A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux

2121 A.D, with no escape options, Akane prepares for her final battle in the rain-soaked neon streets of Mega-Tokyo. Akane is an arena arcade slasher. Take out as many yakuza as possible, slashing and shooting in a one-hit-one-kill fight to the death. A 3D game based on chess, in the style of Battle Chess. What makes it a unique game is its mechanic: When a Black (undead) piece captures a White piece, that White piece turns into a Black one!

The Pawn is a text based adventure game released by Magnetic Scrolls in 1985 to wide acclaim.

Remastered by Strand Games for 2017, 2019

Set in the mythical world of Kerovnia, it is an amusing and complex tale. You, the player, are there by total accident. The adventurer is meant to rescue his Princess, not you. Can you escape, back to your own world? If so, not easily and certainly not without leaving an indelible mark on the history of Kerovina and its somewhat unusual inhabitants.
Magnetic Scrolls was a British video game developer active between 1984 and 1990. A pioneer of audio-visually elaborate text adventure games, it was one of the two largest and most acclaimed interactive fiction developers of the 1980s.

The original game has been remastered and improved by Stand Games (with
permission) and adapted for modern PCs and mobiles, with a vastly improved UI.

Features include:

  • Touch-Text Commands
  • Tap 'links' in the text to perform commands without typing.
  • Game specific word suggestion
  • Tap suggested words from the word bar during input to save time.
  • Sidebar Inventory
  • All your things are conveniently listed in a sidebar. Drag and drop to use them or to apply them to things in the main text.
  • Dynamic Map
  • No need to draw out the map, we do it for you. As you explore the game, the map page will expand. Tap any previous room on the map to 'fast-goto' that location.
  • Compass Rose
  • Quickly navigate with a handy compass gadget. It shows the available exits at all times, simply tap to move.
  • Ambient Sounds
  • Some locations have background sounds, making them more realistic.


The new facilities make the original game fun and entertaining to play on modern devices. No more dead ends; the remaster has multi-level undo, save/load game and automatic undo from dying!
There's also the original artwork and newly remastered music from the original arist John Malloy (thanks John!).
Find out more at Strand Games
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?...
http://msmemorial.if-legends.o...

System Requirements

  • Windows Vista or later.
  • Mac OSX 10.12 or later.
  • Recent 64bit Linux desktop

Support the Remastering Project

After fees, we get only about £1 from each sale. We're working to restore original game content, source code and documents and hopefully to develop and share new IF technologies. See our blog for details of our progress.

Thanks for your support!
The Strand Team

StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows, macOS, Linux
Rating
Authorstrandgames
GenreAdventure

Purchase

In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of £1.49 GBP. You will get access to the following files:

Version 1.3.3.9
Version 1.3.3.9
Version 1.3.3.9
Version 1.3.3.9

Also available on

Development log

  • The Pawn updated to 1.3.2.9
    Oct 28, 2019
  • Version 1.0.8.6 released for Windows, OSX and Linux
    Sep 28, 2017
  • 1.0.4.4 Now available for All Platforms; Win, OSX, Linux
    Aug 29, 2017
  • 1.0.3.2 Windows
    Aug 07, 2017

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Hi ! I have the AppImage on Fedora 64bits. When I try to launch it says :

This application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin 'xcb'
in '.


Any help ?

ldd the file says : it's not a dynamic executable.


thanks!

Okay, after fixing the libs problem (pointing to the right ones), the AppImage just crash with a segmentation fault. The last shared library it loads is 'calling init: /lib64/libresolv.so.2' then seg fault/core dumped.

The Pawn Mac Os 11


I think I can't do anything more without the code...

The Pawn Mac Os Download

Hi, sorry for the trouble. Can you perhaps contact me via the strandgames website or via PM in the strandgames forum. The problem is probably caused by library conflicts between the Fedora system libs and the old Qt version.

Stefan

Hi.
It is possible to make available for download the android apk file for those who bought the game at ichio so we dont have to buy it again at google play. Personally I prefer not to use app stores so an apk file even with no support whatsoever is far preferable!
Thanks!

The Pawn Mac Os X

Hi!

Interesting idea.

I've created a secret 'The Pawn for Android' project, that hosts the APK. You're going to have to manually side-load it into your device. But it should work. Let me see if i can PM you the key...

hmm. can't a way to PM people here? drop me an email on hugh@strandgames.com, and i'll send you the APK download key.

Let me know if it works!

Hi!
I have send you my email.
Thank you for your effort!

The Pawn Mac Os Catalina

Thank you for making these games available again, and including Linux versions, very happy to have them digitally.

Would love to also see them available on Steam if you ever get the opportunity to put them up there.

We would very much like to put them on Steam at some point. Thanks for your feedback!

It plays really, really well.

It would be nice if there would be a setting to display the images at 1:1 scale or at least use nearest neighbour scaling (so the images stay crisp). I could also do with an option to show the c64 version of the images as well :)

There's only one rather annoying point from the settings: Scale, getting it back to 1 is next to impossible without try and error, a 'reset scale' button would help a lot.

good point about scale reset. In general, try not to mess with scale. Almost always you can get the same thing by changing the font size. The scale feature was added originally in case the buttons were too small or large - mainly for laptops with touch screens.

To make the images more like the original, switch off 'image pixel scaling' (which is on by default). This removes the XBR scaling algorithm, but even so the pictures are still scaled to fit the window.

The original pictures are only 256 pixels wide, so they would be _really_ tiny on any modern device. It could just pixel double/tripple/quad etc, but they would be quite blocky indeed.

checkout this blog entry for more info on the pictures, https://strandgames.com/blog/magnetic-scrolls-pictures-enhanced

I might try to track down the C64 versions of the pictures too.

The Pawn Mac OS

*Cool*

I played Pawn/Thieves/Jinxter on the Amiga and the c64, so the c64 images would be a real bonus. (2x blocky scaling of the images as well ;) )

The pawn mac os catalina


btw any plans for Thieves and Jinxter as well?

Absolutely, Guild of Thieves is running here, but it needs more testing. We're hoping to make a beta soon(ish).

Does the Pawn work on mac os 10.10.5 ? I don't think so (I can not install the game)

It should do! If you can't get it to work, email me at contact@strandgames.com and i'll help out.

Yes, we are currently finishing the remaining bits for the iOS build. It just takes a little more time, but it is in the works.

iPhone & iPad version submitted to Apple for review...

Lovely seeing this remaster! Any idea why Paypal purchases aren't supported though?

Good point about PayPal, I'll look into it. Thanks!

Another vote for PayPal here - hope it's added as an option soon as I'd love to buy this.

I remember playing it on my Sinclair QL! (and then on Amstrad CPC and Amiga too). Guild of Thieves was probably the finest of the series, but the Pawn was wonderful too.