A Conversation with Smaug

Three weeks ago, I posted about the Middle-Earth Map Chrome Experiment.

At that time, one location was still locked. That location, the Lonely Mountain, has since been opened. Honestly, I think that it features the most interesting interactive content yet—of any of the five previous locations.

You enter the Lonely Mountain. Smaug addresses you, as if you are Bilbo. He asks where you are. How do you reply? Answer incorrectly, and you could get burned. You are given three choices. Choose the correct answer among those three and you are allowed to move forward, only to be stopped again by another question with three choices.

The ultimate goal is to answer correctly until you escape unscathed. Answer incorrectly, and you can try again, but you have to return to the beginning of the questions. In all, I’ve found the interactive games/content to be somewhat lame, especially in comparison to what I was expecting this Middle-Earth map to be in the first place. But this last one is, I think, better than some of those other “games” that came before it. A decent way to kick off the release of the movie, anyway!

You can “explore” the map and dive into the six locations right here.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!