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‘Why buy this game when you can steal it?’...
After the great success of ‘The Pawn’, Anita Sinclair and her team Magnetic Scrolls released a further text adventure named ‘The Guild of Thieves’ in 1987. Like in the first game, the event takes place in the land of Kerovnia – nevertheless it’s a self-contained program and has nothing to do with the prequel...
You play the part of an aspiring apprentice of the ‘Reknaught Raiders’ – Kerovnia’s notorious thief’s guild. To become a full-fledged member, you’ve to ransack the local castle and the surrounding area of all its valuables – that’s the final examination...
A Job begun is a Job half done...
The adventure starts onboard a small rowboat, which is moored to a jetty. After leaving it, the player enters the wondrous world of Kerovnia. The whole game takes place on a small island - here he will meet strange fellows, explore weird places and of course solve challenging puzzles. Some of these puzzles are real brainteasers – thus the program offers a kind of ‘online help’. By typing in special codes, which are included in the manual, the answer to the problem will be shown step by step...
Like the prequel, ‘The Guild of Thieves’ is a very complex adventure, too, and you’ve to visit many different locations on your way to the ultimate raid: the castle with its numerous rooms, a windmill, a strange temple and even an eldritch graveyard. But actually the real reason for visiting the island is the ‘Bank of Kerovnia’ – plundering it, is the final challenge. It’s the only chance to persuade the master thief that you would be a worthy member of the guild – a long way to go...
‘Words are better than Deeds...’
The centrepiece of the adventure is of course the well known parser, which also has been used in ‘The Pawn’. That understands almost everything and even the input of complex sentence constructions (e.g. ‘get the glass and the bottle and the shirt then use the shirt to tie the glass and the bottle together’) is no problem. Also the intelligent pathfinding is very user-friendly: if the player wants to go to a particularly location which he has visited before, he doesn’t have to roam through all previous areas. All you must do is to type in the words ‘go to...’ and afterwards the name of the arrival point – e.g. ‘...lounge’. Unless an obstacle lies between starting point and goal, the computer guides the player there automatically – also you’re able to recover items in this way (‘find wooden cube’)...
The Devil is in the Details...
Similar to the adventures of the American company Sierra On-Line, here you get points for each successful action, too. But it might be difficult to reach the full score, even for experienced players – some of the puzzles are really tough (but always logical!) and just one word can decide over success or failure. For example, to escape a cellar full of rats, you’ve to type in ‘quickly go through the door’. The word ‘quickly’ is very important here – if it’s not contained in the former sentence, the rats attack the player, because he wasn’t ‘quick’ enough to reach the door in time – thereupon the game is over...
An enchanting Picture-Book...
‘The Guild of Thieves’ is like a literary novel – the texts are very well written. And the graphics appear like paintings of a gifted artist – even in a museum they wouldn’t be misplaced! Unfortunately the program slows down when the pictures are activated – so you should turn them off (nevertheless you should take a look at them, they’re always worth it)...
Overall ‘The Guild of Thieves’ is a milestone in the history of text adventures – however, I prefer the Amiga version of that masterpiece! Don’t get me wrong – the C64 variant is very well done. But because of the (almost) nonexistent loading times, the program’s a little better to play on the ‘big brother’...
In the following years Rainbird/Magnetic Scrolls had released further games which were based on the same system. In late 1991 the program was re-released as part of the ‘Magnetic Scrolls Collection’. Moreover it contained the two adventures ‘Corruption’ and ‘Fish!’ – sadly it was only available for Amiga, Atari ST and PC. Furthermore the new user interface of ‘Wonderland’ – ‘Magnetic Windows’ – had been used for the three classics. That allows a far better game experience...
Besides the program disk, the box contains a nice manual in form of a magazine called ‘What Burglar’, a contract, a pretty map of the island, an access card for the ‘Bank of Kerovnia’ as well as a special dice...
‘Steal yourself a World of Fantasy...’
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| GRAPHICS - 9/10 |
The graphics of the program are a real feast for the eyes. But because of the small 64k memory they reduce the game speed. So it’s advisable to deactivate them – that's such a shame...
| | SOUND - 1/10 |
Similar to most text adventures of that time, also here’s nothing to hear...
| | PLAYABILITY - 8/10 |
Because the integrated parser understands almost every word, there’re no serious problems – merely the frequent loading times tarnish the fun a little bit. Certainly it’s possible to save and load respectively at anytime...
| | OVERALL - 8/10 |
‘The Guild of Thieves’ is a truly masterpiece and the storytelling of its designers is of great significance! This program belongs in every adventure fan's library...
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| COVER |
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; "Click to zoom!")
; "Click to zoom!")
; "Click to zoom!")
; "Click to zoom!")
