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 (Atari ST) from "The Games Machine" magazine August 1988
The world has waited with bated breath for this latest release from Magnetic Scrolls. Anita Sinclair and Co have set themselves a standard by which all adventures - especially their own - are now judged. Does Corruption compare favourably or are the creators of The Pawn and Guild of Thieves following the Level Nine/Infocom trait of late and resting on their lauresl after initial success? He informs you that should you have any problems, all you have to do is ask. He stays in the first location long enough for you to interact with him once; it was at this point that I found a very good way of ending the game: input 'Hi David' and see what happens.

High finance and commercial intrigue are now-subjects, of which more people are becoming aware, thanks to the coverage and interest shown in the near recrash of Wall Street late last year, the number of company shares being offered to 'the man in the street' and the successful movie starring Michael Douglas, Wall Street. Magnetic Scrolls - themselves no doubt recent experts in the world of money matters due to their phenomenal success - hold out their hand for the band wagon to stop and let them on with their latest adventure, Corruption.

You have been framed by your new business partner and, if that were not enough, an irate drugs baron desires to make you history. It will take all your skills to turn the tables on these criminals and prove your innocence. Playing by the rules is a non-starter, to remain standing and clear your name, devious ploys, greed and sheer ruthlessness are required qualities.

 

These atmospheric graphics can confuse - stick to text mode

As you can imagine I found Corruption difficult to play, it's so against my nature to be deceitful. However, I did my best in order to provide a report on the adventure.

The story starts innocently enough with you being shown your new office by your partner David Rogers.

Once this jolly wheeze had lost its attraction I got down to the game proper.

Mostly revolving around interaction with the other characters, Corruption is difficult to get into. Knowledge is all and once learned must be passed on to the correct recipient for the best results.

Success corrupts and great success corrupts greatly: the Jinxter jinx is still on Magnetic Scrolls

Telling the wrong people too much spells trouble.

As the plot unravels you discover that your wife, Jenny, is having an affair with David (over lunch she asks you for a divorce), David is wanted by the fraud office and Theresa feeds the ducks during her lunch hour. Intrigue, intrigue …

I scored 30 points by simply following instructions and passing on bits of gossip, however, what was required of me from this point became a little vague.

 

In the picture
The now-expected high standard of graphics, parser, atmosphere and interaction are all present in Corruption - although the picture content is strange. They depict people in their offices after they have left, and cars in the carpark which you watched drive off only seconds previously. I found playing in text-only mode best.

I have the feeling that the game is too clever for its own good. It's possible to grill people about topics you hadn't discovered yet and tell them things you have yet to find out. On occasions information you do know is impossible to pass on to supposedly interested parties. This ultimately leads to frustration and confusion.

The packaging is well presented, thoughtful, and contains useful (and useless) items for the game. These include a casino chip, Filofax-style documentation, the ultimate gamblers' and business entertainment guides and an audio cassette which needs to be played at certain times during thee adventure.

Unfortunately these do not help make the game better. Corruption is like unto a jelly that won't quite set, it has all the best ingredients but they just don't gel. I didn't enjoy their previous adventure, Jinxter and, although implemented very professionally and no doubt heading for success, for me Corruption is no better.

 

ATMOSPHERE 68 %

INTERACTION 77 %

OVERALL 73 %