<>@2 Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/ *4@5 ROSWELL - APOLOGY FOLKS! *3]5@6 by Andy (AGAS) Gibson *1]1@2 /Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z/Z @1 For those of you that have read the DIARY OF A GAME articles in the last issue of BSE and who saw the screenshots also to my new game, Roswell. Well I have to apologise for the delay in releasing the game! Roswell is a graphic adventure which has been under production here at AGAS HQ for quite some time, but over the last few months, no work has been done at all! It's not due to lack of funding (what funding?), but due to lack of time on my behalf. I have been very busy, what with releasing DMC GOLD V3.0 and a new DATA Disk for Ultimate Quiz 2. etc. Roswell was simply put on hold and all production just seemed to halt! I was also asked to grab some screens for my m8, Dave Kirk's latest releases, BLOBZ and also WORLD OF FORMULA 1. I had to hook up two Amiga's to grab the Blobz screens which were to be used both for the manual and for a magazine review (they couldn't grab the screens for some strange reason!!). To cut a long story short, I simply loaded BLOBZ on one A1200 and plugged my Vidi Amiga into my own A1200 and grabbed the screens. Originally I recorded the game (paused) and grabbed screen shots from my VCR, but the quality wasn't that good! So the other option available was to hook up two A1200's and grab away.... and it worked a lot better :) As for World Of F1. Well, Dave required some screen shots (B/W) of F1 cars. etc. from the F1 season. So he sent me a video (over three hours worth) of F1 racing which I had to sit through and grab loads of screens from! It took me quite a few hours I can tell ya, but in the end I managed it and sent off all the goodies to Dave at APEX Systems HQ. That's not all, just before releasing DMC GOLD V3.0, some twat named Alan ]5(Err, hello zYLAX :^)]1 called me and asked me to alter my Config Maker so it could save its files as ASCII text as well as encrypted so he could edit the final file in Cygnus ED! Bummer! Off to work I go.... (I didn't mind doing all the DMC changes, it was well worth it and thanx zYLAX for the idea!) Then to top things off I was offered a temp job with Channel 5 TV but refused it as I was offered a real job with .....Toys R Us! I started work with TRU and in doing so left myself no Amiga time at all. Working every day and up to 10pm at night too! I was pretty knackered every night and obviously the last thing I wanted to do was sit up half the night programming and drawing gfx. etc. I started work with TRU as a Multi-Media advisor! Yip, I am now selling the dreaded PC's! The basic model has a P100 Mhz Pentium, 1 Gigabyte HD, 6 Speed CD ROM, Fax/Modem (Internet Ready), 14 inch SVGA monitor, MPEG and all the trimmings as well as a host of software titles such as Windows 95, MS Works, Encarta. etc. All this for only £1199! It certainly is an Amiga beater. I've always hated PC's and swore I'd never get to like 'em, but I have to admit that I'm beginning to see why PC owners put the Amiga down! @3[TRAITOR!!!! zYLAX!]@1 Don't get me wrong, the A1200 is a great machine and I'm sure game developers could do better games for it and probably a PC beater, but the way things are with the Amiga, who knows what's gonna happen? Don't worry! I'm not buying a PC or leaving the Amiga. I've been using the Amiga for too long to ditch it and let's face it, ye can't be productive on a PC! Not one PC owner (that I know) has ever written any software! They just play games all day! The Amiga cannot be beaten in this respect. But it's no surprise that the industry is losing out as more and more peeps leave the Amiga to move over to the PC. No more bedroom programmers means no more new talent! Which brings me onto this.... I've now bought a Playstation from TRU (No, I don't get a staff discount - so don't ask me to get ya cheap software!) So many Amiga users now have these machines and I'm glad I bought one too. I've never been a huge gamesplayer, but my PS has changed all that! I spend a heap of time playing F1 (what a game, even if it does have a few little bugs needing sorted) and also DOOM! Gee! This is kewl stuff and the gfx for the games are just as good as any PC game. Maybe that's why Sony have decided to release a new Playstation next year which can be plugged into a PC to enable PC users to create their own games!!! ]3WHAT!?!]1 Productive PC owners are just around the corner? This could mean death to the Amiga - NON-STOP! VisCORP really need to get in on the act and get a new super Amiga out there, don't ya think? And soon.... Oh yeah, as for Roswell. Well, work will continue and the game ]3WILL]1 be released sometime, but there is no set date (there never was anyway!). I just hope that (iF VisCORP release a new Amiga) Roswell will be compatible with it! Surely we (Amiga owners of present) will still wanna play all our fave games on the new Amiga as well as having the new technology to play PC beaters too. Hopefully by the next issue of BTF, I will have some news of progress on the game for ya all. If I find time, I'll even continue to write the DIARY OF...too. I have a few ideas for other gfx adventures too and I've just been sent my new update to DOOPSI which seems to be a good system. (If ya haven't heard of Doopsi, then contact Steve at F1 Licenceware - 01392 493580 for a demo version or see the AFCD8 for latest demo.) Basically Doopsi let's you create adventure games with ease and better still - AGA gfx! I'm gonna get into it and maybe Roswell will have to be re-written to make use of the AGA screens. But that's another story.... Stay tuned to BTF for all the details folks and I'll see ya here next issue.