Scene news - 2013 Edition!

Hi there, ho there, it's me, CiH, back on the keys for another edition of Mag! and another tragic attempt at misreporting what I imagine the Atari scene is up to right now. Some of the sentences below may contain nuggets of actual useful and interesting information. This will be accidental, I'm very sorry for that.

Firstly, from the last time we were here..

Something like this was said at the end of the article - "Things are currently quiet in Sweden, certain people are not "dead" but are "resting" at the minute. It has been mentioned though that a light might be illuminating the high end Falcon demo world at some point, and it is very bright indeed!"

We now now that a high end demo was successfully ported to the Falcon CT6x from the original Amiga 060 winner at Revision 2012. 'Kioea' was released as an end of compo highlight for Outline 2013. Better still, it looks like several other demos in Britelite's back catalogue from Dekadence and RNO could well follow. Not to mention future releases from the Mad Wizards, yes, they are working on some new stuff. One to watch for at a Revision demo party near you!

Peering into the 'Where are they now?' cupboard..

Ephidrena's 'Chip's Don't Lie' demo. It has been seen running on a CT60 with this writers own eyeballs, so it does exist. We were waiting for a Firebee dual executable version, but it seems that the coder, Nerve, has got himself stuck in baby poo for some considerable time?

Rocking the old town of Gdansk yet again!

Time for some SV2013 news now. We're trying to avoid the Mis-steps from last year including the Atari TT demo that never was! We have taken the opportunity to speak to the main man, Grey, just about a week before it all starts.

He says that there are a number of good game and demo releases planned for all of the major systems, that is covering from Atari VCS, through to Atari Jaguar, taking in the main 8 and 16-bit computers in-between. Some possible numbers have been stated, but we are cautioned to expect some non-runners or last minute dramas.

But even taking a downbeat cautious position, there should still be enough going on to make this yet another classic party!

Back in the recent past, we've had a series of blindingly good invitro's. Starting with Checkpoint's debut Jaguar code, and latterly ending up with a surprise return from the Reservoir Gods (Damo Division!) on the Atari STE.

A currently unknown Polish team are working on something that looks like a platform game for the ST as a potential SV2013 release. Updates have been seen on Facebook of all places. The graphics look like an advanced version of a Nintendo Game and Watch. The musician contracted to do the chip-tunes is none other than Yerzmyey.

Nintendo versus Atari?

What is happening with 'DML Designs'?

The Doug Little revival continues apace, there has been intensive work on the 'Bad Mood' Doom engine. This is slowly being upgraded to a full game for a base Falcon 030 (14MB) with extras. Lately, Doug has been distracted into coding up a reasonably convincing Doom style engine (simplified but still looks good) for the Atari ST. He wishes to finish this and Bad Mood soon and move on to other projects.

A Dresden demo disaster?

Checkpoint has (had?) a 95% ready demo, which was not released at Revision, we're still not sure how badly a hard disk crash has affected this. At least one comment in passing suggests that the ST demo is still around? Checkpoint did release Jaguar Invitro for SV2013 at Outline and 'Chasey' sound demo at SV2012. Also further coding on Jaguar is ongoing from lsl with occasional activity reports from that direction. I'd keep a close eye on Sillyventure 2013 if I were you.

The Revision 2013 Clown invasion!

BlaBla released their Atari STE follow-up to 'STreetArt' into a packed Revision 2013 old school competition. The author of this article was very closely involved in getting it there! An extended and tidied up 'final' version is expected sometime. At that time, Cyg was also hoping to make another demo if he could persuade the rest of the team to help.

Bleeding out Oldschool inspiration!

We speculate on a possible return of legendary old school Frenchies, the Hemoroids, to the Atari demo scene. The 'Rebirth' web demo was very well received with lots of nice old school French style effects. There is a long term project posted on the Atari ST Demo scene Facebook group to make a new old school styled demo for the Atari ST.

Swedish policy!

There was a tasty slice of Sommerhack stuff, where a smallish but delicious batch of releases ensued. Highlights included an easy on the eye 64ktro by DHS called 'Riverside' and Excellence in Art with a 'sort of follow-up' to TalkTalk 2, an uneasy combination of straight demo and party report called 'US Policy'. Read more in the nice interview with Xia, also in this issue.

Getting connected with Cooper!

Sometime game maker, Cooper of Paradize Software is looking to release another game on a shareware basis. His question to people is whether they have the means to connect their Atari, ST or Falcon to a network. This is an intriguing question. At the very least, sales of Lotharek's NetusBee will spike in anticipation! More information about the game itself is awaited.

The 20th Anniversary prowling cat!

In this anniversary year for the Atari Jaguar, there has been some new Jag Stuff. We start with Reboot's affectionate 'Jetpac' tribute for the Jaguar CD, which was released earlier this year. There is talk of more cartridge releases on the Jag scene, with development of flash memory cartridges for the Jaguar. Orion released the latest version of his atmospheric graphical adventure, 'Elansar' for the Jaguar on cartridge. There was also a limited edition release of a collection of smaller games and demos from Orion. There is a review in this issue of Mag! for this collection. Finally, for now, there was a showing of the latest version of the long time in development 'Rebooteroids' at the Revival Retro event in Manchester.

More fighting in the Dunes?

Thadoss from Dune, the author of the fabulous beat-em up for the Falcon, 'Beats of Rage', one of the really cool surprises at SV2012, appears to be working on something new for the Falcon. One train of thought may well be for a major rework of Beats of Rage. As the review in this issue states, it is based on a very adaptable game engine, so almost anything could happen?

Anima and his low profile..

Is there any news of any more Sharp X68000 stuff being ported to the Falcon 030? Anima, known in a past life as Percy of Light has been very quiet lately. We have seen a video of a very nice Falcon 030 flat-surfaced DSP 3-D engine from him made as long ago as 1994! Yes it turns out there there is a little news. For that, see the separate article about the X68000. Things are quiet but other ports are being considered, not necessarily from the X68000!

Zamuel, but not bedroom coding as we know it!

Zamuel's recode of Pacmania for the STE has been completed and released. Feel free to read the review in this issue which goes into all the new stuff he put in it. Work continues on a Strider-like game using the STE's extra features, which is taking a bit longer. But then again, that is a 'from the ground up' original game.

Will we get a Bonus?

An STE and Falcon game called 'BeGEMed' was shown at an advanced state by Bonus, of former famous Dutch Atari groups. It's now going to be finalised with a medley of chip tunes coming from DMA-SC. Release dates have not been mentioned, so be patient.

Head over Heels in Kettering town!

An uncompleted Atari ST game from way back in the day, 'Head over Heels 2' was spotted at the Revival event. It currently also runs on the Falcon, as it was shown doing so! We can put a name to the programmer. He is Colin Porch, ex-Ocean Software. This project wasn't official and started on his own initiative. It had lain dormant for years, but he's restarted it now. It looks promising but there is still a fair bit to do. Another minor factoid is that he lives fairly locally to me.

Colin Porch and Head over Heels 2.

SuperVidel is out, world freezes over, or something!

SuperVidel, probably one of the longest gestating projects ever (Heftig!) is *finally* out! I've got the evidence at home in the form of actual hardware. It will get a review, just as soon as the previous owner of my CT60 can make the time to fit it. I wonder what the Nature Brothers will do next? Time to revive some of their software projects perhaps?

The mark of Zorro appears once more!

A tragically lost replacement desktop, zDesk is returning to high end Falcons and the Firebee as Zorro has been injected with new enthusiasm! (The first working beta was expected 'Septemberish' but no sign as yet. To be fair, he did mention he was short on coding time.) It will incorporate completely recoded zView functions as part of the user interface, with zView being declared as 'obsolete' by Zorro. This is eagerly awaited. A (p)review will follow as soon as possible.

Well this one sneaked out almost without anybody noticing!

After a silence of years, a new version of Aniplayer by Didier Mequignon, version 2.23, has been released. The main new features include enhanced support for CTPCI with Radeon graphics cards, Eiffel keyboards and better support for Firebee.

And I think that's enough scene news 'excitement' for this time. Go and lie down for a while, but not for too long, as there's still the rest of the issue to start reading.

Now go for it!

CiH - For Mag Issue 2 - Various in 2013.

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