Nordic Scene Review 01
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Nordic Scene Review #1: First Blood
Nordic Scene Review #1: First Blood
Welcome to the historical first issue
of Nordic Scene Review, the fresh new
mag that everyone's talking about.
You may think it's a completely frplxxed
up idea to start a new C-64 mag in 2005,
but it had to be done, and as no one
else was doing it, we had to do it.
Why does it have to be done? Because
the other mags aren't doing their damn
job, of course. Too many demos just
don't get the attention they deserve.
It's not like it takes a lot of time
and effort to write some demo reviews,
but people are still too lazy to do it.
This is where Nordic Scene Review
steps in. We'll take care of reviewing
the stuff you produce, no matter how
crappy it is. This is supposed to be
the Game Over(view) of the demo scene,
which means we'll do our best to release
it often and to write what we think
about stuff, not what we think others
want us to write.
Our main priority is to review demos,
but we'll of course also write about
your music and graphics collections, and
if we really feel like it, maybe we'll
even say a few words about other mags.
But it's not like we're going to set
rules for ourselves, so you'll just have
to wait and see what happens.
In this issue you'll get fresh reviews
of the demos from Floppy, Forever and
Breakpoint, as well as some other stuff
that's been released during the last
month or so.
As this is the historical first (blood)
issue, a little explanation of the
scientific methods we're using to
analyze the demos are in order. First
of all, you have to understand that our
reviews are 100% objective. We have
methods for completely repressing
our individuality, and we use them
extensively while writing these reviews.
Unfortunately we can't let you in on
our secret methods, but we can give you
hints on some rules we've derived to
make our work more efficient:
- Graphics are more important
than music, unless the musician is
a capricorn.
- Only Swedish fake demos are funny.
- Effects that need more than 7 frames
are automatically disqualified.
- The letter 'e' must never be used in
labels (yes, we have your sources).
- Reviews of Metalvotze releases will
only consist of speculations about
their age (have they turned 14 yet?).
- Ficken Im Zelt is not a fake demo.
Neither is Dansa med Achmed.
- Releases by people we don't like will
never get positive reviews.
Now that you know that we're using
scientific methods, you have to agree
that there's no room for different
opinions. If you don't agree with us,
that just proves that you're mentally
ill, and should see a doctor as soon
as possible.
Although we have confidence in our
own methods, we're influenced by the
principles, theories and laws that
guide other mag editors. One example
is how we'll deal with criticism.
Negative criticism will be ignored,
while positive criticism will make us
happy and proud.
I guess I could go on forever about this
and that, but I'll quit now and give
you a chance to move on to the rest of
the mag. You wouldn't want to miss it.
/Puterman
Credits:
Text by Puterman and Twoflower
Magsys by Iopop and Twoflower
The Floppy releases
The Floppy releases
[Puterman:]
I'm not quite sure yet, but it seems the
Throckmorton device is used to transport
you to a place that's pretty far from
Earth, but which is still quite similar
to it. While people only have one eye,
they're elegantly dressed in hat and
tie, like all real gentlemen. But their
transmissions are hard to understand,
you have to use a monitor to decipher
their messages.
There are lots of good reasons to
dislike this demo, which any pouet
scener will quickly realize; it's too
short (a real demo should steal 5-10
minutes of your life and contain at
least 10 different parts), there's no
code (ie. rotating cubes) and there's
no design (aka fades). For some
reason I still like it. While some
aspects of it are quite similar to
some earlier Iopop+Twoflower releases,
this one feels much less like a demo.
In a good way. Triad have pushed the
concept demo one step further towards
something that some people might call
"art" (and in case anyone was wondering,
I'm not quite as fond of Borderline as
some other people). However, when I
hear that word in connection with demos,
I reach for my shotgun (which I always
keep handy in case someone would happen
to say something that I don't like).
Thumbs up for Dalezy's tune, it might
be the best tune I've heard from him
so far.
I suppose Imminent Threat and 78-80 have
to be mentioned too. It's hard to say
much about the former, it's different,
which is good. It has some obvious
similarities with earlier Iopop stuff,
and it's nice of him to release this
stuff, while others might just let
the bits rot away in their disk boxes.
78-80 is a bit more conventional, but
it's still lightyears ahead of most
of the crap that people call demos.
I like the mood in this one.
It seems it was more of a coincidence
that these two demos were released at
the same time, but I have a feeling that
the final result might have been even
better if they had been combined into
one demo.
Magervalp showed up at Floppy, although
he'd promised not to come, and he
even brought a small demo with him.
Unfortunately I can't think of anything
positive to say about it. Let's just
hope that he'll make something a bit
more ambitious again, like the Bunny
demo. Four hours of work is not enough.
The Dancing Snowman demo from Macx
and Zzap69 is a weird combination of
styles and graphics formats. I like
the pictures in the first part, although
they're simple, but the end part feels a
bit too standard. So although I don't
really like it, I wish there were more
demos that tried to be different in
different ways, like this one does (no,
not all "concept demos" have to be about
the miserable love life of coders (and
yes, I know I've said that 666 times
before, but it might be worth repeating
it now and then)).
"Poland": red+white 8x8 plasma, Polish
hawk ripped from Opium etc. Hello?
In case you guys haven't noticed, jokes
about Polish demos and 8x8 are starting
to feel a bit old, especially since
the Poles stopped making demos 5 years
or so ago. I can't think of anything
positive to say about this one. Just a
little reminder: jokes are supposed to
be funny, m'kay?
"Broken" by Nightlord (of Civitas,
although no one else was involved in
creating this demo) is really too good
to be wasted by bugs and glitches,
but it seems he wanted to release it
at Floppy, and I guess there wasn't
enough time to fix the bugs. This is
by far the best stuff I've seen from
Nightlord, although it's hard to compare
it with his more code oriented demos.
Conceptually it's much better than
Mist, but that's a demo I'd rather
forget anyway.
What I like about this demo is that it's
so abstract. It feels like only the
most necessary parts of the narrative
have been extracted and placed on the
screen. A less fortunate demo designer
might have ruined it all by adding scene
poetry. Maybe someone could do us all
a favour and hack the code to add some
sprite overlays with important messages
like "my love is gone, I feel so lonely
tonight" just to show how easy it is to
ruin a good idea.
Damn, I like that idea, but I'm way too
lazy to implement it myself, so I'll
just write some text and you can try to
imagine what the demo would be like with
it added. First screen: I watch the
birds, and think of you. The scrolling
picture: I don't see the sun anymore.
Circuits part: Not everything in life is
ones and zeros. Birds over city part:
Our love flew away, like a bird. Last
part: You said you'd always love me,
but you lied. And then just finish it
off with something like "Now I'm broken
:(" and everything would be perfect.
[Twoflower:]
Broken by Civitas
The first Floppy release I will be
touching here. After reading Puterman's
review I can't do much but agree. It's
damned easy to ruin a demo, to shift it
from beeing subtle and abstract to it
becoming a melodramatic travesty. Here,
the thin line lies intact. Eventhough
I have much to add in terms of design
and slickness, I still really like lots
of the details. The birds for instance;
picturing them as they are done in this
demo makes me smile. The closest thing
to this demo which I have seen so far
is MacX's 'Autumn Clouds', released
quite some time ago. And in theme and
feeling it resembles the widely unspread
'The Sun' from Shape, released at last
LCP. Comparing this demo to Nightlord's
earlier work, "Mist", this is taking
seven-mile-boot steps in the right
direction.
1.000.000 Lightyears from Earth from
Fairlight
It's quite hard to get started reviewing
this one. Cannot really tell you
why, but I figure that I have a hard
time deciding what I feel for this
demo. It's a very nice demo, although
a quite expected one. It's fitted
into one theme, but with two different
expressions. It feels new, yet it feels
like I have seen things before. Perhaps
I should start to try to straighten out
what I feel is the problems with this
productions? To start with, I recognize
the expressions of both Puterman and
Hollowman in this demo, and during
the compo I could pinpoint almost
every single part and tell who did
what. The majority of the first parts
are breathing the abstract expressions
which are courtesy of Puterman, with
some additional graphics and effects
from Hollowman. The second chapter
is vice versa, but strangely enough,
the demo still remains remarkably
consistant. The secret is ofcourse
that Hollowman and Puterman know how
to make good demos by now, and this
demo is no exception. The result is, as
Cruzer put it, an Ikea-demo - a Swedish
scene production with details being
of somewhat discussable quality. But
as a consumer you sure receive nicely
designed standard stuff for a low price.
Graphically, this is much of a mixture
between 'Emanation Machine' with its
sparse graphics and circular focuses,
and the vectorized style which you can
find in a lot of the FLT demos released
lately. I kind of love Hollowman's
wicked aesthetics using animated vector
graphics. It's something very basic
and adoring about it which touches a
nerve in me. Seeing it makes me wish
for another complete story being folded
out in this way (like f.ex. 'Pretending
To See The Light') instead of being
given small bursts of nice animation
(this demo and 'Wok Zombie'). You
might complain that there's a lot of
style-recycling done, and sure, it is,
and sure - you're getting what you
have been expecting. This is a nice
standard FLT-demo, but mind, it's not
'Pretending To See The Light', and it's
not 'Loaded' either.
The Forever demos
The Forever demos
[Twoflower:]
Dreams Come True from Samar
Forever 6 sure seem to have been a
mighty nice party, with this demo being
the winner of the democompo. Instead
of wasting space, I will give you some
immediate, live reactions from #C-64,
at lunchtime, 050321:
< Oswald > holly fuck how awful. whish
I havent seen it.
<Twoflowr> More picture slideshows with
anti-PC stuff for the scene... It feels
so... fresh!
<puterman> Twoflowr: definitely, every
demo should have windows jokes.
MOS Tribute from Padua
This demo recieved the second place on
Forever 6, and contrary to the winner
of the compo, this release actually
has some redeeming features, like the
symbols and the music. The demo contains
the story of MOS Technologies and how
they were bought by Commodore. But in
general, this is another cheapshot
sloppy release complete with black
background and ported text which
shouldn't be spent too much words on.
Want a draw? from Brutal
Released outside the compo on Forever
6, I found this to be the nicest
file released in the partypack,
amongst TCH's UFLI-pic. In short, it's
about TCH wanting to draw stuff for
people. Outright 1992-styled, it gave me
a little sting in my heart remembering
my days of happy swapping, opening
badly taped stashes of disks with not
too sharp scissors. Having opened the
package, you often discovered a disk
containing two disksides of Brutal
cracks of which only half would load,
thanks to the low quality of the disk
and the sloppy handling of it by a
swapper from Nordmaling. This was the
kind of file you would expect to find
in such a sending, and even if I didn't
appreciate it then, I do now. If only
for nostalgic reasons.
The Breakpoint stuff
The Breakpoint stuff
[Puterman:]
The Breakpoint demo competition managed
to surprise me negatively this year,
although I didn't expect all that much.
I was hoping for at least one good demo,
but I guess this will teach me to lower
my expectations even more...
The winner was the RCC 2005 invitation,
which is a nice little invitation,
but definitely not what you'd expect
from a demo compo winner. I guess the
compo audience liked the singalong tune,
which I don't understand anything of,
as it's in German (my guess is that it's
about having sex with your parents,
which I find a bit sick, but well,
everything I know about Germans I've
learned from Metalvotze demos, so I'm
not surprised). I kind of like the idea
of the two versions of the same tune
(by Jeff and Dalezy), so thumbs up for
that, and the logo is also kind of cool.
The second place in the compo was
taken by K2's Neon, and I'm sure the
K2 guys were very disappointed with
the 2nd place, as it's a much more
ambitious demo. My guess is that they
were punished by the voters for the
very low tempo of their presentation.
All the parts seem to go on forever,
and then they keep going, until they
finally end and you're taken to the
next, almost infinite, part.
This isn't going to be all complaints,
though. I like the variation within
some of the parts. That's something
that others should try to achieve as
well. But please, don't copy the "we'll
run every part for 15 minutes" concept.
As usual when it comes to K2
productions, the aesthetics are pretty
original. Or as some people (including
me) would put it: it's horribly ugly.
Some parts are just way beyond my
understanding, but this might be due to
my lack of understanding of "design" and
"art". And while I'm being all negative
here, please, please, please, never
make another loading part which displays
the text "loading" and nothing else.
The music in the demo grabbed my
attention, mostly because it doesn't
follow the C-64 music standards.
Most of the tunes seem to be some
kind of drum'n'bass, or possibly "IDM"
(maybe even UDM, ha-ho-heeee-heee, I'm
so funny). I can't say I actually liked
any of the music, but at least it wasn't
another collection of lame attempts at
cloning Drax' or Jeroen Tel's style.
All in all, thumbs up for trying to do
something original, thumbs down for the
execution, the bugs and the questionable
aesthetics.
The 3rd place demo, by Singular, again
looks pretty ugly. Well, at least the
Zak McKracken graphics weren't as ugly
as the pictures displayed immediately
before them, but that's not actually
Singular's own achievement. Those
converted pictures might again be an
example of "art", but to me they mostly
look ugly. At least it's pretty short,
so those of us who aren't too fond of
Sad's music don't have to suffer more
than a minute or so. However, if you're
into his offbeat style, close your eyes
and float away with this wild tune.
Moving down to the 4th and last place,
we find the truly standout horror
release, Surprise Productions' C-64
debut. This one offers a quite ugly
hires logo, an 8x8 plasma and a 1x1
scroller. Welcome to the C-64, boys,
you'll need to do much better than this
to earn a reputation in the C-64 scene,
similar to the one you have (or used to
have?) in the PC scene. Well, at least
it has a decent tune by Dalezy. Okay,
let's not be so harsh for now, after all
it's their first release, so let's just
hope that the next one will be better.
But anyway, I find it pretty strange to
decide to start a C-64 section without
recruiting any skilled members first.
And it's not like anyone's going to
be very interested in joining a group
that produces this kind of crap.
Maybe they're under the impression
that the C-64 scene is filled with
unemployed coders. Well, in that case,
welcome to reality... It's not possible
that they expect people to jump into
their arms because of the famous name,
is it? Or maybe they're interested
in recruiting this magazine staff's
new favorite coder, Die Chefrocker?
I really don't know what to make of all
this, so I'll just leave it.
To sum it up, what we got was one
production that really tried to be
a good demo, two small demos that
weren't really trying, and one decent
invitation, which really didn't belong
in the demo compo at all. The fact that
the latter one won just underlines the
fact that this was no real demo compo.
I kind of feel sorry for the K2 dudes,
but it's pretty much their own fault
for stealing too much time from the
party audience. At the same time,
it's nice to see that people don't
necessarily vote for the demo with the
greatest number of parts. Of course,
releases like these would have been okay
for a smaller party, but Breakpoint is
no small party, which is obvious if you
check out who took part in the 4k compo.
However, it might be time to finally
give up hope about the Breakpoint demo
compos...
The 4K's of Breakpoint
[Twoflower:]
In ways, the Breakpoint of 2005 was
remarkable. Not for the fact that it
actually was held in a place where
people didn't risk freezing to death,
and surely not for the demos which were
released. The remarkable was the nice
amount of 4k intros, an artform which
so far has been mastered by Krill.
Surely boosted by the fact that Krill
wasn't about to compete this year, as
many as 9 entries were found. After
sorting out the two most retarded
releases (Chefrocker and Metalvotze)
and our own, 'Hiptrip', we are left with
6 more or less nice 4k's to review.
Let's start with Fairlight's entry
'Stroh', which is about what you
could expect from Dwangi and Maktone,
with some additional graphics from
Hollowman, if I have understood things
correctly. The details are nothing
remarkable, but I like the overall
feeling, strangeskool stuff in 4k. Very
much Dwangi, thank you. Not as amusing
as the last one was 'Marching Squares'
from Smash. Quite interesting, and I
sure believe you could do nice stuff
with this strangely familiar floffy
effect, but it sure isn't done here. Oh,
the standard LDA#$00, STA$D020,
STA$D021 is used? How handy. Let's
move on, and deal with Laxity's little
intro instead. The intro is called
"Boombastic" and is a quite ordinary
intro. Yes. Nothing more needs to be
added, since it gives the about the same
vibes as any nice crackintro.
Somewhere in this review, I have to
deal with 'Inside a Bubble' from Padua.
This is... mixed? Yes. The unbelievably
ugly zoomscroller destroys much of
what this demo could have been, since
the ECI-plasma and the bobs were nice.
Oh, and yes, the plasma with the donuts
should have been left out too. I can't
understand why people have to cram in
butt-ugly stuff in an 4k, just because
they can? I mean, in a 4k, parts of
it IS cramming stuff in, but couldn't
the rest of the mem have been used on
a couple of sprites or chars to add
something even more to the visually nice
parts? But on the other hand, i'm just
a whining graphician. Next please!
Oh, here comes my favourite. Clarences
nice 'LDA Stain', which sure had some
depack time, but which achieves a
similar effect like the one we did in
The Throckmorton Device, but with two
notable differences. This is made in 4K,
and I paintshopped the damned animation
where he calculated it. Pock. Advantage
Chorus. The rest of the demo is just
about as nice. You ought to take a look
if you haven't, if not only to take a
look at the upside-down camelbars. This
didn't win though. Dekadence did.
Let's face it. The Dekadence demo,
'Pico' has about everything you need
in a 4K. Nice music, visually nice
effects, and some of the neatest
fullchargfx I have seen. It's fairly
easy to understand that this won the
compo. It doesn't give me the same vibe
as Clarence's one, which feels more
like 4K version of a Camelot-demo,
but i'm sure it'll win me over in
the long run. I won't go into details
describing the effects. Just watch it
and you'll understand what I mean. Yeah,
and the little DKD logo in the intro
felt unnecessary.
[Puterman:]
While the Breakpoint demo compo was a
real disappointment again, the 4k compo
made me feel quite good. There weren't
any real killer releases, but at least
most of the entries were meant to be
serious and there was a wide selection
of styles. So whatever your preferred
subgenre of C-64 effects is, you'll
probably find it represented among these
4k entries.
Didi of Laxity made a comeback with a
typical crack intro style 4k. This one
emanates some serious data vibes,
and although it's all been done 666
times before, this one gives me a nice,
cozy data feeling. I just wish the
logo had fit better into the design,
but I guess weird colour combinations
is an important part of this kind of
productions.
Metalvotze surprised me with two
completely different parts: the intro
scroller makes me think of computers
in old movies, while the second
one has an effect that looks like a
distorted version of Graham's plasma
from the Forever demo (2004? 2003?).
Again there's a logo at the bottom of
the screen that makes my stomach turn,
but that doesn't really matter: they've
taken a step in the right direction
(however, I guess it'd be impossible
to move in any other direction).
Unfortunately I suspect that they'll
take a few steps back again, just
like they did after their last serious
release, the demo Hires, released at
Mekka/Symposium 2001.
Die Chefrocker (?) provides the
obligatory 8x8 plasma. No further
comment is necessary. (If I'd been in
a mean mood I'd probably said something
like "please fuck off and die", but I'm
not, so forget what I just said.)
Iopop of Triad had to give us something
different, of course. The only effect
shown would have fit nicely into 78-80
or Imminent threat. I would have wanted
some more, and in its loneliness this
part feels a bit empty. However, it's
nice to see the warez flowing from the
Triad well.
Dwangi strikes back with another 4k
with three parts, just like in his
last one, Blueberry. We've seen the
bobs before, but the first part, with
the parallax trees is nice. However,
I'm sure this excellent idea could have
been done better. It's a solid release,
but not a compo winner. At least not
in this company.
I've been waiting for Lord Hypnos to
finally release something really nice.
He's been close a couple of times,
but this time it feels like he hasn't
really tried. It's a collection of
parts with no connection at all, and
none of the individual parts is very
good, although I'm always happy to see
another ECI plasma. The zoom scroller
has to be the ugliest one ever, and the
8x8 effect felt completely unnecessary,
while the bob plotter just made me yawn.
Come on mr. Hypnos, I know you can do
a lot better!
AEG does what he's best at: recycling
old parts. This time it's the
metaballs part from the Driss demo
(which I think won the substandard
demo compo at Mekka/Symposium 2000).
I think this one's faster, and it's
a lot nicer to watch than some of his
other efforts, but it still feels a bit
cheap. The same goes for the standard
disclaimer in the note: apparently the
code was written in 4 hours. That kind
of excuses don't impress me at all.
If you only have 4 hours to spare, why
bother at all? I can imagine that a
release from AEG that he actually worked
hard on would kick ass, but he never
seems to want to finish his releases.
The fact that the tune is old doesn't
make me feel any better. Well, at
least there weren't any obvious bugs
this time...
Clarence is back again to show that
his comeback in the scene is for real.
He's produced 4 parts that are all nice
(ranging from pretty nice to really
nice). I'm sure there are a lot of
coders who have been planning to make a
fullscreen line tunnel, and here it is
in all its glory. The main part is of
course the upside-down camel bars, which
should make more than one competing
coder scratch his head. Unfortunately
there's not much flow in this demo,
and while this is a good release, I'm
sure a guy like Krill could have taken
the same effects and turned them into
a kickass release, just by connecting
the dots in a better way.
Dekadence have a habit of getting the
second place in the Mekka/Breakpoint 4k
compos, and Pico also felt pretty much
like a second place release. The music
by SounDemoN is the thing that stands
out here. The code isn't bad, and it's
sure nice to see Britelite doing other
things than chunky movelist effects,
and although I have a feeling that
his parts (a few variations of the
same basic effect) could be improved
by a good coder, I don't really care.
Dekadence 4ks aren't about impressive
code, they're about good flow and fresh
music. Unfortunately a bit of the flow
from their earlier releases are missing,
especially in the silent break between
the first part and the rest of the demo.
So I'll just say "keep working on it,
boys", and hope that they'll be back
next year with something cooler.
Of course, next year Krill will probably
be back to win the compo again. Too bad
he was missing this year, because he's
the king of the 4ks, and the compo isn't
the same without him. There's no clear
winner among these 9 demos, and although
most of them were serious entries,
Smash Designs, Chorus and Dekadence seem
like the obvious winners. (It seems
my prognosis wasn't quite correct,
FLT actually beat Smash and DKD won.
Oh well, I'll become a prophet in my
next life instead.)
Random releases
Random releases
[Twoflower:]
16 Years of Silence by Science 451
One of my single most surprising
releases since Camelots 'You Know the
Routine' suddenly arrived, marking the
return of Science 451. Return? Nah,
this is more a personal comeback from
H.O. who decided to make a demo for the
sake of old sins. Nevertheless I get
happy seeing this cozy little release.
Boy, one of the bigger wished I had in
mind, back in 1990 (save for joining
Triad) was joining up with the mighty
Science 451, whose demos 'Fullt 0s'
and 'Spain II' had been some serious
objects for my affection. To emphazise
how much I liked them demos (which I
ran from tape), I can tell you that I
still can recite several of the sillier
passages of the scrolltexts. Perhaps I
had too great expectations when I ran
it, since I got kind of surprised when
the entire demo consisted of one intro
and two parts and no scrolls...
Suddenly I awoke from my daydreaming,
becoming aware of the fact that I
actually judged the demo from an 1989
perspective. But why not? From my
1989 perspective, this demo had too
less scrollers, no dycps and was too
short. But seen with todays eyes, this
demo is great - in its own way. Just
as Mahoney's demo was a couple of
years ago, and the surfacing of those
forgotten demos by Offence even longer
back. Now I only hope that H.O. breaks
his promise and does another demo -
with more scrollers this time!
As Far as the Eye Can See by Tinnitus
Sometimes, in the shade of greater
events, you often forget the small
wonders which surface on our scene. This
time, I have promised myself not
to. I'm referring to the wonderful
"As Far as the Eye Can See", from
Tinnitus, released about the same time
as the Floppy stuff reached us. Taking
the stroll from the Vast Plains over
the Rapid River, crossing the Haunted
Graveyard upon my way towards the small
hamlet of Razlyn, I feel serene. When
I open my eyes, I find myself lost,
dazed and confused in a mixture of
Ghouls'n Ghosts, Guild of Thieves,
Iron Lord and Might&Magic II. I feel
in a way I haven't done since I lost
myself in C-64 roleplayinggames in the
early nineties. Given, you feel more at
home at some places than others while
exploring the map, and the nicest thing
is that you always can head elsewhere.
With heavy celtish influences and
strong Iron Lord-themed graphics
from Trompkins, this collection is
themewise quite the opposite of our
own collection, Beatnik. The graphic
glitches between the gfx and the
chars just adds to the feeling of a
badly fixed NTSC-rpg by Origin or New
World Computing. I haven't been this
touched by a C-64 release since last
time I tried to defeat the mad god,
Tarjan. And that was one year ago. Who
claimed Poland was dead scenewise?
Inca -The Lost Treasure from Covenant
Inbetween Floppy and Forever, this
little slideshow arrived from Covenant.
Coded by Richard as a poor compensation
for not making a proper game out of
the graphics that JSL sent him. I
really dislike coders doing like this
(no, you're not one of them, Henrik),
trigging their graphicians to make
graphics and then scrapping the whole
project. Ok, so there is no hard
work behind most of these pictures,
JSL can do far better, but releasing
a pointless, sloppy slideshow with
kitchen-details under the name of
Inca is a shame. I seriously hope the
spirit of Atahualpa and the great winged
snakegod, Quetzalcoatl, will haunt him
in his dreams.
[Puterman:]
Fruit Salad by Panda Design
Panda Design released a small demo to
let the world know that there's a new
group around. Of course it's nothing
to rant and rave about, but it's a nice
little piece in all its simplicity,
and you shouldn't demand too much from
a first release. I kind of like the
way the screen looks, and the tune
is pretty catchy (I hope I'm allowed
to use such musical terms, with me
not being a musician and everything).
Well done guys, but we'll expect a lot
Diskmags
Diskmags
[Puterman:]
While I looked away for a second (or
rather, I was off the net for a week), 3
new mags were released. Game Over(view)
keeps ruling the C-64 mag scene with
regular releases and bad attitude, and
the latest issue is just another piece
of evidence that you don't need a nice
magsys to make a kickass mag.
The Scene World crew also keep doing
their thing. I guess there's no point
going through all the things I don't
like about this mag (again). Let's just
say that issue 14 is more of the same,
so if you've read the previous issues
you know what to expect. Anyway, if you
need a good laugh, check out the charts
and the diskmag reviews.
Issue 55 of Publication is also quite
similar to the recent issues: bugs,
coding articles and some reviews.
I really wish they could fix the magsys,
because it's still a nice idea, but
I'd hoped that the idea would also be
implemented in a decent way sometime.
Unfortunately they keep pushing
out issue after issue with the same
deficiencies.
The highlight of this issue was of
course Nightlord's inspired report
from Floppy. The other article that has
to be mentioned is Richard's confused
history of the demo scene. I have no
idea why he wrote it at all, but the
concept of writing articles about stuff
you know nothing about is well beyond
my comprehension. Zeitgeist should
have done his duty as editor and skipped
this one.
And just when I thought all the text for
this issue was finished, another issue
of Arachnophobia (34) was released.
First of all, it was nice to see a
decent intro (by Cactus). Now I'm
just wondering why it wasn't linked to
the mag. Cactus used the 'l' word in
his comment over at CSDb. Oh well...
The contents consist of the usual stuff,
like editorial (actually 2 of them, of
which the first one also includes some
pretty pointless reader reactions with
replies, you know the type: "Great mag,
guys, keep improving!" "Thanks for your
valuable input, pal!"), party reports,
charts and interviews.
Unfortunately everything is, as usual,
very uninspired and uninteresting.
The party reports are of the usual
"we took the car there, we entered
the party place, we went to McDonald's
with GoatBoy" etc., the interviews only
contain boring standard questions (and
the people interviewed aren't exactly
people who do anything interesting),
and so on. Or, well, there was some
unintentional humour here and there,
like Nafcom saying "I am totally
satisfied with myself".
One detail I found a bit funny was
this comment in the charts chapter:
"Twoflower sharing with Duce the fourth
place but I haven t seen a cover from
him, Is he a real cover painter?"
I guess it wouldn't be too difficult
to check CSDb and find out that, yes,
Twoflower is "a real cover painter".
I guess it's details like this one
that makes the editors seem so sloppy
and ignorant. There are other examples
as well, like misspellings of people's
names in the charts and the strange
statement that Crossbow "doesn't do
anything for years". Doesn't "Don't
Meet Crest" count as doing something?
On the positive side, there's an unusual
number of tunes to listen to, if you're
into that kind of stuff. They've also
switched back to the old type menu,
which I appreciate, especially as it
shows that they actually listen to
their readers.
