Guild of Thieves

Having played Jinxster, I thought I'd have a go at another Magnetic Scrolls game. I tried to get into The Pawn, their earliest game, but got pretty much nowhere - it's lumpy and uneven. I'll probably complete it with a walkthrough for completeness' sake, but it's amazing how they developed in terms of playability. Guild of Thieves, being between the two in age, has a good pile of very reasonable puzzles, plus some really rough playability edges.

I've played it rather slowly and patchily, getting stuck and unstuck. One of the problems is realising when you've reached the endgame section. You have to keep checking if the bank is open now, so I'd been ready to start that section of the game for ages before realising I could! This is not made clear from the scoring system, which is pretty patchy, or the presence of a number of red herrings.

So, I resorted to a walkthrough to see what I'd been missing, only to discover... nothing up to the point I'd reached! Still, I was stuck on the coloured dice problem, and the banker's door, and getting impatient to finish, so I took hints to complete them. Not quite as even-handed as Jinxster, but pretty fair if you overlook a couple of flaws.

What next? A bit of Infocom?

Posted 2011-02-12.