that's--
Isn't that amazing?
I'm Dr. Veronika Megler.
- [Narrator] The quest ends in Portland, Oregon,
a Tolkien-esque landscape,
where Veronika leads a normal life.
- I really had no idea of how popular the game was.
Up until about 10 years ago,
it was a part-time job I did at university,
and I moved on.
- [Narrator] To bigger and better things.
- My PhD is in computer science,
I built a big data search engine that combines
ideas from cognitive science and internet search.
To a work of archives of scientific data.
That's a joystick.
I am not a gamer.
After I wrote “The Hobbit,”
I didn't play any games at all,
for probably a decade.
- [Narrator] It wasn't just the fan mail
that drew Veronika out of the shadows.
- Oh, there they go.
There's a lot of women who
don't realize that they can also be computer programmers.
Hobbit.
This is my legacy.
And that was part of the push to me to start stepping
forward and making myself easier to find.
Just to help correct that gender bias.
- [Mysterious Woman] You are in Rivendell.
- It's pretty amazing how far that game reached.
And it just blows me away,
and it was a part-time job in university.
Boo.
I wasn't expecting to change an industry. (laughs)
My task was:
write the best text adventure computer game ever.
And I did.
(electronic music)