Dragonstone may likely be a title you’ve never heard of or played – mainly due to how it was mail-order only text adventure title (likely written in Graphic Adventure Creator, not Quill as I originally suggested). Thanks to Marco (Exile) Das for flagging this up!
When you ordered the first game, you would have been sent a special introductory offer, where you could get £1 taken off the price for the sequel.
We’re not entirely sure if anyone sent off the voucher and got their sequel though – and currently the game is very much at large still. Maybe you have a copy somewhere?
It’s still early days, but we believe that as it was sold by a school – people would have either got their game or would have been reimbursed. Do you know anything more?
Contributor Strident commented: “St. Kevin’s in Kirkby (near Liverpool) was one of the biggest Comprehensive [Secondary] schools in the UK at the time. It’s interesting that this ‘Alexander Software’ placed several adverts in Zzap… Was it a teacher behind it? A computer club?”
It seems quite likely – hopefully a former pupil or even the teacher themselves may stumble across this page in the future to help shed some light and see if this sequel can be digitally preserved.
Contributions: Marco Das, Strident
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The original Dragonstone wasn’t Quilled; it was produced with the Graphic Adventure Creator, I think. I guess that the sequel was probably GAC-ed too.
St. Kevin’s in Kirkby (near Liverpool) was one of the biggest Comprehensive [Secondary] schools in the UK at the time. It’s interesting that this ‘Alexander Software’ placed several adverts in Zzap… Was it a teacher behind it? A computer club?
Thanks Strident. I think it could be worth sending a letter to the School to explain the story and see if they might be able to help find out more about who was behind the software house. I suspect this game is out there somewhere, just obscure because of the mail-order nature of it.
The school doesn’t exist any more. Given how long ago it was, it seems unlikely anyone at the successor school would know anything about the software company.
Perhaps if there’s a FB page for the old school, it may be somewhere to try. The company may have also may have got a mention in the local press (something like the Daily Post or Liverpool Echo), particularly if it was an enterprise set up by the students.
That’s a shame. I’ll try and set some time to do some digging once things calm down a bit here. Hopefully in the meantime someone from the school will chance upon this page.