The pawn
| The pawn | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Magnetic scrolls |
| Publisher | Rainbird software |
| Senior Developer | Rob Steggles |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1985 |
| platform | Acorn Archimedes , Amstrad CPC , Android , Apple II , Apple iOS , Apple Macintosh , Atari ST , Commodore 64 , Commodore Amiga , MS-DOS , Sinclair QL , ZX Spectrum |
| genre | Adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | keyboard |
| medium | Cassette , floppy disk , download |
| language | English |
The Pawn is a text adventure with illustrative graphics that was created and published in 1985 by the British developer Magnetic Scrolls .
The game is especially known for the convincing graphics and the theme music on the Commodore Amiga, which are also included in many other ports . The game's story and parser were also considered to be outstanding.
action
The player is mysteriously transported into the fantasy world of Kerovnia. In Kerovnia, the ruling King Erik is confronted with unrest resulting from his decision to banish the Roobikyoub dwarf people from the country - the Roobikyoub distilled the best and most popular whiskey in the country. The main reason for the ban was the murder of Erik's wife, Queen Jendah, for which he blamed the dwarves. The aim of the game is to get back to reality.
Game principle and technology
The Pawn is a text adventure, which means that the environment and events are displayed as screen text and the visualization is largely up to the player's imagination. In contrast to classic text adventures, which do not have any graphic decoration, The Pawn comes up with a picture of the respective environment. The game is controlled by keyboard entries formulated as imperative ("take sword"), which are dismantled, analyzed and processed by a parser .
Production notes
The first published version had no graphics and was released in 1985 by Sinclair Research for the Sinclair QL . From 1986 ports for various 16-bit and 8-bit home computers followed, which were published by Rainbird Software . The first of these conversions appeared on the Atari ST and illustrated graphics by Geoff Quilley were added to this version at the request of the publisher Rainbird .
Rob Steggles was responsible for the content . He formed a story from the ideas of the Magnetic Scrolls employees, constructed the puzzles and wrote the screen texts. The programmers for this title were Hugh Steers and Magnetic Scrolls co-founder Ken Gordon .
Magnetic Scrolls was initially skeptical of publisher Rainbird's desire to add graphics to individual locations in the game. They had the graphic artist Geoff Quilley initially create two graphics on a trial basis. They were so impressed by the result that they let Quilley take pictures of the whole adventure. The graphics were purely illustrative and not an exact reproduction of the game world. They did not contain any additional information or solutions for the player. Quilley used the non-commercial NEOchrome program on the Atari ST to create the pixel graphics in 256 × 135 format . The graphics hardware of the Atari ST set technical restrictions: The graphics had a color depth of 4 bits and used indexed colors . This meant that only 16 out of a total of 512 possible colors could be used in each graphic. The Amiga version of the game is known for its music, which uses digitally sampled musical instruments. When the game first appeared, the Amiga was the first home computer to support sample technology. At that time, The Pawn was the first game to take advantage of these technical possibilities. The music title was composed by John Molloy .
The game packaging included various objects that were intended to deepen the immersion , but also served as copy protection. In addition to a novella set in the game world Kerovnia and a map of Kerovnia, codes were also included with which one could get help on puzzles in the game - a pirated copy lacked these supplements and thus also the assistance.
In 2017, the Strand Games initiative brought out a version of the game that can run on modern Windows PCs as well as versions for mobile devices with the Android and iOS operating systems .
reception
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Heinrich Lenhardt praised the graphics, the “above-average parser” as well as the documentation and user guidance for the Happy Computer and stated that The Pawn belonged to the “top-class adventure”. The magazine awarded 89 out of 100 points. Keith Campbell wrote for the British magazine Computer & Video Games that The Pawn is the most fantastic adventure game he has ever seen. He praised the graphics as "the most advanced and impressive images that have ever been in an adventure" and the advanced parser. He also noted a “wonderful sense of humor” in Steggle's texts.
In 1986, The Pawn won the British Golden Joystick Awards in the Adventure of the Year category.
Web links
- The Pawn at MobyGames (English)
- The Pawn at Magnetic Scrolls Memorial
- The Pawn at World of Spectrum
- The Pawn at The Bird Sanctuary
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Nick Montfort: Twisty Little Passages, MIT Press, 2005, ISBN 0-262-63318-3 . P. 187.
- ↑ BirdSanctuary.co.uk: The Pawn. Retrieved May 28, 2019 .
- ↑ Determined by analyzing a screenshot.
- ↑ Mike Gerrard: The arts that spell adventure . In: Atari ST User . 3, No. 1, March 1988, p. 15. (PDF, 58 MB)
- ↑ Derek Brewster: The Pawn . In: Crash . No. 41, June 1987, p. 58.
- ↑ a b Computer & Video Games # 054, April 1986, p. 78: Exclusive - The Pawn. Retrieved October 1, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Happy Computer Spielesonderheft 2, 1986, p. 48: The Pawn. Retrieved October 18, 2016 .
- ↑ AtariMania.com: The Pawn. Retrieved June 20, 2018 .