Relax 10
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Editorial
* Editorial *
------------------------------------------------------------
The RELAX magazine June edition got delivered to
you by Bad Bytes Entertainment Software (european
division) after some personal troubles and misunder-
standings between the editing staff have been solved
in a way like gentleman behave not only to guarantee
the existance of this magazine but in the wise judge-
ment that computer-orientated conflicts should not
divide friends as there are definately much more im-
portant things than a thirteen years old computer of
a dying generation nor that these things should be
taken too serious since it is all entertainment in our
opinion and something we have to be pleased with.
The first Relax issue ever got released in September
1989 while the sixth isue got spread in April 1990 or
to be more precise on April 21st, 1990. Nearly five
years later at the X-95 (April 22nd/23rd) the ninth
issue got published as usual in a real hurry and after
some sleepness nights due to several reasons for
our staff. This issue is supposed to be something
special as it is the tenth issue, ten issues spread in
six years.
It is very usual in the magazine business today when
people are going to celebrate a special issue with
those very positive critism from their close friends
in order to show the "popularity" and the "success"
of their production. To be honest, all these reactions
look very similar and boring in our eyes so we refu-
sed even the idea to publish that kind of propaganda
for our magazine in here.
Many of our readers requested to see this magazine
being spread all four weeks in order to receive a
monthly journal, a monthly publication like in former
times practised by Sex'n Crime, Relax, Magic News
some years or The Pulse some months ago. For sure
we discussed this topic and researched how to reali-
se it but after dozens of conferences we came to the
logical conclusion that there is a lack of activity in
the scene. A lot of more or less well reputated sce-
ners leave the scene each month and the community
of CBM 64 users decreases day by day. It is sad but
true but necessary to collect six weeks all the hap-
penings, the few releases (from both the legal and il-
legal part of the scene), to analyze the votesheets
and the charts from our concerence we use in the
megacharts (=mail charts) in order to present the
maximum of quality, quantity and entertainment, things
that might do not look to hard to perform but regar-
ding the situation in the magazine market there are
only a few ones able to hold up this standart. Our in-
tention is to release a magazine filled with scene con-
cerned topics only, a policy being high appreciated
from many guys due to the mass of positive reactions
we got after our comeback issue and after the two
previous issues we released this year.
It is very easy to copy texts from books, to tell very
amusing erotic or mystic tales, to review books, music
CDs or movies but to edit a scene related magazine
with interesting topics in an as objective way as pos-
sible does really take much time, much more effort
and enthusiasm these days for a critical audience
counting blocks instead of looking out for quality
when it comes up to magazines today. We accepted
the challenge and went a different way, not the easy
one but one we really enjoy to be something special
in an cloned market. This magazine won't be abused
as a propaganda medium to be a platform for private
conflicts, a situation we are proud of, a subject we
already wrote about in the previous issue.
The INFOTAINMENT strategy and policy will be one of
things that make this magazine quite unique. A lot of
people requested what does it mean in general? Our
intention is to deliver masses of INFOrmation with the
global reports, charts, reports and reviews. While
these chapters already contain entertaining se-
quences in order to make boring facts more enjoy-
able we use to present the enterTAINMENT with the
trips back to the roots where we proudly can report
about things we did when we were young and the CBM
64 still was a machine which was interesting for all
the major companies and distributors, the highlight
and the glorious days of this machine. An interview is
supposed to be informative and interesting so we do
not classify this chapter in any way as long as it fits
into the concept and it does, don't you agree?
When people demand or ask for non-scene related
chapters we have to refuse your wish as this is not a
commercial production in order to sell more copies.
It is our hobby, our work and our job or to be more
precise something we have to be pleased with. It is
much more important to follow our concept, our ideas
and our inventions in order to reach our aims and we
are getting closer and closer the more issues we are
going to release. When we are pleased with the issue
we are going to refill our energy and we start over
to guarantee a successful follow-up.
When ignorant people talk about the Relax Magazine
these days they still use to call it a "Pulse-beating"
Alpha Flight magazine. In fact the idea of the Relax
was to continue where The Pulse stopped with a lot
of its former staff members but meanwhile the entire
staff "changed" back to the persons which were in-
volved with the Relax Magazine in former times like
Marc and Max who contributed from the start in 1989
up to now and RRR who delivered news and spread it
that time. Deff joined the staff in order to guarantee
that the release charts become the most fair charts
in the scene due to the fact that two members of
competing cracking groups merge their skills. This is
why we can proudly proclaim that our release charts
are the most FAIR and OBJECTIVE ones around these
days. We have been observing the market and found
out that people do spoil the rules for the release
charts until they found out a way to rank themselves
on the top spot. We can't and won't accept this kind
of behaviour as we do believe in a fair competition, a
competition we do not fear in any way.
Furthermore it is not neccessary to mention that the
Relax was supposed to be independent from the very
beginning in 1989 and after the comeback in 1994 but
actually it is going to be spread by BAD BYTES EN-
TERTAINMENT SOFTWARE, european division, and not
by Alpha Flight. Please keep this in mind when you are
going to mention the Relax Magazine.
This new outfit got born several months ago. When we
discussed and planned the comeback of the Relax we
have been considering about a very special and ori-
ginal outfit using proportional upscroller as our pre-
fered text display routine. Unfortunately all the end-
less previous tries have been skipped due to the
fact that NTSC computers did not like the routines
but these days Fuben/Oxyron presented the ultimate
version without using heaps of rastertime and timing
tables. PRI/TIA/Oxyron was responsible for the music
this time so we are proud to present a very advan-
advanced PAL/NTSC outfit in order to please all the
the masses of readers who judge magazines by re-
garding the outfit instead of studying the content
what seems to be one of the major mistakes not only
in our opinion but we have to quote Jeff Smart here,
a former Triad member, who used to say WHO CARES
in situations like this one.
Credits for this issue looks like this:
------------------------------------------------------------
Intro:
----
PROGRAMMING: Skid Row/ex-Alpha Flight 1970
SOUNDTRACK: Arne/Alpha Flight 1970
Magazine:
--------
PROGRAMMING: Fuben/Oxyron
SOUNDTRACK: PRI/TIA/Oxyron
BITMAP GRAPHICS: RRR/Oxyron
CHARACTERSET: Skid Row/ex-Alpha Flight 1970
Responsible editors for this issue are:
------------------------------------------------------------
MAIN EDITOR: Marc/Alpha Flight 1970
MAIN EDITOR: Max/Alpha Flight 1970
MAIN EDITOR: RRR/Oxyron
CO-EDITOR: Deff/Avantgarde
CO-EDITOR: Fuben/Oxyron
CO-EDITOR: PRI/TIA/Oxyron
CO-EDITOR: Scroll/Megastyle Productions
Here we would like to introduce two new co-editors
from Oxyron, namely PRI and Fuben. Both have joined
the Demo Review team which consists of Fuben, PRI
and RRR now or to be more precise specialists to
judge their special subjects to come up to a more
more professional review chapter. The same goes for
Scroll/MSP who will have a look at the programming
aswell, a man we do not have to introduce in here.
Atleast the following persons cooperated in any pos-
sible way like spreading our votesheet or supplying
news and information next to spreading this publica-
tion:
Intruder/Avantgarde, Sebaloz/Keen Acid/Lepsi De-
velopments, Spectator/SCS & TRC, Syco/Chromance,
Morris/Shape, Shuze/Afl and many more.
Finally there is a future for Commodore. ESCOM, a
german computer multi, bought the company for ca.
US$ 10.000.000,-. Commodore International Ltd. ac-
tually has active debts of around US$ 100.000.000,-
so most creditors are not satisfied. Nevertheless it
seems to be clear that the Commodore 64 will be pro-
duced for the eastern european market and the pro-
duction of the Amiga 1200/4000 will be restarted in
China. The future plans are to develope a power PC
comparable with the Apple Mac.
A lot of speculations have been made thinking about a
possible return of the big software houses what is
more than hypothetic. To be honest, actually it seems
like that the time of Commodore business (?) machines
is definately over, for both Amiga and CBM 64, and it
is up to an every user to slow down the final death of
this machine as long as possible. It is very amusing to
see the unlimited tries of concurence magazines try-
ing to rule the ruins and to denunciate their oppo-
nents with childish phrases and slogans instead of ac
cepting a fair challenge without unfair tricks to in-
fluence their potential target group, a group partly
being grateful for that kind of propaganda which is
everything else but not serious journalism! May it be
that there is some kind of jealousy leading them to
react and to behave like this? The remaing CBM 64
community should better encourage each other to
make sure that there will some support instead of
leaving behind a bunch of frustated users who are
finally fed up using this machine. This might be one of
the primary targets of people who can not compete
with the top in their blind mission and false ambitions
to become well respected even if they are not able to
recognize that they are - and not the people they
are going to attack - the responsible for people lea-
ving the scene. These persons should wake up and
start thinking before they influence the audience with
their dark visions nor do they have the right to
reform the scene. The scene has been running all
over the years pleasing a lot of persons who took
part and it can not be to see a few unsuccessful
creatures messing up with the system, a system
running perfectly over ten years now. Anarchy can
not be a solution to keep the scene alive as anarchy
will destroy all the fine structures which made this
scene, the scene you are actually a part of, possible.
Why is it that the so-called quality cracking groups
start to complain about first releases? Is it because
they do not have the sources to get those originals
and that they have no access to the major boards
due to the fact that they do not have the possibility
a chance to call out for "free"? Why is it that people
who applied for the elite status and never got it fi-
nally stand up and start to complain about the system
only because they did not reach their aim? To be ho-
nest, we have never heard an elite person complai-
ning about the system! Just curious. The status elite
is nothing you can get by buying a modem or joining
a so-called elite or top group, it is something like an
award you get from other persons and not unlike
some persons who self-titled themselves as elite. All
people who take chart positions more enjoyable com-
pared with the fun they could have in this scene are
people we can count on in the quest to keep the sce-
ne alive as they are supposed to be persons who are
going to release a lot of warez to guarantee the
steady flood of warez for this machine and you can't
deny the fact that the warez are, next to the very
important subject FRIENDSHIP, responsible for the
existance of the CBM 64 scene. We are here to re-
lease an interesting magazine because we like to
spend our sparetime for something that is a small
piece of the big puzzle being a sign for everyone to
compete with his production to connect the family of
users with the aim to keep the scene alive. When some
notorious people pray friendship and abuse their
publications for personal propaganda to spread false
facts and accusations to glorify their reputation and
productions it seems that they - and not their inno-
cent targets they choosed out of their personal
frustration - are the false prophets and people who
stand for the object of their impulsive and unrelie-
able attacks. It is definately the fun keeping us in the
scene and the friendship towards a lot of interesting
men and women worldwide, people we never would
have learnt to know without the medium computer. As
a small summary of the previous lines we would like to
point out that we do not want some wrecked persons
who think to own the right to destroy this scene while
complaining about people who used to serve for this
computer all over the years and all what we stand for.
These people should learn about accepting an every
person taking part in this soap opera when they de-
mand to become accepted instead of arguing and
abusing the word friendship to reach their aim. We
actually can not foretell the end of the scene, we
would really appreciate it to see people cooperating
or accepting all the competitors instead of working
against them. Fingers are weak but the fist is strong.
so people should unite before it is too late. To be
continued in forthcoming issues ....
This months' content looks like this:
------------------------------------------------------------
The GLOBAL REPORT has, as usual, a critical look at
the actual happenings in the scene, which will be re-
flected in the charts. The RELEASE CHARTS show in
an impressive way who got the Play Time at first and
who was able to upload his versions at first at the
boards worldwide. In the chapter BOARD CHARTS you
will find the resonance of the board scene when it
comes to fill digital votesheets at either the board
Escapade in the prepared voting booth or at Holiday
Inn Cambodia by leaving e-mails to Marc. Traditional
the MAIL CHARTS reflect the votes of the Relax rea-
ders who dared to fill the rarely spread votesheets
and the charts of the in the chapter stated magazi-
nes compiled to become the ultimate and offical mega
charts. This months INTERVIEW with Scroll offers
very interesting answers having a look at both, the
past and the present of this machine. The victims of
the DEMO REVIEWS were Radio Napalm, Fantasy and
Parts. BACK TO THE ROOTS presents some inte-
resting facts from a time when Venlo meetings were
worth being visited and when people ran AMOK with
gas attacks, something what seems to be very popu-
lar in Japan these days :(. ADVERTISEMENTS is a fo-
rum for all who have to offer or seek something that
should be ofcause scene related.
How to contact the Relax Magazine staff?
------------------------------------------------------------
Snail mail: Timo Buschmann, Pierenkemper Str. 13,
-------- 45891 Gelsenkirchen, Germany
E-mail: Holiday Inn Cambodia ++1/510/689/8893
----- Escapade ++49/5341/395697
(leave your mail at Marc's accounts or at the
accounts of other Alpha Flight members)
Internet: Maxey^Free.Org
------- SW0271^Uni-Essen.De (mark 'RRR')
About the steady release of the Relax Magazine we
can report that the magazine is going to be spread
all six weeks so you can expect the next issue at the
end of July 1995. For any further details please con-.
tact the Relax staff or your local dealer you got this
issue from. The past few issues have shown that it is
possible to release a magazine like this one filled with
a special standart of quality in that period.
We hope that you will enjoy reading this magazine and
what is more important for us that you start to think
about the content before you are going to be manipu-
lated by other sources. Our advice is to check out an
undefinated amount of information mediums before
believing in ruthless preaches published by question-
able sources.
The technique that allows this text display routine is
quite unique and contains control bytes so that we
will be always able to find our source out of "copied"
routines in the same way like the coders from Oxyron
found their abused routines in certain similar looking
demo parts from a certain group. Try to find our own
solution or use another technique as we will publish it
in here without pardon and won't hesitate to do it like
in former times to avoid any kind of conflicts.
If you are searching for a NTSC checker in the code
we have to disappoint you the display routine itself
does not need a fix. In the forthcoming issue we will
decrease the speed of the "Loading" sprites in the
NTSC format, too, that will be the complete NTSC fix
for the magazine. When you are filling votesheets you
should probably keep in mind who realised it at first
as PAL/NTSC running routine and give a sign of re-
spect to the coder of this outfit as he really deser-
ves it, not only in our opinion.
Best regards,
RRR/Oxyron
----------
Global Report
* GLOBAL REPORT *
------------------------------------------------------------
During the last few weeks we and our dear informers
were able to detect the few happenings and changes
in the CBM 64 scene.
We tried to check all the news and rumours very
carefully in order to avoid printing false information
here. If you would like to correct some details please
inform the editorial staff by contacting them by mail
or e-mail. This month's special service is the alpha-
numerical appearance of the compiled major news to
offer a faster access to the information of your
interest.
* Alpha Flight 1970 *
------------------------------------------------------------
Afl is always responsible for a lot of action month by
month, week by week and day by day. This group owns
a lot of NTSC chipsets, potentional single crackers
and recruited a lot of mail traders to enlarge their
engagement for the mail scene. Some competitors
tried to ruin their reputation by spreading rumours
about Afl and mainly Ream having re-cracked two ga-
mes. These rumours have been without any basis and
the opposite was proven. These proofs are going to
be spread along with the Relax Magazine.
THE EVIL ISLAND went down, actually not forced by a
lack of support and callers like other magazines sta-
ted but caused by a traffic accident of Ancient Mari-
ner. His truck got destroyed completely. His doctor
explained that he should be close to normal in a few
months and by the end of the summer when he conti-
nues his work out programm and using weights. After
the therapy he should be like he was before the tra-
gical crash. At the moment he is living at his mother's
house partly calling out with his Amiga as his wife is
working fulltime so she could not spent as much at-
tention as he needs these days. When Ancient Mari-
ner returns to his house The Evil Island will go online
again.
The identity of Pha Q seems to be still one of the use-
less questions people discuss these days. Fact is
that Pha Q was no one else but Dr. Death (Breaker),
a member of the legendary group Paramount years
ago. The reason for hiding his identity was that he
got caught by the police years ago and to protect his
good reputation as he did not come up to the skill le-
vel he used to have years ago so one of the few re-
mainig riddles left has been solved now.
Memberwise we detected that Agressor got kicked
due to permanent inactivity as he did not make any-
thing remarkable in his time he "served" the flight.
Stash seems to be the second victim of Alpha Flight's
new policy to reduce the memberstatus down to an
acceptable amount of members.
A sputnik called Disaster joined the flight to enlarge
the fleet with russian power as a modem trader but
after seeing no advantage in Disaster's membership
he got kicked out after a few days. Disaster's reven-
ge followed by uploading two re-releases. Indeed
a very amusing episode of the monthly soap opera we
use to call CBM 64 scene.
Current Alpha Flight memberstatus looks like: (= 14):
Ancient Mariner, Arne, Calypso, Ignorance, Marc, Max,
Mutant X, Pol Pot, Ream, Shuze, Skinhead, Styx, Xenox
Xenox and Zapotek
Alpha Flight 1970 Worldheadquarter(s)/Board(s):
HOLIDAY INN CAMBODIA +X/XXX/XXX-XXXX
THE ESCAPADE +XX/XXXX-XXXXXX
* Atlantis *
------------------------------------------------------------
Atlantis is one of those groups who have both, a good
legal and illegal section. Unfortunately the legal sec-
tion did not show much during the previous months so
when people were talking about Atlantis they mostly
were refering to the illegal section, consisting of ta-
lented crackers and good mail traders remembering
the masses that there is still much action from their
side.
Dr. Disk who left the scene some months ago finally
returned to the CBM 64 scene and to Atlantis, too.
Avalanche is completely back in business and works
on the new Immortal Flash outfit, one of the promising
legal Atl productions. The old News Press staff, na-
mely the former Rebels members, will work for the
Immortal Flash in the future.
Human decided to team up with his mates in Hardcore
(& Onslaught).
Current Atlantis memberstatus looks like (= 34):
Aegis, Agemixer, Artlace, Avalanche, B.A., Backslash,
Chaotic, Dano, Darklord, Darkness, Dave, Didi, Dr.
Doom, Dr. Disk, Dr. Science, Dr. Who, Dr. Zoom,
Freddie, Gangstar, Hi-Top, Kirby, Lala, Mr. Giga, Neo-
tec, Racer, Ram Jam, Rebel, Robocop, SMD, Snap,
Thirt, Troop, TUC and X-Poser
Atlantis Worldheaquarter(s)/Board(s):
FORTRESS OF DOOM +X/XXX/XXX-XXXX
POWER ENGINE +XX/XX-XXXXXX
* Avantgarde *
------------------------------------------------------------
Avantgarde is one of the best groups these days
when it comes to the topics first releases, single
crackers the very potentional mail trading section.
Avt has probably the best reputation of all the com-
peting cracking groups these days.
Jack Alien and Suicide already proved their skills as
worthy competitors for the european NTSC fixers
when they presented some fine versions but never-
theless it seems that no one can ever replace the le-
gendary Pudwerx.
In the land of the free (?) Chameleon, the former
sysop of "Divine Ultimation" which was a headquarter
for groups like Genesis and SCS & TRC for example,
joined to become a board graphician as well as Cy-
borg who joined both groups using his board as their
worldheadquarter. Rage, who got booted from Hard-
core some days ago, joined in as a programmer.
Dreams might become true when popular disk maga-
zines like "Corruption" and "Mamba" merged into
"Corramba", a magazine edited by competent and ex-
perienced editors who stand for quality and not only
quantity like certain other magazines spread these
these days.
Current Avantgarde memberstatus looks like (= 14):
Chameleon, Cyborg, Decilon, Deff, Derbyshire Ram,
Eliminator, Freestyle, Intruder, Jack Alien, Jack
Daniels, Rage, Suicide, Thorn and Tricom
Avantgarde Worldheadquarter(s)/Board(s):
DREAMPARK +X/XXX/XXX-XXXX
* Chromance *
------------------------------------------------------------
Many rumours got spread and told that this group is
supposed to be dead but anyway, Chromance still ma-
naged it to get their warez spread around and to
prove that they are still alive they finally pointed
out that they are far away from being dead.
Assailant, a former member of groups like Cherubs
and Extacy, returned to the CBM 64 scene, renamed
into Jaydee. A rather unknown person called Janee
teamed up in order to become a new original supplier
from them while Skull left the forces of Atlantis to
start composing for Chromance.
Alias Medron, a talented artist who teamed up toge-
ther with His-Team Design (Accept Design) was for-
ced to leave the scene caused by problems with the
school and his parents. A reliable source reported
that he might return to team up with a game label in
the near future.
Current Chromance memberstatus looks like (= 18):
AMC, Griff, Homeboy, Janee, Jaydee, Jazzy D, Jinx,
Joyride, Lion, Mr. Wax, Rough, Rug Rat, Skull, Stake,
Syco, The Unholy, Will and X-Radical.
Chromance Worldheadquarter(s)/Board(s):
EDGE OF MIDNIGHT +X/XXX/XXX-XXXX
THE HIGHWAY +XX/XX-XXXXX
* Fantastic 4 Cracking Group *
------------------------------------------------------------
With the tradegy around the death of Scope F4CG
had a lot of sad headlines in all the magazines around.
but it seems that things work normally again these
days even if life will never be the same for all the
people who used to know him personally.
It was very surprising to see F4CG starting a demo
section, something what seems to be very popular
these days (see Chromance and Onslaught just to
name a few). In order to let their dreams become true
they recruited a lot of Noice members, namely Devil,
Total Chaos, Got, Draz and Decoder, that means that
they got their hands on very potentional demo crea-
tors so people should be patient for their produc-
tions.
Zirco has left F4CG as he uses to have some spare-
time problems at the moment so he has no time left for
"computing" at the moment while Solar is considering
about bulding up a PC-section but nothing has been
specified yet.
Current F4CG memberstatus looks like (= 23):
Bitman, Cerebus, Deathlok, Decoder, Devil, Draz, Fen
1, Got, Hain, Idol, King, Maja, Morris, Motley, Mr. Alpha,
Neotec, Newscopy, Playboy, Sneaper, Solar, Spark,
Total Chaos and Walker
F4CG Worldheadquarter(s)/Board(s):
DREAMPARK ++X/XXX/XXX-XXXX
* Hardcore & Onslaught *
------------------------------------------------------------
The cooperation of the two newcommer cracking
groups still surprises the scene with all their unex-
pected actions.
At first Nomad teamed up with Onslaught as original
supplier and spreader in the United States. With Jolz
and Grize from Darkside two programmers joined
the legal section called Onslaught Design. L.A. Style/
ex-GP joined in as cracker. Later on Gop/Darkside
followed his former group mates and joined in, too.
More convocations have been send to Witty/Accu-
racy, who joined in as artist as well as The Twins, who
are said to be an artist duo from the Netherlands,
next to Jason, Doom and Baze/ex-Illusion who seems
to enlarge their mail trading forces. Last but not
least with Dodger/Dytec a talented cracker joined
their forces in order to guarantee some quality ver-
sion and uses to be a quite good deal for Hcon.
Vengeance teamed up with Megastyle Productions as
second group in order to concentrate his power at
the legal scene business. He is supposed to be a mail
trader for the old norwegian legend. The Hegg left
Onslaught to concentrate on his group Bad Karma.
Balance, who is a member of Replay and Chorus, too,
got kicked due to lazyness according to their maga-
zine Vandalism News. Futhermore they have deleted
all inactive members to reduce their indeed very
huge memberlist a little bit.
And what happened in Hardcore? Zore, a former
member of Elysium and later on Palace, joined them
next to Human, who left Atlantis to become a Hard-
core member. Later on he renamed into Ticket. Fur-
thermore they recruited a programmer called Carlos
while Rage got booted for several reasons.
Current HC & ONS memberstatus looks like (= 41):
Baze, B-Wyze, Bizarre, Blockbuster, Carlos, Chotaire
Chrysagon, Deekay, Dodger, Doom, Gop, Grize, Heavy
head, Hi-Lite, Homeboy, Insane, Jason, Jayce, Jazz-
cat, Jolz, KBS, L.A. Style, Majesty, Marcus, Morbid,
Morrisey, Nomad, Ramirez, Rap, Raze, Shades, Shok-
ker, Sphere, Stake, The Twins, Ticket, Upbeat, Venge-
ance, Volunteer, Witty & Zore
HC & ONS Worldheadquarter(s)/Board(s):
DOWN BY LAW +X/XXX/XXX-XXXX
THE PIRATE ISLAND +XX/XXX-XXXXX
WESTPOINT +XX/XXXX-XXXX
* Laser *
------------------------------------------------------------
Laser seemed to the longest surviving cracking crew
around as they started in 1980 on Atari machines
and in 1983 Steve started Laser on the breadbox,
too, 12 years of existance on this machine.
When Steve left Laser the leadership was taken over
by Shuze who found out that we can not execute the
job with the same power and effect so he decided to
let the group die. What happened to the members?
Shuze remains in Alpha Flight 1970, JP joined Mayhem,
Khan joined a team called Avalon, Jupiter joined Po-
werage and Razor Ramon joined Bronx and Lepsi but
meanwhile Lepsi kicked him out of the group and fi-
nally Eddie the Head's destination is still unknown to
us.
* Megastyle Productions *
------------------------------------------------------------
The once pure norwegian group recruited some for-
eign members like Vengeance, who joined in as se-
cond group and remains a part of the leading truim-
vyrat of Onslaught, serving as swapper in the future
and Shok'Ray, who was known as Jamiroquai/ex-Afl,
Dreamlover/ex-Atl and Sorcerer/ex-Talent in the
past, will draw graphics for Megastyle.
Price (Frode), their former main swapper in the late
eighties, will return this summer together with Inzane
and Rage. Both are currently involved with finishing
their army service and promised to return after this
time. With Cycleburner a class of its own returned to
prove his reputation as the sample master on the 64.
Current Megastyle memberstatus looks like (= 8):
Cycleburner, Inzane, Price, Rage, Scroll, Shok'Ray,
Space-Roy and Vengeance
* Motiv 8 *
------------------------------------------------------------
These days people are wondering about the origin of
Compare 2, what is said to be under the Copyright of
Magna Media while the company takes distance from
this game. Compare 2 is identical with Konzept, a game
from Twice Effect produced in 1992.
Nevertheless Crossfire was able to recruit some new
members like BinJinx, a former member of the all-time
legend EagleSoft Incorporated. Stone/Dytec joined in
as swapper and net-surfer. Last but not least we
detected a person called Psychopath in the status,
who was a former member of the group Bronx.
Mizar got busted and as a matter of this fact his
board Intertrade went down. No one really knows
what is going on so things are quite mysterious.
Current Motiv 8 memberstatus looks like (= 15):
BinJinx, Bird, Clive, Crossfire, Eddie, Grego, Ibanez,
Iceball, Mason, Merlin, Mizar, Natas, Psychopath,
Stone and TG-Acme.
Motiv 8 Worldheadquarter(s)/Board(s):
INTERTRADE ++X/XXX/XXX-XXXX (down!)
IN LIVING COLOUR ++X/XXX/XXX-XXXX
MOUNT OLYMPUS ++XX/XXXX/XXXX
* Oxyron *
------------------------------------------------------------
After all the false rumours about Oxyron's death
they returned with a demonstration called "Parts"
and rumours about the group slowing down their ac-
tivities are far away from being true.
Oxyron created the new outfit for the Relax Magazine
and currently they are working on a new trackmo.
PRI returned from his pre-courses at the university
to work in full power and effect for Oxyron.
Scrapper finally made a decision and told that his fu-
ture will be definately on the PC so he won't become
active on this machine anymore. Meanwhile Peace,
who left Oxyron for Noice in the fall of the last year,
joined Oxyron on PC!
Current Oxyron memberstatus looks like (= 7):
Asmodis, Axis, Fuben, Graham, PRI, RRR and TTS
* Taboo Productions *
------------------------------------------------------------
Long time no see with a group filled with a lot of well
reputated talents. While people are still waiting for
the mega-delayed "Altered States" cooperation demo
with Elysium Taboo was very active in programming
games such as Orbits, Fruitmania or last but not
least the fantastic preview Zone of Darkness, a pre-
view like we use to know game intros from the Amiga.
Cruise, who left Elysium to become a member of Taboo
only, released a fantastic graphics collection called
"Ritual II". Hopefully they won't forget their roots and
to produce demoes in the future, too.
Current Taboo memberstatus looks like (= 11):
Acidchild, Comer, Cresh, Cruise, Fazee, K.M., MMS,
Sailor, Shaman, Shogoon and Wayne
* Tristar and Red Sector Incorporated *
------------------------------------------------------------
Last month we already had a look inside TRSI, its tra-
dition and today's situation and there was again some
movement with some members who appear and some
who disappear from their memberstatus.
At the X-95 we got the information that Stan, a for-
mer member of Equinoxe, joined while Grey Eminence
has been kicked out of the group.
According to Conan he actually has not done anything
on the CBM 64 since ages and he doesn't intend to do
anything. He is only interested in the Super Nintendo
atleast it is what he posted directly to our request.
Current TRSI memberstatus looks like (= 7):
(Conan), Crisp, Danzig, Irata, Midfit, MWS and Stan
* Single News & Rumours *
------------------------------------------------------------
* Jeroen Tel, former member of the legendary music
lable Maniacs of Noise and the demo group Scoop,
joined the dutch demo group Focus.
* The SCS&TRC and Demonix worldheadquarter The
Dungeon got formatted for the second time. TD's
sysop Alchemist explained that he won't set TD on-
line again as long as he did not get the latest Cy-
borg modded version of C-Base as it uses to be
backdoor free and prevents action like this one.
* According to their member Amputator Nemesis is a
new group consisting of former Pandora, Poison,
Crossline and Onslaught members. Their task is to
release a lot of first (re-)releases in the future.
Current Nemesis memberstatus looks like (= 8):
Amputator, Attraction, Imperator, Longdrink, Me-
phisto, Protheus, Sky and Xentor
* Cascade is a new group born by former The Airwolf
Team of the 01.08.1988 members. According to Mr.
Lee, who coded i.e. the VISASS assembler, they will
mainly develope games such as Starblast and Colo-
nial Trader. Actually they are searching for a ta-
lented composer.
Current Cascade memberstatus looks like (= 3):
Courage, Mr. Lee and Zeldin
* With Mike D. Black Code Design gained a new poten-
tial member. Next to his coding abilities he is a
hardware freak who wants to produce a stereo
SID for the CBM 64. If this project will meet the in-
terest of the majority Mike D. promised to produce
this hardware upgrade for an amount below DM
20,-- (the price for a second SID is NOT included).
If you are interested in this project just have a
look inside the advertisements chapter and do not
hesitate to contact him as soon as possible.
* Cupid, a member of the dutch based group Extacy
joined Equinoxe as second group.
These news and rumours have been all our staff
could get his hands on, just be patient for the next
issue and for more news from the mail scene.
Best regards,
RRR/Oxyron
----------
Release Charts
------------------------------------------------------------
The Official Release Charts for the Relax
------------------------------------------------------------
Performed by the Masters of Law...
Marc and Deff
Introducing the point-system...
Fullprice Games 6.1 - 8.0 points
Budget Games 4.1 - 6.0 points
Low Budget 2.1 - 4.0 points
PD/Shareware 1.0 - 2.0 points
Previews 0.0 - 1.0 points
One bonus point can be reached be releasing the
wares 100% (!) Pal/Ntsc. If another group is involved
on the Pal/Ntsc version, points will be shared.
Games that got released PAL only have to be fixed
within half a year, else no points will be given.
Minus points will be given for...
--------------------------
Re-releases -7.0
No levelpacking -0.5/-1.0
No trainer(s) -0.5/-1.0
No translation -1.0/-2.0
Unlike most other mags we won't give points for
tools. Those releases will get mentioned but that's it.
SEUCK GAMES, BASIC GAMES, COMPILED BASIC
GAMES and such games that were done using a
GAME MAKER will be ignored.
Whenever we think somebody did something special
or something outstanding we will add one point to the
normal amount of points.
It's also possible to get one extra point for some-
thing that normally doesn't deserve any points.
The following boards have been taken in to
consideration whilst creating these charts...
Holiday Inn Cambodia XXX-XXX-XXXX
Dream Park XXX-XXX-XXXX
Down by Law XXX-XXX-XXXX
Dead Zone XXX-XXX-XXXX
And here we go...
Accept (-7.0 points)
------------------------------------------------------------
The re-releasers strikes back with the preview of
BOMBMAN (-7.0 pts). RSI released this preview all-
ready back in May 1993!
Alpha Flight (25.2 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
The flight started with the 100% version of CYBER-
BALL (3.6 pts) from CP Verlag. Then they released
the 100% fixed version of SPOOK (0.0 pts) no points
qill be given because it was over the 6 months limit!
After this they upped the 100% version of NUTS
(0.0) no points will be given because Gulas released
the pal version years ago. Followed by the fixed ver-
sions of BADBALLS (3.1 pts) and GEOMETRIC 2 (4.8)
then they upped a useful tool called SOFTSPRITE
EDITOR (0.0 pts), Darkest Road 2 (0.0) no points
will be given because it was made with a Game Maker
and a little preview called CATCH IT (0.2 pts).
After months of waiting the long awaited fullprice
game SWORD OF HONOUR (7.0 pts) from Prestige
got pal released, a fixfile was necessary so -1 point.
Last but not least they released the pal version of
IKKUICHI (3.5 pts) and the fixed version of BLACK IT
(3.0 pts) a second version was necessary so -1
points, both games are from CP Verlag.
Atlantis (2.4 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
They started with two previews called STARBLAST
(0.1 pts), COLONIAL TRADER (0.3 pts) and released
in cooperation with Avantgarde the fixed version
of NONSENSE (2.0 pts), the points will be shared!
Avantgarde (36.4 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
They started with the fixed versions of FLUMMI'S
WORLD (7.0 pts) a low budget game, PRA-SE (4.6pts)
and POZITRONIC (4.5 pts) from CP Verlag. Followed
by the 100% fixed version of the Hungarian fullprice
game LONG LIFE (9.0 pts) from 512 kbyte, then they
released the 100% fixed version of THE HOUSE (3.7p)
minus 1 points because a fixfile was necessary, later
on they released the fixed version of an english low
budget game called COLOURATION (3.7 pts) and in
cooperation with Atlantis the fixed version of
NONSENSE (2.0 pts), the points will be shared. And
last but not least they uploaded the following pre-
views WALKERZ (0.7 pts), ORACLE 3 (0.2 pts) and
ZONE OF DARKNESS (1.0 pts).
Chromance (1.3 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
They uploaded the fixed versions of MEMORY 2 (4.3)
and FIFTH BALL (4.0 pts) and re-released STARS
AND RINGS (-7 pts), Riff Raff released it 3 days
earlier.
F4CG (10.9 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
They started with the pal versions of ABC PUZZLE
(2.1 pts), OMNIBUS (2.1 pts) and KOKO (1.6 pts),
minus 0.5 pts will be given because the graphics is
in polish! Following please find a world premier from
F4CG believe it or not they were able to fix their
first game called CASTLE (4.0 pts). Later on they
released these previews: MYSTERY (0.4 pts),
PORTAL (0.5 pts) and SOKOBAN (0.2 pts).
Hardcore & Onslaught (8.3 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
At the beginning the cooperation released MEGA
THRUSTABALL (2.0 pts) from Loadstar. The score
of 2.0 points consists of the fact that we gave them
for some updates as Legend released the same
game some months ago. With REMEMBER prv (0.1 pts)
MARC IN WONDERLAND prv (0.1 pts), RAINBOW BOMB
prv (0.2 pts), BILBO prv (0.1 pts), SILVA POD prv
(0.6 pts) and DELUXE STRIP POKER (0.2 pts) at lot
of previews came up. THE EVIL PRINCE (5.0 pts) is
an american budget game and minus 1 point was given
caused by a necessary fix file.
Motiv 8 (1.7 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
They started with the following previews: BOUNCY
(0.1 pts), OOPS (0.1 pts) the second version, SKYT
(0.1 pts) and WONKY WORMS (0.3 pts). MINITRON
(1.1 pts) from CP Verlag didn't even deserve to be
mentioned!
Nemesis (-7.0 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
The new group started with a re-release called
DUCKPARK (-7.0 pts). The game got released back
in 1984!!
SCS+TRC (17.1 pts)
------------------------------------------------------------
In the last issue we forgot to give an extra point
for the translation of BLACK QUIZ (1.0 pts) and
VISION prv (0.8 pts). They released MAGAZINE
(4.5 pts) fixed by Demonix for them. A mass of
previews got released starting with BASE ATTACK
(0.7 pts), THE CASTLE (0.5 pts), WATCH IT (0.3 pts),
BRAVE (0.6 pts) and the updated version of TWIN
TERRORS (0.3 pts) at the end. KACPER won't be ta-
ken into consideration as it was not translated and
due to the fact that it got released some time ago by
Talent but we won't forget to mention that the game
was updated a LITTLE bit. SHAMAN (5.0 pts) by
Inflexion Developments got fixed by them, the same
goes for LOGIC (3.4 pts).
Merged into a table it looks like:
Rank Group Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (01) Avantgarde 36.4
02. (02) Alpha Flight 1970 25.2
03. (03) SCS+TRC 17.1
04. (06) F4CG 10.9
05. (04) Hardcore+Onslaught 8.3
06. (./.) Atlantis 2.4
07. (05) Motiv 8 1.7
08. (07) Chromance 1.3
The Fixing Charts
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Group Releases
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (01) Avantgarde 7
02. (01) Alpha Flight 1970 4
03. (./.) Chromance 2
(02) SCS+TRC
04. (./.) Demonix 1
(./.) F4CG
(03) Hardcore+Onslaught
See you in the next issue!
Yours Deff and Marc
Board Charts
* THE BOARD CHARTS *
------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to your probably most favourite chapter,
the charts. The Relax is the only magazine so far
offering seperate board and mail charts in order to
show the charts from two different worlds in the be-
loved CBM 64 scene since modem traders do not have
the time or possibility to fill votesheets.
In order to guarantee those charts we already in-
stalled a vote booth at THE EVIL ISLAND, the RELAX
WHQ. Unfortunately is board is down at the moment so
give the THE ESCAPADE, RELAX EHQ, a call it is defi-
nately on of the better boards these days and of-
cause the board where you can enter the voting-
booth directly as long as The Evil Island goes online
again. Ofcause we offer the service to leave e-mail
with your personal votes to Marc or Max on all elite
boards worldwide or use the "new" media Internet to
supply your board votes. These votes will be taken
into consideration for the forthcoming issue.
TOP TEN DEMO GROUPS
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Group Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) Oxyron 85
02. (4) Byterapers 77
03. (2) Camelot 72
04. (3) Fairlight 65
05. (5) Censor Design 59
06. (/) Reflex 53
07. (8) Elysium 47
08. (6) Triad 32
09. (7) Antic 26
10. (9) Focus 14
Oxyron is still leading the bunch of the few left demo
creators. Byterapers jumped from four to two while
Reflex is a new entry on position six. Agony left the
top ten and is located at eleven at the moment.
TOP TEN SINGLE CODER
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) TTS/Oxyron 84
02. (2) Mr. Sex/Byterapers 80
03. (3) Slammer/Camelot 73
04. (5) Brush/Elysium 68
05. (7) MMS/Taboo 57
06. (4) Crossbow/Crest 55
07. (8) Depeh/Antic 49
08. (/) Quiss/Reflex 32
09. (6) Glasnost/Camelot 26
10. (/) Graham/Oxyron 14
Nothing new here at the top, too. TTS is still a step in
front of Mr. Sex, who belongs to the new editor staff
from The Pulse Magazine. After releasing two of the
better demoes of this year Quiss and Graham got vo-
ted into the charts. Sat and Thunder have left the
charts, they actual locations are fourteen and eleven
just to let you know.
TOP TEN CRACKING GROUPS
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Group Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) Avantgarde 86
02. (2) Alpha Flight 65
03. (4) Success & TRC 62
04. (5) Chromance 58
05. (3) F4CG 54
06. (/) Hardcore & Onslaught 43
07. (9) Fairlight 39
08. (8) Motiv 8 28
09. (6) Talent 25
10. (/) Excess 12
Avantgarde are actually what we can call the leader
of the pack, both mail and boardwise. With the coope-
ration of Hardcore & Onslaught at six and Excess at
ten we can report about two new entries here. The
group Legend had to leave the top ten and we would
wonder to see them back here. Onslaught was alrea-
dy present here in the last issue but due to the new
situation we have to handle them as a new entry just
to avoid that some people start to complain here.
TOP TEN SINGLE CRACKER
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (4) Jack Alien/Avt 76
02. (1) Burglar/Scs 74
03. (3) Antitrack/F4CG 70
04. (7) Skinhead/Afl 68
05. (6) Bacchus/Flt 63
06. (5) Kirby/Atlantis 59
07. (9) Moren/Scs 54
08. (10) Ignorance/Afl 46
09. (2) Powerplant/Legend 36
10. (8) Doc/Legend 32
Now Jack Alien took over the top of this top ten as-
well so things start to become very boring while ty-
ping the charts and comments. Skinhead seems to
become more and more popular, the same goes for
Ignorance, both Afl members, who proved their qua-
lity and quantity not only in the past few weeks. Ve-
terans like Antitrack, Powerplant and Doc use to be-
long to the best crackers ever but have not shown
their skills within the last year. No new entries here
but where should they come from?
TOP TEN GRAPHIC ARTISTS
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (2) Cruise/Taboo 89
02. (1) Electric/Extend 82
03. (3) Ogami/Fairlight 76
04. (7) Scope/F4CG 64
05. (4) RRR/Oxyron 53
06. (6) Mirage/Focus 50
07. (7) Carrion/Elysium 47
08. (5) Rob/Camelot 34
09. (9) Dragon/Censor 28
10. (10) Biz Kid/Camelot 12
After releasing Ritual II Cruise seems to be the most
advanced artist around on this machine. Scope has
been rising from seven to four which is probably not
only meant as a last sign of honour and respect to-
wards a fine artist and scener but aswell a true ac-
knowledgement of his graphical talent shown within
the past few months. We will miss you! There is nothing
really important left to be reported about in here.
TOP TEN MUSIC COMPOSER
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) PRI/TIA/Oxyron 77
02. (2) Danko/Censor 72
03. (5) Jeroen Tel/Focus 69
04. (3) EVS/20cc 62
05. (4) Syndrom/TIA/Crest 58
06. (6) Jeff/Camelot 57
07. (7) Shogoon/Taboo 44
08. (6) Arne/Alpha Flight 38
09. (9) Reyn Ouwehand 35
10. (/) Red Devil/Fairlight 26
PRI is still leading the boardwise and took over the
top mailwise, too. It seems that there is nothing left
able to stop the flood of musics of this composer with
his favourite jazz-style. A-Man finally left the charts
after being booted out of the active memberlist from
Avantgarde. He got replaced by a person who has
been using the taste of the younger generation be-
ing fanatic techno and disco music fans so Red Devil
got a well deserved tenth position from the board vo-
tes.
TOP TEN FIXING GROUPS
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Group Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) Alpha Flight 1970 56
02. (3) Avantgarde 51
03. (5) Success & TRC 45
04. (2) Empire 32
05. (4) Demonix 26
06. (/) ./. ./.
07. (/) ./. ./.
08. (/) ./. ./.
09. (/) ./. ./.
10. (/) ./. ./.
Europe is leading the NTSC fixer charts. Alpha Flight
was able to defend their top position, followed by the
at the moment partly unstopable forces from Avant-
garde. The dutch cooperation of Success & The Ru-
ling company follows on position three. The american
competitors can be found with Empire and Demonix on
position four and five. In the next weeks F4CG might
enter the charts as they are working on NTSC relea-
ses, too.
TOP TEN SINGLE FIXER
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last NTSC fixer Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) Peacemaker/ex-Afl 75
02. (3) CBA/Trc 67
03. (/) Suicide/Avt 59
04. (4) Pudwerx/ex-Avt 46
05. (2) Booze/Empire 41
06. (6) Mercenary/Empire 39
07. (10) Jack Alien/Avt 33
08. (7) Vizz/Empire 23
09. (9) Count Zero/Flt Snes 20
10. (5) Sidekick/Demonix 15
Peacemaker still seems to be the most popular NTSC
fixer, followed by CBA and a newcommer who has
shown in an impressive way how "easy" it can be to
come close to the top. Well done Suicide. Jack Alien
climbed from ten to seven while Sidekick has been
fallen down from five to ten. Rockstar left the top ten
and was located at thirteen these days after many
years of abstinence. That's all for today.
If you are not satisfied with these results do not
even think about starting to complain. Just call the
boards and start voting on the voting booth on your
favourite board THE ESCAPADE.
Furthermore it is possible to vote on Holiday Inn
Cambodia or any other elite board aswell. Just leave
an E-Mail with your personal votes to Marc/Afl and it
is going to be taken into consideration while cre-
ating these original board charts.
Best regards,
Marc/Afl & RRR/Oxyron
------------------
Mail Charts
* THE MAIL CHARTS *
------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to your probably most favourite chapter,
the charts. The charts are divided into two different
sections, the mail charts and the board charts. The
mail charts are what some people like to define mega
charts consisting of the incoming Relax votesheets
and the charts of other magazines spread during the
last weeks.
To create the charts you are going to read here we
took the following charts of the following magazines
into consideration completed by the votes taking
part as top ten from the growing amount of incoming
Relax votesheets:
Jamaica Issue 12/Jam APRIL 1995
The Tribune Issue 51/Angry APRIL 1995
Vandalism News Issue 21/Onslaught APRIL 1995
Metamorphosis Issue 8/Agony Design MAY 1995
Skyhigh Issue 16/Camelot MAY 1995
Splash Issue 18/Accuracy MAY 1995
If you disagree with the content of the following lines
we only can advice you to get your hands on all avail-
able votesheets and fill them to influence the charts
in the way you'd like to do it. Please do us a personal
favour and do not manipulate the charts while voting
for personal friends instead of supporting persons
who might deserve the vote.
* Attention! *
------------------------------------------------------------
As the deadline for the mail charts was set on June,
8th we could not take the following magazines into
consideration:
Chit Chat Issue 7/No Name MAY 1995
Contrast Issue 2/Genlog MAY 1995
Domination Issue 4/independent MAY 1995
Mendip Issue 8/Arcoss JUNE 1995
The Pulse Issue June/independent JUNE 1995
But never mind, these ones will be used to create the
charts for the Relax July Edition (Issue 11) so there
nothing left to complain about.
TOP TEN DEMO GROUPS
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Group Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) Oxyron 65
02. (2) Camelot 56
03. (4) Byterapers 49
04. (3) Fairlight 48
05. (5) Censor Design 35
06. (8) Taboo 32
07. (7) Antic 27
08. (6) Crest 26
09. (/) Reflex 17
10. (9) Agony 12
Oxyron is leading the charts with a confortable dis-
tance to the following groups but what else to expect
from a group who released about 20 demoes within
the last four years? Reflex finally entered these
charts and is one of the candidates who might move
higher in the next weeks because of their very well
presented trackmos "Access Denied" and "Radio
Napalm". Crest is moving down after some years with-
out a decent lifesign from their original members and
Triad left the charts this time.
TOP TEN SINGLE CODER
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) TTS/Oxyron 66
02. (3) Mr. Sex/Byterapers 55
03. (2) Slammer/Camelot 54
04. (4) Crossbow/Crest 38
05. (6) MMS/Taboo 37
06. (5) Tron/Fairlight 25
07. (7) Bob/Censor Design 22
08. (10) Graham/Oxyron 20
09. (8) Axis/Oxyron 19
10. (/) Druid/Agony Design 10
TTS is still a step infront of Mr. Sex with a distance
of some dozen more parts released so far. Slammer
went down to three. Curiously Crossbow is still on
four and persons like i.e. Quiss are missing here. De-
peh has left the top ten while Druid replaced him who
is looking out for a 1750 REU expansion with 256/512
KB Ram. Nothing else matters.
TOP TEN CRACKING GROUPS
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Group Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) Avantgarde 70
02. (2) Success & TRC 62
03. (3) Alpha Flight 49
04. (4) Chromance 48
05. (5) F4CG 34
06. (7) Excess 24
07. (8) Fairlight 20
08. (10) Dytec (+) 17
09. (9) Motiv 8 15
10. (/) Hardcore & Onslaught 13
Well top five remains unchanged with Avantgarde
starring as lonely leader followed by the dutch co-
operation letting a decent distance down to Alpha
Flight, a group standing under steady attacks from
their competitors. Hardcore & Onslaught entered the
charts at ten but are supposed to go upstairs in the
next weeks and months. Talent left the charts and
surely won't be seen here again.
TOP TEN SINGLE CRACKER
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) Jack Alien/Avt 69
02. (2) Burglar/Scs 61
03. (3) Hain/F4CG 58
04. (4) Derbyshire Ram/Avt 29
05. (5) Bacchus/Flt 25
06. (8) Skinhead/Afl 23
07. (9) CBA/TRC 22
08. (6) Mr. Wax/<C> 19
09. (7) Powerplant/Legend 18
10. (/) Ignorance/Afl 14
To comment the charts is getting boring. Jack Alien,
Burglar and Hain are leading what we like to define as
removing protections who did not support the backup
systems. Skinhead and CBA climbed while Mr. Wax and
Powerplant went downstairs. The Ignorance proved
himself to be one of the better competitors these
days and a person who could not keep his fingers
away from the keyboard even at his wedding. Con-
gratulations from our side. A last salute to Count
Zero who seems to have left us for the Super Nin-
tendo scene.
TOP TEN GRAPHIC ARTISTS
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (2) Electric/Extend 64
02. (1) Creeper/Antic 63
03. (5) Cruise/Taboo 52
04. (3) Ogami/Fairlight 50
05. (4) Joe/Wrath Design 48
06. (6) Fazee/Taboo 39
07. (7) Carrion/Elysium 17
08. (9) RRR/Oxyron 15
09. (8) Roder/Agony 11
10. (/) Biz Kid/Camelot 7
As it seems Electric and Creeper do not have other
hobbies but continously changing their positions just
to keep the editors of this magazine busy. Cruise did
a fantastic collection and deserved all the votes ran-
king him on three with big ambitions for taking a bet-
ter position in the next weeks. Rob had to leave the
charts replaced by another Camelot artist called Biz
Kid. It is sad to see Mirage and Hein not in here as
they are real artists who proved their talent all over
the years.
TOP TEN MUSIC COMPOSER
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (2) PRI/TIA/Oxyron 67
02. (1) Syndrom/TIA/Crest 62
03. (4) Jeroen Tel/Focus 41
04. (5) Drax/Vibrants/Crest 39
05. (3) Jeff/Camelot 58
06. (10) Compod/Agony Design 57
07. (7) Shogoon/Taboo 44
08. (6) Zyron/Antic/TR/Swe 38
09. (/) Fanta/Bass/Plush 35
10. (8) Red Devil/Fairlight 26
Finally the chase is over. PRI, who got beaten from
Syndrom by one point in the last issue, was success-
full in collecting more votes this time. Compod got po-
pular after spreading his huge collection. Unfortuna-
tely with Danko one of the old CBM 64 musicians left
the top ten, being replaced by Fanta who made some
fine tunes within the last months.
TOP TEN MAIL TRADER
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Alias Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (1) Calypso/Amn/Afl 67
02. (4) Derbyshire Ram/Avt 58
03. (2) Intruder/Avt 57
04. (6) Splatterhead/Trc 56
05. (3) Spermbird/Ex 48
06. (5) Tabasco/Flt 28
07. (10) Starlight/Xtc/Tpy 26
08. (7) Sebaloz/KA/Ld 21
09. (9) Nightshade/Scs 20
10. (/) Styx/Afl 12
We were surprised to see Calypso defending his top
position as we expected to see Intruder taking it
over this time. Derbyshire Ram overtook Intruder so
we were totally confused now. To complete the total
confusion we have to add that Styx, who slowed down
his swapping activities, re-entered the charts while
Lemming, who seems to have been lost somewhere in
Finland has not send a lifesign since ages. Sebaloz
could be higher.
TOP TEN MAGAZINES
------------------------------------------------------------
Rank Last Magazine Points
------------------------------------------------------------
01. (2) Nitro 75
02. (1) Skyhigh 67
03. (4) Revealed 43
04. (7) News Press (+) 33
05. (6) Ingenious Brain (+) 31
06. (3) Reformation (+) 29
07. (/) Domination 24
08. (5) Jamaica (+) 23
09. (9) Vandalism News 20
10. (/) Propaganda 15
Information, manipulation, propaganda and entertain-
ment. Everything we can find in this top ten list! On
the top there seems to be a steady circulation bet-
ween Nitro and Skyhigh, both mailscene magazines.
With Reformation, News Press, Ingenious Brain and
Jamaica we have detected four magazines here which
won't be released anymore while Gamers Guide, which
would have been the fifth "dead" magazine, left the
charts as well as Insider. Both got replaced by either
the Domination and the Propaganda who proved their
abilities in an impressing way over the last months. We
decided not to develope a mathematical formular to
push up Shout, a magazine built on the ashes of both,
Ingenious Brain and Reformation as it would be pure
speculation to pretend that these voters would dare
to vote for Shout aswell so we will count Shout votes
for Shout only. It is our intention to deliver facts and
not to manipulate the masses.
Furthermore we were able to discover some satisfy-
ing positions for the Relax magazine but please do us
a little favour and do not describe this publication as
an Alpha Flight magazine. The editors of this magazine
are coming from various groups working under the
label of Bad Bytes Entertainment Software Europe so
please notice that the Relax magazine is a trademark
of this company.
Atleast we have to report that The Tribune is still
very close to enter the top ten.
The charts, both mail and board charts, were calcu-
lated by using the Ultravote V2.0 counter written by
Stefan Berglind/Bad Bytes Entertainment Software
Europe (aka. Doxx/Noice/Swemix) and definately not
while using a cheap Pentium processor.
When you disagree with certains placements just take
a pen and paper, fill a votesheet a return it to the
sender to be a part the jury being responsible for
the votes and ranking in here.
You are invited to send in your votes not only on the
Relax votesheet but aswell on an every piece/sheet
of paper or in disknotes all being send to the snail
mail address of this publication. The votes send by
e-mail (board/Internet) will be merged into the board
charts invented by and exclusively in the Relax ma-
gazine.
Best regards,
RRR/Oxyron
----------
Interview
* INTERVIEW *
------------------------------------------------------------
This time we had the pleasure to interview one of the
most admired and well known demo programmer ever,
SCROLL of Megastyle Productions, formerly known as
Megastyle Incorporated.
When we had the idea to do this interview there did
not exist an interview with him. Meanwhile unfortuna-
tely another magazine has been faster but anyway,
this one is worth being printed anyway and this is
available for both, PAL and NTSC readers.
* Hello Ruben, please introduce yourself as our rea-
ders are interested in some person information.
:) Well, I am Scroll of Megastyle Productions. I am 21
years old, my real name is Ruben Spaans, I am 1.82
m tall, weight 91 kg, dark hair, blue eyes, a beer
belly (I don't even drink beer), and a mustache
much like Jens Weissflog. My little brother think I
look like Elvis, and some other people said I look
like Hitler. The last six months I have been unem-
ployed, but now I (unfortunately) got a job. I type
the numbers from account sheets into a PC (boring
stuff). In Megastyle I am the main coder. I also do
some swapping and when I feel for it, I also compose
music.
* Megastyle was one of the most admired demo
groups around. For those who lately joined the
scene it might be rather informative to read some-
thing about the past, present and future of the
group.
:) It all started when Space-Roy and Sleepwalker left
their old group, and together with a third person
(Brooz) they founded Megastyle Incorporated on
September 8th, 1988. The following months more
members joined (I joined in December 1988), and in
January 1989 we had our breakthrough with
"Brainstorm". As the years passes, we started
perfectioning our demos more and more, until there
was no fun anymore to code. After "Kalle Kloack"
in December 1990, we couldn't finish another demo.
We planned to release "Brainstorm 4" in the sum-
mer of 1991, but we couldn't cooperate the way we
did in 1989, so the project was dropped for a while
That year (1991) we had serious plans to make ga-
mes on Amiga and PC, so we changed our name to
Megastyle Productions. Most of the members have
stopped their activity, and we prepared for our
farewell demo on the CBM 64. In September 1993 we
finally released "Seal Of Facalor" (Digital Messiah),
which was the result of four years of work on what
originally was planned to be "Brainstorm 4". We
thought the scene on the CBM 64 was already dead
when the demo was finished, but anyway we spread
it to the two or three contacts we had left. Another
year passed, and I was quite bored of laming
around on the PC, so me and Space-Roy founded a
cracking section, called "Lurid & Tricycle". We have
cracked old tape games just for fun, and I started
to collect software to built up a large collection. In
January 1995 we discovered that the CBM 64 sce-
ne was still alive, so what else was it to do than
drop the PC plans and return to the machine we all
love ... Now some of the old members are back, and
some more will return. Our memberstatus is cur-
rently: me (Scroll), Space-Roy, Cycleburner, Rage
(in the army), Inzane (in the army). Price (will re-
turn in July), and recently Shok'Ray and Venge-
ance joined us. We are currently working on some
new demoes, but we don't know yet when they will
be finished, your readers must wait atleast two or
three months.
We realised that the CBM 64 is the machine of the
future, as it is the only machine in the world that we
can call compatible. Developing software on Amiga
and especially the PC is a true nightmare. Besides,
the scenes of the Amiga and PC are too lame (what
is really the point in making demos on those ma-
chines instead of CBM 64?), so we will be a CBM 64
only group as long it is possible. In the future we
also plan to make games in addition to the demos.
* One of the most liked standart questions is how did
you get your very own handle and groupname?
Here we follow the trend.
:) In early 1987 when I managed to make a semi-
smooth scrolltext, I was so proud that I invented
the handle "Stubbscroll". One year later I changed
it to just "Scroll" and since then I have kept it. We
found our groupname in a porno magazine, but I do
not know the exact story as I wasn't a member in
the very beginning.
* What was your personal motivation to return to this
computer system after all the years of absence
and what was the exact reason for quitting the CBM
64 scene?
:) I was really bored of working on the PC, and what I
really wanted was to code on the CBM 64 again.
When I found out that the CBM 64 still was there,
with demos, games, mags and everything, there was
no other realistic choice for me than starting on
the CBM 64 again. I would rather code demos on the
CBM 64 and have fun than programming business
applications on the PC, even if there is more money
to earn on the PC. The exact reason for quitting
the scene was that we became bored of making
demos, we gradually dropped our contacts, and
the commercial computer magazines (not diskmags!)
stopped writing about the CBM 64, and software
houses like US Gold, Ocean, etc. stopped making ga-
mes. So we thought the machine had no future.
* If you do not waste all your expensive sparetime in
front of computers, what else are you doing to en-
joy your life? Are there other important hobbies
for you in real life?
:) Well, I do in fact have other hobbies, like watching
sports on TV, reading special books, watching
Monty Python movies, solving cross words, collec-
ting stamps etc. but I barely get time for anything
else than computing, and computing is really what I
want to do.
* Actually we are involved with favourites. What are
your favourite ...
:) Demo groups: Crest, Chorus, Oxyron, Camelot
Single coders: Crossbow, Mr. Cursor, Flamingo
Cracking groups: Eaglesoft, Avantgarde, Cascade
Single crackers: Anyone who takes his time to do
quality versions
Graphic artists: Hmmmm... Sparkler/Megastyle
Music composers: Jeroen Tel, Jch
Swappers: Derbyshire Ram, Calypso
Magazines: Sex'n'Crime, Shout
* As we all know Megastyle was a 100% norwegian
team in the past but imagine you have the possibi-
lity to form some kind of your personal dreamteam.
Who are the persons you would invite to join?
:) Well, we are no longer a 100% norwegian group as
Shok'Ray and Vengeance joined, but anyway, my
dream group could look something like this:
Demo coding: Myself (ofcause), Crossbow
Game coding: Manfred Trenz
Graphics: a combination of Sparkler and
Brooz/Megastyle
Music: Jeroen Tel
Swapping: Calypso
Financing: Bill Gates :)
* Apart from the CBM 64 are there other computer
systems you do own? Are you there scenewise ac-
tive aswell?
:) In addition to two CBM 64's and a C128d, I own a VIC
20, Amiga 1200, CDTV and two PCs (one Pentium),
but the other machines are only useful for playing
games (atleast until the CBM 64 versions of the ga-
mes appear), so I am not at all active on these
other computers. If I wanted to join the scene on
other computers, it would be the scene of the C65
or Plus-4 (or maybe VIC 20).
* Lately there have been some interesting computer
parties like the X-95 party in Utrecht just to name
one of them all. What parties have you already visi-
ted and which one was the very best in your opi-
nion?
:) In fact, I have never been at a computer party (ex-
cept one not worth to be mentioned, where I left af-
ter a few hours). If there will be more CBM 64 par-
ties here in Norway, I'll attend (or maybe in Swe-
den), but I can't afford to travel as far as to the
Netherlands or Germany.
* As usual there are good and bad times in real life
and in scene life, too. Please inform us about your
experiences and your point of view regarding this
question.
:) Well, this one is touch to answer as I never experi-
ence anything remarkable in real life (I sit infront
of the computer all the time, you know), but as an
example of a bad experience, my boss at work al-
ways complains on me, especially my phone usage.
An example of good experience is that I got the job
at all, as my grades from the school are terrible. In
scene life, it sure is great to be back, smelling the
Dycp-air again (?) and everything. I hope we will
see the software houses return soon!
* You learnt to know the scene at its best time and
you can see in comparison today's situation. What is
your opinion about the scene today or do you pre-
fer the good old glory days.
:) The scene is more bright than I thought it would be,
there is quite a large amount of groups and sce-
ners left. The demos released keep a very high
standart, unfortunately they are based too much
on Amiga or PC-like routines and design rather
than the real CBM 64-stuff. On the other hand a
lot of things have happened, like IFLI, IFFL, and
extreme mandelbrot routines. It is quite difficult for
a group like us to compete with today's coding.
There are pretty many games released, but most of
them are shit (too simple concepts, unoriginal ideas,
badly implemented, etc.). Since no games are pro-
tected anymore, anyone who wants is able to crack
them. The real large games are only cracked by a
few groups, while everyone seems to crack the
smaller games from CP-Verlag etc. Cracking nowa-
days is almost just a matter of linking an intro in-
front of the game file.
I understand that the mags play a more important
role now than before, since the normal computer
magazines are gone (especially here in Norway, ne-
ver seen one since 1992), but there are really too
many mags. People should concentrate more on ma-
king games and demos.
Well, I think we have to face the reality and accept
the scene like it is. We should be more than satis-
fied with how the CBM 64 has stood the test of time
against potentially much stronger computers. Of-
cause, the scene today is not perfect, but even in
1989 I wanted to be there before, to compete with
groups like 1001 Crew and beat Sodan in coding.
But then again, back in 1989 there was the large
amount of stupid lamers, disk stealers and wanna-
bees. Today's scene seems to be much more friend-
ly, most of the sceners have been active for a long
time, and they have sort of "grown up". What I miss
with today's scene is a little bit more demos and
more of the "real" games coming on other compu-
ters, like "Civilization", "Colonization", "Warcraft"
and all those excellent LucasArts games.
* Do you take the scene serious or do you "enjoy"
the time you spend infront of the machine? Is there
something you really dislike?
:) Ofcause I take the CBM 64 scene serious, this is
where I'll stay for several years now. Even if I am
not sitting infront of the computer, I try to think of
cool demo ideas, especially the boring hours at
work. We do this because we think it is fun and we
get a lot of new friedns, not to try to be number 1
in the charts of the magazines. One thing I really
dislike is the threat from other computers, but that
threat is not that dangerous anymore as it was two
or three years ago, I think. Many sceners have
even returned to the CBM 64 recently, and I think
more ex-sceners will return.
* We already stole a lot of your expensive sparetime.
Is there anything you want to share with the scene
as a last word for this interview? Furthermore it is
the part to place all your personal greetings in
here. Thanks a lot for being patient and for ans-
wering all the questions.
:) I want to send greetings to my contacts: Derby-
shire Ram, Walker, Zapotek, Glenn Rune Gallefoss,
Kristian Rostoen, Lord Red, Lightside, 2ge, Bizarre,
Sky, Creb, Unicorn, Fli, Shocker, Fanta, Quorthon,
Morris, you (RRR), Backslash, Vengeance, Shok'Ray,
and ofcause to all other MSP members. Thanks for
interviewing me, and a last word: Long live the CBM
64 and may Microsoft go bankrupt!
* Well, it was in fact a pleasure to interview you for
the Relax Magazine. Again many thanks for the very
detailed and comprehensive answers. We really look
forward for all MSP projects, both demoes and ga-
mes, as we know that they are supposed to become
something special.
We really hope that you have enjoyed the interview
as much as we did. Press fire in order to load and
read another chapter.
Best regards,
RRR/Oxyron
----------
Back to the roots
------------------------------------------------------------
Back to the roots - Part III
------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to your favourite chapter, where we go
deeply back to the roots. Once again it is my task to
start a mystic journey back to the good old time. But
even at this time everything gleaming wasn't gold.
Thats why this times issue deals with possibly the mo-
st spectacular war,that 64-piracy can tell stories of
It was the time when the most famous magazine, Sex'n
Crime, was regular released.
Just like allready reported in last issues chapter,
the Sex'n Crime staff was notorious for acting to
their intimatest friend's advantage. Caused by the
well-known magazine there was the possibility to
achieve wrong images and illusions about certain
persons, information wich were extremely fast
spread. If such a lie once has spread, person's image
was spoiled and it took years to regain old esteem.
If chief-editor OMG once aimed at somebody, this
person could be assured, that it was for months.
That's what happened to the case of S.Y.S.
SYS, maybe one of the most famous grafic-artists
and swappers at this time, belonging to the 64-pirate
scene since 1984, who was member of successfull
scene-groups like Drive and Level 99, before he
joined the Alpha Flight team in 1988.
It is not anymore possible, to prove how the story
started, but most people were telling that it all began
with the Sex'n Crime mailbox-option. Everybody who
can remember this magazine will know this option, wich
allowed to save comments and messages on disc.
These messages could be loaded as a special chapter
in the magazine. So every swapper spreading the mag
entered his handle there, so that more handles
appeared, more often it got spread (same story like
disc-covers!). Poisonous tongues pretended, handles
at the end of this list were getting lame and lamer.
The whole shit began with SYS abusing the mailbox-
option to rag about Sex'n Crime, OMG and the staff.
Of course OMG got this information and also started
to talk bad about SYS. Soon there was no doubt
anymore, OMG disliking SYS. He started to rag about
him, by writing lies into his magazine.
SYS replied with public letters to OMG and insulted
him back.
This procedure went on for more than 6 months,
whereby the level of the discussion came closer
to the zero-point with every next attempt. Now even
the family of SYS was involved and insulted by OMG.
For example SYS was called a gay and his mother
insulted as a bitch. He reacted with massive anti-
notes and even painted anti-OMG graphics. Propably
the most famous one was the parody of the
disseminated german anti-aids slogan ("Gib Aids keine
Chance" - Don't give aids any chance), wich he
original-true copied and changed into "Gib OMG keine
Chance".
Finally SYS challenged OMG for a duel in Venlo, but
OMG refused twice, by avoiding the Venlo-meeting
despite of his habit visiting every month's meeting.
SYS appraised this act as a sign of OMG's fear and
his unreliableness.
But then at the august-meeting on august, 18th in
1990, the Judgement Day finally came.
SYS perceived OMG in the party-hall and told him to
come outside in front of the entrance, to bring up for
a fair fight. But OMG again refused and tried to flee.
But he was caught by SYS at the entrance.
SYS did a fine punch, directly into OMG's scared
face. But he only reacted by bringing a can of tear-
gas to light. He set it straight into SYS's face. As a
brave fighter SYS dind't give up and tried another
chance. But OMG twice times sprayed into his face, so
that his enemy finally was helpless. After SYS sunked
onto the floor, hurt by the great amount of gas, OMG
after all made a kick into SYS's body, before he
scared of revenge, ran away as fast as possible.
Later OMG told that he just used the gas, because
SYS was in the mood to kill him. But he didn't explain
why he kicked him. Furthermore he reported it
wasn't him, who wanted to leave the place so fast, it
was Volker/Amok (coder of the Sex'n Crime) who
wanted to run away!?
This sad, but also funny story shows how far the
computer activities can go. And it also shows, that
most people starting a war don't know of the
consequences that can follow, if you mess with the
wrong persons. When I look at todays wars, it seems
to me that they are mostly started by kids, who want
to gain self-esteem in this scene. But they should
concentrate on the main things in their first-steps.
This scene is about more than just having a big mouth
with nothing behind it. Rookies go back where you
came from!
------------------------------------------------------------
That should be enough for today! Take care friends..
Max is gone!
------------------------------------------------------------
Demo Reviews
* Demo Reviews *
------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the demo reviews, a chapter what got
changed competely in order to guarantee some more
advanced reviews as we recruited specialists to give
their statements about in what they used to be well
known for, namely Scroll/MSP and Fuben/Oxyron
(coding), PRI/Tia/Oxyron (musics) and RRR/Oxyron
(graphics). Scroll did "only" the review of Parts this
time but we will see more from him here very soon.
* Radio Napalm *
------------------------------------------------------------
A really brilliant trackmo entirely coded by Quiss/
Reflex. This trackmo has everything what a cool demo
needs today: design, hard code, cool effects and fast
routines, some nice ideas and MUCH action. Each ef-
fect is just shown for a few seconds so that you
won't be bored with an effect which you propably
don't like much!
Let's start. The intro features a hires logo, gravity
dots (like those in Access Denied), a bitmapscreen
with a big proportional charset, a filled-vector in 3
colors (like the vector in Access Denied) and a koala
picture. Everything fades in and out in an almost
perfect way, only the gravity dots look a bit poor.
The next effect is sort of a voxel. It uses the popular
4x4 pixelmode (16 colors possible) which was inven-
ted by Graham/Oxyron in Coma Light 12. However,
the effect looks pretty cool and is quite fast in my
opinion.
Next there is a vector again, like that in the intro.
It just shows another object (sort of flight). It's quite
big, filled and in 3 colors, very similar to big vector
shown in Access Denied. It is possible that it is the
same routine with just other objects. Nevertheless
the vector looks pretty nice and it's rotating quite
fast, too!
After the vector, there is an effect looking like a
rainfall. It runs in 16 colors and uses the 4x4 pixel-
mode again. This effect is new as we never saw it be-
fore. Even so, it looks a bit strange. Later on a Re-
flex logo gets combinated with the rainfall.
After that colorfull effect a big fast rotating gourand
shader apears. It runs in the 6 colors by using
dithering. This gourand shader is definetely the best
ever made on CBM 64. It beats that shader in Coma
Light 12 by far.
Then a cool rotator comes up. It's running very fast
in my opinion. This rotator is a bit different to all the
others. It is not a complex rotator. However again the
effect is running in the 4x4 pixelmode.
After some credits a black screen apears (wow!).
The next effect are chessboard-zoomers. There are
always 3 different colored chessboards, which move
in an individual sine. As they zoom you get the feeling
of a neverending voyage. After that the next rou-
tine fades in. A fullscreen colorplasma touchs the
screen. Yes, Fullscreen! It looks awesome...again in 16
colors and 4x4 pixelmode.
Finally, there is the end. Some text get displayed by
a big proportional charset, which fades away with
interlacing.
All in all this is definetely the best demo released in
1995 so far. It is very surprising to see a produc-
tion on this high standart realised by one coder
only. If you did not get a copy of this demo yet I can
only advise you to get one as fast as possible as I'd
like to give a rating of 95%.
Reviewing the graphics of "Radio Napalm" is one of
the more easy jobs as there were unfortunately only
two graphics being worth to be talked about. The few
graphics were realised by Seytan/Arcoss (former
DJ Bobo) and Felidae/Reflex.
The first graphic, an hires-fli logo, was performed by
Seytan, who also drew all the hires-fli graphics for
the game Geometric II, also coded by Quiss. The logo
looks quite nice and all artists who ever try tried to
create an hires-fli logo know what it is more some
kind of punishment to draw in that mode compared
with formats like koala bitmaps or interlace-fli.
Having a look closer the logo still presents a few
weak points which have been drawn easily in the
standart hires singlecolour mode (one ink and back-
ground colour per char). In general we can only add
that this one seems to be one of the better hires-fli
goes we have seen so far as this format presents a
lot of frontiers when it comes up to realise some
complex ideas.
The second and last graphic in this review has been
drawn by Felidae/Reflex, who won the inofficial gra-
phics competition at The Party 1994 if I can remem-
ber it correctly. This graphic is the title graphic and
presents the name of the demonstration, next to a
radio tower and probably the spotlights of search-
lights like they have been used to locate fighting
bombers going on air raid in World War two. There
are not any visual elements on the screen which
might be hard to realise but somehow this bitmap
screen as some kind of magic and can be taken into
combination with the demo name.
In "Access denied" I have for sure seen technical
more advanced graphics but that is no reason not to
see the effort the artists have put into the work by
creating these graphics. The graphics are nice but
nothing that will be remembered after being asto-
nished by the overmatched programming and the po-
pular techno movement following soundtrack. My ra-
ting is 68%.
No doubt PVCF has improved quite a bit in the past
year. As I have been a bit out of touch lately I was
rather surprised when listening to the Techno track
he did for this demo.
It is definitely one of the best in this direction of
music today, and for good reasons: The continuously
flowing, meditative elements which are typical for
Techno come across very good, there is a decent
bassline (not like this cliche-minor-second-up-ma-
jor-second-down-triole-thing), some quite innovative
effects (thanks to ring-modulation and sync.) and of
course a bass drum hammering it all constantly into
your head. The bassline also features a velocity-si-
mulation modulating the cutoff, unlike the "no re-
start"-effect most Technotracks use. But sometimes
the filter frequency of even two of the three voices
is lowerd and the tune kind of dives away for a while.
Furthermore, PVCF sometimes adds some harmonies
as well as some short breakdowns which add to the
tension curve and round off the whole thing. All in-
struments in the tune are of quite good quality.
The intro is well-timed and generates a misterious
atmosphere, it only does remind me a bit of Antic's
"Lunacy 6"; well, but who cares, it only shows that
this kind of intro is very popular - some dark sphe-
rical sounds before the whole thing really starts.
At last I hope you will forgive me when I'm banally
calling PVCF's tune "Techno" as this maybe is not
precisely correct? I am not so much into this kind of
music, so I don't know the exact differences between
Techno, House, Rave, Acid... I only know that Gabba is
very fast and Trance is rather quiet, that under-
ground is okay but popular junk like 2 Unlimited, Red
Nex etc. sucks.
Anyway, 'nuff said, I give PVCF a rating of well-de-
served 87%.
* Fantasy/Chromance *
------------------------------------------------------------
All the code in the demo was developed by Zar/Chro-
mance while the additional (demo note) got coded by
Lion/Chromance.
First we have to say that all parts in the demo are
fading in and out what is in our opinion very impor-
that as it shows that the programmer spent some time
for designing.
However, let's start with the intro. After starting the
intro, a fader with a 2x2 charset appears but these
fade intros are rather boring as almost everyone
codes them. Maybe because it's quite easy to code
such an intro. Anyway, after a title-picture has been
faded in and out, a bitmap-logo comes up (with FLD).
Then a nice Bitmap-scroller appears with some funny
scrolltext! This scroller looks pretty cool, though it's
a very old idea as we can remember the first Bitmap-
scrollers coded in 1989...
O.K., let's go on. The first part of the demo features
a moving plot tube including zooming letters. A rather
creepy part and we wondered about Zar not using
some more dots. The tube consists of 6 dot-circles,
each is moving in its individual sinus. The characters
were just scrolled throughthe rings and the size is
always proportional to the size of the proportional
ring. No big deal in our opinion as we presume that he
calculated the dots of the letters by mean values and
just added the X,Y coordinates of the actual ring or
atleast it is what we expected after watching the not
very hard coded part.
Well, finally the spectator reachs the end part of the
demo, the outro. This part features a simple AGSP
(without copying new datas into the AGSP-screen)
with an overlayed hires spritearea (192 pixels large
on the X-axis) including a text (with 1x1 charset).
Above the AGSP there is a moving sprite-logo which
fills up the empty linecruncharea. Nothing else to say
about this part. We just wonder why there is such a
broken AGSP-movement! A sinus would look much
cooler...
The demonote is written with an 1x1 charset. Further-
more it includes 2 spritelogos in the border.
Fantasy from Chromance is a pretty nice designed
demo. Even so, there is a lack of hard code and the
demo is definately too short.
But however, we think it's cool that Chromance, a
group more known for their cracking activities, gets
active in the legal scene and we hope to see more
surprises from them in the future. Rating: 38%.
All the bitmap graphics were drawn by Lord Red of
Creators using Zoomatic, the fantastic graphics tool
coded by Omega Supreme, Panoramic Design. What we
like to express here is that it is possible to draw
good graphics in that format, too.
The intro offers a fullscreen picture showing a grim
looking warrior holding an axe in his hands on the
left side and a Fantasy logo and information text at
the right side of the screen. The warrior looks quite
average and the logo is, expect for the style and the
outlines, nothing special at all. The information text
displays that this demo took part at the demo compe-
tion of the X-95 party but unfortunately the demo
was not finished in time.
The next part presents next to a logo on the top a
4x5 scroller at the buttom of the screen. The logo is
divided into two parts, probably blocks of a wall. In
the gap between these two parts you can see some
letters remembering to the "ordinary" style to pre-
sent a logo while the rest at the two blocks looks like
scratched into the wall, indeed a nice idea. At the left
side of the screen we can see a head of a man and it
is possible that he uses to be an indian. The man is
looking very interesting. On the right side of the
screen we have found a huge 'X' what does not make
any sense due to our knowledge. Nevertheless it is
looking nice indeed. The 4x5 scrollchar looks not so
good in my opinion, not to say that it is ugly and that
is the style is not up to date anymore but what is up
to date and style has to individual in our opinion.
The graphic in the next part is probably the graphic
that amazed us most regarding the graphics presen-
tation. It shows a well drawn demo having a whiplash
in his hand standing at the right side of the screen.
On the other side you can see a proper mirrored
copy of the demon so we praise the graphics tool with
that well working mirror function, a function which
has to be improved a lot in Amica Paint. Nevertheless
this graphic is what we like to see more often in the
future.
The endpart contains one (bitmap) graphic only and
it is the head of a rat according to Lord Red and we
guess it is not too hard to confirm this. This rat
wears an ear-ring. All in all it could be more colorfull
but this is a personal intention only.
Lord Red is one of the few last artist left who is still
supporting the "old-fashioned" bitmap graphics for-
mat and has proven that it is possible to present
some nice graphics to give a demo some kind of glan-
ce and supports the demo, together with the sound-
track, to be a good designed and styled demonstra-
tion so we can announce 74% for his effort.
The complete soundtrack was composed by Skull. Let
us see what it is like:
1st part: The motive to be heard in the intro is re-
peated too often for my taste, so it can get on the
listener's nerves later on. The delay-effect Skull a-
chieves by using two voices, however, suddenly falls
victim of the incoming rhythm and chords. This is al-
ways a rather inconvenient way of arranging as the
"spacy" component of the lead is lost and the whole
thing sounds only half as good afterwards. So if you
absolutely have to do something like this, try to hide
it by e.g. fading out one of the voices or putting a
break inbetween.
Another important aspect is the control of the os-
cillation of the volume in those double- or triple-voi-
ced passages. When more than one voice plays the
same category of instrument (such as lead, chord,
bass, rhythm) the resulting volume will increase quite
a bit. So in order to control this oscillation you have
to reduce the instruments' volume in those passa-
ges. You may, however, use the increased main volu-
me as a means to underline a passage, but in most
cases this seems to happen rather unwanted.
2nd part: This one contains the best instruments in
comparison to the other two tunes. After the first
refrain I realized this is supposed to be a conversion
of that Warren-G.-song (forgot it's name, sorry),
however, some important things don't come across
that good: To simulate the rhodes piano which plays
the chords in the original one had better chosen tri-
angle instead of the saw waveform, the bass has to
be more percussive, also some of the chord voicings
don't seem fully correct to me. But anyway, nice to
listen to.
3rd part: Skull seems to be fond of intros with de-
lay-effect; this is the third one out of three. The tune
has the best structure and contains the best themes
and melodies of all the three, and in the B-part also
the chord-instruments sound nice. Only the bass-
break in the middle of the tune seems a bit clumsy.
On the whole one can say Skull builds up his tunes
in a decent and overviewable way. The themes and
melodies he includes are sometimes average, someti-
mes good, although he tends to repeat them a little
too often. The first and the third tune contain avera-
ge instruments, in the second one their quality is so-
mewhat better. This soundtrack is worth 68%.
* Parts / Oxyron *
------------------------------------------------------------
1st part: Intro
The demo opens with the cool soundtrack from the
from the game Light Force by Rob Hubbard. Initially
there is a black screen, after some seconds the
word "somewhere..." fades onto the screen. It fades
away, and an Oxyron logo appears. It fades off again
and soon a large tilted chessboard fades onto the
the screen in a cool way. Each char of the picture
fades in individually and randomly until the picture is
complete. A single coder "Presents" logo made of
sprites swings over the screen and off again. Soon
another logo swings in, this time a Parts logo. The
chessboard fades off in an even cooler way, start-
ing from the centre of the screen, and the Parts logo
fades just a short while later. Then a city at night
appears at the lower part of the screen and some
text at the upper part of the screen, with the words
being put on the screen in collaboration with the mu-
sic, with the music, just like the intro of Coma Light
12. Then the text disappears and a rotating vector
city starts its action. The vector city is quite de-
tailed, it even consists of the small lights like a city
at night. However, it's not too complicated so I'll give
it a rating of 70/100.
2nd part: Spherical
This part consists of a normal 1x1 scroller at the
bottom of the screen and after a while a sphere
with some bitmap woman faces proected on it appears.
The resolution is normal multicolour, in contrary to
the "usual" 4x4 Fli resolution used for many mathe-
matical effects. It looks very great, too!
Rating: 80/100
3rd part: Distortion
This part stars with a normal picture in the middle of
the screen and a spritle-scroller in the lower bor-
der. The scroller introduces us to one of the most
extreme routines I've ever seen: A fullscreen X and
Y stretcher, 50 frames a second! Before I saw this
part, I didn't even consider this to be possible, but
remember the slogan: Only the C64 makes it possible
(he he). It seems that they've cheated a bit with the
X-stretching, as some pixels for instance are
stretched three pixels, while the neighbouring ones
aren't expanded at all. But heck, this is extremely
impressive anyway, so the rating of 95/100 is well
deserved!
4th part: Nowhere
This is the end part of the demo, a white logo in the
middle of the screen "The end" faces on, and after
some seconds it disappears again. A "snowy TV-
screen (you know, this is what a TV-picture looks
like when the antenna is disconnected) in all borders
(like in old ESCOS (Expanded Screen COnstruction
Set)) routines.
I won't rate this part as it is ofcourse meant as an
end part, not a part with extreme routines.
All in all, this is a very good demo, but it's too small,
as it comprises only four parts. It's entirely coded by
Graham, and I guess he'll take a giant heap on the
single coder charts, and even threaten TTS' posi-
tion. Totally I'll give 80/100. This may sound like a
"low" score, but taking into consideration that it
constists of quality parts only, but as I said, it's a
bit to small... If I know Oxyron right, their next demo
will come out very soon as they keep an incredible
pace in releasing demos.
When we talk about the graphics we have to keep in
mind that almost all graphics have been converted via
the Amiga to please the CBM 64 audience of this de-
monstration by Oxyron. Ported graphics won't be
and shouldn't be taken into consideration into re-
views as the rating should be a something given for
personal performances and not for the abilities of
hard- (cables) and software (converter files).
All the graphics in the intro, expect for the small
characterset and the Skyline bitmap at the buttom of
city zoomer screen, where created by using Image FX
on the Amiga 1200 by Graham. Even the chessboard
was created in this way and was definately not drawn
by RRR like a certain magazine stated in their review.
The skyline shows a city by night with lights of lamps,
a lot of houses, a moon, clouds and sky offering all
you can await in a graphic like this. Unfortunately it
is too small but anyway worth being watched.
The faces of the spherical projection were both
converted from the Amiga so there is nothing in the
part worth being mentioned. The same goes for the
Distorter as both pictures got converted, too. Ac-
cording to Graham he used these converted graphics
to prevent people starting to complain about his rou-
tine being cheated as standart CBM 64 graphics of-
fered always a similar structur in that routine.
The end part contains nothing except for a charac-
terset so there is nothing to report about.
No rating here as judging the own work would be
some kind of sin in our opinion so we would like to
give a small advice in here: if you dare to review gfx
just give ratings for drawn and not for converted
graphics. Furthermore it can not be to reduce the
general amount of points when there are too less
graphics used in the demo. Rating XX%.
Well, well. How is PRI supposed to review demo- music
of his own group, you might wonder. Firstly, because
for whatever reason there are none of my tunes in-
cluded, and secondly, because RRR absolutely wanted
wanted me to do it. Anyway, here we go:
I am going to set the rating for this soundtrack in
brackets as the tunes were neither done by any OXY
member (which can't possibly be because I am the on-
ly composer in my group) nor done exclusively by a-
nybody else. Why should even my own group recieve
points for somebody else's work?
1st part: I don't think there is much of a comment
necessary. The Lightforce tune by Rob Hubbard is
one of the best and most legendary tunes ever, and
it is perfect for timing steps of an intro along to it's
different stages of developement.
2nd part: This one is by the "Newschool"-master
Jeff. The instruments are typically him, including his
characteristic octave-bass in the intro. Soon after
that the tune starts grooving, and we get to hear ex-
cellent themes, soli, B-part etc. coming in a good
structure and fine sound quality, establishing a flow-
ing atmosphere which matches to the coding (the ro-
tating sphere).
3rd part: Another legendary one, this time by good
old JCH. Made up around the simply fat bass riff over
which several cool parts alternate. Simple but inge-
nious!
The choice of music is ofcourse superb, but as no-
ne of the credits go to Oxyron in any way, the rating
can only be in brackets: (96%).
We (Fuben, PRI, Scroll and me) hope you can live well
with these reviews. Please return to the menu now.
Advertisements
* Advertisements *
------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the area of advertisements where you
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There is no need to fill a votesheet if you do not like
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To see your advertisement here, contact the Relax
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This have been all addresses we have collected for
this issue and we hope that the amount will grow con-
tinously per issue. If you are interested in present-
ing your advertisement here in this chapter and it is
scene or computer related do not hesitate to con-
tact us. Mail and E-mail addresses can be found in
the editorial.
Best regards,
RRR/Oxyron
----------
