Preview:
The Guild of Thieves A trip to the offices of Magnetic Scrolls is something of an adventure in itself, with it being tucked away in a tiny corner of early South London, not a stones throw from London Bridge - and me in a car trying to negotiate the small courtyard entrance in which I knew they lived. I was greeted with some warm "Hellos" from the programming team, given a cup of coffee almost instantly (this I am reliably informed is a ritual, you will never see them without one) and plonked in front of a monitor and keyboard with the words "so you have come to programmers play Thieves have you?" They all sniggered and gave each other "he doesn't know what he is letting himself in for" type looks. Taking no notice of this idle banter your fearless adventurer peered at the screen and prepared to do battle with the vaunted "Guild of Thieves". The adventure is set once again in Kerovnia (the location of The Pawn) and is all about your attempts to become a better thief and be able to join the famous Guild of Thieves. The game opens with you and The Master Thief in a small boat adjacent to an old jetty. He gives you instructions, which are to ransack a nearby castle of its treastures and return to him in the boat. According to how many treasures you recover you will be rated as to your worthiness in thievemanship, and, as the Master Thief also knows exactly how many treasures there are to be found you can't cheat your way into their club. You start with just a swag bag to your name and a lot of hope. The pictures in Thieves, and there are around 30, are I would say even better than The Pawn, and I had the opportunity to view three different machines at the same time, (Amiga, 64 and ST) and I can tell you there is not a great deal of difference between them, which is remarkable especially for the 64 version. The initial locations are some scrubland, a wheatfield, a windmill and a wood, and it is good to get a feel for the game by wandering around these areas for a while. As I was exploring these first few places, Anita Sinclair, Magnetic Scrolls' MD arrived fresh from yet another meeting, took one look at where I was and gave (what was quickly becoming a frequent event) yet another knowing smile. "Have fun" she said, and went off to concentrate on her own keyboard and monitor. Back to the game, and eventually, you'll see the castle, complete with moat, and it's in there that a good deal of the game takes place. There was talk of Thieves being easier than The Pawn. Well, put all notions of that out of your mind, as I can tell you that some of the puzzles are mean to say the least. I would say that it is more user friendly however. There is a nice GO TO command that lets you revisit a location automatically, in fact you can even type "go to sword" if you can't remember where you left it! The room descriptions are good and meaty, and you have to pay very close attention to a lot of it as there are a few clues hidden in the text that can easily be overlooked. By now I was having a little problem with some cellar rats, and all Anita kept doing was walking over every so often and nodding wisely, as if to say, you are not going to get any help from me! The humour that ran through The Pawn (remember the Porter in Hell) is very apparent here, and there is a lovely sequence in the Library that involves over 25 different book titles and their contents - watch out for that. After 4 hours, and uncountable cups of coffee, I called it a day, having found a few treasures visited some fancy places and got myself killed a few times, but richer for the experience. The sniggering from the programmers had stopped as they got down to some serious work debugging and generally putting the finishing touches to the game, Anita was on the phone discussing some finer points of the packaging, it was 11 pm and it seemed the day was just beginning at Magnetic Scrolls. So, with a quick "hope you liked it, see you again soon", and wave from them I was on my way home, safe in the knowledge that another masterpiece was nearing completion. Personally it can't be soon enough. And to think, that there are at least another five adventures planned over the next two years to look forward to... oh bliss! If you read my special on Guild of Thieves in June's CCI you'll know that I was madly excited about it when I went down to Magnetic Scrolls' offices and played the unfinished version. Now it has arrived complete and with all the packaging that goes with it I can report that I am just as enthusiastic about it. The graphics are PAWN standard - in other words classic, and the gameplay is the same high standard that I saw at the Scroll HQ. A lot of loving care and God knows how many hours are wrapped up in this work so buy it as soon as you can and enjoy every moment. Personal rating........................... 10/10! |
