Confidential Magazine #6 August/September 1989

This month’s mag included:

• A rather depressing Editorial which opened with “Boom-time for the computer games world is over, at least for the next few years.” The Japanese consoles were wiping the floor with computers - the 8bits were barely hanging on, the ST not far behind them. There looked to be some life left in the Amiga, but it was the IBM PC that stood the best chance of lasting. Perhaps the grimmest thing about this was the high entry bar for console development - what would happen to all the small UK devs?
• In other not so happy news, the once great Infocom had been assimilated into Mediagenic (prev Activision). The office was moved to the West Coast, but it seemed no designers or developers relocated with it. Steve Meretzky and Dave Lebling were among the most recent to quit.
• An interview Level 9’s Pete Austin about their upcoming Scapeghost. He was rather coy about their plans beyond this one, but now that we have the benefit of hindsight and know that it in fact would be their last, it did seem like they saw the writing on the wall.
• A look at “Ranch Wars” which was a Play By Mail game except it wasn’t - it was an “on-going graphic adventure that comes through the post” and was a “strange amalgam of interactive fiction, graphical war-gaming and strategy all mixed together”.
• The Encyclopedia Frobbozzica - an indepth reference of all things Zork.
• An interview with Joe Dever, author of the Lone Wolf books.
• A look at Role Playing Play By Mail game “Calvana”.
• Was the icon driven Infogrames “Kult” the future of adventure games?
• Sandra Sharkey presented some general musings on writing adventures.
• Confidential went on a bit of LARPing with “Mythlore”.
• A short story by Ian Urquhart.