Confidential Magazine #1 Sept/Oct 1988

Back in 1987 I ordered a copy of the classic adventure “Guild of Thieves” along with my Amiga 500. Included in the game’s package was a copy of “What Burglar?” magazine, and an advert for a mysterious “Confidential” club. Well, that’s how I remember it - looking through the box now I don’t see such an advert in there, though there is an offer to write in to Magnetic Scrolls to receive some swag. Or maybe there was a card/form that I filled out and posted. At any rate, I joined. This turned out to be the Special Reserve mail order club founded by Tony Rainbird, and “Confidential” was its magazine.

The mag was actually really good - always full of interesting articles, with a focus on adventure games. I’m pretty sure I still have every copy, so over the coming weeks I hope to scan them all in.

The PDF of the first issue can be downloaded here.

Contents:

• Psychobable - Adventure gaming news roundup, and details of the exclusive Magnetic Scrolls game that was coming with Issue 2: “Myth”.
• Something Very Fishy - Details of the next Magnetic Scrolls game, “Fish!”.
• A Mega-Game in the Making - A preview of “The Kristal”. Was it worthy of all the hype?
• A Spy in the Camp - Interview with Level 9.
• Non Player Characters - Alive or Dead - Should NPCs be doing more to justify their existence?
• Whither Adventuring? - A look at Role Playing games.
• Into the Labyrinthe - Graeme Kidd goes LARPing.
• It Comes in the Mail - A round up of Play By Mail games.
• All About Infocom - Interview with Dave Lebling.
• A Wordsmith Pinned Down - Interview with Michael Baywater.
• Small Companies, Big Software - A round up of small independent mail order software companies producing quality adventures, and some advice for budding adventure creators.
• Uncle Mel’s Pwoblem Corner - Mel Croucher answers readers questions (well, they may not have been real correspondents).