Written by Wotnau / Dmagic

We are pleased to say that although the summer turned out to be unexpectedly productive, it was beaten by September! The list of releases announced at the Portal proves it. All in all, there were 33 Alpha-News items in September. We're also happy to notice that some discussions around articles and reviews are going on, as the Portal is getting more and more alive. Thanks to you Readers.

We also accepted the policy of releasing stuff like disk magazines with a bit of delay after the release in the snail scene, to support the snail mail swapping scene.

Creativity

John Player V 1.1, 1.3 and 1.4 were released shortly one after each other. Another player is CyberTracker V1.01 by CyberBrain/NoName. Gamingwise, Richard Bayliss (Richard/TND/Civitas) stroke back with another version of the Balloonacy preview. A complex release, including a bit of everything (graphics, music collection, a tool), is the Visual Pack #09 by Samar. There's also the Arachnophobia Release Pack. More tools to go through: Burana font editor and especially two more great tools: DreamLoad V2.1 by The Dreams (including an NTSC fix!) which now becomes probably the most compatible IRQ loader. DreamLoad 2.1 being finally out is marvellous especially for us in DMagic as our magazine Dawn will feature it and it was the last piece of software we waited for to start completion of the first issue. And the other great news? GoDot went public domain!!! Does this need any comment? Just big thanks to the authors! And the last release news is smashing as well: Retro Replay, a great new cartridge basing on Action Replay, is out now! As far as I know, the production is limited to 300 pieces, so if you have spare 100,– DM, order now! The only letdown for me is the name, as for me just no one who's still hacking the real hardware can be a retro person! The music label Amorphis released Amorphis Pack #5.
Asking for demos? Robotics/Civitas, Fitzspeak II/Dekadence, which took part in the competition at Phat 2001. And two oldies from parties were now released finally: Risen From Oblivion/Oxyron and Total Egypt/Extend.

Scene Buzz

On 30. 9., there was the Minigame compo deadline. Also, in September Protovision got two new members. We brought you links to releases from Symphony 2001, Phat 2001 reports and Granddaddy's Reunion 2001 photogallery & report. CreaMD interviewed Hoild to get an exclusive report from Core 2001. You were also offered to subscribe to the Triad spread list. The last buzz of scening was brought to c64.sk by Lord Hypnos (code), Factor 6 (music) and Sad (music), who decided to leave Anubis and are seeking a new group. According to PADUA memberstatus update, shortly afterwards SAD and Lord Hypnos joined this group! (CreaMD)

Society

Only one social news item this time – Cadaver, a late star in the C=64 game developing sky, decided to leave active coding and released his code for the public. And he returned to activity on the beginning of October denying all his latest declarations (check his words here!!!) and releasing Goat Tracker – a PC-Windows based SID music tracker using ReSid sound emulating egine for playback. It's capable of saving .prg files as well as in a format which PC SID emulators like better. (CreaMD)

Gonna Go Over There?

Courage/Protovision is inviting you to Vision 2001, a Protovision meeting which is open for the public this time. You will surely be welcome there!
 

Reviews

Richard/TND/Civitas brought you a review of Commodore Scene #35 and the Umba Sid side of CreaMD, our editor-in-chief, reviewed Amorphis Pack #5 and Sadism II/Sad of Anubis for you.

Have a nice October!

Complete list of September releases 

5. SEPTEMBER 2001

Cadaver's (Lasse ??rni) game developing sources and tools
http://www.student.oulu.fi/…c64stuff.zip (1,9 MB – PC)

6. SEPTEMBER 2001
Demo TOTAL EPYGT by EXTEND finally released
ftp://c64.rulez.org/…al_Epygt.zip (1×D64 C64)

ArachnoPhobia game ReleasePack
http://www.thehaque.nl/…eleasePack01[AP].zip (4×D64 C64)

10. SEPTEMBER 2001
GODOT – bitmap processing package declared Public Domain
http://members.aol.com/…/godnews.htm (1×D64 & 7×D64 – C64)

13. SEPTEMBER 2001
10000 meters game – a hardcore decathlon clone
htp://www.zefix.tv/10000/ (1 FILE)

DreamLoad V2.1 released – 2bit-IRQ-Fastloader supporting drives like 1541, 1570/71, 1581, CMD-FD, CMD-HD. It is PAL/NTSC-compatible !!! Need to say more?
http://www.the-dreams.de/ (1×D64 C64)

15. SEPTEMBER 2001
„Risen from Oblivion“ – 2 sided C128 demo by Crest and Oxyron
ftp://ftp.padua.org/…Oblivion.zip (2×D64 C128)

16. SEPTEMBER 2001
Amorphis music Pack, 5th and probably the last by Amorphis Music Label
files/amorphis_pack5.zip (1×D64 C64)

17. SEPTEMBER 2001
Symphony 2001 – party releases
ftp://c64.rulez.org/…rty_Disk.zip (1×D64 C64)

Burana Font Editor – interlaced character set editor
http://www.student.oulu.fi/…d/burana.zip (1×D64 C64)

18. SEPTEMBER 2001
PC,AMIGA-like music tracker finally made for C64!!! + a lot of demosongs and sounds
http://noname.c64.org/tracker/ (1×D64 C64)

23. SEPTEMBER 2001
ACTION REPLAY CATRIDGE – clone announced. It's being sold since today. Most interesting feature is the 128kb software flashable ROM!
http://www.ar.c64.org/ (HARDWARE!)

25. SEPTEMBER 2001

PHAT'01 Party releases (incomplete)
Robotics – new demo from Civitas (1×D64 C64)
 http://user.tninet.se/…Robotics.zip

Fitzspeak II by Dekadence
http://www.dekadence64.org/ (1×D64 C64)

29. SEPTEMBER 2001
John Player V1.4 – latest release of avery interesting music editor using only 8 cycles player and having quite short player routine too! Contains very persuasive music examples.
http://www.student.oulu.fi/…oad/john.zip (1×D64 C64)

30. SEPTEMBER 2001
Sadism II – music collection by Sad/Ex-Anubis
files/Sadism2.zip (1×D64 C64)

Visual Pack #09 by SAMAR. Four-sided VISUAL PACK #09 contains a music collection by Muddler/Samar (his favourite C-64 tunes), the „Nylu Logos Collection“ (quickly coded by Centrax) and a small tool by Aristo/Samar „Sprite Combiner“.
ftp://ftp.padua.org/…09_samar.zip (4×D64 C64)

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