SpectrumToday - English version

ellvis

Hi all,

I'd like to announce that English version of Spectrum Today magazine issue 00 is finished and can be downloaded at http://ellvis.zeroteam.sk/files/SpectrumToday-00en.pdf. Now I am working on issue 01 that will be translated in next few weeks (Slovak version came out at the beginning of July). I will use this thread to announce next issues.

A BIG thanks go to Slenkar, who checked 2/3 of articles, it is really appreciated!

Any feedback is welcome, enjoy the reading!

Alessandro Grussu

I appreciated the original edition although I understood very little of what I read; it was obvious a lot of time and care had been put into it. After reading the English translation and being therefore able to make much more sense of it, I can definitely confirm my positive impression. Very nice effort pals :)

slenkar

nice to see the finished product :)

DenisGrachev

Great! Looking forward for next issue ;)

utz

An excellent magazine, very well written and put together. Thanks to everyone involved, and looking forward to the next issues.

hikoki

Very exciting project! The next one will have an AGD tutorial!
I'd like to see an inpaws tutorial, of course a first tutorial in english for Churrera could be a hit, and a section for not so recent games

R-Tape

Okay the translation is not perfect and there are a few typos but in terms of content and personality I love it. A great mix of games and technical, this is exactly what I'm looking for in a 'scene' publication and in all honesty, it beats the magazines I pay money for.

Absolutely fantastic, well done to all involved.

Paddy Coleman

Loved it - well done and thank you.

Paddy

slenkar

I could have rewritten most of it but I kept the original intent and personality of the articles, even if it doesnt always sound correct in English.

ellvis

Thank you all for your words! My English is crap, I hope to improve it a bit for future. Anyway, if someone want to help with corrections just let me know, it is pretty big task to do it in just one person.

As for topics for possible articles, I am writing down all ideas written here and will try to work out the articles or find someone with knowledge to write them.

Once again, thanks for feedback!

Ivanzx

Thanks a lot for the huge effort of converting it to english. And it was a good effort as it is a very worth read! I liked it, specially the fact that you commented so many new Spectrum Homebrew games, and I agree with the reviews in most of them ;) I would like to see some marks as well in the games, like 9/10 and so.

Again, very interesting and thanks for taking the time to make it understandable for non-Slovak people :)

Ralf

Good reading!

If you need some texts for future editions let us know here, maybe there would be people willing to help. In fact I could consider writing something myself too ;)

ANDREW RYALS

Fantastic loved every page, just had a quick skim through but will read properly when I get time nice to see a mag which details "the scene", truly great stuff, WELL DONE !!!!

R-Tape

hikoki wrote: »

I'd like to see an inpaws tutorial, of course a first tutorial in english for Churrera could be a hit

I agree.

hikoki wrote: »

and a section for not so recent games

Don't agree, the editorial makes a point of being about new stuff for the modern spectrum user. Just my opinion, but that's the thing I like so much about it.

Ralf

and a section for not so recent games

That would be against the very ideology behind this magazine.

Ellvis writes about it on first page, you can read it. No nostalgia, no Jet Set F**king Willy, Spectrum is alive, a lot of things is happening at the moment and they deserve to be written about. There is enough stuff about old classics already.

gabriele amore

Really nice stuff

I am bit confused by the arrows at the end of some of the game-review articles
pointing at games which are sometimes reviewed in the magazine (e.g Ossuary is mentioned at the end of "Escape from Cnossus" and then there is a review of it) but sometimes are not...what exactly do they mean?
and is if possible to find the original language issues (i assume you went farther than issue 2)?

hikoki

Ralf wrote: »

That would be against the very ideology behind this magazine.

Ellvis writes about it on first page, you can read it. No nostalgia, no Jet Set F**king Willy, Spectrum is alive, a lot of things is happening at the moment and they deserve to be written about. There is enough stuff about old classics already.

I agree with you :) I should have elaborated a bit more.
I meant to modern games never reviewed by magazines, let's say from the end of commercial releases (around 1995 ?) up to nowadays

Ralf

I agree with you I should have elaborated a bit more.
I meant to modern games never reviewed by magazines, let's say from the end of commercial releases (around 1995 ?) up to nowadays

And I agree with you too :)
There is a lot of quality post-commercial games, mostly from Russia that most people here have never hard about or only saw the name.
Still this magazine is 100% Ellvis work and so it is his personal choice. Let's see how it develops.

Timmy

hikoki wrote: »

I agree with you :) I should have elaborated a bit more.
I meant to modern games never reviewed by magazines, let's say from the end of commercial releases (around 1995 ?) up to nowadays

I agree with you. You should write one yourself.

As for the other stuff, I have no plans for writing anything for inpaws, but wasn't there already enough stuff written about churrera in english already?

hikoki

Timmy wrote: »

I agree with you. You should write one yourself.

As for the other stuff, I have no plans for writing anything for inpaws, but wasn't there already enough stuff written about churrera in english already?

I can try to write a few reviews but my knowledge about such games is poor so there must be gamers with a better global vision of the scene.

As far as I know, there is no Churrera tutorial in english yet.
I guess its authors will have in mind to write one.

R-Tape

R-Tape wrote: »

I agree.

hikoki wrote: »

I agree with you :)

Ralf wrote: »

And I agree with you too :)

Timmy wrote: »

I agree with you.

We're all very agreeable today :D

leespoons

Had a quick skim on my lunch break. Great idea and an interesting read, I'll give it a proper read at some point and look forward to issue 1!

R-Tape wrote: »

We're all very agreeable today :D

I beg to differ :-P

Timmy

hikoki wrote: »

I'd like to see an inpaws tutorial,

I just looked at the inpaws stuff, is that the compiler for PAW? Do you seriously need a tutorial for writing stuff in it? Of course I'm not going to write something like that, but I could write one for GAC. ;) It would be very similar in this case, as at text level there's no difference between the two (perhaps except for the syntax).

In any case, there's not much to write about, is it? Most of it is text already so what would anyone need to know more about? (I'm curious what you would want to know more other than just playing it directly.)

ellvis

Ralf wrote: »

Still this magazine is 100% Ellvis work and so it is his personal choice. Let's see how it develops.

Yes, this issue is one man show. But my idea is to make a magazine that will be good read for the scene, not just for me, so I am opened for ideas and also for any help with the articles itself. There are not older games then from 2013 just because there was (is) still too much to cover them all, but if someone want to cover also older games, I am all fine with that. I am just avoiding to cover old classic games, because I think there is enough coverage of those, as an example is great Spectrum Show Magazine by Paul Jenkinson (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=48025).

Issue 01 is out from the beginning of July (http://zxm.speccy.cz/?m=cas&x=today) and it contain 4 articles from other people, I can not cover all the topics by myself (well, I can, but it will have nothing to do with any quality). I hope to publish English translation of this one in few weeks.

Deadline for articles for issue 02 is 7.9. 2014, it will be published in the October.

All at all, any help is welcome and also I listen for ideas readers have!

hikoki

Timmy wrote: »

I just looked at the inpaws stuff, is that the compiler for PAW? Do you seriously need a tutorial for writing stuff in it? Of course I'm not going to write something like that, but I could write one for GAC. ;) It would be very similar in this case, as at text level there's no difference between the two (perhaps except for the syntax).

In any case, there's not much to write about, is it? Most of it is text already so what would anyone need to know more about? (I'm curious what you would want to know more other than just playing it directly.)

well it could be fun to read the making of a game over the course of three or four issues, explaining the old syntax adapted to the comforts of inpaws, tips and tricks on how to accomplish something in a story, etc

ellvis

gabriele amore wrote: »

Really nice stuff

I am bit confused by the arrows at the end of some of the game-review articles
pointing at games which are sometimes reviewed in the magazine (e.g Ossuary is mentioned at the end of "Escape from Cnossus" and then there is a review of it) but sometimes are not...what exactly do they mean?
and is if possible to find the original language issues (i assume you went farther than issue 2)?

Well, the arrow points to games by the same author as reviewed one or to games that are similar considering playability.

jonathan

Just wanted to say thanks. The scene has been needing something like this as I'm sure we all miss ZXF and ZX Shed.

Excellent stuff!

Timmy

I wanted to say thanks, too. I was very surprised that people still review the newer games only. This is actually a good idea.

hikoki wrote: »

well it could be fun to read the making of a game over the course of three or four issues, explaining the old syntax adapted to the comforts of inpaws, tips and tricks on how to accomplish something in a story, etc

If there really is interest I could explain how I wrote my demo adventure game. It's still a lot of work to just write it down, so I'd do it if there's enough interest. Because nowadays it really is easier to write adventures on the PC and then compile it to a snapshot file, especially if it's a lot of text and you want to use a spell checker.

Morkin

Enjoyed reading this. Thanks for the translation efforts. It provides a nice reminder summary of some of the new releases.

schombi

Very good, also looks quite professional. Thank you!

Looking forward to the next issue.

MatGubbins

An excellent read and well done for everyone involved with the original and translated editions.

Thank you for mentioning the preview edition of Bomb Munchies and many many new games.