Nordic Scene Review 05
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Nordic Scene (World) Review #5
Nordic Scene (World) Review #5
[Nightlord]
First of all this has been a
weird period for the C64 scene I
think. Thinking about no Floppy is
coming soon, one gets sad. Then one
becomes a bit excited since Instinct are
organizing a party. Only one trackmo and
a few smaller things come up that we can
write about, but then a proper Attitude,
a few well written Game Overviews and
a face melting Star Flake pushes us in
the right direction. Well this is the
way of things I guess.
I still think we need more
diskmags. Come on people, quit spending
your random keyboard clicks on web
forums, and start publishing diskmags. A
lot of people have a lot of things
to say and all that goes wasted in
uncategorized, unmoderated, nonlinear
forums and irc. The utter junkyards,
the forgotten and neglected trashcans
of the web.
Why not use the advantage of the
organization and the focus of a
diskmag. No one will read your forum
posts a second time. No one will come
back a few weeks later and browse
through them. It is the word that is
said and forgotten. We have iterated on
diskmags being the proper platform for
idea exchange before, but it seems we
can not stress it enough.
Near future promises to be bright
though. The most active time of the
year is ahead of us. So it is time to
cross fingers and expect some inspiring
productions.
[Puterman]
Well, at least one of the editors is
hopeful... I try to keep my expectations
down, but right now the St. Lars
meeting is going on in Lund, maybe
something cool will be released there.
And then there's Breakpoint, of course,
maybe one of the German groups will make
a comeback and release something cool.
Things are looking pretty okay for
Nordic Scene Review anyway, and we still
have a lot more review material than our
favorite mag Game Over(view). We've
also managed to get some more people
to help us with the reviews this time.
Twoflower tricked some dutch folks into
discussing a few recent releases with
him, and we also recruited Ninja as 256
byte reviewer.
Now read the reviews, suckers!
Credits
Text: Nightlord, Puterman, Twoflower,
Ninja, Decompracid, Hein and Sander
Code: Iopop
Music: Zabutom
Demos
Demos
[Puterman]
13 Fingers isn't exactly what you'd
expect from Creators, but it wasn't
supposed to be released, and I probably
shouldn't even mention it here, but I'll
write about stuff that I get my hands
on, so this one is included as well.
While it's quite stupid to upload
previews that you weren't supposed to
spread, this demo was actually shown
at a party, if I remember correctly,
and in my opinion stuff that's competed
at parties should be spread to the
warez-hungry elephants out there.
As for the contents, the plasma parts
are just ugly, and the sprites don't
really add anything, but the last part,
with the dancing silhouette, looks
pretty good.
[Nightlord]
There is not much to add from me except
that I think the rotating head is also
kind of ugly.
[Puterman]
Chasing Rainbows 70% came from the
same source, and wasn't supposed to be
spread either, but just like 13 Fingers
it has competed at a party, and I'm
happy that I finally got to see it.
This one's pretty nice, with sprites
floating around the screen and some nice
graphics from Mermaid. Nothing special,
and not finished, but worth watching.
[Nightlord]
the first part and the afro head gfx are
nice. I did not like the star animations
in the last part.
[Puterman]
Christology by Afrika is a fake demo
that's actually worth watching. Lofi
but very data. Too bad the scroller in
the last part is so hard to read.
Demodojo made their debut with a simple
intro, which was coded by Skate of
Bronx. I don't really see the point
of forming a group if you have to
borrow your coder from another group,
but maybe they'll find one, or learn to
code themselves. According to CSDb,
Bakkada, the only member of Demodojo,
didn't do anything except write a short
and uninteresting piece of scrolltext,
and Skate did the rest. I wish our
new friend Bakkada will make a bigger
effort with his next release, maybe
he could even put it together himself,
using a demo maker or something.
[Nightlord]
Just a small correction... It is Skate
of Glance not Bronx. He left Bronx more
than a year ago.
[Puterman]
Right, Skate of Bronx it is. Eh...
HVSC update #44 came with an intro,
coded by Inge. It's all very oldschool,
with several scrollers at the screen at
once, which means you don't know which
one to read, which might make you want
to start killing people at random if
you're that kind of person.
[Nightlord]
Although I am known to be a calm person,
I am one of those people. I hhhhate
mmmultttiple scrrrooolls. Do not do
it please unless you are breaking a
dycp record.
[Puterman]
Another thing that might make you want
to start killing people is the ugly logo
by JSL, while the tune by Intensity just
makes me a bit nervous. Thumbs up to
Inge for doing this, it gives some much
needed scene cred to the HVSC crew,
but I'd prefer something a bit more
ambitious next time.
[Puterman]
Join Us by (a faked) Moloch is...
interesting. No, it isn't, but it's
sort of nice to see some childish fights
going on in the scene anyway.
Stop was (maybe) released by the
*real* Richard Bayliss, if there is
such a thing. It seems the person who
released this, who might or might not
be the *real* Richard Bayliss, wants
people to stop criticizing his releases.
As usual this release was added to
CSDb, then removed and so on, in the
usual *real* Richard Bayliss style, so
I guess there's no doubt that it was
done by the *real* Richard Bayliss.
The wonderful graphics were drawn by
(the presumably *real*) Philip Bayliss,
the *real* Richard Bayliss' (*real*)
brother. Good stuff, keep it *real*.
Xmaspoop by Swappas with Attitude was
actually a pretty nice release in all
its childishness. It's nice to see that
some people can be bothered to release
hate demos instead of just fucking
around on web forums. Unfortunately
this resulted in about 666 billion forum
posts, where about 0.0003% made any
sense at all. I don't understand where
all the strong feelings come from, but
it seems to be very important to some
people to put their animosity towards
others on public display.
[Nightlord]
During those 666 billion posts, I
actually lost my 3 year old habit of
regularly checking csdb forums. Now I
am even scared to navigate that site. So
thumbs up for the moderation.
[Puterman]
Wanderer himself released a demo
which was pretty impressive in all
its bugginess and slowness. You can't
possibly beat the bad performance of
that plotter! Of course, if something
sucks, you can always explain that
it's "oldschool", which excuses
anything, including simple raster bugs.
Of course, I don't own an NTSC machine,
so I had to check this one in an
emulator, but I doubt that code that
are so glitchy in VICE will work very
well on a real machine. The only good
thing about this demo is the music,
which was of course ripped. Thumbs up
for trying, but if you ever feel like
releasing anything as crappy as this
again, please reconsider. And the fact
that it was the first demo released in
2006 is, like... eh... I can't really
think of anything to say about that.
Digital Excess tried to get us into
the christmas spirit with International
Karaoke, which consists of a bunch of
christmas carols with lyrics. Quite a
few of them are (of course) in German,
the international scene language
number one. It's all pretty nicely
put together, except for a few details,
like the fact that it uses the ROM font
and that you have to use a joystick
to control it. Apart from that: nice
intro, nice graphics and special karate
thumbs up your nose for doing something
a bit original. Who needs Singstar when
you can sing German christmas carols in
front of your C-64?
"Who fucking said that the Polish scene
is death?" I don't know. Tropyx for
sure aren't dead, they actually managed
to release two multipart demos in
2005, which is a lot more than most
other groups did. I'm not going to
say that I actually like this, it was
quickly thrown together, and it shows.
But Tropyx are definitely improving,
and while I'm still far from impressed
by their effects, they're way better
than in their last demo.
[Nightlord]
I think it is fair to talk about an
improvement. There is more attention
to the cleanness of the overall product
this time. Also I think the soundtrack
is interesting especially at the end
part. On the effects front the animation
and the plasma are the lows and the
shade bobs part is the high.
Dutch Scene Review
Dutch Scene Review
[Twoflower]
Sitting in a cold, damp cell on the
first floor, wearing itchy black robes
and large white wigs which have seen
better days, four sceners are eagerly
watching The Dark Judge turning towards
them. -"I have importants matters
to attend. I leave the judgements
to you. Do it the dutch way. Do not
fail me", his voice beckons. Seconds
later, a door being slammed shut,
we know that TDJ has left us to our
own devices, heading through the night
towards the tram to Amstelveen. In the
weak light from Sander's 1084 we gaze
at eachother. Hein, Sander, DCMP and
Twoflower. With the echo of TDJ's voice
echoing in our minds we start our task.
Tsankki and Nyrkki by Jumalauta
[Twoflower]
The first two demos for the evening. Two
rather uninspiring releases from a
finnish sub-fake group. The first one
including a cover of the Commando-tune
which I cannot place, let's just
hope that someone didn't compose it
exclusively for this demo. The second
one including the classic 8x8 plasma,
obviously included just to bring pain
onto the NSR-staff. Didn't we ban this
effect in the last issue, Puterman?
[Puterman]
Yes, an 8x8 plasma gives you an
automatic thumb down, so the official
(automated) opinion on Jumalauta is that
they suck.
[Twoflower]
I don't really understand why people
release stuff like this? Neither of
these demos are funny, and it must have
taken atleast 15 badly spent minutes
to put together, scrolltext-writing and
gfx-converting not included.
[Hein]
These demos are boring. The red screen
of the Nyrkki-demo was a powerful one
though. And the Laxity-tune in the
second one really sucks. It has always
sucked.
[Decompracid]
Nothing new. Nothing interesting. They
might have released it because they were
bored or something? Or if the party was
really boring and they suddenly decided
to code it live and then release it?
[Sander]
I'm a little stoned, and i'm not
sure i'd like to be quoted. Atleast
they have secured quite an identity,
using that logo consistantly in two
productions? Is this a ditched project
which was just released? If it was made
by some guy who is a beginner, I think
this is acceptable.
Lessons in Gray by NOFX
[Twoflower]
This is the "return" production
from NOFX, a group which didn't
make too much noise in the past. One
spritescroller, one spritelogo and some
charanimations. I won't spill too much
words on this one; it's really the same
thing as the Jumalauta-productions,
although this is meant to be serious. I
won't whine though, since this is
their first intro-attempt on this
machine, and I know that they will make
progress. Sometimes I really wish for
another good comeback production, like
"Accumulator" from SCL.
[Decompracid]
A ripped tune? and probably too little
colors. I believe they should have made
some bigger efforts making a comeback
demo.
[Sander]
They must have had a nice time making
it, getting together again, having a
meeting and all but it doesn't give
me anything.
[Hein]
Perhaps they're gray mice? Making this
might have given them a nice trip back.
[Puterman]
I think you're all being a bit hard on
this one. At least it doesn't look
as boring as releases of this type
usually do. I like the funky movement
and the gray scales look sort of fresh.
Phantazm by The Phantom (NTSC)
[Twoflower]
Why does the American scene still
separate itself from the rest of
the scene, and why do we accept the
fact that they tend to do it? In the
comment at CSDb, The Phantom writes
that he thinks this is a fair NTSC
release. I agree with that, but I
still think it's a shame that today's
NTSC-demos don't live up to the same
standard as they used to do? And why
isn't the style the least adapted to
todays PAL demo-creations? It's like
all progress since 1989 doesn't mean
shit to the NTSC-scene. Don't tell
me it's because you haven't seen many
newer demos working with NTSC. You'd
be surprised to know how many demos
which actually work perfectly on those
machines. Black backgrounds, 3 color
logos, many scrollers, ripped tunes
and some effect here and there might
be acceptable for a beginner, but if
you'll look into what The Phantom have
been producing so far, you'll notice
that he was one of the most active
democreators on the NTSC-scene during
the nineties. I also think that it's a
shame that it isn't PAL-fixed aswell,
since it would be no bigger issue just
to adjust the timings. No, really, I
don't think this is bad. Not really bad,
anyway. Just sort of bad.
[Sander]
Not much to say about it, doesn't
do much to me. Nice flow, in a way,
vaguely. Loneliness might be the
motivation behind this one? Nah! That's
too nasty.
[Decompracid]
I like seeing stuff from the US,
since they don't have a "normal" scene
there. Perhaps they choose to make it
NTSC-only since the C-64 breadbin is THE
real thing over there. No emulators,
no crossassembly, just making your
thing on the NTSC-C64. Some competition
would surely make the situation better
over there?
[Hein]
It's a boring demo. I liked the last
part of the demo best, the one with
Laxity's tune and the multiplexing
ontop of that 8X8 plasma. This demo
might have been created just for the
sake of filling out time, or to prove
something for yourself, creating and
solving your own puzzles, and just
showcasing the results.
S:t Lars Invitro by Instinct
[Twoflower]
This one was a nice surprise. Using
Univerz' old S:t Lars graphics and
a stylish combo of RaveGuru's blippy
tune and JackAsser's fine code, this
isometric little invitro was a fine
addition to this year's releases. I
really like the coloreffect beneath
the scroller and the fact that there
is a scroller used, instead of using
a simple textscreen or some kind
of displayer. There are far too few
scrollers nowadays.
[Decompracid]
I like this invitro. This is the only
stuff i've seen so far this evening
which has stuck in my head. It's really
simplistic, although it really looks
special.
[Sander]
I like it. This is an IKEA-styled
(a Dutch abbreviation for 'newschool
Scandinavian design') invitro, it's got
a nice tune and the clumsiness of the
animation in the beginning gives it a
special clumsy touch. It sort of makes
it vulnerable in a way. The graphics
are quite distant. Intriguing. This demo
is far from the meaning and purpose of
its message, though. It feels as if the
text and intention don't match the vibe
of the demo? But it leaves me puzzled.
Perhaps it does meet the message
after all?
[Hein]
I like it. It's an amusing demo. It
shines data, it feels like data. The
isometric design and the random colors
all speak data to me. Looks kind of
systematic.
=Dutch Collections Review
Dutch Collections Review
6:th!! by JSL/Covenant
[Twoflower]
This is the sixth logocollection from
JSL, and hence the name. It includes
over 40 logos of different quality,
many of them dedicated to different
magazines such as "Digital Talk". There
is no doubt that some time has been
invested in making these. You might say
that JSL is seriously improving in his
logomaking, and sure that might be the
truth. Still there are 30 crappy and 10
good logos in this collection, all with
the boring black background and most of
them feeling like badly antialiased,
copied fonts. What I like in this
collection is the odd figures which
turn up now and then. I saw them in the
Covenant pirate demo and in the Primary
Star-invitro and at some other places
and now they turn up again. These are
the images which are of interest to me
and which show the most progress; images
made in a unique, very personal style.
[Hein]
Not my cup of tea. He must have a
lot of spare time? Shouldn't he work
or something? The starting picture
was nice, and the whole collection's
got a nice naive touch, it's maybe a
reflection on his views on life? Perhaps
he should have used an original tune?
[Decompracid]
I think he's getting better. I do see
some improvement. I see less of the
copy/paste technique he used too much
earlier on. There is progress in his
logomaking.
[Sander]
His clumsiness has evolved into
something. Some of the logos are good
from a retro point of view. I really
think his figures are better than his
logos, I find them more personal in
some way.
[Puterman]
A new collection of graphics by JSL
isn't exactly anything that makes me
enthusiastic, but as the others have
pointed out, 6th shows some improvement.
Not many of the logos are really ugly,
and some actually look pretty good.
However, this collection still shows the
weaknesses in JSL's works, that I think
every reviewer has to mention: he spends
way too little time on each picture, and
they're all very flat and 2-dimensional.
He's just not good enough technically
to make anything breathtaking, but if
he sticks to what he knows, ie. letters
and fill-patterns, he can produce stuff
that looks okay.
Starflake by Vibrants
[Twoflower]
Nice. The first music collection in ages
from Drax, the last ones released before
this beeing the trio "Cogito Ergo Sum",
"Mr.Thomas" and "Oomph", made back in
1996. Almost ten years afterwards, Drax
gives you a good collection of 5 varied
tunes. His music, generally speaking,
has evolved enormously since then. Some
people think it's sad, although others
find it a nice thing. I'm of the second
opinion. More focus on the strong
melodies and the overall vibe and less
groovebased stuff does it for me. The
five tunes feel like a good and complete
whole. The presentation, on the other
hand, doesn't really fit me at all. I
don't like the 2x2 font, I don't like
the tech-teching change of the logos
and the style of the Star Flake text,
and I don't like the unbalanced vibe the
placing of the elements gives me. It
all feels a bit too cheap if you put
it beside the awesome tunes. Ok, the
main interface might have been an old
idea from Drax, but I still feel that
Clarence could have made something
better with it.
[Decompracid]
I like the presentation of this music
collection. It's satisfactory. I usually
like Drax' music, his standard quality
is very high. This is no exception.
[Sander]
Drax creates so much music that
everything can't and shouldn't be
used in a demo. This is a nice way
of presenting these musics in a
package. What I don't like is the
combination of modern and retro in
the interface. The logo feels like a
straight conversion from the Maniacs of
Noise website. Nice transitions though,
save for the logo.
[Hein]
Couldn't he have made a musicdisk
without sideborderprogramming? Drax has
his own control over the SID, I don't
think there is a limit to what he can
do with it. I believe these tunes are
made as a sort of self-therapie. The
tunes might have been purer with another
presentation, but in a way Drax did
the design and Clarence coded it as Drax
wanted it to be, so why not?
[Nightlord]
It was not long ago when I had
completely lost interest in Sid Compos,
online or in parties. I have said in
public that I do not care about music
collections even. Then Drax came and
punched me in the face, kneed me in
the guts, then pulled out his katana
and sliced off my ears. Oh my god... I
am begging forgiveness from the Gods of
SID. I prey for more music collections
and more SID Compos. I am sorry... I am
stupid... I am worthless...
You can not write a fair review to
this without mentioning the wonderful
outfit by Clarence. Very clean
implementation. A beauty to watch. A
pleasure to use. Also from a C64 scener
perspective this scroll text is just as
impressive as anything else here.
The title song is maybe one of the best
things I ever heard on any platform.
The intro, the build up, the harmony,
the melody, the verse, the chorus, the
bridge, the sound... Unbelievably and
incomprehensibly beautiful. It is one of
those moments that you are thankful for
being ever involved in the C64 scene,
for being blessed by some reflection
of creativity and talent that only
exists in our scene. I am definitely
out of words.
The Expectations seem to be closer to
a typical Drax song at first. But it
is again just a premature comment. As
I keep listening to this song it has a
different kind of depth. Not as strong
a punch in the face as Star Flake is,
but more a patient teacher that rewards
the patient student.
Hypersensational is not directly my type
of music. But it grows on me in a weird
way. You could put that on a CD and have
a friend listen to it, and they would
not know it is coming form a C64.
Like Expectations, Slave fools the
impatient by looking like a well made
but typical SID. But no my friends,
again this is a quite original face
melter in disguise. The sounds in this
one make me want to go spend my life
at Drax's feet begging for being his
padawan learner.
You could only close such a sea of
beauty, a journey of exceptional and
dreamlike harmony, with a song like
Resolution. Not a single bit in this
song is there without a reason. It is
one of the most touching songs that I
ever heard. When I hear it, it somehow
makes me freeze. I sit down and listen
to it over and over. It makes me reach
an emptiness and stillness I never
experienced. Do yourself a favor. Turn
off the lights. Let the 1084 be the
only light in the room. Leave your mind
to float as you listen to this song.
If you do not have a proper speaker set,
buy one.
As you come back to reality hit 1 again
to enjoy Star Flake one last time before
you turn your C64 off and go back to
your normal life.
Ninja's minimal corner
Ninja's minimal corner
[Ninja]
I am glad that Puterman invited me to
do 256-byte-reviews for NSR, because I
appreciate coding in minimal sizes as a
fascinating discipline. I also realized
that I feel like sharing my thoughts
about this topic. The first, subjective
thought is that 256 bytes is a waste
of diskspace on the C64. I invite you
to join the crowd of self-confident
commie-junkies who measure in their
native units. That would be 1 block (=
252 byte) in this case. Okay, I will
not elaborate on this topic again.
The first candidate getting a review
is "Cheatcode" from Cruzer/Camelot.
Typically for him, you don't have to
wait a number of seconds because of
some BASIC-math-calculation. The
effect starts right away. All
sines are generated in assembler,
his source even says "using basic
is lame". Well, like with all other
disciplines in the scene, you can make
a philosophy/war/whatsoever out of the
definiton of "lame". My mileage varies,
I don't think it is lame. It is also a
challenge to optimize the BASIC-line to
save work for the main routine. Plus,
it sets a number of zeropage-variables
to a known state. Cruzer seems to lack a
bit of knowledge here, possibly because
he is not interested in BASIC. That
is his choice. In the end, I'll put it
different: the fast startup of this one
is a big positive point.
Which soon gets equalized by a huge
minus point, a totally garbaged screen
(which is also kinda typical for
Cruzer). Not only are the remaints of
the previous textscreen visible, also
the color-RAM is taken as it is. That
might work for a plain system, where
only lightblue chars are used. But
a simple cartridge is often enough
to mess up that plan. And the effect
looks really broken, when some of its
chars are not multicolor. It's a pity,
preventing this does not require much
code. And looking into memory, it shows
that there are enough possibilities
to squeeze some bytes out (lots of
3-byte-opcodes in there, abusing
zeropage might help).
But well, I guess Cruzer would know
what to do, if he felt like spending
more time on it. And this was obviously
not the case. This is no complaint, by
the way. I prefer releases which feel a
bit unfinished to releases never seen
because of a "total-perfection-mania"
(what is not an excuse to release all
kinds of crap, of course). Still,
I prefer polished releases even more.
The biggest plus of this release is
that the effect itself looks nice. I
have a weak point for such filled
patterns. Although not offering
something amazingly new, I know some
demos released recently which would
have badly needed an effect similar to
this. Cruzer said that he has a long
list of effects still to be done and
I am really looking forward to any
outcome, as his effects are usually
visually attractive.
All in all, this is a nice tiny effect,
really suffering from the garbaged
screen. I hope next time, Cruzer will
spend some more minutes optimizing the
code to clear the screen.
...
And just as I thought I would be
done with this article, he released
another one named "B0lgepap". Again,
with a fast startup and this time with
no garbage on the screen. So, this one
must be really good then? Well, hmm, got
me there. This time the effect is not
appealing to me. Both the idea and the
execution are, well, average. It leads
me to the general question if anything
that can be done in that size has to
be done. Personally I would rate this
as pretty boring. Trying to reach new
heights is the main force driving the
scene forward. Of course, "new heights"
is another scene-term you could start
a war about.
But well, Cruzer will keep doing things
he likes and in the way he likes,
which is the ultimate way to keep your
personal motivation going, by the way.
And I will keep looking forward to his
releases, as they are usually inspiring,
with some exceptions.
Diskmags
Diskmags
[Puterman]
Game Over(view)'s release schedule is
full of surprises... not. And that's
something we're all happy about.
Issue 25 features a pretty nice intro
by Slarti and Bud, but of course,
that's not why we read the mag. I also
couldn't help noticing that the logo
was nice (although it flickers a lot,
as usual) and that the tune is also,
well, "nice" I guess.
While I'm always positive to ALIH's
violent outbreaks of unmotivated
language abuse to make his enemies
tremble, the paragraph on what he'd want
to do to Richard's mom if he'd had a
time machine was a bit sick. But just
a bit. On a more positive note, I
think ALIH broke his own record of the
greatest number of occurances of the
word "fuck" in one article. Nice job!
Too bad ALIH has such terrible material
to work with, because I really wish
there was more reading in each issue.
[Nightlord]
I know it will not sound original at
all, but seriously there is nothing
more to say about Game Overview. Having
just finished reading the two year
anniversary issue, I am overly baffled
about how one can write such intelligent
and fun text about three games which one
rates as 7%, 21%, and 13%... How can
anyone keep doing this for 25 FUCKING
times. And yet again another extremely
fun issue for me hits my breadbox.
The outfit is seriously cool. I just
noticed the proportional displayer is
able to handle different char spacing
depending on the letters. For those of
you who have no idea what I am talking
about, let me give you one more reason
to keep loving go(v). When the text
includes "Tl" and "Ta" for example. a
is printed closer since it can fit in
to lower part of T. So here is something
for all you proportional text rendering
lover coder boys, to ponder about...
It definitely is a good start to a new
year, when you are faced with a nice
diskmag, and you know it is monthly
there, and you see #25 written on it.
[Puterman]
Issue 26 was also released, and it
wasn't quite as much fun as the previous
one. ALIH seems to have been in a more
balanced state of mind while writing
the text, way too balanced actually.
Oh well, hopefully something horribly
bad will be released soon to make
his life miserable and, in turn,
ours better.
Publication #57 also features an intro,
this one made by Richard. Nothing
special, but I notice that he's managed
to code (or rip?) a sprite stretcher.
Some piece of friendly advice: try using
different lengths of the x and y sine
tables, get someone else to draw the
charset and get someone else than JSL
to draw the logo. Thanks in advance!
I know I mention the glitchy magsys
in every review of a new issue of
Publication, but there's no avoiding it,
the same bugs and glitches have been
there forever, and they keep haunting
the poor readers. I've given up on them
ever fixing it, so I'll just break down
and cry now. Boooo-hoooooo.
As always, there are some coding
articles aimed at complete newbies.
I'm not sure what the point of trying
to teach people C in a C-64 diskmag is,
but at least it's about coding and not
Formula 1.
Richard's article "Making of ... Jeffy"
is the highlight of the mag for me.
I'd already read other tutorial style
articles by Richard, which usually focus
on pointless stuff like the fact that
he loaded up tasm before coding, but
this article is more extreme than ever.
Reading detailed desriptions of how
he used Amica Paint to draw rectangles
made me laugh out loud several times.
For the benefit of those of our
readers who couldn't be bothered to
read Publication, I'll provide some
highlights here:
"How was I to draw the game graphics
using Amica Paint? Simple as that,
I prepared the rectangle, using the
rectangle option. I done a rectangle
in the inner layer and also the outer
layer. After I done this, I filled the
black space (inside both rectangles)
using white. Now we had a simple white
outline."
"I activated the zoomlens, so that when
I was plotting the colours around the
border, I did not do a bad job with it."
"Then for the final touch, I added my
initials to the bottom corner or the
game screen. Then I froze the pic and
turned it to vidcom format."
Amazing, isn't it? It doesn't stop
there, though, I have to share the
following gem with you as well:
"So I created ass.bat to assemble, and I
also used build.bat to assemble again,
link and crunch. Such a simple thing
to do."
Indeed, such a simple way to give your
readers nightmares about nasty Richard
with his ass bat!
If it hadn't been for this kickass
article, this issue had sucked badly.
Come on people, it's time for you to
decide whether you're ever going to do
anything about this mag or just stop
releasing it!
Attitude #9
As I am typing this in the slave PC
Attitude is open with Linus' music
playing on the main computer in the
room. I have to say I enjoyed this issue
very much. Only a few minor problems
were there for me. But let us talk about
them later.
[Puterman]
One problem was that large parts of
this issue bored me. My expectations
were really high after issue #8, but
this one didn't quite live up to them.
Maybe I was just in a lousy datamood
when I was reading it...
[Nightlord]
First of all I can not stress how great
I think the news chapter is. This is
the way a diskmag should treat one
of its most important chapters. Taper
has done an incredible job by not only
compiling stuff that is actually "news"
but also for putting it all together in
an informative and serious yet fun way.
My second pile of thanks should go to
Cactus for the Charts chapter. I am
one of those who still think charts
and competition are important. The
mag charts are the only place where
you get a sniff of a present day
comparison. There obviously are enough
votesheets. I hope VN also goes back
to having a charts chapter after this
example. A personal side note here:
I think that the 4K category is kind of
pointless. Just like having a one-file
demo category is pointless.
Anyway the positive stuff keeps coming
as I go on reading the other chapters.
The demo reviews are very detailed and
mostly well written. Each aspect of
demo making is very carefully analyzed
by the reviewers. The reviews here
include comments on some aspects of
the demos that no one else mentioned
before. That is what I like about the
level of detail. On the negative side,
I must say that I felt at the second
part of reviews the division of code,
gfx and music reviews into separate
parts kept the reviewers from reflecting
on the overall impact of products. May I
humbly suggest adding an overall wrap-up
part in each review to remedy that?
[Puterman]
I agree that this sort of analysis
doesn't work. The only sort of demo
analysis that makes sense is the
kind that we do, for obvious reasons.
(That we're the best, that is.)
[Nightlord]
I especially enjoyed reading TCH's text,
both in the gfx and demo reviews. He
has a writing style which makes me
picture a guy speaking with a smile on
his face. That provides a relaxed mood
of reading. He also manages to present
his ideas with grace and clarity. I'm
looking forward to reading more from
him in the next issue.
The article on cross-development by
RRR was a bit boring for me. It does
not present anything that has not been
said before. Maybe all diskmag editors
of the world should come together and
agree not to write about some classical
diskmag subjects for a while. These
should include cross-development (good
or bad), is the scene dead, should demos
be arty or technical etc...
Now comes my most negative comment for
this issue. The self voting problem
chapter. I was quite disturbed with the
way this chapter was put together and
especially the way it was concluded. It
is supposed to be a collection of other
peoples ideas. A poll that is. However I
think Cactus tried to bend it a little
bit. The final conclusion that the
elite do not care about self voting
but lamers do, is NOT reflecting the
opinion poll there. That is a personal
conclusion of Cactus. Notice I am not
talking about the self voting thing
itself. I am disturbed by the way the
opinion poll is handled. I think it is
not elegant journalism.
[Puterman]
On the other hand we're talking about
a diskmag. It's not often you see any
kind of journalism in them.
[Nightlord]
But overall I really liked this
issue. And additional congratulations
on the short time between this one
and the last. Hopefully we will see
another nice issue of Attitude in March
or something...
Whatever happened to the bi-monthly
releases of VN by the way?
[Puterman]
Yes, and whatever happened to the
monthly releases of The Crest?
Euhmmm...
