The Guild of Thieves

WHY BUY THIS GAME WHEN YOU CAN STEAL IT ?

Except you can't. Not yet. An amateur like you? Come off it! Now, if you were a fully paid-up member of the notorious Guild of Thieves, things would be different...

Mind you, it's not easy. You might find yourself ditched on a remote jetty by the Guildmaster. You might find that the Guild expects you to ransack a well guarded mansion. To go grave-robbering. Potholing. Or maybe - if they're really doubtful of your abilities - everything at once!

No problem, really, in a country full of helpful natives and friendly wildlife. Trouble is, you´re not in a country like that ! You´re in Kerovnia. Except that the place seems to have gone downhill since then...But you´ll find that out for yourself soon enough. And just one final hint; don't try any funny stuff. The Guildmaster has seen it all before. So has the Gatekeeper. So has he...But why should we give you any hints?

Guild of Thieves, from Magnetic Scrolls, the people who wrote The Pawn, winners of numerous major awards. Graphic illustrations to blow your socks off. Puzzles to blow your brains out. Frankly, we doubt that you're up to it...

Facts

Released:

1987

Distributor:

Firebird / Rainbird

Story:

Rob Steggles

Graphics:

Geoff Quilley, Tristan Humpries, Title picture: Duncan McLean

Programming:

Goodies:

Michael Bywater

Platforms:

Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Apple 2, Archimedes, Atari ST, Atari XL/XE, Commodore 64/128, IBM PC, Macintosh, Spectrum +3

Game box contents:

Bank of Kerovnia account card
Die
Magazine "What Burglar"
Kerovnia Guild of Discret Entry And Removal Operatives contract
Adventure Guide
Disk

Known release versions:

1.0 - Atari XL, C64, Amstrad CPC, Apple 2

1. 0 - Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh

1.1 - IBM PC

1.3 - Archimedes, Spectrum +3 and Collection Vol. 1

? - Amstrad PCW

Known packages:

Standard Rainbird/Firebird blue box ( 15.2 cm x 21.4 cm - 6" x 8.5" )

Game box contents

Disk:

Amiga

Atari ST

C64

Apple 2

Atari XL

Spectrum+3

IBM PC

Amstrad PCW

Macintosh

Archimedes

Bank of Kerovnia Account Card

Guild Contract

What Burglar

Die

Adventure Guide: Amiga (german version) Apple 2 Atari ST C64 (german version) IBM PC Macintosh Spectrum+3

Background information

Unlike other MS games The Guild of Thieves had no title music. Some ports, however, displayed the message "Music stolen from John Cage" while loading the game. This was actually meant to be a joke, though many people didn't get it. John Cage was an experimental musician (died several years ago), and the message is a hint on his notorious piece 4'33" which is silence for that length of time.

On page 19 of What Burglar finds an advert:
BABY ELEPHANT SKIN JACKET, soft, supple, surplus to ideological requirements. Also for sale: New York appartement, Islington flat, Porsche, Saab, computers, synthesizers etc. Owner retiring to Madagascar. Apply D. Adams, Box 57848

The "advert" is a poke at Douglas Adams, the author of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" (books, radio series, TV series, Infocom adventure, etc!) who went on a worldwide trip looking for endangered species for a BBC radio show. He wrote a book about his trip, called "Last Chance to See" (Really worth reading !!!).

Small anecdote from Michael Bywater (author of What Burglar):
"[...] It is indeed about Douglas Adams. He's an old friend of mine. At the time of What Burglar/Guild of Thieves (I was going out with Anita Sinclair, which is how I got involved in GoT and Jinxter etc) I'd just got back from New York, where I hd been staying in Douglas's apartment. It had been colder than I expected, but fortunately there was a warm, rather luxuriously soft leather jacket there which I borrowed. When I got back to London, I mentioned it to Douglas. "It's the softest leather I've ever seen," I said. "What is it exactly?" "Ah," he said, "Actually, it's a bit embarrassing. It's... well, it's baby elephant-skin, and I don't think I'm going to be able to wear it much any more."

Hence the advertisment.

The game box shows an image of a winged lizard. During the devlopment of The Guild of Thieves at some stage a flying Pterodactyl was included, but it was removed from the game later. However since then, the box artwork was already finalised and not altered anymore.

Here is a little curiosity found in one package...

The game box sold in Germany contained an additional 8 page booklet "Ergänzung zur Gilde der Diebe" which explainded how to interact with the game.

Walkthroughs, solutions and more...

WhatBurglar2.pdf

Second issue of WhatBurglar, which could be ordered from Magnetic Scrolls (PDF)

GOT_SolutionBook.pdf

Official Secrets Solution book
Introductory page is missing, but hints and maps are complete (PDF)

guild_s.zip

Solution

guild_w.zip

Walkthrough

guild-unp.zip

Password list

guildofthieves.html

Ami Cheat's Page Solve

guild-map-hires.jpg

Map (unknown author)

wb_a.zip

What Burglar, pp 1-10, bmp-files

wb_b.zip

What Burglar, pp 11-20, bmp-files

wb_c.zip

What Burglar, pp 21-30, bmp-files

wb_d.zip

What Burglar, pp 31-40, bmp-files

Archived material:

What Burglar:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Die:

Sketch (provided by Stefan Jokisch)
Build yourself a "Guild of Thieves"-die
How to build the die...

Articles and Reviews

Game reviews - The Guild of Thieves
Title	Source	Authors, Credits	File	Language
Guild of Thieves (Atari ST)	Happy Computer 7/87 roughly translated by myself	Boris Schneider
Guild of Thieves (Spectrum +3)	Your Sinclair 29, May 1988, page 90-91	Mike Gerrard
Guild of Thieves (Spectrum +3)	Crash magazine 51, 1988, pages 42-43, donated by Matthew Williams	?
Preview: The Guild of Thieves (multiple)	Commodore Computing International June 1987, page 114 & October 1987, page 145 retyped by Frank Skagemo	Andy Moss
The Guild of Thieves (Amstrad CPC)	Amstrad Action magazine 29, 1988 p.60 donated by Nicholas Campbell	The Pilgrim
Guild of Thieves (Amstrad CPC)	Computing with the Amstrad Vol.4 Iss.1, 1988, page 39 donated by Nicholas Campbell	Gandalf
DW-Spieltip (Atari ST, Amiga)	DataWelt 10/87 p. 154-156	?
Vorschau: The Guild of Thieves (multiple)	Happy Computer 6/87 p. 71	Boris Schneider
Neues aus dem Land der Abenteuer (Amstrad CPC)	PC Magazin 1/88 p. 81	?
The Guild of Thieves (multiple)	Computer & Video Games 67, May 1987, page 64-65	Keith Campell
The Guild of Thieves (Atari XL/ST)	Page6 32, March 1988, page 24-25	John Sweeney
The Guild of Thieves (C-64)	Zzap64 no. 29, September 1987, page 47-48	?
The Guild of Thieves (Atari ST)	Happy Computer Sonderheft 21	Boris Schneider ?
The Guild of Thieves (Amiga)	Info 17, November 1987, page 18-19 donated by Tim Janssen	Tom Malcolm
The Guild of Thieves (Amiga, C-64)	Commodore User, May 1987, pages 66-67 donated by Tim Janssen	Keith Campell
The Guild of Thieves (multiple)	Computer Gaming World Iss. 44, page 38-39	Alan Roberts
The Guild of Thieves (Atari XL)	Atari User, October 1987, page 13	Bob Chappell
Computing with the Amstrad January 1988 magazine cover featuring The Guild of Thieves	Computing with the Amstrad Vol.4 Issue 1, January 1988, cover
Disk Dungeons (C64)	Commodore Disk User Issue 1, Nov/Dec 1987, pp. 48	?
Guild of Thieves (Amiga)	Commodore Magazine Vol. 9, April 1988, p. 38,89	Russ Ceccola

Availability