\1\cContents \0 Title Page........1 (F1) Editorial.........2 (F2) Messages..........3-8 (F3) Rankings..........9-13 (F4) Random Bit........14-15 (F5) Handshakes........16 (F6) Demos.............17-18 (F7) Addresses.........19-20 (F8) \1\cContents \1\cIssue 6 - September 91 \0-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\cCoding + GFX..KREATOR/Anarchy \cMusic..NUKE/Anarchy \cText..RAISTLIN/Flash Productions \0-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Press LEFT - RIGHT cursor keys to move backwards/forwards pages.. Press function keys F1 - F8 to jump automatically to sections.. Press HELP to show the contents page. \1\cEditorial \0 Welcome one and all to yet another issue of the Minizine called "Raistlin's message box"! This is issue number 6, and once again it features a new logo and some alterations to the main code! (Performed, as always, by Kreator!) Since the last issue I have joined the group "FLASH PRODUCTIONS", one that no doubt you've all heard of thanks to the superb Gonzo demos, and the excellent packdisks which put us in the Crusaders Eurochart! I'll tell you more about the group next issue, when I have collated all the relevant information! OK... If anybody wants to contact me, for any reason whatsoever, write to:- ROBERT TROUGHTON (Raistlin/Flash Productions) 42 Browfield Terrace, Silsden, West Yorkshire, BD20 9PT...ENGLAND \1\cMessages \2 Marc Panther.. \0 Hi Marc! Thanks for the video! "Syncopation" was great - keep it up mate! When will you be releasing Syncopation II? Sorry about the Joysticks-Deek never said they didn't work, did he?!? Anyway, keep up the cool sendings OK! \2 Zarch.. \0 Yo Mick, hope you'll have a great holiday! I'll try and get this messagebox ready before you go, but I doubt that you'll get it in time... Oh well.. Anyway, thanks for being such a fast contact and all that! Did you know that I got all the new Anarchy stuff (Bruno's Musicbox 3 and Digital Innovation) from YOU the same day that I got them from 2 Anarchy members?!? That is pretty good going, I think!!! \2 Parasite... \0 Hi mate!, thanks for all the warez, stickers, etc... Please don't send me any more of those tapes though... I have a whole hoard of my OWN I'm trying to get rid of!! Congratulations on your Addiction Packs reaching a ripe old number of one hundred! Hope they will last for another hundred yet! \2 Kreator... \0 Thanks once more for all the work you put into improving this Messagebox! Good luck with your Phd (or whatever) at Leeds Uni! \2 Pioneer... \0 Yo Henry!, congratulations on your A-Level results! What demos/intros do you have lined up for release before you go to Durham?? You should code something, instead of slobbing around all day! (like me!) Get Bawks (the seven days a week workaholic) to do some graphics for you - or maybe Waddy will do something for you! (!!) \2 Banger... \0 Hi Gary! So you've joined Punishers, eh?? That's great... What will you be doing for Punishers? (Swapping, modem-trading, or?) Anyway, maybe I'll see you around somewhere (I won't be able to make it to the CES or the Digital party, so it won't be till next year)... \2 Mr.Big... \0 How's life in Barnsley? It was a long break between your last two sendings, you weren't on holiday were you?? Anyway, the new Anarchy warez are pretty cool! I guess "Bruno's Music Box 3" is for an acquired taste- personally I didn't like it that much, but who cares?? DIGITAL INNOVATION was cool though! Congrats go to Icronite, Rush, Dan, Nuke, Milkshake and Golem for an excellent demo! \2 Flash... \0 Thanks for writing back! When will Vision be making a new demo?? I really like Hein Design's graphics! (His music is pretty good too!) \2 Magic Mushroom... \0 Hi Trev!... Thanks (to you and Paradroid) for asking me to join the group! You can come and see us anytime you like - I'll send you a list of dates when I will be at University, and you can choose a day! Sorry I couldn't make it to the party at your house, but as you said, it was VERY short notice! Hopefully I will get this messagebox finished in time for release at your party - but then again, I only have about five hours to type the rest of the text!! (and there is a lot!) \2 Art 2... \0 Thanks for contacting me- Sure I know some guys who are going to University! There's me (Sheffield), Kreator (Leeds) and Pioneer of x-Anarchy (Durham). \2 Mole... \0 Hi Adrian! I'm not surprised you gave up learning to code! It really is a hassle, especially with A-Levels! \2 Bjorn Lynne... \0 Hi Bjorn!, when will you next be coming to see Martyn in England??? If you pop over again, give me a call and we'll see if we can meet! Do you have anymore music you can send?? \2 Tomsk... \0 Hi Womble!, what are you doing at work so much?? You seem to have the wrong idea! Life should be for slobbing around (like me and Henry!), not for making so much money! Anyway, see you soon... \2 Andy Partridge... \0 I believe you were at the MF party last year! - so was I, funny that we didn't meet!! Why not contact me or something - I don't have your address any longer.. I noticed that you and Kelly had joined Addonic! Hmm, will you be coding any demos or intros for them?? Anyway, I'll probably phone you sometime to see what you're doing! \2 Dan... \0 Hi Dan!, "Digital Innovation" was quite nice! A little unoriginal maybe, but apart from that it was great! \2 Bear... \0 Yo Mark! Bought many new computers or consoles lately?!? Personally I don't see the point in owning so many (lame) computers when you already have the best! (Amiga).. Oh, I heard a rumour that you were going out with a THIRTEEN year old! Isn't that ILLEGAL?!? If it isn't, it should be! \2 Mystik... \0 I saw some of your most recent graphics, and must admit that they are pretty excellent! Especially that Frog picture! (from Crusaders Eurochart).. Hopefully you and Kreator will get a game contract soon!... OK, that's all for the messages this time... More next issue!! \1\cRankings \0 This is a new section of the minizine, in which I will give my own personal charts - rankings... This section might upset some people, but if it does, bear in mind that these are my own charts, and not the opinions of everybody!! The main reason why I am doing this is that I think most charts are voted for by people who don't know anything about demos!! "MENTAL HANGOVER", for example, was a good demo but certainly didn't deserve to stay in the charts for so long!! The same goes for the "RSI Megademo".. One other point... These rankings are my own opinions only, and do not have anything to do with other members of Flash Productions... So blame them on me if you don't like them!!! None of the Rankings are biased in any way. I won't include FLASH PRODUCTIONS in any of the charts, whether they deserve to be in or not! So without further ado, let's get on with the rankings!... \2\cBEST ARCADE GAMES \0 1. Kickoff II 2. Rainbow Islands 3. Turrican II 4. World Cl.Leaderboard 5. Lotus Esprit Turbo Chall. 6. Twintris 7. Populous 8. Indianapolis 500 9. Stunt Car Racer 10. Kickoff \2\cBEST DEMO GROUPS \0 1. Phenomena 2. Silents 3. Anarchy 4. Scoopex 5. Cryptoburners \2\cBEST CODERS \0 1. Kreator (Anarchy) 2. Azatoth (Phenomena) 3. Icronite (Anarchy) 4. Slayer (Scoopex) 5. Tec (Cryptoburners) \2\cBEST MUSICDISKS \0 1. Crystal Symphonies (Phenomena) 2. Music Dream II (Phenomena) 3. Sound Of Silents \2\cBEST MUSICIANS \0 1. Tip (Phenomena) 2. Mantronix (Phenomena) 3. 4-Mat (Anarchy) \2\cBEST ARTISTS \0 1. Mystik (Anarchy) 2. Joe (TRSI) 3. Walt (Silents) 4. Golem (Anarchy) 5. Mikael Balle (Silents) \2\cBEST DEMOS \0 1. ENIGMA (Phenomena) 2. PHANTASMAGORIA (Anarchy) 3. Latest by Silents (No Name!) 4. DIGITAL INNOVATION (Anarchy) 5. INTERSPACE (Phenomena) 6. ICE (Silents) 7. ANIMOTION (Phenomena) 8. ELYSIUM (Sanity) 9. MADNESS 1 (Anarchy) \2\cBEST UTILITIES \0 1. Devpac 2.15 2. Cygnus-Ed 2.Pro 3. X-Copy II and Pro 4. Diskmaster 3.2 5. Dpaint 4 \2\cBEST MAGAZINES \0 1. Amiga Power 2. Viz 3. Commodore User 4. The One 5. Amiga Format .... Well, those were my RANKINGS for this issue! Sorry if some of them look biased - I know some of the charts have Phenomena, Silents and Anarchy in great abundance, but these seem to me to be just about the only COOL groups producing good graphics, music AND coding these days!!! \1\cRandom Bit \2 Tetris Response... \0 I really got an overwhelming response to my plea for a good version of TETRIS didn't I?!? Special thanks to MARC PANTHER for being the only person to send me a version of Tetris!! I still think Twintris is the best version of Tetris I've seen, but thanks for sending me Ditris anyway Marc! If anybody else thinks they have a good version of Tetris, please send me it! \2 Shanghai... \0 This is another game I would like to get a good version of! The only one I've had is Tiles, a PD version of the game... On that version of the game it is hard to see what level the tiles are on. So please can someone send me a good version off this great game?!? \2 Tilt... \0 Keep a look out for this excellent game, programmed by Michael Troughton, otherwise known as Kreator of Anarchy... Any crackers who get the game, please show your respect by not cracking the game! The game is being released on the Codemasters budget label very soon!... \2 Videos... \0 Is anybody interested in selling me cheap video films?... Films I am looking for are:- Young Guns II Predator The Fly The Fly II Total Recall And a few others... If you can get them for me, write to me!! I will pay a fair price for them depending on quality. \1\cHandshakes \0 This is a new feature of my message-box... This issue I am giving out my own handshakes only, but next issue I will give the entire FLASH PRODUCTIONS list! 4-Mat..........................Anarchy Kreator..........................Anarchy Antichrist.............Genesis Project Magic Mushroom.........Flash Productions Art 2..........................Archaos Marc Panther...................Soundwave Banger.......................Punishers Mediator................................ Bizzmo.................Genesis Project Mole.............................Anarchy Dan............................Anarchy Mr.Big...........................Anarchy Deek...................Genesis Project Mystik...........................Anarchy Flash...........................Vision Parasite.............................LSD Hammer................................ Pioneer................................. Igor...........................Anarchy TDM......................Genesis Project Judge Drokk....................Anarchy Zarch................................... Kid Video...................Slipstream \1\cDemos! \0 Having a look at the demo releases of the last six months or so, I noticed a distinct lack of originality and design... Haven't we all had enough of filled vectors, text faders and sinescrollers?!? In this feature I want to detail some of the boring routines which constantly rear their ugly heads in demos + intros! \2 1.Filled Vectors \0 Well what can I say?!? These things pop up in just about every demo that's released!! The only people NOT doing them seem to be the people who aren't able to (due to lack of coding skills, like me!)... Glenz vectors and Blenk vectors also are becoming very boring! Rubber vectors is the latest idea, and will no doubt become the next 'craze'!! The only excuse for doing filled vectors these days is if you have a really outstanding routine... And in all honesty, there are only an elite few who can code such brilliant demos - those tend to be the people who don't code filled vectors any more anyway! \2 2.Sine Scrollers \0 Admittedly most people have stopped coding these boring things now, but still I keep getting lame intros with simple sinescrollers on... There is nothing cool about coding these things! Anarchy came up with some nice ideas on the theme in their demos "The Fury" and "Digital Innovation" - these are just about the only ORIGINAL ideas I've seen with sine scrollers!!! Come on all the rest of you, if you're going to reinvent the wheel, I suggest you don't bother!!! \2 3.Text Faders \0 Hoho, these things make me laugh! Some people just don't care about making NEW routines!! I (and no doubt countless other people!) am getting completely sick of all the text faders at the front of demos!.. They all follow a set phase of text, like this: " " ... "IS PROUD" ... "TO PRESENT" ... "A NEW DEMO" ... "CALLED" ... " "!!! Why do the demos have to be so damned irritating, with their large fonts and slowly fading text?!? Don't the coders realise how frustrating it is to be sat watching these things??? I don't know about them, but I certainly have better things to be doing!!! What's wrong with a bit of originality from time to time?? \1\cAddresses \0 Just 3 addresses this month, until I get permission to put any other members' addresses in!... But with any luck I'll have a whole batch of addresses for you in the next issue! \2\cRAISTLIN (Flash Productions) \0 Robert Troughton 42 Browfield Terrace Silsden West Yorkshire BD20 9PT ENGLAND (No telephone number 'cos I hate lamers phoning me!) \2\cPARADROID (Flash Productions) \0 Barry 21 Flint Court Ellesmere Port South Wirral L65 9DS ENGLAND \2\cMAGIC MUSHROOM (Flash Productions) \0 Trevor 21 Stanley Road Morecambe Lancashire LA3 1UP ENGLAND The next issue of RAISTLIN'S MESSAGE BOX will be released in about 3 weeks, just before I go to University! See you then...