Koalatro

Cosine has released 'Koalatro' an entry into the 2016 CSDb Intro Creation Competition.  In this intro, T.M.R has managed to fit a multicolour bitmap, some music and a scrolling message into 15K of memory.  I provided the music.

Quoting T.M.R on how the intro was done:

"The picture contains all of the data usually present in a Koalapainter format picture including the final byte to set $D021 (which is handled despite not needing to be), but the 1,000 nybble block usually sent to the colour RAM has been packed into 500 bytes to save precious bytes of memory.  The colour effect applied to both of the scrolling messages was originally based on the one in Contribution by Super Swap Sweden, this picture was wired from the Amiga several years ago.   The original prototype version of this code loaded into memory at $C000 onwards, but that used 16K and this final release is a mere 15K without losing anything apart from the greetings list!"

I originally wrote the music intending for it to be an entry in the CSDb 'loading music' competition a few years ago, but I never managed to get it finished back then.  A little bit of spit and polished meant it was suitable for use in this intro.  As usual, it was written in Goattracker and is a double speed tune.  For your information, the title of the tune is 'Lesewch Tâp' which is Welsh.  It roughly translates to 'tape read', in other words loading or reading information from tape.  Usually, my 'internal' Welsh development filenames don't make it out into the wild, but on this occasion I couldn't actually think of a 'proper' release name...

And if you're wondering about the demo name 'Koalatro', it's a portmanteau of Koala, a type of C64 bitmap file format, and intro.  Duh.

The demo can be downloaded from the Cosine website here...

By downloading from this blog, as well as a disk image of the demo, you'll get the music as a SID file and the music in it's original Goattracker SNG format, ready to poke and prod if you are so inclined.  Grab the files here...

You can watch and listen to the demo on YouTube.  Hopefully the player will appear below, but if not you can watch it by clicking here...

Modular Sounds 4

Artstate has used one of my SID's in their music collection called 'Modular Sounds 4'.  The SID in question is 'Lost in Time' which was originally written for the Cosine demo MD201603, which you can read about here...

The 'Modular Collection' series contains SID covers of classic Amiga music modules.  My cover is included in the main collection.

The Artstate collection can be downloaded from CSDb here...

Big Brother Simulator

Another anniversary post!  10 years ago, T.M.R was running the 'Crap Game Compo 2006' and as the name of the competition suggests, the idea was to create a crap game.  Duh!

I decided to make an entry and came up with 'Big Brother Simulator'.

As the title suggests, the game was a supposed to be a 'simulator' and, yes, that part of the name was indeed inspired by a certain publisher called 'Codemasters' and their simulator (and seemingly endless) series of 8/16bit games.  The rest of the title was from the, in my opinion, trashy television series 'Big Brother'.

The idea of the game was quite simple - make a series of choices that increase your popularity and therefore increase your chances of staying in the 'house'.  Making a string of outrageous choices actually decreases your popularity, as does choosing boring options constantly, leading to eviction.  The best course of action was to make a balanced choice to slowly increase your popularity and stay in the house until the end of the game.

At least that's how it was coded initially but of course this being the 'Crap Game Compo', I broke, on purpose, all the carefully coded calculations that would average out your choices over the course of the game.  Therefore the game ends up being almost impossible to win; if you do happen to win it will be through sheer luck.

To pile on the 'crapness', the game is obviously coded in BASIC and contains some pretty dreadful PETSCII graphics.  Counter-intuitively, a lot of thought actually went into the graphics and code to make it as bad as it was!

There was also going to be a small (and also awful) intro with a badly wired bitmap 'Big Brother' logo and some tuneless music roughly sounding like the TV theme tune.  Unfortunately, this never got completed and all that's left is the logo which is badly corrupted for some reason; the music was written in an older version of Goattracker, but is lost.

The game was sent to T.M.R for inclusion in the compo.  The compo was never concluded; I vaguely recall their being a rather pathetic dispute about something or other which annoyed T.M.R, who quite rightly cancelled it all.

Somehow, the game ended up on Gamebase64 and can be viewed here.  I've no idea how it ended up there or who had access to the file other than T.M.R.  This is interesting because it never appeared on the 'official' CSDb page here.

Regardless, I offer a download direct from this blog, which not only contains the game itself (protected by disabling 'Run Stop'), but the corrupted logo bitmap mentioned earlier and an 'unprotected' version which can be loaded into a C64 and the code viewed after hitting 'Run Stop' and listing.  Grab the files here...

Crackers' Demo 5

The Crackers' Demo releases are a series of multi-part demos containing parts by various groups in the Commodore Plus/4 scene.  'Crackers' Demo 5' contains a part by Cosine.  I contributed the music, my first working on the Plus/4 TED chip.

The music was written using a PC based tool called Knaecketraecker.  Being 'kind', the tool can be described as 'purely functional' and combined with the challenges of the TED chip itself, this may (or not) account for the simplicity of the tune.  Still, it was an enjoyable challenge.

The demo can be downloaded from Plus/4 World here or from the Cosine website here.

MD201606 - JSL Poop

Hot on the heels of last months demo 'MD201605', comes another imaginatively named demo from Cosine!  'MD201606' features one of my experimental SID tunes to accompany a rather 'evocative' image that has caused some 'drama' (yawn) in the C64 scene.

The drama?  A C64 scener called JSL 'released' unto the world a hand drawn image taking aim at some people on CSDb.over some actions he had felt he had a grievance against, blah, blah, blah... to be honest, I can't even be bothered to relate what happened.  The original hand drawn image, along with some discussion surrounding what is going on can be read here...

In his infinite wisdom, T.M.R decided to get in on the 'action' and produce a small demo to fan the flames demonstrate some new code, as part of his monthly demo series.  He put out a call for some music that was needed in a hurry and I duly responded and offered up what was an experimental tune, that was quickly extended and sent to him.

The tune was experimental because it makes heavy use of filtered bass instruments and rind modulation effects, something that I've not really used until this point.  In my archive, the tune is actually called 'filteredbasstest', but it has now been renamed 'JSL Poop' for the demo name and after I was contacted by iAN CooG of HVSC who was enquiring whether the tune was actually called JSL Poop or had another name.  JSL Poop just seemed so fitting!

The demo can be downloaded from CSDb here or from the Cosine website here...

By downloading directly from this blog, you'll get the demo itself, along with the SID music file.  Unfortunately on this occasion I cannot offer up the Goattracker SNG file because I seem to have either 'misplaced' it or overwritten it.  I will continue looking for it.  I do have the shorter original 'filteredbasstest' version before it was extended for the demo and will upload this if I cannot find the full version.  Grab the files I've not managed to screw up here... 

You can watch and listen to the demo on YouTube.  Hopefully the player appears below, if not click here...

MD201605

Cosine has released 'MD201605'.  This one file C64 demo features my cover of the theme music from the Chevy Chase film 'Fletch', by Harold Faltermeyer.

The demo can be downloaded from CSDb here or from the Cosine website here...

By downloading directly from this blog, you'll get the demo itself, along with the music SID file and the SNG file that will load into Goattracker.  Grab those files here...

If you are so inclined, you can watch and listen to the demo on YouTube.  Hopefully the player appears below, if not click here...

MD201603

MD201603 is a C64 demo released by Cosine, part of a monthly demo series.  I have contributed the music and the Cosine logo.  This demo marks my becoming a member Cosine.

The logo was pixelled in Pixcen and the music written in Goattracker.  The music is a 8580 SID cover of Amiga module called 'Lost in Time' by The Judge. The Amiga version was originally featured on an Amiga music disk called 'Amazing Tunes II', but is probably more known for being used as the title track on the Amiga conversion of the arcade game 'Final Fight'.

The demo can be downloaded from CSDb here or from the Cosine website here.

If you are so inclined, you can watch the demo on YouTube below.  If the player doesn't appear, you can view the video here...