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47-458: The company's games were known for their complex puzzles, intricate storylines, and immersive gameplay. Games developed by Magnetic Scrolls include The Pawn , The Guild of Thieves , and Jinxter . Formed by Anita Sinclair, Ken Gordon and Hugh Steers in 1984, London-based Magnetic Scrolls initially dabbled with development on the Sinclair QL home computer before deciding to take advantage of

94-463: A PC budget range titled "Just2Play" with Dutch publisher Xing Interactive for the UK and Benelux territories. The range was aimed to be similar to Avalon's White Label range, but with the addition of titles from Xing Interactive. In January 2005, Titus Interactive filed for bankruptcy with €33 million ($ 43.8 million) debt. Avalon France and all of Titus' French operations were closed down immediately, while

141-451: A brand new interface, christened Magnetic Windows, to take advantage of the Amiga and Atari ST's advanced capabilities. Incorporating auto-mapping, icons, help functions and separate, resizable windows for graphics and text, Wonderland , written by David Bishop and based on the works of Lewis Carroll , was a deliberate attempt to push the text adventure in a new, hi-tech direction. However, by

188-523: A consequence of the dying text adventure market, Magnetic Scrolls ceased publishing in 1992. They were acquired by MicroProse later that year. A number of Magnetic Scrolls' staff went on to help develop a 3D role-playing video game entitled The Legacy: Realm of Terror , which was released on the PC to lukewarm reviews, but MicroProse did not capitalise on the Magnetic Scrolls name beyond that. In

235-552: A freebie that would be given away to those who signed up to join Official Secrets. The gaming club didn't last long, however, and was quickly assimilated into Tony Rainbird's new Special Reserve company, specialising in mail order computer hardware and software. Wonderland had been in development at Magnetic Scrolls for some time and was finally released by Virgin Mastertronic in 1990. Magnetic Scrolls had devised

282-520: A fully-owned subsidiary of Titus Interactive, S.A. The deal was done to simplify their publishing and distribution sides, with Virgin continuing to be Titus and Interplay's exclusive European distributor. On June 11, 2002, Titus announced they had accepted a management buyout of Virgin's Spanish operations; Virgin Interactive España SA, by Virgin's former CEO Tim Chaney along with former Spanish president and founder Paco Encinas. The deal

329-430: A growing trend throughout the 1990s of media companies, movie studios and telecom firms investing in video game makers to create new forms of entertainment, VIE became part of the entertainment industry after being acquired by media companies Blockbuster and Viacom , who were attracted by its multimedia and CD-ROM -based software development. Being located in close proximity to the thirty-mile zone and having access to

376-444: A rarity in the UK, only usually available as expensive imports. Magnetic Scrolls immediately took advantage of this considerable gap in the UK market with their first release, The Pawn . The Pawn , written by Rob Steggles, was released in 1985, on a wide range of 8-bit and 16-bit platforms, to considerable acclaim. One of the game's biggest selling points, besides the advanced text parser, engrossing story and exquisite packaging, were

423-711: A similar partnership. In late 1993, Virgin Interactive spun off a new company, Virgin Sound and Vision, to focus exclusively on CD-based children's and family entertainment. As more media companies became interested in interactive entertainment, Blockbuster Entertainment , then the world's largest video-store chain, acquired 20 percent of Virgin Interactive Entertainment in January 1994. It acquired 75 percent of VIE's stock later in 1994 and purchased

470-470: A small development team called the Gang of Five, the company grew significantly after purchasing budget label Mastertronic in 1987. As Virgin's video game division grew into a multimedia powerhouse, it crossed over to other industries from toys to film to education. To highlight its focus beyond video games and on multimedia, the publisher was renamed Virgin Interactive Entertainment in 1993. As result of

517-643: A year earlier to build on its success at home, though growth exhausted its resources after expanding in Europe and acquiring publisher Melbourne House . Richard Branson stepped in and offered to buy 45 percent of Mastertronic stake, in exchange Mastertronic joined the Virgin Group. The subsequent merger created Virgin Mastertronic Ltd. in 1988 with Alper as its president which enabled Virgin to expand its business reach overseas. Mastertronic had been

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564-478: Is knocked unconscious and awakens in the fairyland of Kerovnia, a silver bracelet around their wrist that cannot be removed. A general election is about to be held to decide whether King Erik will be replaced by a dwarf whose campaign promise is to "rid dungeons of mazes of any sort." The character must interact with others and perform tasks for them, gathering objects that will be needed for later tasks in order to escape from Kerovnia and return to reality. The Pawn

611-663: The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School for 7 years. He now works as a freelance writer and blogger and in 2022 published a novel under a pseudonym. Anita Sinclair is now one of the UK's most successful bridge players, winning a number of domestic competitions, and winning a gold medal in China. In May 2017 the Strand games initiative emerged. Strand Games was started by Hugh Steers — co-founder and core developer of Magnetic Scrolls — and Stefan Meier of

658-527: The Z80 -based Sinclair Spectrum. The Amiga version uses digitized instrument samples in its title music early in that computer's lifecycle. The peaceful title music was composed by John Molloy and it features guitar and flute sounds. By late 1987, The Pawn was Firebird's second best-selling Amiga game in the United States. Reviewers complimented it for its excellent graphics (on some versions) and

705-827: The Burst Studios development studio, which was renamed to Westwood Pacific by its new owners. The European division though was put out in a majority stake buyout backed by Mark Dyne, who became its chief executive officer in the same year. Tim Chaney, the former managing director was named president. On February 17, 1999, Virgin Interactive announced they had entered into a distribution agreement with Interplay Entertainment , where Interplay would distribute Virgin Interactive's titles in North America and several other territories including South America and Japan, while Virgin Interactive would exclusively distribute Interplay's titles in Europe, folding their own distribution arm in

752-572: The European market. Within the late-1990s, the North American operations were sold to Electronic Arts , while the European division later went under the hands of Interplay Entertainment and Titus Interactive . They soon transitioned exclusively as a distributor and were rebranded by Titus as Avalon Interactive in August 2003, and closed in 2005 following the former's bankruptcy. Currently,

799-565: The Gang of Five. Early successes included Sorcery and Dan Dare . The company expanded with the acquisition of several smaller publishers, Rabbit Software , New Generation Software and Leisure Genius (publishers of the first officially licensed computer versions of Scrabble , Monopoly and Cluedo ). 1987 marked a turning point for Virgin after its acquisition of struggling distributor Mastertronic . Mastertronic had opened its North American headquarters in Irvine , California just

846-498: The Magnetic Scrolls Memorial fanpage. It is supported by several members of the original Magnetic Scrolls team, including Anita Sinclair, Ken Gordon, Rob Steggles and Servan Keondjian. The non-profit initiative aims both to preserve the original works of Magnetic Scrolls and to remaster the games for modern devices. With the public appearance of the initiative a first beta version of the remastered classic The Pawn

893-783: The VIE library and intellectual properties are owned by Interplay Entertainment as a result of its acquisition of Titus. A close affiliate and successor of Spanish origin, Virgin Play , was formed in 2002 from the ashes of former Virgin Interactive's Spanish division and kept operating until it folded in 2009. Nick Alexander formed Virgin Games in 1983 after leaving Thorn EMI . It was headquartered in Portobello Road, London. The firm initially relied on submissions by freelancer developers, but set up its own in-house development team in 1984, known as

940-404: The contemporary fantasy of Jinxter . Both games met with similar critical acclaim as The Pawn . For their next release, Corruption (1988), Magnetic Scrolls decided to experiment with the boundaries of interactive fiction. Once again written by Rob Steggles, with the help of Hugh Steers, the game was a contemporary thriller that explored corporate corruption and greed. Corruption abandoned

987-547: The distributor of the Master System in the United Kingdom and is credited with introducing Sega to the European market, where they expanded rapidly. The Mastertronic acquisition enabled Virgin to compete with Nintendo in the growing home console market. To gain a foothold in its newly established market, Sega Enterprises, Ltd. acquired Mastertronic in 1991 while Virgin retained a small publishing unit, which

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1034-405: The emerging Atari ST and Amiga gaming platforms. Having secured a publication deal with Rainbird , a British software label owned by Telecomsoft , they began work producing an ambitious text adventure game that would become The Pawn . During the mid-1980s, the text adventure market was thriving, although only a very few developers exclusively specialised in the genre. The undisputed giants of

1081-403: The five largest U.S.-based video game companies. In 1995, VIE signed a deal with Capcom to publish its titles in Europe, supplanting Acclaim Entertainment as Capcom's designated European distributor. VIE later published titles released by other companies, such as Hudson Soft . That year, the company expanded their distribution arm over to Spain, by forming Virgin Interactive España SA . In

1128-644: The game. Released towards the end of 1988 was Fish! , a more light-hearted, surreal adventure game, where the player assumed the role of a dimension-jumping goldfish. Written by John Molloy, Pete Kemp, Phil South and edited by Rob Steggles, Fish! would prove to be the last of Magnetic Scrolls' traditional commercial releases. Myth was released in 1989 through Official Secrets, an adventure gaming club set up by Tony Rainbird after he (and Magnetic Scrolls) parted ways with Telecomsoft. Now based in Hertfordshire, Magnetic Scrolls produced this mini-adventure as

1175-597: The genre were Infocom , based in Cambridge, Massachusetts , who practically redefined the genre by ensuring the interface (or text parser ) never provided a barrier between the player and the fictional elements of the game. Infocom's dominance of the text adventure market ensured they had very few rivals in the United States. Adventure International , owned by Scott and Lexis Adams, had been an early competitor of Infocom, but they went out of business long before Infocom had hit their stride. Their only other serious competitor

1222-433: The high resolution illustrations that accompanied many of the game's locations. Although decidedly antiquated by today's standards, at the time they were considered state-of-the-art. The ZX Spectrum version of the game did not include graphics. In 1987, Magnetic Scrolls released two new games. Steggles returned to write The Guild of Thieves , a traditional treasure hunt, while Georgina Sinclair and Michael Bywater wrote

1269-528: The late 1990s, Ken Gordon registered the magneticscrolls.com domain, which now redirects to the Strand Games website. Two programmers from Magnetic Scrolls, Doug Rabson and Servan Keondjian later formed the company RenderMorphics which produced the highly acclaimed 3D Graphics API Reality Lab . In January 1995 another Magnetic Scrolls programmer, Steve Lacey joined RenderMorphics and in February of

1316-512: The media content of its parent companies drew Virgin Interactive's U.S. division closer to Hollywood as it began developing sophisticated interactive games, leading to partnerships with Disney and other major studios on motion picture-based games such as The Lion King , Aladdin , RoboCop , and The Terminator , in addition to being the publisher of popular titles from other companies like Capcom 's Resident Evil series and Street Fighter Collection and id Software 's Doom II in

1363-647: The opening music available in some game versions. The game itself–story and parser–got mostly positive reviews. Two reviews of the game appeared in Dragon : In 1988, readers of Crash voted The Pawn "Best Adventure Game of the Year". It was also "Best Adventure Game of the Year" at the 1987 Golden Joystick Awards . Virgin Interactive Avalon Interactive Group, Ltd. , formerly known as Virgin Interactive Entertainment ,

1410-480: The original source code. In December 2017 the remastered and enhanced game was published. This was followed by a similarly revived edition of Jinxter in 2019. The Pawn (video game) The Pawn is an interactive fiction game for the Sinclair QL written by Rob Steggles of Magnetic Scrolls and published by Sinclair Research in 1985. In 1986, graphics were added and the game was released for additional home computers by Rainbird . The player's character

1457-496: The personal and commercial circumstances behind its ill-fated development, came briefly to public attention twenty years later. In 1991, Virgin Interactive released The Magnetic Scrolls Collection Vol 1 , containing new versions of The Guild of Thieves , Corruption and Fish! that took advantage of the Magnetic Windows engine. A second collection, containing their remaining games, was planned but never completed. As

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1504-419: The process. To coincide with the distribution agreement, Interplay acquired a 43.9% minority stake (Initially a 49.9% stake) in the company. The deal was made as part of Interplay's attempt to gain profits, and the deal did not include publishing, which would remain as stand-alone entities. In July 1999, French publisher Titus Interactive announced plans to purchase 50.6% of Interplay's shares. Shortly after

1551-655: The purchase, they announced they would purchase a 50.1% majority stake in Virgin Interactive, with the publisher's shareholders and management retaining a 6% stake. The following year in May 2000, Titus acquired the shareholders' 6% stake, with Titus now holding 56.6% in Virgin while Interplay retained their 43.9% stake. Titus also announced on the same day that Virgin Interactive would now distribute its titles in Europe and replace their standalone distribution arm. The deal

1598-434: The remaining shares held by Hasbro in an effort to expand beyond its video store base. Hasbro went on to found their own game company, Hasbro Interactive the following year. The partnership with Blockbuster ended a year later when Blockbuster sold its stake to Spelling Entertainment , at the time being a subsidiary of Viacom . Viacom is the owner of Paramount Pictures and MTV , which made Virgin Interactive part of one of

1645-636: The same year Microsoft acquired the company. Reality Lab became the basis for Direct3D . Rabson and Keondjian are now at Qube Software , which they co-founded with Hugh Steers. Lacey remained at Microsoft as the graphics engine lead on Microsoft Flight Simulator . In October 2006, Lacey moved to Google . In 2011, he was killed in a car accident. John Molloy moved to Florida, US, working on web-based applications, and died in 2018 following an illness. Phil South lives in South Wales, UK, and after many years working Disney Channel UK's web presence worked at

1692-595: The same year, the company launched a budget reissue brand for their PC titles called "The White Label". Spelling put its ownership of Virgin up for sale as a public stock offering in 1997, stating that Virgin's financial performance had been disappointing. Since Spelling's purchase of the company, Virgin had lost $ 14 million in 1995 and was expected to post similar losses for 1996. In 1998, Virgin Interactive's US operations were divested to Electronic Arts as part of its $ 122.5 million (£75 million) acquisition of Westwood Studios that same year. Electronic Arts also acquired

1739-459: The time the new interface was ready the traditional text-based genre had already begun to die out as gamers craved more visually elaborate gaming experiences. In 1988, Magnetic Scrolls began to collaborate with Infocom, Douglas Adams and Michael Bywater on a sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . This project was never finished. A playable draft of an early part of the game, along with

1786-429: The traditional puzzle-solving, treasure-hunting gameplay of many text adventure games, requiring the player to progress by conversing with characters, collecting evidence and working against the clock in order to beat the game. The game came packaged with a cassette tape containing a series of audio conversations. The player would be prompted to play them at specific points during the story, adding an extra layer of depth to

1833-725: The world's largest entertainment companies. Viacom had planned to sell Spelling and buy Virgin Interactive out of Spelling before the sale. While it abandoned the Spelling sale some time ago, the collapse in the games market appears to have killed off any interest in buying Virgin. Blockbuster and Viacom invested heavily in the production of CD-based interactive multimedia—video games featuring sophisticated motion-picture video, stereo sound and computer animation. VIE's headquarters were expanded to include 17 production studios where expensive SGI "graphics supercomputers" were used to build increasingly complicated games, eventually becoming one of

1880-472: Was Sierra On-Line , owned by Ken and Roberta Williams, who specialised in graphical adventure games. During the early to mid-1980s Level 9 Computing dominated the UK text adventure market. Delta 4 and CRL also produced a number of text adventures that were critical and commercial hits but were never a serious rival to Level 9. Until they were acquired by Activision in 1985, Infocom's titles were something of

1927-649: Was a British video game distributor based within Europe that formerly traded as the video game publishing and distributing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group . During the company's time under the Virgin brand, they had developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers , including Westwood Studios co-founder Brett Sperry and Earthworm Jim creators David Perry and Doug TenNapel . Others include video game composer Tommy Tallarico and animators Bill Kroyer and Andy Luckey . Formed as Virgin Games in 1983, and built around

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1974-524: Was distributed in the North American market by Bay Area Multimedia instead of Interplay. However, in 2001, the North American branch of Titus; Titus Software, announced to resurrect the Virgin Interactive brand in North America to release several of Virgin's existing European PC releases as $ 20 budget titles. On 16 April 2001, Titus announced they had expanded their shares in Interplay to 72.5% and purchased their stake in Virgin Interactive, making Virgin

2021-569: Was done for Titus to focus more on the UK, French and German subsidiaries. The business was renamed as Virgin Play in October, and would continue to distribute Titus and Interplay titles in Spain. On July 1, 2003, Titus announced that Virgin Interactive would be renamed Avalon Interactive, with the French, Benelux and German operations soon following afterward. In August 2004, the company launched

2068-425: Was made following a similar distribution agreement in North America that would allow Interplay to market Titus' titles in the territory. A week later, Virgin signed a deal with Swing! Entertainment Media AG to distribute their titles in all European territories. Virgin's presence outside Europe at this point was almost non-existent, with only a few titles such as Viva Soccer and Jimmy White's 2: Cueball , which

2115-469: Was released. The official release followed in June 2017. In June 2017 Strand games worked on recovering the source code of their classics from tapes to remaster and re-release them. After the successful recovery of the original source code in a remarkable process, which involved baking the original backup tapes at low temperature in a kitchen oven, the initiative started to remaster The Guild of Thieves from

2162-402: Was renamed Virgin Interactive Entertainment in 1993. Hasbro , who had previously licensed some of its properties to Virgin, bought 15 percent—later increased to 16.2 percent—stake in VIE in August 1993. Hasbro wanted to create titles based on its brands, which included Transformers , G.I. Joe and Monopoly . The deal cut off competitors like Mattel and Fisher-Price who were interested in

2209-413: Was written by Rob Steggles at Magnetic Scrolls in 1985, and a text-only version was first published for the Sinclair QL in 1985 . After Magnetic Scrolls secured a publication deal with Rainbird, a graphical version of the game was then released for other platforms in 1986. The game is written in 68000 assembler. Later versions use a cut-down 68000 virtual machine even on less powerful machines like

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