Sinclair ZX Spectrum

The Secret of St. Brides

The St. Brides School was a real life holiday destination in Ireland in the eighties, where grown-up women could go back in time for a 20's boarding school experience. The school branched out by going into computer game development and their first title The Secret of St. Brides took place at the location of the software developer. In the game you take on the role of Trixie Trinian, a headstrong young woman set out to discover the secret of St. Brides. Along with your friends, Cynthia and Fiona, you must find out why everyone at the school believes they are living in the twenties and restore normality. A side quest is to find an amulet that is completely separate from the main objective of the game. The Secret of St. Brides is a traditional text adventure made using the Quill adventure generation software from Gilsoft. Input is given by typing instructions to the parser which accepts a verb / noun input for the most part and graphics are displayed as full screen images rather than the split screen format that was predominant at the time. It was originally sold by mail order only but a proper distribution deal was arranged after the game received good reviews.