The Quill

The Quill is perhaps one of the best known adventure writing systems released for a range of computers, including the Sinclair QL Home Computer.

The program allows you to create a database of your adventure, including rooms, objects, descriptions and characters, and then store them in a portable format along with a built in interpreter ready to run on your machine.

Many commercial titles were produced using The Quill on a wide range of computers. For the Sinclair QL, these were:

• The Prawn
• Horrorday
• Dennis the Dwarf at the Funfear
• Quest for the Dragon Sword
• The Voyage of the Beano

Unfortunately, the later improvements released for The Quill (such as the Illustrator which allowed graphics) and the Professional Adventure Writer (PAW) with the improved interpreter, were never converted to the Sinclair QL.

That said, Alan Pemberton created the public domain Quill to SuperBASIC utility which allowed you to create a SuperBASIC program which would run adventures written in The Quill. Graphics could then be added to the adventure, as was shown to great effect with The Voyage of the Beano.

This utility was also essential to ensure that the generated games could be played on the various different Sinclair QL variations.

Download the Quill to SuperBASIC utility from the RWAP Software website

Title: The Quill
Language: 68000 Machine Code
Author: Huw Hamer Powell
Publisher: Gilsoft
Year of Publication: Unknown
Platforms Suitable for: All Sinclair QLs and emulators
Commercial Status: Commercial
Price as at June 1985: Unknown
Reviews: Unknown
Sources Available from: n/a
Latest Version available from: Unknown