In the late eighties, Guild of Thieves was born to the Magnetic Scrolls growing stable of games. It was published by Rainbird Software and was released as a single player game for numerous platforms, including the Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and the personal computer running the MS-DOS operating system. It is a work of interactive fiction that is mainly text menu driven and offers a sinister renaissance theme. It is part of the Magnetic Scrolls Collection, and is the sequel to the game entitled, the Pawn.
Like the Pawn, Guild of Thieves takes place in the fictitious land of Kerovnia. As the title would suggest, the user will play the part of an ambitious young thief who is aspiring to become included in the elite thieves’ guild of the island. To become accepted, he will have to steal pretty much everything that is not nailed down on the small island. The majority of the island is comprised of a castle that will offer many golden opportunities for a clever thief.
There are thirty key locations that are artfully drawn and described in detail in this text driven adventure game. The text that accompanies each area, and also the dialogue, is filled with tongue-in-cheek humor that
all classic gaming fans will recognize and appreciate. The game has a much more obvious focus on puzzle solving than its predecessor, and fans of the series will have to sharpen their logical skills in order to succeed at this game. Overall, the puzzles are well-placed and logical and seem to add to the storyline rather than sending the user on random fetch quests to eat time and make the gaming world seem larger than it actually is. The tasks will start out relatively small, and the corresponding puzzles will be relatively easy to solve. As the young thief rises in the ranks of pilfering, he will be sent on more difficult missions, and the puzzles will reflect the complexity…often times requiring multiple inventory items to complete. Some of the puzzles border on impossible, making the Guild of Thieves a long play due to extra required thought as opposed to silly fetch quests.
In short, any gamers that were fans of this series, particularly the Pawn, will definitely enjoy Guild of Thieves. Fans of complex puzzle games will also find this one to be a suitable challenge and will also appreciate the clues and descriptions found within the text.
