At the beginning of April 2016 Peter Verdi's Magnetic Scrolls Chronicles website went offline. So far all my attempts to contact Peter failed. His site carried some invaluable interviews with former Magnetic Scrolls people. To preserve the work I temporarily uploaded a dump of his site taken in summer of 2015. All you can see below is 100% Peter's work! Hopefully his site will reappear soon! Peter, if you read this, can you contact me?
Remember how it's like to ride on a cloud? How it feels to be squashed by a bus, or how to get that damned gold disc from Micky? Well, here's your chance to relive all these situations.

Have a chat with the devil in THE PAWN, ransack an entire island in THE GUILD OF THIEVES, restore luck itself to a whole country in JINXTER, uncover a conspiracy in CORRUPTION, become an inter-dimensional secret agent in FISH!, an ancient god in MYTH, walk in the footsteps of Alice in WONDERLAND and inherit a haunted mansion in THE LEGACY. Become a part of the fantasy of Magnetic Scrolls - you certainly won't regret it . . .
 

 

 
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This is the "Text" section of "Corruption". Here you will find articles, previews and reviews of "Corruption" I gathered over time.

Review (Commodore Amiga) from "Amiga User International" magazine October 1988
Review written by Andy Moss

CORRUPTION

Rainbird

What is it that turns a city slicker into a sinister villain? Andy Moss, our intrepid adventurer, goes in search of corruption.

 

The City of London. Deals and chicanery. Porsches and profit, millions gained and millions lost, insider and outsider dealing. And you. This is the background to Magnetic Scrolls latest release Corruption, which marks a complete change of direction for the London based adventure house. Up to now we have had magic and wizards and princesses and pawns (poetic license) but an up to date Yuppie thriller like Corruption is quite a different story.

They are taking a bit of a gamble going this route, as for one thing it will appeal to a more limited market, (although one could argue that City slickers who have hereto not tried adventure games would undoubtedly buy this) and by leaning heavily on character conversation and interaction to solve the puzzles instead of just treasure seeking will no doubt disappoint the fantasy style customer. Having said that Corruption is based around a meaty storyline and like Infocoms DEADLINE or SUSPECT, you will get a great deal of enjoyment from cracking a mystery in this fashion.

What about the basic plot? Well you play the part of Derek Rogers'nes partner in the Rogers and Rogers firm of stockbrokers. The adventure opens on you first day, when your partner David shows you to your new office, that goes with your new BMW and new secretary. Pleasantries are exchanged all round and you are left free to explore the company.

Everything seems quite professional and straightforward until, after visiting the dealing room, you are told to get a message to David about officers from the Serious Fraud Squad who would like to ask him a few questions. All of a sudden things do not seem so rosy. Then you just happen to overhear a conversation between David and Bill Hughes, the company lawyer, (listening outside doors has certain advantages) regarding an affidavit that David feels he will need soon. You wonder why things are starting to smell rotten and after a short tour of the premises you get arrested!

Something about insider dealing and evidence of shares in Scott Electronics, an affidavit and a cassette tape.

The only thing to do is restart, go back over the parts you covered and see what you missed.

Gradually things start to happen which keep the Law at bay and you begin to piece together just what is going on. There is a great deal of character questioning in Corruption, and Mag Scrolls have gotten around this by simplifying the process down to ASK XXX ABOUT XXX or TELL XXX ABOUT XXX. The answers you get will give you more information to ask other people about. Most of the major puzzle solving scenes are time based and will always happen at the same time each game, it is up to you to note what happens when.

There are no obvious changes in the Scrolls system, the graphic pull down portraits are there, although I found them nowhere near as pretty as Scrolls other releases. The annoying door/key/open routine is still there, bugging the hell out of me. I get very annoyed when I am carrying keys and have to go through a locked door, the program insists on the usual, "which key, the blue, red, rusty, gold, wooden or rubber". You type in "rusty" only to be hit with "which door, red, yellow, etc." Why can't you, if you are carrying the right tools open the door automatically, eh?

Those moans aside, the packaging is very professionally designed, with filofax style manual, which gives you clues, along with some very good restaurants, a casino chip and an audio cassette, which you need to play at certain places in the game. A cipher clue section is also included and for those of you who are new to sleuthing type adventures you will need it!

Corruption is a hit, make no mistake, it is not large in a location sense, forget exploring hundreds of rooms here, it relies on the characters and timing for all the deviousness. Easy it is not but all the puzzles are logical and you do not need to have a working knowledge of the Financial Times to play. Just a certain paranoia that you will do it to them before they do it do you!

Rating: 10/10