The Pawn by Magnetic Scrolls

voidware

About this game

The Pawn is a text based adventure game released by Magnetic Scrolls in 1985 to wide acclaim.

Set in the mythical world of Kerovnia, it is an amusing and complex tale. You, the player, are there by total accident. The Adventurer is supposed to rescue his Princess, not you. Can you escape, back to your own world? If so, not easily and certainly not without leaving an indelible mark on the history of Kerovina and its somewhat unusual inhabitants.

Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game developer active between 1984 and 1990. A pioneer of audio-visually elaborate text adventure games. It was one of the two largest and most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s.

The original game has been remastered and improved by Stand Games (with permission) and adapted for modern devices, with a vastly improved UI.

Features include:

* Touch-Text Commands
Tap "links" in the text to perform commands without typing.

* Sidebar Inventory
All your things are conveniently listed in a sidebar. Drag and drop to use them or to apply them to things in the main text.

* Dynamic Map
No need to draw out the map, we do it for you. As you explore the game, the map page will expand. Tap any previous room on the map to "fast-goto" that location.

* Compass Rose
Quickly navigate with a handy compass gadget. It shows the available exits at all times, simply tap to move.

The new facilities make the original game fun and entertaining to play on modern mobiles. No more dead ends; the remaster has multi-level undo, save/load game and automatic undo from dying!

There's also the original artwork and newly reworked music score (Thanks John!)

Help support the Remastering Project
After fees, we get only about 70p from each sale. We're working to restore original game content, source code and documents and hopefully to develop and share new IF technologies. See our blog (https://strandgames.com/blog) for details of our progress.

Thanks for your support!
The Strand Team

Find out more at http://strandgames.com

See original press releases and magazine reviews:
https://strandgames.com/blog/computer-and-video-games-1986
https://strandgames.com/blog/the-pawn-desktop-on-itch

See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pawn
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=a3ege93gjofe5q0m
http://msmemorial.if-legends.org/games.htm/pawn.php

Ratings and reviews

This is a self-described "remaster" of a classic text adventure. This means that reading is required as the great graphics are relatively few and only show you the setting of the game. There is an interface to tap words or use optional menus and a compass to navigate the game, but if you want to get old school, you can type your commands. It is possible to win the game using walkthroughs and solutions for the original versions, but feel free to explore as the game has a number of fun secrets and you can chat with the NPCs. Plus a few new things have been added to the game.

I love this game. It was the very first game I ever played on a commodore 64. What a delight to see it back in action. Excellent effort coding and translating to different platforms. The fact that it is advertisement free is absolutely amazing.

So happy to be able to play "The Pawn" again. This app is great and I love the new options (like the map). Great job ! 👍💯

What's new

* Improve map clarity
* FIX: some text glitches.
* FIX: game slowdown after playing a long time.
* FIX: some game bugs.