The QL-Pawn
as it was then called was available for sale in 1985 when both Magnetic
Scrolls and the ill fated QL were in their infancy. The QL-Pawn came on
two microdrives that were enclosed within a microdrive wallet that was
badged by Sinclair Research. A sleeve was also produced for the wallet
along with an instruction booklet containing a short narrative to introduce
the adventure.
The game
was text only but it used a powerful parser that would be used later on
other formats such as the Atari ST. Sinclair Research was at the time
encouraging software companies to enter into a number of different contractual
options of which some involved the packaging and distribution of software
titles for sale under the Sinclair badge. This was an attempt by Sinclair
Research to stimulate software design and growth for their new QL. Sinclair
Research Ltd was in a dilemma as they wanted to promote their QL as a
professional business machine and they did not want to associate the QL
as a games machine as what had happened with its earlier machine the Sinclair
Spectrum. The problem the QL faced was that business would not support
it as it had many non industry standard features and the home users would
not buy a QL because it lacked the entertainment software base. Magnetic
Scrolls was one such company that allowed their product QL-Pawn to fall
under the Sinclair Badge. However Sinclair Research did such a bad job
with the product that in the end more copies of The Pawn were sold on
the Sinclair Spectrum than there were ever made on the Sinclair QL. Unfortunately
the bitter experience for Magnetic Scrolls meant that the sequel The Guild
of Thieves would never see the light of day on the Sinclair QL (even though
mention of the sequel was made in the Basic loader for the QL-Pawn).
Pictures
and text were donated by Gareth Williams. |
