Cronosoft
I ordered a few Cronosoft games a short while ago and they arrived today. Although I've only played the games in question (Egghead III and Rough Justice) for a short time, I can safely say that I am really satisfied with them 100%. Well done chaosmongers. Here's to sucessful sales of all your future releases. :)
Necros.
Necros.
Post edited by Ian Hamilton on
Comments
In case anyone didn't spot the rather exciting news..
"We have another confirmation that retro gaming is still growing fast: The brand new retro software label Retro-Soft signed an exclusive deal with Shaw Brothers, to bring various of their games back to commercial status. Apart from selling the original Spectrum versions, Retro-Soft announces to remake those games for mobile phones.
Although of course these games were removed from the archive, it looks like the Spectrum's future is as bright as ever (especially considering it was picked before other systems)!"
Its good to see that some denied games are going to find their way back onto the market in various forms.
Necros.
Hopefully some others out there like codies will be watching and be ready to follow. Still, its good that someone is willing to give it a try.
Regarding Retro-Soft - judging by the amount of development equipment that they've managed to lay their hands on, they look like they could do well. I guess it's easier if you've got plenty of cash to invest! I hope that the programmers don't abandon Cronosoft though :(
By the way - here's some news while I'm about it.....!
PLATFORM GAME DESIGNER is due for release after this weekend. It's priced at ?4.99, for which you get three programs:
PGD Linear - for producing MANIC MINER style, progressive screen games
PGD Explorer - for producting JET SET WILLY style games, exploring a large map area
SPACE HOPPER - free demonstration game.
PGD produces a stand-alone game, independent of the original program, and produces a machine code program, that can be called from BASIC if necessary, so you can add a front end, ending, and alter just about everything in it.
IRON SPHERE is a new game out soon for the AMSTRAD CPC, though a Spectrum conversion is in development.
STRANDED ... A new submission arrived in today! It's an unreleased, but highly polished and presented game, originally written in 1989. More info soon.
Back to the topic: Any company, even one fully backed by the Shaw brothers, is up against stiff competition with Cronosoft. I think all their titles to date have been 100% top-notch. But what's gonna happen to Hop'n'chop? Will that be re-released on the new label, or do Cronosoft have exclusive rights?
how about selling them as downloads, probably not as straight up executables, but as tzx's, so you pay however much and get a "pack" with artwork, maps, whatever whatever and several games?
this would open the market to people who play speccy games but don't have a physical speccy. i mean, how many copies do these sell?
it all sounds great though! :)
You all seem to have read the news about us , and the first converted spectrum game is already out there for the os palm format.
There will be some news in the next few days about all sorts of things you have mentioned above. Give me a few days , I hope that you will think it is all worth it.
Funny enough most of the ways of delivering the games you mention will start to happen in the next few weeks so your wish is my command (except it was already being done !!!).
I wish I did have piles of cash , as per Simon from Cronosofts comments , and no I am not tying to steal the authors , but currently their are limited amounts of 'working' spectrum authors so there will be some overlap between us , but we are aiming for a slightly different market to Simon , so I believe there is plenty of overlap , and space for both of us in this 'market' in general.
Yes I have put money into this , but any business has to to make it work , and also it is my money I am risking , I am self employed , my wife does not work as she has MS , so its my shirt I lose if it all goes wrong , but I believe in retro games , and believe it can work , so hope you guys here will support us , I am going to do my best for you.
Will update ASAP in the next few days !
Regards
Paul A
www.retro-soft.co.uk
I didn't mean anything nasty or sarcastic :)
I just noticed that you have accumulated an impressive amount of development equipment for loads of consoles etc., which kind of puts you in a completely different league!
Good luck & best wishes,
Simon
Dare I use the word renaissance...
Same from this end I was not having a go either , I really do wish I had piles of cash !! Life would be a lot easier , the dev kit is not just for dev use , it makes people look at the site , and creates attention , hopefully longer term it will actually get used as well !
I really do believe there is room , for not just us two , but others as well , after all how many millions/billions are there in this world ?? Some of them must want to play our games !!
There is no reason we cannot work together on some projects either at a future date.
Speak soon !
Regards
Paul A
www.retro-soft.co.uk
www.retro-trader.com
it wouldn't be until a market was saturated, which, if it will be, won't be for years and years lets face it, that loyalties like that would emerge!
There practically is just one developer. :D
Two publishers though...
CSSCGC 2005 entries abound! :p
Either way I am poised to buy it as soon as it comes out.
As far as I know, the tiles can be animated, though there are some extra features to the tiles - a locked door feature that is removed when a certain object is picked up (like with the ALIEN KONG BEAST level in Manic Miner), and intermittently 'on' platforms.
I'll get a full list of features posted a.s.a.p.
The number of rooms available is all down to memory remaining, which is displayed in bytes on the menu screen. Of course, memory is used up in defining background tiles, objects, etc., as well as sprites. You are not limited to X number of rooms and Y number of sprites. Having fewer sprites/graphics frees up memory for more rooms.
good to see some movement in the spectrum scene, thanks to cronosoft and retrosoft, and no doubt a few others. i hope more people will wake from their slumber and return to the fold.
we don't rule out programming new games for the spectrum, should there be enough interest. and we find the time :)
i have updated the spectrum pages on our site at http://www.sickhappyidle.com ...click on the "spectrum" logo down by the bottom (or use the site map) ...or go directly there via the http://www.sickhappyidle.com/page19.html
What's bothering me is, why is there only one Monopolies Commission? ;)
misteaksmistrakesmisyaleserrurs— oh, sod it.cos it takes too long to play a full game??
i'm waiting for the tiddley winks commision to be set up.
the buckeroo commission?
ok ok i'll stop now
I'm also interested in how Spectrum stuff may be distributed and it's cost. Say for instance, would you get a physical tape with inlays and case like with Cronosoft, or would it be a TZX or Snapshot.
What I like about the Retro-Softs approach is that it was diplomatic and is how Paul McKennas approach should have been. We all saw what happened there. With Retro-Soft however, everyone seems to be happy about the prospect.
I wish you good luck with the venture, though my only concern is a growing trend that would see more and more publishers pulling their titles to sell. I don't blame you mind ya, good on ya if you make it work.
Not sure how the market will take it, but we'll find out.
Maybe denied companies would follow suit and people can legitimately obtain the software they treasure.
Do you know what kind of costing we're looking at yet ?
Best wishes
Regards
Paul A
I have many of Cronosofts games and will continue to buy them but any other new games from people like yourself, then i would like to get those also if theyre decent.
I cant wait to see the new games, for me personally i hope the files can be bought as a emulator 'snapshot' image as i play Speccy games on my various emulators on PC, GP32 or PPC.
Hopefully it wont be a case of a new game is bundled with a new emulator which you can only use on a PC or a 'all in one' package for the PPC.
Good luck to you though, sounds good so far.
(You must learn to press return twice to create some new paragraphs though ;)
[ This Message was edited by: psj3809 on 2005-04-14 16:46 ]
"Do you have a game which has been published in the past , but you still own the rights to this game ? Why not consider teaming up with us and making some money on this game ? Get in touch to discuss the game now !"
If more and more old companies ban the distribution of their old games its gonna be pretty bad for the whole community. Obviously the games are theres but its a catch 22, they obviously would like to make some money from these old games but on the other hand if it wasnt for the likes of 'us' playing them then they would be worth nothing forever.
Be a shame if month by month more and more companies denied distribution.
I wouldn't mind it that much actually. If companies wished to start selling their old games again I, and quite a few other people here, would be happy to pay for them as long as the price was reasonable. Imagine if the Stampers decided to finish Mire Mare as a side project and sell it through their web site, how many of you would immediately buy it? The answer is everyone.
Necros.
The whole world of retro games is changing , I read today that Coleco are going to have one of the TV games done ?
What I hope to do is to have a balance of keeping the older games alive , and keeping them accessable at a reasonable / as cheap as practical price. So individual downloads will be possible ASAP , and I mean ASAP !
There will be lots of formats , ie. emulator ones , PC ones , ported ones etc. Dont want to give to much away yet , but we are having an all new emulator of our own done , as all the others are free or share ware which was a problem when selling games , so we creating all new avenues I hope , as above will tell you more as soon as I can !
Regards
Paul A
www.retro-soft.co.uk
Back in the 80's yeah i had a ton of pirated games but i also bought a ton of games also. My old Speccy etc was thrown out years ago so everythings gone, would be a bit annoyed though if say the Elite range of games were denied distribution and so even though i bought Bombjack etc first time round i had to buy it again.
Look at the fuss kicked up by Paul McKenna, yeah a lot of it was the way he acted but i couldnt see many people here re-buying old Speccy games. Be interesting to see what happens. In a way because of us and the rise in emulation we might have created a monster ! ;)
on the other hand, if it got popular enough then feasibly the prices could come lower too.
I don't know about that. I still have all the games I bought over the years, apart from a few that vanished along the way, but there are hundreds (possibly thousands) that I don't have and I would buy if I came across them on ebay or elsewhere. Plus, if you had an old record that you really like from about 20 years ago that's completely worn from playing so much, you probably would be inclined to buy a new CD version. How is that different from buying re-releases of old spectrum games?
Necros.
I mean i'm still excited as hell knowing that Matthew Smith is working on a game for the Speccy !
If sales were good then there would be so many other games created. I would quite happily buy new games but i must admit i'm not gonna buy old classics relaunched.