Moreta – Dragon Lady of Pern was to be the sequel to Dragonriders of Pern which was a popular title from the early days of Epyx Software in the Impossible Mission era.
The proposed sequel came from the popularity of the first game, but was sadly dropped for reasons currently unknown.
The only details currently known are from the programmer John W.S Marvin who spoke to an Epyx shrine page (http://home.arcor.de/cybergoth/gamesc/dragonridersofpern.html) and said…
“I was maybe 1/3 of the way through it. There were two aspects to it: thread fighting on dragon back, and plague containment.”
Really we will need to find the author to find out more about the loss of this game, and if anything has survived since. As it is from the very early days of the C64, this could be a very hard title to try and find anything of. Still, there is a story yet to tell for this one, so hopefully we’ll be back to this one soon.
In August 2024, archivist Scott Stilphen flagged up that he had once interviewed John, who had this to say about why the game was never finished:
“I was working on Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern, based on the Anne McCaffrey book, when the board of directors laid off half the company, including me.”
It isn’t clear at this stage if anything still exists of the development, but we certainly hope so.
Contributions: Fabrizio Bartoloni, Scott Stilphen
Supporting content
Update history
21/08/24 – Added further details about the game thanks to Scott Stilphen.
I reposted an old interview with John Marvin, who had this to say about why the game was never finished:
“I was working on Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern, based on the Anne McCaffrey book, when the board of directors laid off half the company, including me.”
https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/john_marvin/interview_john_marvin.html
Btw, there’s only 1 ‘t’ in Moreta.
Thanks very much Scott! Just updated the page with new details and a link to your interview. Thanks also for the correction!