The Pawn :: Android
Good morning all
In the late 1985's I read one or two reviews about The Pawn, and so wanted to play it.
But then the matter rested there, and I forgot about it.
Until two years ago when the retro bug bit, and I then remembered about Magnetic Scrolls. I downloaded the DOS version (I think) but it was so a schlepp to play it on a mobile device that I put it aside.
Until yesterday, some kind soul posted on the google plus forums about the data recovery method used to resuscitate the original source code for Magnetic Scrolls' games - and I followed the links, and gleefully downloaded The Pawn on my Android device.
First impressions are good, you don't need to type in commands, just tap tappity tap and you're good to go.
Graphics looks good, the overall layout of the game is also well-thought out, and the map is an additional bonus.
At the moment I'm just walking around like crazy, trying to get a feel for the thing, before resetting my progress and starting off in earnest.
So far it looks good, but I will definitely shout out if I discover some funky gremlin or two.
As for the accompanying PDF giving a bit of history, there's one or two spelling mistakes in there, whom do I report it to?
Cheers!
Ook
Comments
If I may make a suggestion - can we pick and choose our own color theme instead of the default orange?
Thanks!
Ook
Hi,
thanks for the kind feedback and, yes, please let us know if you encounter bugs or things that didn't work as expected.
UI themes already are on our todo list, so most probably there will be options for changing the colouring. Might take a little while, tough.
At the moment the main focus lies on getting the iOS build running and rewrite the engine core to load data output from the original build tools and game sources. And with that: remaster The Guild of Thieves.
Recovering the original data from that tapes was just fabulous and opens up tons of new possibilities. We can't thank Rob Jarrat enough for his help with recovering thise tapes. How many professional services would have achieved what he did?
So stay tuned!
Stefan
re: theming. Yes, it's on my todo list!
Wife is bored. Downloaded and installed The Pawn on my other tablet.
Now she is hooked. Muhuhahaha
Just wait till GoT comes out.
Should work well on a tablet. A bit more space for the drag and drop, also you might want to make the font a bit bigger.
I have the pawn on three android devices :
Will the current location pictures of The Pawn remain as is, or do you have plans to upgrade the pictures as well?
what do you mean by "upgrade the pictures"?
Because, it turns out Stefan here has made a breakthrough with picture technology. We've found a way to enhance the pictures. I plan to blog about this, but here's a quick example,
original picture from The Guild x4
Same picture after enhancement,
Hopefully this will go into the next release of The Pawn and all subsequent games.
I previously thought of replacing all pics with new, hi-res versions, but then the game will lose its historic appeal. So scratch that idea, sorry.
Above enhancements looks good.
For people with larger tablets, would it be possible to have a mode where full picture, text, map and item/character list are all visible simultaneously?
Landscape mode?
The Pawn in landscape mode :
And the same in portrait mode :
At the moment I'm hanging in between having the image display permanently, or having to pull the image down to view it.
@Dsinclair & @The_Librarian,
I wondered this too. It would also be nice for the desktop editions. I'm interested in suggestions here for the best way.
Off the top of my head:
Instead of the picture being fixed size, suppose it auto-scaled into the amount of space available in the "pull down". So you could leave it at any position and see the whole picture?
Have the map as a right-hand sidebar (as well as having the full page view). The side bar would be able to show your current locations and nearby ones - unless you're screen is huge.
ideas welcome.
Good idea - as long as the textbox containing the location descriptions and other things also scroll downwards so that the picture does not cover the text (as per my screenshots above). As it will be auto-scaling you can then set it at any size and play your battery flat.
Only of practical use on a 7" (and bigger) fondleslab, esp in portrait mode. Landscape mode may also work, but depend on the size of the fondleslab.
I had a look at my S3 mini - it will not be practical on such a small screen anyway.
Not practical on a fondleslab of any size unless you have a large one. The current setup works for me for now.
I don't have a PC version - but can imagine if you have real screen estate you'll be able to have a couple of "floating windows" all over your desktop, such as this :
Thanks for the feedback. I'll try out the picture scaling idea to see how it looks in practice.
Picture scaling works nice.
I put this in because it helps a lot in landscape mode, eg on a pad.
Where is the default save location on Android for The Pawn? I want to see if I can copy my savegames over to other devices.
The save games are stored inside the app area. Android doesn't like apps writing outside their area (ie their install directory).
The actual directory (which needs root to access) is:
/data/com.voidware.brahmanpawn/files/That's why it needs the share facility, this is how an app can "export" something from its private area. But the app itself has to do this.