Retro Gamer Intro

I've just noticed that an unused and unreleased C64 intro has been uploaded to CSDb by Shaun Bebbington, a former staff writer on UK magazine 'Retro Gamer'.

The 'blinds' code effect was by MTR1975 and I pixelled the Retro Gamer logo.  Shaun has has left a comment on the intro's CSDb entry page and he states:

"This is a file that I 'commissioned' in 2005 (June or July I think) whilst I was working on the UK magazine Retro Gamer. MTR provided the code, and Andy V rendered the graphics from the magazine's logo. The idea was to sellotape it to any C64 releases we'd have on the coverdisk, but it never worked out that way. A shame really, but here's the file in all its glory just in case TMR wants to do anything with it."

And that pretty much explains the purpose of this little intro.  I'll have to take Shaun's word for it on the dates.  While don't remember why I ended up doing the pixelling, whether I was asked or if I volunteered after a discussion somewhere (probably on IRC), I *do* remember MTR becoming a little annoyed with me for not asking him first before me saying he would code while I pixelled.  Understandable really.

If anyone is wondering why the logo in the intro looks different to the logo of the magazine today, after the original publishers 'Live Publishing' went bust, the title was bought and underwent a redesign by new publishers 'Imagine Publishing'.

I'm pretty sure that I did another version of the logo which I preferred where the main colour was light grey instead of white.  Not sure why that wasn't used and I can't find the grey version anywhere.

The intro can be downloaded from CSDb here...

Downloading directly from this blog will get you the original logo in Koala format as well as the intro. Just click here...

Frixxion

An Onslaught crack has appeared on CSDb of a C64 game I have been involved in.  The game is called 'Frixxion' and I pixelled the title screen logo, the background graphics and the sprites, with code handled by Trooper.

After working with Trooper on my 'Hex Files Advert', I became involved in this game that was already a work-in-progress, with temporary graphics by T.M.R.  The work Trooper did on the game prior to my involvement is detailed in a diary on his website here...  (please note, Trooper seems to have a habit of moving and/or breaking his site, so if the link doesn't work, blame him!)

The idea for the game is for it to be a shoot 'em up, with a small twist being that the player's ship is just barely off the surface of the background, thus can be affected by it - the game name 'Frixxion' is a play on the word 'friction'.  Trooper asked for some new backgrounds and sprites which I duly provided, along with a logo for the title screen which wasn't originally requested but seems to have gone down well since it has been used!

Back to the crack, I think a demo build of Frixxion is available from Trooper's website so I'm guessing that's where Onslaught obtained it from.  If not, it wasn't me that spread it honest!  The crack version, which fixes a few issues with the original test build, can be downloaded from CSDb here...

However, by downloading direct from this blog, not only do you get the crack version mentioned above, you'll get the original test build from September 2008 (which is what the crack is based on I guess), the title screen logo in Koala format and the background and sprites in their original Charpad and Spritepad formats (links to get the required Charpad/Spritepad versions needed to open the files are in text files in the respective folders).  Get that little bundle here...