Tobias Fröschle has been busy for some months now porting The Pawn’s game engine to the Q68 (and possibly other systems in the future).

Seasoned QL users will probably be aware that Magnetic Scrolls released a game called The Pawn for the QL through Sinclair back in the 1980s. This version had no graphics. Then, in all, Magnetic Scrolls produced seven adventure games between 1985 and 1990 for other systems, but the QL only ever got The Pawn. The others were: The Guild Of Thieves, Jinxter, Corruption, Fish!, Myth, Wonderland and The Legacy: Realm Of Terror.

The game and graphics files can be downloaded from https://msmemorial.if-legends.org/magnetic.php for use with Tobias’s software.

However, the versions for other computers were based on the same game engine written in 68000 code, with some systems using a minimalistic 68000 code emulator to allow it to run on systems without the 68000 series processors.

One noted feature of the interpreter is its ability to handle complex sentences rather than the simple verb/noun inputs of traditional text adventure games. So this parser would understand sentences such as “use the trowel to plant the pot plant into the plant pot”.

Tobias said that the Q68 version of the game engine essentially emulates a QL on a Q68. The graphics are derived from 16 colour Atari ST graphics with original resolution of 320×200, rescaled to look better on the Q68.

Once the Q68 version is complete, a version for 16-bit colour systems will follow.

Download the Q68 version from the “The Pawn is back. And it’s not alone!” thread in the Software & Programming section on QL Forum

https://qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3033