The Pawn

[Flack]

While doing research on The Pawn for the latest episode of Sprite Castle, I ran across ICJ's review of the game on Trotting Krips. His opinion mirrored mine (and a lot of people's, apparently) by saying that the thought the game looked great as a kid, and played terribly as an adult. I was specifically reviewing the C64 version and the first 5 magazine reviews I found gave the game a 95% or higher rating back in 86/87. I don't think modern IF players would give it the same rating.

Did you play The Pawn back in the day? Have you played it recently? What was/is your opinion of the game?

[AArdvark]

The Pawn was the second IF game I tried and the first one that I bought. From a store, with a box and everything. Good thing too because of that infuriating: 'Do you have a photographic memory?" security thing. Drove me nuts. I would be getting really immersed in the game and bang! I think it was move 100 or something when it would pop up and I had to go looking for Gringo Baconburger on page twenty three or some such crap. The other thing that I hated was the hint section, typing in all those random characters for some stupid hint that didn't work. There was one: "Read the note", I think it said, so I read the note and I died instantly. I spent a another half hour typing in characters again and the next hint was: "don't read the note." Grrr!

The game was fun overall though. The puzzles weren't that hard if you thought about them for a while. The part I liked the best on the C64 was trying stuff and not getting anywhere, then you'd try something different. The drive would spin up and you knew you'd done SOMETHING. Waiting that fifteen seconds for the next paragraph to pop up and tell you if it worked or not, that was the best part, the suspense.

The first time I met RobB we played The Pawn for a bit. I remember seeing that poster on his wall and I said "Hey, I know that game!"

I never really beat it on my own. I was almost done but couldn't get past the dragon at the end. I did find a walkthrough at one point and went back and beat it that way. It wasn't really cheating, for me it was closure. There have been a couple times I thought about playing it again on an emulator but I don't have the time anymore, or the patience. It would be too easy to just look up the answers now. The internet ruins everything.

THE
HONEST JOHN
WAS A DICK
AARDVARK

[Jizaboz]

While I owned and really enjoyed Wonderland (but never finished it. Got stuck on the clothes hanger/vice puzzle) I never played Pawn.

I'd like to try this and that other Magnetic Scrolls game about being a fish some day. Maybe the Amiga versions..