11 October, 2017

Atari ST PD - Graven Image

This feels like several lifetimes ago...set your wayback machine to when I can be found living at my parent's house in South Park, not quite sure what I wanted to do for a living, so I filled my time writing the odd game.  This was back in the days when computers lent themselves to creativity rather than just being glorified consoles.  I started writing quite a lot of games, but I finished only three.  They were graphical text adventure games, think Zork,  crafted using a tool called "STAC" (the funky big brother of GAC that I also used to write a bunch of games on the Speccy - but there was no PD scene for the Sinclair crowd so they just existed for my pleasure)...

My releases got reviewed in ST Format (the serious ST users go-to monthly mag) with generally favourable marks (7-8/10), as it had a PD review section (and Mr X. used to regularly forward my releases for review from his Prophecy PD label).  Thank you Mr X. :)

My contributions to the PD scene were as follows, although I also did some sample sequencer demos (basic ones) of various thrash metal songs, but those are definitely infringing someone's copyrights, so I won't mention them, anyway, these are the games, I didn't make these Youtube videos, some kind soul has documented my games for me (albeit briefly)  -

The Elven Crystals
Elven Crystals 1
Youtube video, Download

The Elven Crystals 2
Elven Crystals 2
Youtube video, Download

Eaglestar
Eaglestar
Youtube video, Download

I hand (mouse) drew all the graphics in Degas Elite (the best drawing tool of the day).  Gradually getting better as I went along.  There were even hidden adventures within the adventures, can't remember the passwords to get in now though...as I said, this was several lifetimes ago.

Very pleasingly you can still get hold of my work (and if you have a floppy drive, a dusty ST in a cupboard and a CRT TV you can re-write the flops as the ST drive was fully IBM compatible), or you can just play them on an emulator.  I'm sure they have aged terribly, like the author, but it was greatly satisfying to contribute to the scene...  ;)

Shout out to the Replicants, the Pompey Pirates, the Medway Boys, Prophecy PD, the Overlanders and TEX.  Make sure you fill up that boot sector and always buy branded disks ...

Wow...I'm old.

1 comment:

AtariCrypt said...

Great post. Long live the Atari ST ;-)