Another obscure GTW title this time, mentioned on page 55 of Zzap 64 issue 32 in the PCW show report article. This was listed under Ariolasoft and is briefly described as a single release – a graphic adventure based on a poem/book series. Some sources suggest that Marc Pierson was behind a poem of which was named White Feather Cloak (Of which this game was based). Other sources suggest that the game was to also be the first part of a 3 part game series.
Marc Pierson worked at Beyond Software at the time and was initially linked as a developer on the game, but the game was unconnected to Beyond. It was to be published by Ariolasoft. The game was being done in conjunction with publisher Dorling Kindersley. One magazine described the game in more detail as being an educational adventure, with text written as rhyming couplets.
It is believed that the game was finished, but Ariolasoft decided that the release was not profitable enough and pulled out. The game remained unreleased.
However, the game eventually got released on the ZX Spectrum by Zenobi Software in 1992 for as little as £1.99. The title was written using The Quill by the girls of St Brides. Apparently according to Zenobi, there was a limited release by G.I Games, but eventually Zenobi picked it up and released it. When asked about a C64 version, the guys at Zenobi were not aware of one as they only dealt with ZX Spectrum games.
So what of the C64 game?… Who was behind it?…. Where is it now? … A lot more now known about the game itself, but still we hunt for details of developers and something of the game itself.
Contributor Strident is currently investigating about another St Brides game (see comments below) and has been collating his findings so far, which you can see linked. More details can also be found on his website at http://8bitag.com/info/stbrides.html
Do you know any more about this game?
Contributions: Zenobi Software, Richard Hewison, Steve Brown, World of Spectrum, Strident, @ZXadventurer
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I started to do a little digging about another St Bride’s game called Dogboy (or King) which was also based on the work of Marc Pierson. There are some other areas that I’m going to investigate, when I find the time, but here is a link a document which has a lot of the information that I’ve collated so far…
http://8bitag.com/info/documents/dogboy-gigames-v1.pdf
…some of it is relevant to White Feather Cloak too.
White Feather Cloak *was* a Quilled game, rather than PAWs, so would’ve been very straightforward to port to the C64.
It wouldn’t have been an issue even if it was a PAWs game… Tim Gilberts of Gilsoft (the publisher of the Quill and PAWs) produced a C64 interpreter to run the Spectrum database of Jack the Ripper on the C64. He was also commissioned to work on ports of other games, such as Silverwolf.
Just corrected the Quill reference and have mentioned about your research in the main piece. Good luck with the research and hopefully you’ll find something relating to both games.