The Pawn - Information

The Pawn was an illustrated text adventure published by Rainbird in 1986/87 for a wide variety of computers, including the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Apple IIGS, Apple Macintosh, IBM PC, Commodore 64, Atari 800, Amstrad CPC 6128, and the Sinclair Spectrum 128k/+3.

The game was set in the magical land of Kerovnia. The novella (written by Anita Sinclair's sister, Georgina) set the general tone for the adventure, with tongue-in-cheek names (the Roobikyoub Dwarves), references to the British Monarchy (Prince Malcom was a Royal helicopter pilot!) and some distinctly odd creatures (pink unicorns and dorabs (dogs and rabbits cross-breed!).

The novella told the story of King Erik, Queen Jendah, Princess Lattecia and the ambitious Court Magician, Kronos. Imagine a mixture of both Shrek movies and The Princess Bride and you might just get a hint of what was contained within the pages of 'A Tale of Kerovnia'.

The adventure starts with Kerovnia plunged into a period of tremendous social upheaval. King Erik has begun to lose his hold over the Kerovnian people and can no longer rley on their loyalty and devotion through these times of war, famine and personal bankrupcy.

The banishment of the Dwarves (thought to be the sole instegators of the assassination of the Queen) ordered by the King had caused immense problems for the Kerovnian economy, thanks mainly to the Dwarves smooth malt whisky which brought much wealth into the kingdom.

The player plays the role of the eponymous 'pawn'. Starting in a grassy wilderness, they soon meet the wizard Kronos who asks them to deliver a note to King Erik. The player also notices that they are wearing a Wristband which they cannot take off, and Kronos promises to help them remove it once they have delivered the note on his behalf. Of course, what sounds like a simple enough task becomes anything but simple, and the player ends up carrying dead adventurers, solving dozens of puzzles, meets the devil and has to defeat Kronos himeself to save Kerovnia!