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 October, 1991. Newsfield Publications, publishers of Zzap64 magazine, go bust. No great loss in all honesty - Zzap64 was some way past its best. I buy the only surviving alternative: Future Publishing's Commodore Format issue 14, and open-palm slam its covertape into my Commodore 1530 C2N Datassette(tm). Then wait. And wait some more. And fiddle with the tape deck's azimuth settings and try again. And finally Issue 14: Stringent Laws Issue 16: Everybody Dance Now Issue 17: Heads you lose Issue 18: Frames Per Minute Issue 19: Attack of the Mutant Jeffs Issue 20: The Mighty Brain Issue 21: Jeff-based epilepsy warning (no, really) Issue 22: Fish, Dragons, and Horticulture Issue 23: Banned from Steam Issue 24: Aunt Fanny Goes West Issue 25: Surprise nudity Issue 26: Some kind of melted potato Issue 27: D-D-D-D-DEFLEKTORRRRRRRRRR Issue 28: Probably badly mispronouncing "Gymnopédie" Issue 29: Not Daleks Issue 30: WELCOME TO THE PUMP STATION Issue 31: Press fire to unleash pumpkin Issue 32: Starring V.I.N.CENT Issue 34: Banana Bullets Issue 35: Still better than the original Gameboy version Issue 36: RENT JOKE Issue 37: The Big One Issue 38: Patrick Stewart's Exploding Head Issue 39: Acme Diamond Co. I bought CF up until issue 50 (November 1994). It limped on until issue 61 before finally dying. This is all hopelessly late in the C64's life cycle, so we're going to see a lot of impressive technical wizardry. We're also going to see a lot of desperate filler, come to curse the phrase "Shoot-em-up Construction Kit", and say "the music is nice, though" a lot. Prenton fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2015 18:31
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Reserved for things
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Apr 6, 2015 18:32
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Oh god yes. I had a C64 way into the tail end of its life, and was an avid magazine-getter throughout my childhood and early teen years. Nostalgia me up!
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Apr 6, 2015 19:45
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Issue 15 turned out to not have much interesting on it at all, but for the record Elvira: The Arcade Game (demo) is a boringly empty scrolling platformer Dandy is only interesting for legal reasons (the original Dandy inspired Gauntlet, which caused legal ructions, but this "conversion" is more of a straight Gauntlet clone than it is a conversion of the original Dandy, which caused further legal ructions) Equinox is a flickscreen puzzle shooter that hasn't aged well World Class Rugby (demo) seems decent but rugby's a bit too complex to pull off with a single button stick easily Tranmere Rovers got loving relegated again Let's look at something far more interesting:  Issue 16: Everybody Dance Now
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Apr 26, 2015 15:20
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I've only ever seen Commodore 64 or other early European gaming through threads or videos like these, and they're always neat to see. Thanks for doing these videos Prenton, because it's great to see a slice of modern history like this. Definitely looking forward to seeing more from you!
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Apr 26, 2015 21:10
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 Issue 17: Heads you lose
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May 10, 2015 19:30
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I gotta say, growing up with a commodore 64 and a 128, I love the nostalgia this thread delivers. I'd moved on to an Amiga by the time these tapes came out and i still miss the old "LOAD "*",8,1" and playing with POKE commands without knowing what I was doing, because I was 4.
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May 11, 2015 01:46
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 Issue 18: Frames Per Minute
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May 25, 2015 17:07
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Geez, you hit me right in the nostalgia with this. I had a C64 as a little kid and my dad got me Commodore Format, I remember starting to get them from about issue 15 onwards until about 30 something, until I got an Amiga instead. My favourite game from them was probably Sensitive honestly, thats the one that sticks in my head. It's a pretty slick puzzler and the music is cool. Enjoying the videos so far, looking forward to more!
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May 28, 2015 22:17
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 Issue 19: Attack of the Mutant Jeffs
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Jun 14, 2015 20:52
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Jeff Minter and the SEUCK, those were the days. Built an SEUCK game and sold it to a few schoolmates a quarter of a century ago.
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Jun 14, 2015 22:58
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That was a surprisingly nice UI for a sound editor, except for it being confusing relative to the C64's sound. The two settings on the right were marked 'rise' and 'fall' above them, which might indicate 'speed' (shape? / slope?) and 'time'. What's odd of course is that the SID settings are Attack (rate to max volume), Decay (rate to sustain volume), Sustain (volume level to hold) and Release (decay rate when stopping) . I wonder if this was originally written to use with multiple systems, or if it was just trying to do its own fancy thing by tweaking the volume. It's still not clear what the rise/fall sliders are meant to do, though.
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Jun 15, 2015 01:52
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It's interesting to get a peek into the history of gaming. Though it seems pretty easy to make terrible game with that shmup creation kit.
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Jun 23, 2015 19:22
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I went to Ireland and drank all of the Guinness. Meanwhile: Issue 20: The Mighty Brain Glazius posted:Though it seems pretty easy to make terrible game with that shmup creation kit. Ohhhhhhhh, you ain't seen nothing yet
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Jul 13, 2015 00:26
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Kangra posted:That was a surprisingly nice UI for a sound editor, except for it being confusing relative to the C64's sound. The two settings on the right were marked 'rise' and 'fall' above them, which might indicate 'speed' (shape? / slope?) and 'time'. Well, what it could be is controlling envelopes, one for rising tone, one for falling. Bit of a weird way of doing it, but then, SEUCK never really used SID to its full potential that I noticed. Glazius posted:It's interesting to get a peek into the history of gaming. Though it seems pretty easy to make terrible game with that shmup creation kit. Y'know how people complain about poo poo RPG Maker games flooding the market? It was easier back then. A quality game still took effort, but game makers were mostly on SEUCK's level of difficulty (Not a whole bunch), so toward the end of the 8-bit era, such creations were filling cover-tapes and floppies left and right. SEUCK (1987) was by no means the first game creation engine, although it's one of the few that still has game making competitions surrounding it. For example, Total Eclipse and its sequel would have used the Freescape engine, which was eventually released as the 3D Construction Kit (1991), and for text adventures, there was The Quill, and its add on for graphics, The Illustrator (1983). Klik 'n' Play (Which would eventually become the Multimedia Fusion we know and love), by contrast, wouldn't be around until 1995. There were others, but I distinctly remember loving about with both of those, and of course, the BASIC programs in various BBC and Acorn magazines and books. A couple of other earlier ones would be Adventure Construction Set (1984, Tile based "adventure" games), Pinball Construction Set (1983, was p. bad), and Garry Kitchen's GameMaker (1985)
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Jul 13, 2015 04:58
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Don't forget 1984's Racing Destruction Set, which was one of the best racing games of its period. Although technically more of an extensively customizable game that included a map editor than a game creation engine per se. Adventure Construction Set was a pretty good system. It allowed for the creation of Ultima-style games, with some nice ways to implement puzzles based on how objects interacted. Of course then you realized just how much effort you needed to put into designing it. I think I managed to finish building about two of twelve dungeons and about half the world map before giving up [at which point you could actually have the system randomly fill out the rest]. Hard to believe that SEUCK is still having people use it. That was one that came out after I wasn't using the C64 as much, so I never really saw games from it.
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Jul 13, 2015 08:18
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 Issue 21: Jeff-based epilepsy warning (no, really)
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Aug 17, 2015 19:17
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I never played any Jeff Minter on the Commodore 64, but I sure played the hell out of Revenge of the Mutant Camels on the Amiga. Makes me a bit sad that I missed out on his other games all the ones I've seen are unique to say the least.
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Aug 23, 2015 03:50
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I like these videos, keep it up please!
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Aug 25, 2015 23:29
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So that's what you do in Battle Valley. I kept trying to launch the tank of the broken bridge when i was kid.
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Aug 30, 2015 19:09
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 Issue 22: Fish, Dragons, and Horticulture
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Sep 6, 2015 18:51
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I have to say, I'm really enjoying these videos. I never owned a Commodore 64, so seeing what it's really capable of when experienced (or, well, "experienced") developers are programming for it is neat. Also, I really like the little title cards each video has; are they actually part of each cover tape, or did you make them yourself?
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Sep 7, 2015 16:49
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This one and the Creatures one are the actual intros to the games themselves. Everything else is done with a this ("26 Flash Effects! Live crunching and decrunching of pages using Huffman compression!"). Noters were (are?) a bit of a thing in the demoscene.
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Sep 7, 2015 20:16
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 Issue 23: Banned from Steam
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Oct 4, 2015 20:26
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I can tell just looking at that Aliens game that it would have scared me stiff as a kid. Even spacequest could scare me back then.
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Oct 4, 2015 21:58
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 Issue 24: Aunt Fanny Goes West
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Oct 25, 2015 21:09
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Hey man i really liked watching these, nice music indeed so i did this because i love this tune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xtfEt99JE8 Music from Indy Heat
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Nov 5, 2015 03:12
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Out of all the things to have prototypes in the C64 era, I would not have expected one of them to be freakin' Football Manager.
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Nov 11, 2015 16:36
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They also had a prototype of The Sims. All I really remember from it was the little guy knocking on the inside of you TV when he wanted your attention. Found a video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkTgX1mGmDg A Good Username fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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Nov 12, 2015 00:09
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I've binge watched all videos, growing up with C64 and bunch of tapes, so many familiar sightings, especially when it comes to platform games design. I remember one of the tapes had that TMHT demo, which I've played to hell and back, because it was one of the very few games I had which were comprehensible. There were many plain bizzare games on 8bit computers back in the day..
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Nov 12, 2015 06:22
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A Good Username posted:They also had a prototype of The Sims. I played that game when i was a kid, tho i didn't really know any english. Cool game
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Nov 18, 2015 18:57
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Oh god, so much Fallout 4 played. Meanwhile: Issue 25: Surprise Nudity And The story behind Club Light.
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Nov 22, 2015 22:13
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I played the hell out of Slicks back in the day. You could bypass the chicanes on the bottom left of that course, which was handy for getting a better car.
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Nov 22, 2015 22:36
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 Issue 26: Some kind of melted potato
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Dec 13, 2015 22:22
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Out of context, this screenshot is amazing. Makes it sound like a dog shearing game or something.
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Dec 15, 2015 02:49
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That Seymour game plays and looks nearly identically to CJ in the USA. Codemasters really liked to reuse that game engine.
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Dec 15, 2015 06:30
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 Issue 27: D-D-D-D-DEFLEKTORRRRRRRRRR
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Jan 3, 2016 20:19
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drat, that Alternative World Games have some great visuals for 1987, especially the water in the pillow fight competition.
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Jan 3, 2016 23:23
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I really appreciate this thread for the bouts of nostalgia it gives me when ever I come across it. Thanks.
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Jan 9, 2016 21:53
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These are really neat! Thanks for sharing, OP.
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Jan 9, 2016 22:23
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