Well, here is a nice review of some new software. This document was created with VDE, and should be wordstar compatible, except without the justifiaction. Also included on the disk should be a crunched library, FORTRIS.LZR. This contains all the necessary files for the shareware version of FORTRIS (see below for an explanation). If you could distribute the library everyone up here in Sydney would be very grateful. I would also have included the library of S.C.S disk I (also see below) but I can't find it and neither can M.L.C or M.A.S. It is on the SMUG bbs so when one of us gets a modem well have to download it! Also with this disk there should have been some screen dumps. I don't know whether you can include them with the article; if you can't then don't worry. Congratz on the PROMPT - it looks good. Anyway, enough rambling on... here's the article.
Your's Faithfully,
Brendan Burwood.
P.S - my address is:
Brendan Burwood
15 Maunder Avenue,
Girraween NSW 2145
and my SMUG membership number is:
120
Review of SUPERIOR COMPUTER SOFTWARE'S various GAMES DISKS:
By Brendan Burwood.
Those of you who aren't members of S.M.U.G. probably haven't heard of Superior Computer Software (or S.C.S). S.C.S is a small "company" that is run wholly by two young programmers, Mark Cocquio and Michael Shamgar (who usually refer to themselves as M.L.C and M.A.S). These two are good friends of mine, and I see them all the time (at that place called school). We are all in year 10 at the moment.
S.C.S was started in 1987 when M.A.S wrote a version of the game "Conan the Barbarian", as found on apple and Commodore computers. It was hardly anything like Conan. M.L.C became friends with M.A.S and soon they discovered that they both had microbees. M.A.S gave M.L.C a copy of "Conan" and M.L.C (who could hardly programme at the time) began to modify it here and there. Many, many modifications later the game product "Nanoc the Destroyer" was completed. It runs wholly under BASIC, with a few small machine code subroutines (not that either programmer understood mach. code at the time; the routines were pinched from various other games, I think froghop was one!). It ran slowly, had simple graphics and only fair sound, but it had a challenge. And it had made the programmers reasonably adept at programming in BASIC. At the time M.A.S and M.L.C were proud of their achievements, and so eventually they decided to release their software into the world. Nanoc was teamed up with "Jumpman" one of M.L.C's very early programming attempts, and the whole lot was bundled onto a disk along with a help file, primitive menu and PIN system. They called themselves "Superior Software" at first, but later the name was changed to Superior Computer Software (for copyright reasons).
A small ad was placed in "the Beeline", (S.M.U.G.'s newsletter) and a few copies of the disk were sold for the price of $15. Orders came mostly from Sydney, but some were received from Brisbane and even New Zealand! Nowadays the first games disk is public domain, and it is starting to pop up on various 'bee bulliten boards in the Sydney area.
The initial success of S.C.S disk I urged the two programmers to write some more games. BASIC seemed too slow to use, so they slowly learned assembly language. NANOC II is written in both BASIC and assembler, but instead of calling machine code from BASIC, BASIC was called from machine code (using a system developed by M.A.S). The calls to BASIC were primarily to access graphics (using GRLOAD) which the two couldn't access from assembler at the time.
Nanoc II is a much bigger and better game than Nanoc I. It has larger graphics, detailed screens, many more hidden features, and moving platforms and enemies. It is still one of their better games.
Also bundled onto the disk were two other games: Freedom Fighter and Missile Dodger. Missile Dodger is another early programming attempt by M.L.C, but Fighter is a mini-game in itself, and is by no means easy.
Programming went on, and soon M.L.C had written the game "Nanoc's Revenge" - probably their best (released) game to date. Nanoc's Revenge is written entirely in machine code, with no help from BASIC, and uses many of the Nanoc II graphics, plus a few new ideas of its own. It is more an adventure than an arcade game, with a huge puzzle to be solved. Many new elements were added, like sideways scrolling. Nanoc's Revenge is S.C.S's hardest game to date!
The latest S.C.S release is called Fortris and is their version of the widely popular game Tetris. It has most of the arcade version's features, as well as many of its own options unique to the game. A shareware version of the game has been prepared, and Mark assures me that as soon as he can get his hands on a modem (can anyone help?) it will appear on a number of Sydney BBSs. You have to see this game to believe it!!
Finally, S.C.S have a new ultra-game called Timegap-X in the pipeline. This space epic features huge levels, FULL-SCREEN bosses, and a hoard of nasty aliens to deal with, as well as the classic S.C.S element - a puzzle to solve! This game should be released some time next year.
Lastly, I'd like to thank the boys for helping me with a bit of the S.C.S history that I didn't know. It's probably only fair to say that I'm a little bit biased, as these guys are friends of mine, so if someone else out there wants to review the whole lot M.A.S and M.L.C will be happy to provide disks to review (but if you want to keep them you'll have to pay for them). Speaking of money, I guess I'd better mention the prices:
Games disk I (Nanoc I, Jumpman) - FREE
Games disk II (Nanoc II, Fighter, Missile Dodger) - $25
Games disk III (Nanoc's Revenge) - $25
Games disk IV (Fortris) - Shareware evaluation version - free
- Proper registered working version - $15
Games disk V (Timegap-X) - not yet released, but probably around $25
Their address is:
MARK COCQUIO,
c/ Superior Computer Software,9 Aston St,
Gladesville NSW 2111, Australia.
You can write requesting a FREE catalog. If you want Disk one or the unregistered version of Fortris please send a disk!
Last but not least, S.C.S would be happy to share their game-writing abilities and other tricks and tips with other budding programmers out there; just write to them!
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