As you've probably seen by now, as well as all the usual articles you'd expect to see on a "normal" Amiga mag, this issue (and future issues for that matter) of CD GOLD will be filled with a vast selection of PD software, ranging from demos to games, utilities to serious applications software. We hope to be able to bring you over 50MB of free software on every issue!!
The software we'll feature will be a mixture of some of the best titles available. It won't necessarily be all the latest releases - just good PD, so don't be surprised to see the odd 2 or 3 year old title on here. In all honesty, if it's any good, who cares?
There is a mixed bag of goodies on offer this time, many of which can be run directly from the CD itself. The others will need to be de-compressed onto a blank disk before they can be loaded. Sorry about this, but the majority of demos on the Amiga use their own custom disk formats and therefore can't be converted to CD!
To decompress these, just insert a blank disk (preferably double sided, double density disks for best results) into df0: and select the disk you want from the menu. The process is fully automatic and should only take a couple of minutes.
Because CD GOLD is a magazine targetted at all the family, we are trying to vet all the software featured in the demos section. Unfortunately, many demo programmers seem to think it's a great idea to use swearing as often as possible in the text. We have checked everything on this disk as much as possible and we'd like to apologise in advance if anything has slipped through our screening system.
Anyway, I expect you want to know what's on offer...
SINGLE FILE DEMOS (ALL RUNNABLE DIRECT FROM CD)
Please note that with many of these, you may have to reset your Amiga at the end of viewing the demo. Not all of them will run on all systems, but the majority shouldn't cause any problems. In total, there are 54 demos this time around.
"40K Intro" by Chrome
A short demo squeezed into just 40K! Written, as were many of the other 40K demos on this CD, for a demo competition at an Amiga party where programmers had to fit an entire demo into just 40K!
"40K Intro" by Lemon
A demo squeezed into just 40K? Can't be much good then, can it? Well, load this and prepare to be surprised! Good music, nice graphics and even a mini ray-traced animation all crammed into this mini-materpiece.
"AGA Demo 1"
"AGA Demo 2"
"AGA Demo 3"
"AGA Demo 4"
These four offer a selection of short routines for you CD32 owners out there! Don't ask me what they are like as I haven't seen them yet! Oh for a disk drive and keyboard...!
"And Nothing Else Matters" - Tarkus Team
"Another Delight" by Curacy
"A Old Intro" by Complex
"April Fool" by Dual Crew/Shining
"Bananamen" by Stellar
"Binary Magic" by Ecstacy
"Booo" by Melon Dezign
"Brainblast" by Defiance
"Compintro" by Scoopex
"Copper Master" by Angels
If you want to see what one of the Amiga's custom graphics chips is capable of doing, just watch this for some of the most visually stunning effects you will ever see! There's a great piece of music as well!
"Cube" by Genocide
"Cyber Dance" by Tsunami et Dean
"Dual Chess" by Nuance
Nothing spectacular, but this rather nice looking demos has a good looking effect with two "chess boards" (and no sign of Nigel Short!) flying on top of each other with great parallax scrolling and transparency effects.
"Egregious" by Kefrens
A visual and audio delight! This is one of my all-time favourite demos, mainly for the great toe-tapping soundtrack, but sadly, this won't run on Amigas fitted with Kickstart 2.0 or higher so this is one for the CDTV owners only. K/S 2.0 machines will get a blank screen, but you can still hear the music!
"Enterprize Intro" by Disknet
Apart from the spelling mistake, this is a nice short intro with a rather tasty ray-traced animation. No prizes for guessing what the subject matter is and why I chose to include it!!!
"Equation" by Infect
"Explorer" by Desire
"Illusion" by Virtual Dreams
Wow! This is one of my all-time favourite single file demos. There is just so much to it, I can't describe it all here. Superb visuals and a great soundtrack make up this superb demo.
"Interference" by Sanity
Sanity at it again with another demo filled with the usual zooming and rotation effects you'd expect to find on some of the top end consoles. Who says the Amiga can't do it??!!
"Intro" by Beyond Force
"Intro" by Limbo
"Intro" by Stone Arts
"Intro" by The Silents
Another small demo, by one of Denmark's more famous demo groups, responsible for the Pinball Dreams series of games. The sound is not as good as you'd expect from most demos, and it is rather short, but the demo is good nevertheless.
"Lost In Legoland" by Andromeda
"Made In Japan" by Darkness
"Mass Technology" by Decnite
"Mindriot" by Andromeda
Visually superb, this demo is a graphical extravaganza, packed with absolutely loads of hi-res graphics to impress and amaze! Not a bad demo, either!
"Mindwarp" by Hoi
Another A1200/CD32 only demo. Don't ask me what this is like as I haven't seen it - I haven't got a disk drive attached to my CD-32 yet! I'm still saving up for the FMV card!
"Misery Dentro" by TRSI
"No Pain No Gain" by TRSI
"Party Intro" by Rebels
An advert demo promoting an Amiga party, but the main highlight has to be the lightsourced vectors... with a mandelbrot fractal image mapped onto the surface of a cube!
"Piippola" by Humane
"Planet Groove" by Hoi
This demo is for you A1200 and CD-32 owners only. This was the first ever A1200 specific demo ever released and although not stunning, there are some impressive routines that will annoy any owner of a non-AGA machine!
"Pasmutex" by The Flame Arrows
"Plastic Messiah"
"Prism Vectors" by TRSI
A short demo that initally appears to be rather dull, showing a rotating cube. Be patient however, and you'll soon see some of the best vector effects ever seen on the Amiga. Simply stunning!
"Reverse Time" by Plague
"Runtro II" by Genocide
A very short demo, but it has some quite nice visuals. I can't say anything else without spoiling the demo for you!
"Shangri La" by Defiance
"Some Assembly Required" by Epsilon
A rather good rave demo, but I would advise anyone who is a PHOTO-SENSITIVE epileptic NOT to load this demo as it can induce seizures.
"State Of Mind" by Chaos
"Stop Fascism" by Alcatraz/Interactive
A very good demo with a powerful message. Well written and the programmers have managed to get their point across without appearing to be patronising or light-hearted. Well worth seeing.
"Stop Fascism" by Yodel
A more run-of-the-mill demo with only it's title causing controversy. Not bad, but nothing stunning.
"Substance" by Quartex
"Surrealism" by Andromeda
A rather short demo, but just watch out for one of the most impressive vector routines ever written!
"Tetris Intro" by Melon Dezign
"Transpiersky" by The Silents
"Varathron" by Suspect
FULL DISK DEMOS (NEED TO BE DE-COMPRESSED TO FLOPPY FIRST)
"Arkham Asylum" by Dreamdealers/Alliance Design
"CAT" by The Silents
"Colors" by Devils
The title gives it all away with this demo. All the effects concentrate on showing off the Amiga's visuals to the full, displaying thousands of colours at every opportunity!
"Demon Download" by The Slients (2 disks)
"Digital Disco II" by Chrome (2 disks)
A fabulous two disk music demo featuring 8 massive disco songs. The pieces use vast amounts of memory (on average, over 300K each) and make use of some wonderful instruments. The loader also takes advantage of any additional hardware you may have (i.e. two drives, extra ram) to speed up the loading. On my 5MB A2000, it loads both disks into RAM!
"Euphoria" by Ian Faichnie
Ian had refined his style of art for his second and final Amiga slideshow. If you have any interest in art, this is well worth a look for the sheer variety in styles.
"Gate Of Pagan" by Proton
A good music disk, differing greatly from "Digital Disco II". This one is filled with a selection of more melodic songs, which are all exceptionally well written.
"Hardcore" by Anarchy
"Images From Aquarius" by Ian Faichnie
The first slideshow produced by a somewhat talented artist. Since this and "Euphoria", Ian left the Amiga and went to work in-house for Mindscape working with PC's. Pity!
"Lethal Exit" by Digital
"Mayday Resistance" by Adict
A superb disk for all you rave fans out there, with a great piece of music and good visuals. However, not one for those who are photo-sensitive epileptics.
"Memory Overload" by The Independants
Ever imagined a piece of art that is above 8 screens large? Well there's one in this demo plus much, much more.
"Monoxide" by Vanish
"More Than Music" by Alcatraz
If you like music, you'll love this demo. Basically, the disk starts with a short animated intro and then goes into a massive piece of music that lasts for a staggering 22 minutes. Simply wonderful!
"Museum" by Alcatraz
A great slideshow featuring a selection of stunning artwork accompanied by some great music.
"Puggs In Space" by Dionysus
An old title (dating back to 1990!), but a definite classic! This animated demo tells the story of an alien who crash lands on Earth and who tries in vain to make his way home. Very funny with a good soundtrack. The demo was so impressive that Psygnosis signed up the rights to use the character and although the game has yet to appear, it is believed to be due out this year!
"Reflex" by Liquid
"S.O.S." by Melon Dezign
"State Of The Art" by Spaceballs
An amazing demo for all you rave fans! A great piece of music with some stunning visual effects including morphing vectors and much more! WARNING - this demo could trigger seizures in photo-sensitive epileptics.
"System Violation" by Anarchy
"Technological Death" by Mad Elks
"The Day Of Reckoning" by Digital
"The Punisher" by Digital
Another good demo from this British crew. Highlight of the demo has to be the "pencil vectors" - vectors with incredibly realistic shading!! It has to be seen to be believed.
"Turmoil" by Sanity
A music disk put together by Sanity. While the music itself is nothing special, the presentation is fabulous with some great effects during the intro sequence.
"World Of Commodore '92" by Sanity
Written by the group SANITY, this is a demo to load if you want to impress your friends. Amazing visuals, stunning special effects and a great piece of music (or two) to back it all up. This demo is a must for collectors.
GAMES (RUNNABLE FROM CD)
"Cybernetix"
A stunning horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up. Okay, it's a heavily re-vamped version of defender with extra weapons, fast action and squillions of aliens to blast into trillions of pieces. Amazing! Full instructions are built-in! Try and beat my high score -- 677,400 (Sector 53!).
"Dragon Tiles"
A great clone of the centuries old game of Shang-Hai. Good graphics and the playability of a timeless classic.
"Fighting Warriors"
Forget Street Fighter II, this PD clone will keep you happy for more than a while. Who needs official versions when playable games like this can be written... in AMOS (and it runs just as fast as the "official" version!!!).
"Girl Actions"
The title may seem a little misleading, but just say it fast enough and you'll soon figure out what this shoot-em-up is all about!
"Llamatron"
Jeff Minter, the one-time legend on the C64, with his first shareware game on the Amiga in the form of this Robotron clone. If it moves, shoot it! All presented in the usual spaced-out Minter style!
"Mad Bomber II"
What's this? A game that isn't an arcade conversion? Yes! A simple but fun game where you have to catch bombs being thrown at you by... a mad bomber! Fast and should keep the younger players amused for a while!
"Microbes"
Another shoot-em-up by the authors of Cybernetix. This time based on the arcade game TEMPEST and it's yet another fast-paced blaster!
"Qbic"
A great Q-Bert clone (are all the games on this issue copies of old arcade games??!) written by the programmer behind S.W.I.V.! Good stuff and the instructions can be found elsewhere on the CD.
"Revenge Of The Mutant Camels"
Yes, you can probably guess that this is another Minter game! Roam around 42 levels letting you laser-spitting camel (I kid you not!) reap death upon all manner of beasties including telephones, toilets and anything weird you could probably imagine!
"Rollerpede"
Arcade clone number 42 on this issue sees an updated version of Centipede, complete with power ups and great graphics and sound.
"Shoot Out"
Another for all you trigger-happy psychos out there! This is a simple, blast the aliens to pieces game! Nothing flashy - just fast, frantic action!
"Starbase 13"
This is a very good PD "Secret Of Monkey Island" clone set in the future on a space station. Very good and, would you believe, it was written using AMOS!!! Great for sci-fi/Star Trek/Adventure fans!
"Transplant"
Asterodis brought right up to date, featuring extra weapons, an upgradable ship and simultaneous two-player split-screen action. A great way to spend a few hours!
GAMES (NEED TO BE DE-COMPRESSED)
"Mech Fight"
A sci-fi role-playing game. Very absorbing and this is one that you won't put down for a long time.
"Pom Pom Gunner"
A visually stunning shoot-em-up where you are in control of a ship-mounted gun in World War II and it's you job to blast all the approaching planes out of the sky. A straightforward Operation Wlf style game, but the graphics and sound make this one stand out.
"Return To Earth"
A space trading game in a similar vein to Elite. Good stuff, although visually it is starting to show it's age.
"Seven Tiles"
A great futuristic football-style game, in a very similar mould to Speedball. Good graphics and playability make this a game you'll come back to time after time.
"Treasure Search"
One for the young children! Help the pirate find his hideen treasure. A good way to teach younch children about map co-ordinates without them realising it!
OTHER SOFTWARE (NEED TO BE DE-COMPRESSED)
"The Final Frontier - Issue 4" by Infinite Frontiers (4 disks)
This is the fourth Issue of the critically acclaimed Star Trek disk magazine produced by the group INFINITE FRONTIERS with art from Tobias Richter and music from Bjorn Lynne. If you like Star Trek, you'll love this. This is the highest rated disk mag ever in CU AMIGA to date, receiving a massive 91%! Load this and see what all the fuss is about!
ATTENTION PD LIBRARIES/AUTHORS!
We want to see your work on CD GOLD. If you have written anything that you want to see on the next issue, send it to me (Simon Plumbe) care of the usual editorial address.
We also want to see some of you PD libraries sending us some software for inclusion on the disc. Depending on how many disks you send, you can have free adverts on the next issue of CD GOLD. For 10 disks, you can have a free text advert (no size limit), for 15 disks a free graphic advert (any resolution/number of colours) and for 20 disks you can have a text AND graphic advert. Send the disks plus your adverts to the usual address.
