St. Bride's School

St. Bride's School were a mysterious group of 1980s text adventure authors (led by Priscilla Langridge and Marianne Scarlet) that produced games for 8-bit systems including the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.

Produced with The Quill, their early game The Secret of St. Bride's was self-published, initially by mail-order only. However it proved a hit, thanks in part to the mystery around the school itself and the slightly risqué advertising. As a result, later titles attracted the interest of bigger commercial publishers such as Mosaic Publishing and CRL.

Their game Jack the Ripper, developed for CRL, is notorious for being the first game to received an "18" rating in the UK; something that the publishers had deliberately tried to engineer by including suitably gory images.

All of the St. Bride's ZX Spectrum titles, including three previously unseen games, were eventually republished by GI Games in the 1990s and were finally passed on to form part of the Zenobi Software catalogue.

Their unfinished, or unreleased games, include works based on Alice in Wonderland and Raffles for Mosaic Publishing and the original titles Sir Jasper and Wondergirl.

Author Credits

• The Secret of St. Bride's (publisher: St Bride's School; 1985; Spectrum, later Amstrad CPC & C64).
• The Snow Queen (publisher: St. Bride's School; 1985; Spectrum, later C64).
• The Very Big Cave Adventure (publisher: CRL Group PLC; 1986; Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, C64).
• Bugsy (publisher: CRL Group PLC; 1986; Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, C64).
• Jack the Ripper (publisher: CRL Group PLC; 1987; Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, C64).
• The Dogboy (publisher: GI Games; 1991; Spectrum).
• Silverwolf (publisher: GI Games; 1991; Spectrum).
• The White Feather Cloak (publisher: GI Games; 1991; Spectrum).

Links

• St. Bride's School Games on CASA.
• St. Bride's School - a detailed history by Owen Williams.
• The Secret Games of St. Bride's - the story behind the "lost" St. Bride's games.
• 50 Years of Text Games: Silverwolf - part of the Aaron A. Reed series.

Interviews

• Back to School - interview with Marianne Scarlet and Priscilla Langridge. Sinclair User #45, December 1985.
• Games lessons - interview with Marianne Scarlet and Priscilla Langridge. CRASH #26, March 1986.