1╔════╤═════════════════════════════════╤═══╤═══╗ ║ ── │ November/December 1995 │ v │ ^ ║ ╟────┴─────────────────────────────────┴───┴───╢ ║ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ║ ║ │ \ │ │ │ │ For Windows 95 ║ ║ │ \│ │ │ │ NOT! ║ ║ │ │\ │ │ │ ║ ║ │ │ \ │ ┌─┐ │ └────┐ ┌─┐ ║ ║ └──┘ └──┘ └─┘ └───────┘ └─┘ ║ ║ ──────────────────────────────── ║ ║ ║ ║ Volume 2 "The Next Generation" ║ ║ ║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝ ZZT-MZX Newsletter Issue 4 (The Thanksgiving and Christmas special) Head Of Staff: NL KSDOS Vice Heads Of Staff: ChrisK2018 Official Game Critic: NL KSDOS Official Game Reviewer: ChrisK2018 Official Game Reporter: DeadPhrog Official *Yet Unknown*: Owcp ─────────────────────────── ┌───────────────────┐ │ PACK-IN'S include │ ╔═════════════════╧═══════════════════╧═══════════════════╗ ║ MEGAZEUX PREVIEWS ║ ║ from the ZZTurbo/ZPower Productions ║ ║ Presented by Owcp ║ ║ ║ ║ - Castle Chaos [ZZTurbo/ZPower Productions] ║ ║ - The Village [ZZTurbo Productions / Owcp] ║ ║ - Yoshi Adventure 2 [ZZTurbo Productions / Owcp] ║ ║ - ZZTurbo Town [ZZTurbo Productions] ║ ║ ║ ║ Other Pack-in's ║ ║ ║ ║ - Ultra ZZT (Currently in the works) ║ ║ - The Current collection of NL's Volumes 1 & 2 ║ ║ ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ NL KSDOS: Sheeesh. Is it almost Chrismas already? I better hurry up with my master plan. I can't fall a minute behind schedule. After offsetting this a million times now my plan is not too far from being completed. I will explain later. ╔════╤═════════════════════════════════╤═══╤═══╗ ║ ── │ │ v │ ^ ║ ╟────┴─────────────────────────────────┴───┴───╢ ║ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ║ ║ │ \ │ │ │ │ |<eW|_ ║ ║ │ \│ │ │ │ ║ ║ J0y!│ │\ │ │ │ Zzt/Mzx reports ║ ║ │ │ \ │ ┌─┐ │ └────┐ ┌─┐ ║ ║ └──┘ └──┘ └─┘ └───────┘ └─┘ ║ ║ ──────────────────────────────── ║ ║ NL NeWz // ║ ║ By DeadPhrog of __╢╢╢╢╢__ ║ ║ SHATTERED PERSPECTIVES GAMES ║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝ Welcome to the first edition of the NL reporter by me, DeadPhrog, the NL's official reporter. In case you didn't know I am President and owner of SHATTERED PERSPECTIVES GAMES. Recently I had a little chat with STRIKESOFT and here's an edited copy of the interview: STRIKESOFT: I work alone. I tried a company once, but we didn't agree... DeadPhrog: We have 7 members STRIKESOFT: Yea. I can get more work done by myself, except maybe for music, sound, graphics, etc... STRIKESOFT: I do the programming myself, though DeadPhrog: Well, we work on different games usually, besides I created SP. DeadPhrog: I'm in charge, also. STRIKESOFT: Get any benifits, or do you just boss around? DeadPhrog: Benefits, yes, no bossing, it's not my style. STRIKESOFT: Good. Bossing's not good for business. DeadPhrog: I tell them which games to work on if they don't have a project and I like sending my members updates. STRIKESOFT: I don't have that problem. I'm working on about five games at the moment, more exciting that way. DeadPhrog: Myself, I'm doing about 15! DeadPhrog: It does take forever to finish though. STRIKESOFT: BTW - You write adventure games? DeadPhrog: Like what? STRIKESOFT: Adventure, you know, role playing, not much action? DeadPhrog: Yah. STRIKESOFT: I've tried, but I need action. Just can't do it, they fall flat. DeadPhrog: Survival didn't have too much action. STRIKESOFT: Oh. Don't do ZZT anymore. DeadPhrog: Me neither......... DeadPhrog: I like MZX though. STRIKESOFT: Around ever corner, there's a limitation, you know? DeadPhrog: Yah, I see what you mean. STRIKESOFT: I mean, I try do do something simple, like print a variable on-screen, and boom! No can do! STRIKESOFT: I've learned up on C, and I've got some scripts typed up. I think they might work. DeadPhrog: I'm learing Turbo C++, myself, but I still do MZX. STRIKESOFT: Yea. I'm running out of ideas for MZX. STRIKESOFT: I made a 3-d engine with monsters and junk, but it ran to slow to be any fun, even on the highest speeds. DeadPhrog: Well, I'm loaded with MZX ideas, but I want to make more spectacualer things. STRIKESOFT: Anyway how did you like super chuck? I'm tryin to get some quotes. DeadPhrog: Well, It beat the livin @#$$ out of ADVenture..... STRIKESOFT: Well, considering ADVenture was my second game... My first real one. I've got a lot of games on my HD I've never uploaded. DeadPhrog: For MZX? STRIKESOFT: For anything. STRIKESOFT: I made a game for ZZT once, but I never got around to uploading it. STRIKESOFT: I tried basic once, didn't like it. Fooled around, got sick of it. DeadPhrog: I use QB quite a bit actually. DeadPhrog: I was wondering where Ablo DI's (the old name of STRIKESOFT) name come from. STRIKESOFT: Well... long story. Tried to think of a screen name, finally got frustrated and pounded on the keyboard. Boom. ABLO DI. Never liked it much, though. DeadPhrog: Why havent you uploaded any other games? STRIKESOFT: They didn't pass the test. I don't upload games that don't pass the test. DeadPhrog: Oh.... STRIKESOFT: The test: My computer illiterate sister who hates graphics any worse than TV sits down and plays 'em. If she likes it enough to play for two hours, I upload it. DeadPhrog: My sister does too. DeadPhrog: But she play tests them more than just passing her... STRIKESOFT: Yeah. Playtest for hours. DeadPhrog: Anything you can tell me about upcoming games? STRIKESOFT: Not much, just that they're going to be mind blowing. STRIKESOFT: Truely something you've never seen before. They're gonna you drooling for more. DeadPhrog: Well thank you for your time! : ) STRIKESOFT: Sure! Any time! Talk to you later! DeadPhrog: Thanx! Bye! Well that's about all I could get out STRIKESOFT, so now you know about all STRIKESOFT will tell. Now I'm going to tell you a lot more about upcoming SP (short for SHATTERED PERSPECTIVES) stuff. First of all in the upcoming stuff is a space game, called BOX BOSS. It's a stand alone game that doesn't need MZX, ZZT, or SZZT. The game is in the beta testing stage, meaning the author Marcus Litchfield (QP7@Teleport.com) and the members of SP (and their friends and family) are playing it and looking for any bugs. If you are interested in being a SP beta testor (that way you get to play the games before anyone else) just contact me. This game has great looking explosions and several different types of weapons. Next, while we are on the topic of space games, I'm writing a shooter for MZX. It's called LifeSpan, and has the biggest player character in a MZX game ever (that I know of....) If you would like a production copy of the game write me. Another member of SP, Comthought, and I are working on a MZX fighting game. It's mainly a parody of Mortal Combat. It's tenatively titled Immortal Animal Combat (what do you think of that title? Like NL KSDOS said, for the NL to work we need you. Mostly to send in articles and stuff, but feedback's good too.) Anyway the characters in the game are mostly animals. Completed characters include: Freezer Burn, a hamster the died of old age. It was put in a freezer to preserve it while the family went on vacation. They promptly forgot about it and unfortunatly for the hamster, it's soul never had a chance to leave the body; it was frozen there. And eventually the family moved and left the freezer to defrost...the hamster recovered and gained ice powers. Next the frog from the old Frogger acade game, run over....kind of a living dead frog thing... maybe based on my screen name?? I dunno? Can anyone make a MegaZeux charcter (one character wide) that looks like it??? Suggestions? Anyway I'm also making a RPG called Cronus: Book One: DreamZ. Gonna have LOTS of different spells. Still pretty early........ Can't reveal much else. In other news Smokey666 has announced a new Yoshi MZX side-scroller, possibly based loosely on Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Lefty 711 has informed me that he is working on a new RPG. It will have music from his and JAndres' band, the Torchtarts. Now here's some news on Ultra Zzt(several people have requested info), a new project by Zzturbo and Zpower Prod. Ultra Zzt is in the works and should be done before Summer '96 or maybe sooner. It will have a music section a ZZT-OOP programmer course and a nice assortment of object goodies. I asked Zzturbo about UZzt and he said this: "Ultra ZZT is coming along fine. I have a three-person crew working on it. It has enemies, items, terrains, anything you can think of! There are theives, as seen in Megazeux, potions, spells, boulders that slide until they hit something, several different kinds of fire, HUUUUGE bombs, and so much freaking stuff it'll BLOW YOUR MIND!!!!!!!" I have in my posession a preview board of UZZT and it's included with the NL. Check it out! Now, MegaZeux 2.03!!! MZX 2.3 has been released. If you haven't gotten it yet, get it now!!!! MZX 2.* is WAY better than 1.*!! It's a major improvement. Now face changing is programmed in so you don't need to write the code yourself. You can mess with the pallette, now. And no flicker!! You can now use your EMS! I can finally use my friggin EMS, and so I don't have to turn off the music. And I have no sound card..... everything sounds better with just the PC speaker. And you can also edit the sound effects things make (preprogrmmed things, like coins, gems, etc.) And there are lots of other new and improved things, but chances are you already have it, so I wont go on about how great it is. I don't know about you, but I plan to spend a lot of time updating games for 2.*. I also plan to learn all of MZX 2.*'s new features.... See you next month.... If anyone has newz of upcoming games they would like me to preview, write about, etc. email me, RE:NeWz Also if anyone wants to JOIN SP then just mail me. Jeremy Kaufmann - SHATTERED PERSPECTIVES GAMES AOL: DeadPhrog Internet: DeadPhrog@aol.com P.S. My adress my change soon....I might be quitting aol for something cheaper....... NL KSDOS: DAMN! I accidently deleted this NL with no backup. Undelete proved to be somewhat helpful and somewhat useless, as you can tell, It erased my extra long Critic Critic corner. Fortunately, I still have the list to do 7 grades. But first. New Features 1. Author field show's everybody who uploaded the game. 2. Now with an additional Game Core Size field which tells how big the game itself is. 3. Also with Package Size which can affect grade if the size is too much for a no-plot, no-graphics, no-nothing game has also been included. THE CRITIC CORNER NL KSDOS ───────────────── NL KSDOS: Who's next!? NAME: Simply Psycho TYPE: MZX AUTHOR: Jairska COMPANY: None GAME CORE SIZE: 24K PACKAGE SIZE: 368K GRADE: D+ This is kinda funny for a plain DEMO. Other than that It ain't worth the download. This is simply too time consuming to download. I have no idea why the heck the author puts MODS in this and upload it. Come on!! The GAME/DEMO isn't even that big. Needs work gentleman! NAME: Savager Hunt TYPE: MZX AUTHOR: ZZTurbo COMPANY: ZZTurbo/ZPower Prod. GAME CORE SIZE: 80K PACKAGE SIZE: 27K GRADE: C This is an OK game. You are this robot thingy in each stage searching for fuel and other duhickies for your ship. The only problem is that this game lacks health and each level is large so you could end up spending up to hours or so trying to find the thing and some more trying to find the ship again. Repeatative (is that right?) action causes for poor fun factor. NAME: Contra Clone TYPE: MZX AUTHOR: FX Fox COMPANY: None GAME CORE SIZE: 69K PACKAGE SIZE: N/A GRADE: D+ This guy's cloning device is defective. This isn't a Contra clone. This is a simple shooter with the most attractive feature only to be the fire. Other than that this game seemed to be throwned together. How far can the author go to make this game decent. NAME: Vampenwolf's Quest TYPE: MZX AUTHOR: Jairska COMPANY: None GAME CORE SIZE: 126K PACKAGE SIZE: 1088K GRADE: D+ NAME: Music Isle TYPE: ZZT AUTHOR: Hunt Shawn COMPANY: None GAME CORE SIZE: 36K PACKAGE SIZE: 11K GRADE: B This is good only for music. The music is pretty good to, for ZZT. This deserves a fair grade. NAME: Megasoft Magazine TYPE: ZZT AUTHOR: MMarillo COMPANY: ZZTurbo/ZPower Prod. GAME CORE SIZE: 21K PACKAGE SIZE: N/A GRADE: F- ACK!! OH-NOOO!!! Another magazine. So far the absolute WORST magazine I have ever seen. It has some kind of race, a quiz, that's it! Then the author blabs on about the next issue with "Everything in it." People, you gotta put something in your game or magazine or whatever before you can upload it!!! NAME: Breakthru! TYPE: ZZT AUTHOR: ZZTurbo COMPANY: ZZTurbo/ZPower Prod. GAME CORE SIZE: 98K PACKAGE SIZE: N/A GRADE: A Now this is like a Mission: Enigma clone. It's short and to the point. Kinda like Enigma for beginners. Just a minor problem though. When you try to run from the explosion at the last board the girls in the game trap you in so you gotta move quickly. This is a very nice graphical game. NL KSDOS: Well that's it for this holiday issue of the NL. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! (And get those darn articles in here this place is empty! You want ideas check the NL collection of packins for the previous issues)
