News - news from: Alco / Anarchia, Studio Stall, Hooy-Program, Tbk +4 d, C-jeff, Colour of Magi, Skrju, Triumph, n-Dicovery, Perspective Group, Cronosoft , Stefano.

News
elph / CPU

Not much for this time ... Send the
summary of your activities to elphecy@mail.ru, and you'll find
this section more informative next
time. Thanks to Yerz / H-Prg for
help with info collecting.


Alco / Anarchia


Being one of 'the compo' organizers Alco is very sad about low
voting activity. Seems like ay / ym
admirers just can't get closer to
understanding of the process' pleasure. Anyway, the results of 
the first part are compiled and will

be released with 'Inferno # 4'. If
you can't wait the official release date, just write to the 
organizers, and 'thecompo.trd' will appear in your postbox. 
Also you can find a plenty variety of works for

the second part of the competition, but beware, those entries
are only for die-hard ay-freaks,
remind the rules and you'll understand what I mean. And what
about other Alco's projects?
You'll know everything in forthcoming Russian-language zine
'Inferno # 4', published by the remnants of 'Stars of Keladan' 
and Anarchia.



Studio Stall


After the prominent release of
'Antique Toy' warez pack there
were no news from this former very
active group. The reason is far
too common for the most of such a
silent inactivity-majority of the
team have lost their interest to
the scene. Those who are still there are the founders - Stanly 
and Capry. Usually they don't like to

spread info about developed projects, but rumors about the new
version of one of the best assemblers out there - Alasm became
too urgent. Yes, it's in work,
still no release date, but we may
hope to see it this year. 'Milk
And Nuts' - their cooperative game
with Nik-O and Cannibal of
'Techno Lab' is covered with the
dense fog, as noone knows its
fate. The one thing that could be
known for sure Stanly will take
part in CAFe'03 graphics compo, as
his work is almost done.


Hooy-Program
<hprg@poczta.onet.pl>

A never-ending fun continues. As
Yerzmyey stated, H-Prg are making
a demo with optional general sound
support. For now I remember only
Real Masters did that before. There is no info when and where it
will be released, but recalling
the 'Loosing Victoria' I think of
this year's Assembly ... The well
known ay related projects, managed
by Yerz are frozen, because of his
realmusic activities. But still,
you can download some hardcore mixes from mp3.com, as a part of
hardcore-techno project ('Defloration of Ears' done with
Moran / CPU I was very admired of).
And the Spectrum release of Ay
Riders album (besides of mp3 versions, available at

http://mp3.com/spectrum_of_terror

is scheduled to be released soon.
Btw, the next International Vodka
Party will be held somewhere this
year, and Yerz is waiting for Russian hard drinkers there!


Tbk +4 d


After success of 'Detroyt', released at ASCII'03 TBK are 
planning to force their demo scene activities. Considering the 
returning of Key-Jee from Russian army it sounds true. The long 
awaited CAFe'02 demo is supposed to be released this year, not 
becoming a part of an any party's warezpack.

Cyberjack also revealed the history of an oldschool bonus "get 
up", that could be seen as an addendum

to their ASCII entry: it was an
intro to the far gone phat0 demo,
that will never be released, due
to the changed direction in the
group's creative works. Also they
are planning an entry to 'Your
Game'03 'competition, organized
by Perspective Group, but it wouldn't be mentioned long ago 
'Bomberman'. 


c-jeff/green bit group


His tunes are everywhere, seems like c-jeff is one of those 
natural born protracker maniacs. While Archon, the coder of 
their group is too slow in producing their game,

c-jeff runs a plenty of projects
including an album 'Still Flying'
that should be released in this
issue, another album 'absolute_ambient', ASCII pack
'Bit_world' and a text adventure
game "white road" for the
'Your Game 2003' compo. There is
also a mysterious project, that
was mentioned above by Stefano.
We'll track this next time.


Colour of Magic


The authors of not so long ago released Russian e-zine - Gothiq 
Issue One announced that the second number of their creation is 
never gonna be released because there is no coder capable to 
support this project. But the whole direction of group formally 
known by unfinished game projects is

clear - development of speccy ASCII scene. First step is already
done - 'coma' proved, that not only skrju can do a high quality 
ASCII packs, exploring various aspects of this minimal art. Who 
we'll be the next? One of the oldest speccy ASCII artists 
D-Man/PCB is on his way, alongside with ubiquitous c-jeff/gbg.



skrju


The disappointing rumors about
kruk # 4 destiny made me get the information from the fist 
hands. kq confessed - while doing a kriik # 3

he lost interest to the scene journalism ... But within the 
timeflow zine came to their mind again. So

wait the kriik4 votesheets in your
postbox. Also the cooperation with
nq will continue in future skrju
demo projects. The last 'why?'
thing have shown the good mutual
understanding between authors, revealing the so familiar state 
of creative one-night schizophrenia.



Triumph
<triumph_hq@mail.ru>

Psychoz is coming. This Russian
e-zine has experienced a few life
and death cycles, reborning in a
new form. What will it be this
time? I don't know, but it's worth
waiting, as usual. The delay could
be explained an Ice'di's amiga1200
buying and real life activities.
The new version of Spectrum
Newspapers Guide is coming
soon, and Ice'n'Plaid will make a
demo at last, even if their main
coder Pastor will not support them
in CAFe'03 challenge.


N-Discovery
<newart@hotbox.ru>

Since Mayhem are too slow incarnating the speccy scene ay-music
resource, Newart appeared with
similar idea. Reminding his activities in last year scene life 
we may suppose, this project will not

sink into oblivion. According to
his words there are more than 9500
tunes presented by 450 composers
with some info about each person.
The only problem is in finding the
right man to design and maintain
the upcoming www resource.


Perspective Group


Perspective group continues their
game publishing, But at a completely new level. Remember the 
good old days, when software houses could release a game, such 
as 'Starglider' or 'Elite' with the

add info, including game based novel book, real music, inspired 
by the game and a special package?

No? Me too ... There were no such
software houses in Russia, when we
all were young ... 'Imperia 2' by
action has it all. The game itself
is a real-time strategy, working
only at spectrum compatible machines with at least 256 KB of 
ram. The whole package (Tr-Dos version

only) costs about 7 euro. Other
good news are that 'Etudes' an asm
programming oriented brochure is
planned to be published in spring,
including the diskette with procedures itself. The famous' Your
Game 'contest is scheduled to November 2003. seems that 
'Perspective' are very serious in developing speccy game 
industry. Also the next issue of their Russian-language paper 
zine 'Abzatz' is in work for now.



Cronosoft
<www.cronosoft.co.uk>

Dreamsellers. Cronosoft are selling dream of neverending past. 
It costs only 3.50f. Not much for the

fresh game title our days. 5 pieces already released: 
'Flashbeer', 'Egghead 3', 'Hop'n'Chop', 'Gloop'

and 'Wanted Dead Or Alive'. Just
mention, it works on standard 48k.
you can find the well packed tape
at e-bay or other Internet auctions, the amount of produced 
copies is about 50-100 per title, and it could be varied 
according to the popularity changes. It's also a great chance 
for us - weird spectrum freaks to become a part

of real game industry - write a game and be sure it would be 
published. The profit for developers is about 25% of cost.



Weird Science Software
<www.c-system.hu/edy/wss>

Here is one of those, who have already released something at 
Cronosoft. Seems like this experience was successful, because 
the authors of 'Flashbeer' are working

on another game. As Edy 'Pgyuri
of WSS stated their next game would be much more enjoyable than
the previous one and they are looking for contacts, So don't 
hesitate - write to Pgyuri . Btw,

first part of 'Flashbeer trilogy'
could be freely downloaded from
the WSS page.


Stefano
<flydream@jumpy.it>

Not so good news from Italy. A few
months ago some info about RS232
Speccy Internet connection appeared on various news boards. 
Stefano was looking for a skillful coder to finish the project. 
The problem was not solved and work is

freezed. Recalling the Hyperlink
and Contiki on c64 this became
very pitiful. But as we may see,
Stefano's scene activities are not
stopped: opinion polls spreading
and cooperating with c-jeff will
show its results, I hope ... Also
he reports of forthcoming Real-X
a new version of real spectrum
emulator with a lot of new features and windows friendly 
structure. 


Oh, I've almost forgot. Don't you
know about Original Computer Association's action - 'Respect'?
There is text a file in the attachment - spend a few minutes to
fill in the form, don't let it be
forgotten.