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 "Jinxter". Here you will find articles, previews and reviews of "Jinxter" I gathered over time.

Review (Commodore Amiga/Atari ST) from "The Games Machine" magazine 02/1988
written by Rob Steel

Michael Bywater wrote Jinxter. He's the gentleman responsible for Punch magazine's ‚wild invecitve', so if you are a reader of this mildly amusing mag you will know what style of humour to expect from the game. The award-winning team Magnetic Scrolls also had quite a lot to do with the program, you remember them, they're the bods (except for Anita Sinclair who is definitely un-bod-like) who brought us The Pawn - winner of twelve international awards - and Guild of Thieves - winner of the British Microcomputing Federation's Game Of The Year award 1987.

The story opens with the player on the local bus on his way home. What could be more innocent? The only worrying thoughts on the player's mind at present concern the general level of good fortune within his country which has been decreasing rapidly of late.

A bridge not far enough - don't dally, staring at the beautiful landscape, there's much to be done. (All three pictures are from the Amiga)

Like a red rag to a bull - take nothing at face value because this is the first Magnetic Scrolls adventure where objects in the pictures that don't appear in the text may be EXAMINEd  

Graphics on both ST and Amiga versions are very attractive and seem to get better as the game progresses. The prose is exquisite, full of ambience and often very amusing I particularly enjoyed the path joke, but won't ruin potential players' enjoyment by revealing it. What else can I say?

It is Magnetic Scrolls' best adventure to date and with a record like theirs, how can you resist . . . go and buy it.

In pale, sunlit hues, the conservatory where may a table-cloth be found

The reason for this is somewhat abstruse to say the least. It appears that a secret masonic society of Green Magicians (here we go!) has been working behind the scenes subverting society and changing the land's fortunes and that of its inhabitants. To counter these nefarious dealings, a Guardian from beyond the realms of time has chosen the player to undertake the great quest and save civilization as he knows it. (Stop yawning!). However, this particular Guardian is not what one might expect, he wears a herring-bone overcoat, tends to forget words and his main aim in life appears to be avoiding his wife and kids (not as daft as he looks perhaps).

Jinxter's cast of supporting characters include a megalomaniac gardener, a postmistress who thinks she's Calamity Jane and a dim-witted postman who goes by the name of Poor Bloody Lebling (nothing to do with Infocom's David I trust?).

Whilst being crushed at the last PCW show, Anita Sinclair took me on whirlwind tour of an unfinished Jinxter; she demonstrated the pretty graphics and the general feel of the game.

 

She also told me that the player cannot actually die within Jinxter. This was music to my ears as it meant I could be as careless in the game as I am in real life and no harm would come to me. It appears to be true, as oncoming buses, rampaging bulls and the like do their very best to end your enjoyment without success. This approach may at first seem a trifle wimpish, but within the game's context it works very well and allows the player to get full enjoyment from playing without fear of death. And what are you doing in this deathless existence? The basic aim is to find a number of charms and a bracelet (that needs reassembling) with which the evil wizards/witches can be defeated, and peace and harmony restored be to the land.

Jinxter has everything that its predecessors had and more. The system used to create Magnetic Scrolls adventures has obviously been tightened up, and works extremely well in this game.

Atmosphere 93 %
Interaction 91 %
Overall 92 %