Congratulations Colin :) Well done on sticking it out, oo-err *_+ Great news on the new software, the Gremlin games especially being amazing to hear, I remember seeing pictures of Harliquin back in the day and thinking it looked brilliant, and whilst not being able to picture Thing on a Spring, I can at least remember the name.
Haven`t been able to get issue 11 of SAM Revival yet, but dying to hear all that music :), and the Invasion II game on issue 10 blew me away, such nice animation and sprites, brilliant game, Warren did a great job, I enjoy it faar more than flashback which I could never get anywhere with (a bold statement I realise) Good luck with finding the time with these projects, and I`m dying to know more about the Mahem accelerator (serves me right for not keeping up with SAM stuff). ----------------------------- Just also like to say well done to Steve, Dan and everyone else who`s been busy doing stuff for the new SAM archive ------------------------------ --- Colin Piggot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well yesterday was a special day.... the 10th > Anniversary of Quazar! > > For it was on the 29th April 1995 when I had a stand > at the third Gloucester > show, where I unveiled the (2nd) prototype of the > Quazar Surround soundcard, > marking the start of Quazar! > > And that was just the beginning of what has really > taken up a heck of a lot > of my time since then! As you may be aware a few new > products are in the > pipeline such as the Mayhem Accelerator, and issue > 12 of Sam Revival is > nearing completion and will be being sent out > shortly. > > And here's some juicy tidbits of news taken from the > next issue of Sam > Revival to wet your appetites about a few other > things I am working on when > ever I get a few free minutes... > > Hydrasoft Games > --------------- > I have recently bought the rights to several old Sam > games, and a pile of > unreleased stuff from Pete King, formerly going by > the name Hydrasoft. Pete > had two games released back in 1996 and 1997 - > Conquest and Mage Fire, which > were published to a limited extent by Zedd-Soft (run > by Michael Stocks / > Zodiac Magazine). I was also involved with the two > titles way back then by > adding support for the Quazar Surround soundcard to > both of the games. > > I had previously secured permission from Pete to use > Conquest and Mage Fire > on the Sam Revival coverdisks (and you'll find Mage > Fire on the coverdisk > with Sam Revival 12) but now with owning the titles > I can go further with > them and I am already planning a revamp of Conquest > to update all the > graphics and sounds. What I have to do now is go > through a massive pile of > disks to look at all the unreleased games. Expect > more news soon! > > > Gremlin Graphics Games > ---------------------- > I have received permission from Andy Davis of > Alchemist Research to use old > Gremlin Graphics games on the Sam. Now instead of > just adapting the ZX > Spectrum versions to run on the Sam under emulation > (as was done on the old > Blitz diskzine back in the late 1990's) it is my aim > to create full Sam > versions of some of the classic games for inclusion > on the Sam Revival > coverdisks. > > The first game I am looking at is 'Thing on a > Spring', originally released > back in 1984 for the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC > only. Thing on a Spring is > a bouncy and fast platformer and with some carefully > planned scroll routines > it should make the transition to the Sam with few > problems. > > Now the music for any game is very important for me, > and I am planning to > feature the original SID based music (for use with > the SID interface) as > well as a new rendition of the tune for the normal > Sam SAA1099 soundchip. I' > m pleased to say that initial work on the game > remake is underway, and the > SAA1099 version of the music is already complete! > The SAA1099 music track > was carefully composed by David Suzuki-Sanders (who > also composed the 'About > as SID as its going to get' SAA1099 track on the > audio CD with the last > issue of Sam Revival.) > > The second game I am looking at converting is > 'Harlequin', one of the first > games I ever played on an Amiga, and one that > immediately impressed me with > its graphics, music and playability. Harlequin is > another scrolling platform > game, based in a fantasy dreamworld with very > colourful graphics and a > thumping soundtrack, and was released only for the > 16 bit machines in 1992 - > the Atari ST and the Amiga. > > So why should the Sam be left out of such a great > game? No reason I think! > So far I have converted over the graphics for the > first level from the Atari > ST (easier to capture via an emulator than the Amiga > version), and for the > main scenery and characters only 12 colours were > used so this conversion was > quite straight forward. My aim is to convert across > the whole of the first > level as a test, to see how well I can get the game > engine to work. However > as this game does involve full screen scrolling and > some quite large sprites > I will be writing it to run with the Mayhem > Accelerator to give the Sam the > speed it needs to move everything around. > > (Of course the magazine will have all the > screenshots of work so far, and > they will also appear on the new site at > www.samcoupe.com at the end of the > week!) > > And hopefully all going well, there'll be a few > surprises of more new stuff > throughout 2005 too....! > > Here's to many more years to come....! > > All the best, > > Colin > ===== > Quazar : Hardware, Software, Spares and Repairs for > the Sam Coupe > April 1995-2005 - Celebrating 10 Years of developing > for the Sam Coupe > Website: http://www.quazar.clara.net/sam/ and > http://www.samcoupe.com/ > > ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
