I've spent the last three days coding, pixelling and composing a little C64 Christmas demo that was today released by Arkanix Labs. It's cunningly called 'Arkrismas 2019'.
It's quite simple in nature with the main screen display being a PETSCII (albeit with a modified charset for the lettering). However, there are some 'twinkles' with two chars being modified on the fly and snow sprites floating down the screen into the bottom border.
Pressing 'f' on the keyboard will switch screens to a 'roaring' fireplace, achieved simply be modifying the colour RAM. I cannot tell a lie: the fireplace screen is Arkanix Labs having a direct dig at Stirring Dragon Games who have released their own Christmas demo with fireplace for the princely sum of $24.99! The Arkanix Labs demo/fireplace is free! We don't charge no $$$$$$$$! ;)
This simple Christmas demo can be downloaded from CSDb here. You can also download it from this blog here, complete with all the data files and ACME source code!
If you fancy warming yourself using a PETSCII fire, Moloch has created an animated gif of the roaring fire! See below and click to enlarge!
There is an event on CSDb that has become almost annual now called the 'Intro Creation Competition'. In this compo, entries must be created that could be an intro to something (such as a game crack) and must conform to a certain set of rules which I won't explain here, but if you're interested can be read here.
This competition is one of T.M.R's favourites and, since I've taken to coding on the C64 this past year, he suggested I take part. I agreed but, not wanting to blacken the Cosine or Arkanix Labs names (C64 groups I'm a member of) in case I came last, I requested that it be released using T.M.R's other 'label', Commodore Crap Debunk (C64CD); as a result, T.M.R has now made me a C64CD member!
Thus, after a few weeks of coding, pixelling and composing (yes, I did the lot!), C64CD has today released 'Funky Stars'.
This intro is so called because the music within it is a SID cover of an Impulse Tracker tune called 'Funky Stars' (but also know as 'Hybrid Song') by Quazar of Sanxion.
This little project has been quite interesting in the fact that one of the compo rules says that the intro must be 16K or under in the same block of memory. This is not something I'm used to, so was an interesting challenge, particularly since my Goattracker SID ended up being over 3.5K in size. Whoops! To squeeze everything in to the same block, I ended up doing little tricks such as assembling the screen data straight to $0400, amongst other things. Thanks to T.M.R for his guidance on this!
There was also some new learning here for me. I've always been fascinated by the use of 'raster bars' on the C64 and although I knew it was something to do with writing colours values to each scanline, I've never previously attempted it until now!
Anyway, enough of the waffle! If you would like to see the intro in action on an emulator or real hardware, it can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct from this blog here. The download also contains the ACME source code and all work files, including the SID tune in it's Goattracker .sng format.
T.M.R has also written short pieces on his own blog here and on the main C64CD blog here, as well as recording a video of the intro in action. The video should appear below, but if not can be found on YouTube here.
Inspired by the music selectors that used to appear on C64 magazine
cover tapes back in the day and because I had some unused tunes taking
up space on my hard drive, I've (funnily enough) coded up a music selector, released today by Cosine! It's rather awkwardly called 'The Unused Shmup Tune Selector' or 'Unused Shmup Tunes' for short.
The Cosine PETSCII logo was pixelled with and data exported from 'ChillED', a soon to be released C64 cross-dev screen editor. Although I handled all the code, I must confess I was helped over the code finish line by T.M.R with regards that damned MSB thing.
These tunes, as usual, were composed in Goattracker and were originally planned for use in a shoot 'em up game that T.M.R was "planning" as part of a re-write to his existing assembly language tutorials... but, as is often the case with T.M.R,
those tutorials ended up being pushed onto the back burner buy other
projects and are currently being rather euphemistically referred to as a
"work in progress". Those are T.M.R's words from the Cosine website, not mine! :D
There's nothing amazing going on here code-wise, but as a relative newcomer to 6502, I'm pleasantly surprised how easy it is to recycle sprites, with up to 24
sprites being displayed on occasion in the logo 'pulse' and star field.
The music selector can be download from this blog here. The download contains the .prg file to run on a C64 or emulator as well as the ACME formatted source and all binaries and work files, including the music files in their original Goattracker .sng format.
It can also be downloaded from the Cosine website here or from the CSDb here. If you are so inclined, all the files are also available from GitHub here.
T.M.R has written a short piece about the release on his blog here and recorded a video of the music selector in action and uploaded it to YouTube. The video should appear below, but if not can be viewed here.
T.M.R has (kind of) billed this intro as a 'sequel of sorts' to a Cosine entry to the same competition from 2014 and he explains that while it may look simple, the code...
"jumps through quite a few hoops in order to make an otherwise silly
technique work, using unrolled code and waiting for the C64's raster
register to change before updating over 184 scanlines. There's further
unrolled code updating those routines as well to animate them so this
intro decrunches from $0400 to just shy of $3fff."
The music was originally written (along with a couple of other unfinished efforts) for the CSDb 'Crack Intro Music Competition 2017', but ended up not being used because it was too long and didn't work well on a 6581 SID; it was written with 8580 in mind. It has been finished and used here instead, having been given the name 'Bas Braster' which is Welsh for... well, just look it up...
The intro can be downloaded from the Cosine website here or it's compo entry page on CSDb here...
You can also download the intro direct from this blog, with the .zip file including not only the demo on a .d64 image, but the music as a .sid file to run through SIDPlay or similar and the music in .sng format which can be loaded into Goattracker, the utility in which it was composed. Just click here...
T.M.R has also recorded a video of the intro in action and uploaded it to YouTube. The player should appear below, but if not watch it here...
Yesterday, Cosine released my 'Old School Demo III', a simple Halloween demo coded in response to a challenge on the DBF Interactive forum. Information about the demo can be found here...
I composed the music for the demo and it's called 'Tubularween' for the riff from Tubular Bells that features before the track goes off on it's own merry way. It's an original 4 channel module using
samples from disk images of the old Amiga ST-XX sample disk packs, along with some 8bit quality samples I ripped from famous horror film scenes. I attempted to make the track sound like it could have been from an Amiga demo circa 1988.
I've just uploaded the music to my SoundCloud
account; if you want to hear it in a music tracker you can
follow the link to the demo above and in the .zip file you'll find the
'mod' in ProTracker format.
If the player doesn't appear below, you can hear the music on my SoundCloud page here...
Following on from 'Old School Demo 1' and 'Beast Tribute - Old School Demo 2', comes the cunningly named 'Old School Demo III', released today by Cosine. The demo was written in response to a challenge issued by the owners of the DBF Interactive website and forum to create something for Halloween 2018.
My main inspiration for the demo was the silhouette image in the hidden part of 'Sabbat', a 2013 Halloween demo released by Arkanix Labs, for which I pixelled and composed most of the assets.
The demo has been released by Cosine and is available to download from the Cosine website here...
There are a few key presses to find to activate some of the sprites as well as a key combo press to find the hidden part...
I'll follow up shortly with another blog post with a little more detail
of how the demo works, how the graphics hang together, how the music was
written and so on.
Back in 2016, Cosine released a part for 'Crackers' Demo 5', the Crackers' Demo series of multi-part demos
containing parts by various groups in the Commodore Plus/4 scene. Information about and a download for the release can be found here...
I wrote the music for the demo using a PC based tool called Knaecketraecker, which is currently incomplete and thus possesses many 'unique quirks and
challenges' to complement the challenges of the TED chip itself. I
don't have a Plus/4, so this was played from within the tracker tool
itself and recorded after passing through a Dolby amp.
At time of writing, this is my first (and so far only) TED tune, until I'm brave enough to
venture into Knaecketraecker territory again. As for the track title 'Pellucid Effluvium'... look it up... ;)
Listen to the TED tune below; if the player does not appear, hear it on my SoundCloud page here...
Here are my C64 SID and Atari 8bit POKEY covers of Jason Page's loading music from the amazing
Amiga game 'Uridium 2' by Andrew Braybrook.
The SID version was written and released in 2015 as part of a C64
music collection called 'SID Doing Paula', a collection of Amiga mod
covers written in Goattracker. It was a 'hidden' bonus tune. The SID has been recorded using a 8580 SID C64c run through my Dolby amp. Information about the original C64 collection is here...
The POKEY triple speed cover was released in 2018 as part of the 'New Years Disk' collection
arranged on the AtariAge forum. It was written in RASTER Music Tracker so I could get my head around
the POKEY chip. The original Atari 8bit demo in which the tune is featured is here...
The original Amiga version can be found on SoundCloud and YouTube.
If the players don't appear below, hear the music on my SoundCloud page. The SID page is here and the POKEY page is here.
A few months ago, Cosine released my Psygnosis tribute demo called Beast Tribute - 'Old School Demo 2'. You can download the demo here...
I composed the music for the demo. It's an original 4 channel mod using samples I ripped from the original music in the Amiga game 'Shadow of the Beast', so credit for the samples should go to David Whittaker. I attempted to make my track sound like it could have been in the original game.
I've finally gotten round to uploading the music to my SoundCloud account, although if you want to hear it in a music tracker you can follow the link to the demo above and in the .zip file you'll find the 'mod' in ProTracker format.
If the player doesn't appear below, you can hear the music on my SoundCloud page here...
Finally, I've finished my small tribute demo to the old game publisher 'Psygnosis'. This demo was written in response to the other various Psygnosis tribute demos that appeared on the
'Dark Bit Factory & Gravity' Purebasic forum during 2018.
My main focus and inspiration for the demo was the Amiga game 'Shadow of the Beast'.
The demo is subtitled 'Old School Demo 2', as it's a follow up to 'Old School Demo 1' (funnily enough) which itself was released by Cosine in April 2018.
Out of respect, it contains some original graphics from the Amiga game (the main sprite and the parallax stone wall/fence), along with brand new graphics pixelled by me in the style of the old game.
The music is also new, composed by me in OpenMPT using the original samples ripped from the game and done in 4 channel MOD format in the style of David Whittaker's original soundtrack.
The demo has been released by Cosine and is available to download from the Cosine website here...
You can also download the demo (along with PureBasic source and all binaries and work files) here or via GitHub here.
Here's a first! I've coded my first ever PC based demo primarily to test the screen and sprite capabilities in PureBasic.
The
demo is titled 'Old School Demo 1' because it's, er, old-school in style and is the first in what may end up being a small string of demos that I may (or not) code as I learn more in PureBasic.
I've tried to 'emulate' some of my favourite features from the old Amiga demos so on screen you will see a scrolling parallax starfield, some 'copper bars' (faked of course), some animated rainbow coloured lines, the obligatory bouncing scrolling message and music which is actually a remix of the Uridium 2 loading music done by the original composer Jason Page.
The demo has been released by Cosine and is available to download from the Cosine website here...
You can also download the demo directly here...
As well as the demo itself, the download contains the PureBasic source code for you to squint at and rip apart. Well, someone may find it useful?
Hot on heels of 'Koalatro' comes Cosine's second entry into the 2016 CSDb Intro Creation Competition. As with Koalatro, T.M.R coded everything and pixelled the screen, while I provided the music.
According to T.M.R:
"The general design is based on an intro that Cosine were using in
the mid 1990s for various releases, although this new iteration doubles
the resolution on the logo, splits the background colour on the text
lines and expands into the upper and lower borders."
The music is a cover of one of my favourite Amiga modules, 'Macrocosm' by Firefox. Searching for it on YouTube will find a recording of the original. My cover was written over the period of a few months using Goattracker.
The demo can be downloaded from the Cosine website here...
By downloading from this blog, as well as a D64 disk image of the demo,
you'll get the music as a SID file and the music in it's original
Goattracker SNG format, so you can load it into Goattracker and see how it was 'built'.
Also included are a series of 'work-stages' of the tune so you can see how it progressed and how different instruments were experimented with. 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 clickinghere...
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...
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.
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...
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 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...
'SID Doing Paula' is a C64 music collection released by Arkanix Labs, containing my covers of some of my favourite Amiga 'cracktro' and 'intro' mods.
The collection contains covers of:
Matkamies by Heatbeat/Carillon
Crack or Die! by Jugi/Complex
Bambam by Jozz/TRSI
Delicate Oooz! by Emax TRSI
Frequency Shifter by Mr Death/CTR
There is a hidden tune. 'Uridium 2 Loader' by Jason Page is hidden because it's from a commercial game not a cracktro/intro, so technically doesn't fit with the others in the collection. I had to cover it though because it's a great piece of music.
I also pixelled the graphics for the collection, with a riff on the Amiga boot screen (but with a 5.25" disk instead) in the intro and the main tune selection screen designed to look like an Amiga DOS command line interface screen. A C64 sprite masquerading as a Workbench pointer indicates the tune that is currently playing. Coding was by Trooper.
The collection can be downloaded from CSDb here or downloaded directly here...
I'll post another blog entry soon with some notes about the SID's in the collection and a link to download the original raw Goattracker song files.
'Mutations' is a C64 demo released by Arkanix Labs and contains my remix tribute to the original C64 SID tune by composer Fred Gray, hence the demo subtitle "A Fred Gray Tribute".
Also included on the demo disk is a note file that includes my cover the title theme from the arcade game 'Space Harrier'.
The 'Mutations' screen in the demo is a heavily modified version (by me) of the original loading screen by Stuart Fotheringham from the C64 game 'Mutants'. The Arkanix Labs logo used in the note file is by me and may or may not be a homage to a certain games company from the past. All coding for the demo was by Moloch.
The demo can be downloaded from CSDb here or direct here...
Hot on the heels of last months blog about Monolith, comes an even older demo from 2001, again produced by 'FunkScientist Productions' and is called 'Space Intro' according to my archives, although on CSDb it seems to be uploaded as 'Front End Demo', the file name on the disk image.
If I remember correctly, around 1999 MTR1975 had asked on the old Lemon64 discussion board if someone was interested in pixelling some graphics for a game/demo and as I was getting into C64 again over the previous couple of years, I jumped at the chance.
After initial contact by email (and breaks of a few months between emails), I gathered that MTR wanted to make a game, possibly in the style of 'Asteroids'. I ended up pixelling the spinning ship and a few other sprites (explosion, power-up, etc) and a couple of simple space backgrounds to get things going. The idea seemed to die a death, until MTR surface again with this intro to the game (hence 'Space Intro'). The game was never made.
The intro can be downloaded from CSDb here. However, this seems to be a slightly 'modified' version by the uploader with the disk name changed to 'G-Force'. I'm not sure where the uploader got this demo since I'm not sure it was actually ever released as such. The version on CSDb was only uploaded in 2013.
However, my original disk image called 'INTRO.D64' containing the demo with the name 'Front End Demo' with original disk name "CSS CSS CSS CSS", along with the ship sprite, the unused space background image and an unused FunkScientist Productions logo in bitmap form (red and grey) can be downloaded directly here...
