The Pawn

The Pawn from the British studio Magnetic Scrolls was one of the most ambitious text adventures of the mid-1980s, and on the Commodore 64 it convincingly demonstrated just how far a text parser could go outside the dominant American studio, Infocom. The player finds themself in a fantasy land called Kerovnia, which they must thoroughly explore, understand its intricate politics, and solve a series of interconnected puzzles in order to finally reach the mysterious ruler named Kronos and uncover his intentions.

The game's parser was among the most advanced then available on the market — able to handle complex sentences, pronouns, and contextual references to previously entered commands, making communication with the game feel more natural and fluid than in competing titles. The puzzles in The Pawn require careful examination of the environment and patient experimentation, with the game rewarding creative solutions and offering the player more than one possible path to reach certain goals. On the C64 version, the text was further complemented by static illustrations of individual locations, which helped set the fantasy world's atmosphere without relying purely on verbal description.

At release, The Pawn was received by critics as one of the best text games outside Infocom's output and launched a successful series of further adventures from Magnetic Scrolls, which built a solid name for themselves on the strength of it. It helped show that European studios could compete with the American leaders in the text adventure genre both technically and in content, despite a smaller team and budget. The world of Kerovnia also feels surprisingly coherent and believable, with its own politics, humor, and cast of characters who respond distinctively to the player's commands. Today the game is of interest mainly to fans of classic text adventures and genre history; a modern player, though, will inevitably be tested by their patience with the period style of controls and command typing.

Why play it: For anyone who wants to see that European studios could compete with the American leaders in the text adventure genre, The Pawn offers the coherent world of Kerovnia with its own politics and humor, though the period control style remains demanding for a modern player.