Editorial Scene+ #7

Editorial

SCENE+ is published by:
L.C.D.
Prager Str. 92/11/12
A-1210 Vienna, Austria
Phone: (02) 272 34 63 (within Austria), or +43 1 272 34 63 from abroad (outside Austria).

All classifieds and advertisements are completely free of charge, as long as they are related to the ZX Spectrum or SAM Coupé, and can take any format: plain text, screens, animations, etc.

Welcome to SCENE+ #7! Once again, a lot of hard work went into this issue, as I really wanted to catch up on my delays. To everyone who wrote to me: please forgive me, I was simply too busy this month to reply quickly. Spending several days doing Amiga conversion work for the group ILLUSION didn't exactly provide much of a breather either.

Thanks to Illusion, I got hold of the demo Satisfaction — a true Russian masterpiece by the same authors who made the Doom Demo. Perhaps I will also receive some help from Illusion with programming Legacy. In addition to the music tracks ripped by Cat's Eye (and, of course, Fudgepacker), there are now also tunes provided by Kriss.

Otherwise, it was rather a quiet month, and thanks to the immense heat, work on SCENE progressed quite rapidly. I holed up in my darkened room, stocked up on some snack reserves, and only showed my face when it was time to fetch supplies. Due to a strike by Austrian postal workers, I received all mail with a delay, so I would like to apologize to new readers for answering only now.

Speaking of the post office: for heaven's sake, do not send me money via bank checks! The commission fees charged by banks here are an absolute outrage! I only realized this when I went to withdraw money for new stamps. From now on, all bank robbers have my utmost respect! If you really must send me money, please do so only via postal money order or in an insured letter (Wertbrief). Otherwise, out of 280 ATS, only 80 ATS actually gets credited to my account! The bank clerk told me the amount was simply too small. For collective/group subscriptions (around 10 people or more), Eurocheques are naturally fine.

And now to the news:
New games are still being produced for the ZX Spectrum. Grafix Wizards are bringing Dead or Alive, a sort of Commando with cowboys and Indians. Also coming soon is the PD game Dotman, whose level editor is already available from FPD. The idea is to let end users create their own levels; if they turn out well, they will be included in the finished game.

The next club meeting in Houten takes place on October 5th; the Dutch certainly know how to celebrate these occasions.

Sintech will be expanding its product range with new software again. Here are some of the Ultrasoft titles: Kommando 2 (a successor to Commando with phenomenal, improved monochrome graphics!), Tetris II (a Tetris sequel for up to two players with an ultra-cool soundtrack), Kliatba Noci (The Curse of the Night, a top-tier platformer), along with Octopussy featuring James Bond, Sach Mat (a chess program), and Twilight, a game released last year boasting superb graphics. Whether the authors acquired the necessary licenses is quite questionable for titles like Kommando 2, Tetris 2, and Octopussy (movie license). I will write reviews for Tetris 2, Kommando 2, and Kliatba Noci for the next issue, but in any case, almost all of these games are absolute mega-hits. If you live in Austria, want to take advantage of the collective order, and prefer not to order directly from Thomas, you can also order directly via ASC.

The future of the Spectrum is somewhere out there, as Agent Mulder would say.

I also plan to translate several Russian games and sell them here. It will provide a great incentive for Russian coders if their work can be paid in hard currency. Discussions at an intercontinental level are currently ongoing; as soon as concrete results appear, this magazine will be the place where you can read all about it. Meanwhile, translation work on Scorpions continues, although it is by no means an easy task. The price for Scorpions – Die Maschine will be around 10–15 DM, with the lion's share going to Russia. You will find an article about the difficulties of localization elsewhere in this issue.

Soon Specom (formerly known as Samcom) will take place. As far as I know, the host city is Prague, but I do not have an exact address or date yet, so please contact Thomas (Phone: 0711/775033) for detailed information. It was the same story with Demobit: the demo only mentioned the date and city, without an exact street address.

Trading Post has taken over the distribution of Sintech products in England. That is a major milestone towards revitalizing the Spectrum market.

Cat's Eye is currently programming a game with the working title Erinnerungen (Memories). It will be based on the animated series ThunderCats, structured as an adventure where you use multiple-choice decisions to find out what happened to the ThunderCats. I don't know the exact plot details yet, but since I am traveling to Graz shortly, I will visit Cat's Eye and help with the project. Incidentally, it will incorporate an engine framework developed by myself, which is also used in Legacy...