Massive May Releases!

Greetings gamers!

It looks like May is going to be a busy month for Psytronik as there's a selection of MASSIVE titles lined up for release!! Here's some previews of the new game artwork to whet your appetites.

First up is Creatures 2 from Apex Computer Productions! One of the slickest (or should that be 'sickest!' hehe) C64 releases of all-time. Due to the nightmare tape multiload this release will be DISK ONLY and will be available in deluxe and budget disk flavours. The excellent artwork was produced by Trev 'Smila' Storey (which I reckon is even better than the original game artwork - ooo! controversial!)


I'm also very pleased to announce that Psytronik Software will soon be releasing a special C64 disk version of the legendary C64 shoot 'em up - ARMALYTE! Side 1 of the disk will contain the COMPETITION EDITION of Armalyte which was produced by Cyberdyne Systems. This special version of the game allows you to start on any level, alter the enemy bullet speed and you can even sit back and admire the scenery in a special DEMO mode. Side 2 of the disk will contain the loading picture, two Walker's Warbles music demos, some rare Armalyte game previews and an early demo of the unreleased Armalyte 2. The superb artwork was once again crafted by Smila (based on the original game artwork).


The long-awaited disk release of Joe Gunn will also be available very soon. This will be a joint Psytronik & Protovision release of the Gold Edition of the game. The disk will contain both the English and German versions of the game along with a new demo of the stunning forthcoming Psytronik release Knight 'n' Grail (which I will be talking about in more detail in a blog entry soon). The splendid box cover art was produced by ... you guessed it! Smila!


Another release that has been taking up a lot of my spare time recently is The Last Amazon Trilogy. I've been busy working on the bitmap loading screens for all The Last Amazon games and the good news is the loading screens for the Last Amazon Intro + Last Amazon 1 & 2 are now complete. All I need to do is produce a loading screen for The Last Amazon Special Edition and then my work for that release is done. The games themselves are all very nearly complete apart from Last Amazon 2 which is still being worked on at the moment. Here's a sneaky pic at the disk box which features superb cover artwork by Alf Yngve:


And that's not all! As well as the fine releases mentioned above there's a couple of exciting new releases in the works - including a special version of a brand-new C64 title and the first ever Psytronik Software PC release! But I can't tell you any more about those just yet ... Keep an eye on this blog for a special feature on the forthcoming C64 epic Knight 'n' Grail (along with a mouthwatering selection of new screenshots) + all the very latest Psytronik Software nooz.

Thanks for reading!

Kenz / www.psytronik.com

The mind bloggles!

Hiya gang,

Work on the re-release of Creatures continues apace - in fact, both the tape and disk versions are very nearly complete! The tape version features three files on side 1 - the main game remastered with a new loader, the intro sequence from the disk version complete with the Uncle Clyde pic as the loading screen and the Creatures 2 preview I mentioned in the previous entry. Side 2 of the tape contains the game data.

The disk version contains the complete 2-sided disk version of Creatures along with the Creatures 2 preview and a demo of Mayhem in Monsterland. I'm also very pleased to announce the deluxe disk version will be packaged with a free bonus music CD that contains the soundtracks from both Creatures 1 & 2 - digitally recorded from a real Commodore 64! Here's a picture of all the completed Creatures bits & bobs:-


The game will be added to the BZ Retrostore shortly after the 2009 Retrovision event (as soon as Apex have approved it all of course). :)

Moving away from Creatures (and the C64 in fact!) I received an email from Clive Brooker this week. He was responsible for the classic Mastertronic title One Man & His Droid amongst others. Clive has given me the go-ahead to re-release his Speccy titles which is exciting news for me as at last I'll be able to release a title for the ZX Spectrum on the Psytronik label. The first Psytronik Spectrum release will be a twin-pack that contains the games 'One Man & His Droid 1 & 2'. OMAHD 2 was never commercially released on the Spectrum so it's a nice little exclusive for Psytronik. Those games will be added to the Psytronik range in the next few months.


One last bit of nooz - I was very pleased to see the 15th anniversary edition of Mayhem in Monsterland has been given a glowing review in the latest issue of Retro Gamer (issue 60). The game has been awarded a whopping 94% in total which makes it the highest-rated Psytronik release yet! Nice one!!

Anyhoo, must dash now, I'll see you once I've recovered from Retrovision with a report on the event + lots of piccies!

Kenz / www.psytronik.com

Ghosts 'n' Bloglins

Now that work on the Psytronik release of Joe Gunn has been completed I can concentrate all my efforts on the next release - Creatures!! The disk mastering was my first task of the day and this turned out to be pretty easy as the Psytronik disk version will be almost identical to the original 1990 release (hey, if it ain't broke ... etc.) As an extra bonus I decided to add a Creatures 2 demo to the disk as there was a bit of room left on Side 1. The demo is the nifty one that was given away with Commodore Format (featuring the CF office in the snowy backdrop).


Once I'd sorted out the disk contents and tidied up the disk directories a bit I then set about producing a new instruction sheet for the disk version. This actually turned out really nicely as I designed it to suit an A4 sheet that is folded into quarters. When it's folded you get a nice cover pic (featuring Smila's excellent artwork) and all the Creatures instruction text fitted on the page perfectly. Job done! As I was in "instruction manual mode" I also finished off the tape inlay - making sure all the correct bits of text were in bold and that there we no spillong mistooks anywhere.

My final bit of Creatures work today was the floppy disk sleeve. I love having custom-designed glossy disk sleeves on the Psytronik games and the Creatures one turned out really nicely - once again Smila's excellent artwork makes an appearance and the predominantly white design works really well. Yet another job done. All that's left to do is the disk label now so you can expect to see a pic of the complete Creatures packaging in the next blog entry :)

Another interesting Psytronik development is a game preview that appeared on the Lemon 64 forum. The game is called Knight'n'Grail and it's a visually superb arcade adventure that is kind of like Ghosts 'n' Goblins with the graphical style of Draconus (one of my fave budget games). As soon as I saw the preview I contacted the author to see if he would be interested in releasing the game on the Psytronik label and he agreed! It looks like it will a disk-only release and Smila is already on-board to do the artwork so that's another cool C64 release to look forward to. The game is still being worked on at the mo so keep an eye on this blog for update reports. In the meantime, here's some screenshots from the game for you to drool over:


See you next time!

Kenz / www.psytronik.com

The Mighty Blogg

Greetings Programs!

Lots of cool stuff happening with Psytronik this week. Firstly, the cover artwork for the deluxe disk version of Creatures has now been completed. The final box art has been approved by Apex who said looks (to quote John Rownlands) "f***ing awesome"! John is actually off to Cyprus to visit Steve (Rowlands) this week so I quickly posted him a mockup of the Creatures box - here's a photo of it that I took before I posted it to John - at the moment this is the only one of these in the whole world, ever!


I received the tape mastering software for Joe Gunn this week from Richard Bayliss which works a treat. Trev 'Smila' Storey also sent me the last bit of artwork I needed for the tape inlay so I got that finished off and the game has now been added to the BZ store (click HERE for the product info). I'm very pleased with this release as it's a great little game (well, I say little - it spans seventy screens!) and the artwork all came together nicely with a nice 'Indiana Jones in Egypt' type theme - here's what the finished tape looks like:-


So that's the first Psytronik release for 2009 sorted out! It looks like Creatures will be the big release for February and I'll also be focusing on The Last Amazon 1 & 2 twin pack as I'm busting to get that one released. Keep your peepers peeled for more info on those!

And finally, guess who I received an email from this week? Graham 'The Mighty Bogg' Marsh, that's who! It's always cool to hear from SID musicians (being the massive SID music fan that I am) so a few jolly emails flitted back and forth and a copy of his CD was duly posted for him to check out. After reading the interview with him that appeared on c64.com I realized I actually had a copy of his 'lost' Christmas demo that he mentioned in his interview and managed to reunite him with the demo which he hadn't seen for 25 years! Neat eh?

Anyway, enough of this crazy jibba-jabba (the hutt)

See you next time!

Kenz / www.psytronik.com

One Man & His Blog

Hiya folx,

Here I am with my second ever blog entry - typed in dynamic Kenz-o-Vision (or something). Anyway, the last week or so has seen me doing battle with the Christmas order backlog - and I managed to blimmin' clear it too! So all the recent Binary Zone & Psytronik orders have now been sorted and the goodies are winging their way to lots of happy retro gamers around the world. Yay!

With the order backlog defeated I can now turn my attention to the new Psytronik releases for this year. I'm very pleased to announce that one of the first Psytronik C64 releases of 2009 will be 'Creatures' by Apex Computer Productions. This was originally published by Thalamus back in 1990 to mucho critical acclaim and earned itself a lovely shiny Zzap! gold medal. The 2009 re-release will feature brand new artwork by Trevor 'Smila' Storey - and you can see a preview of the stunning new design from Smila below. Neat eh?


And some more good news for C64 fans - a special collectors edition of the excellent 2007 game 'Joe Gunn' will soon be available! For this release Psytronik will be teaming up with fellow retro software publisher Cronosoft and we will be both be releasing the game on tape. I don't have set release dates for either Creatures or Joe Gunn as yet but I will post updates on the progress of the games in this here blog.

I've also started work planning a new website for Psytronik Software. As the 2008 releases were really well received and received some really great press I've decided Psytronik deserves its very own website rather than just a sun-section on the Binary Zone site. This will give me more room to include various sections in the website including the latest news, details of new releases, upcoming releases, press, history, this here blog, downloads, info on how to submit a game for release and so on. The new site is still being designed (mostly in my head) at the moment but I'll keep ya posted on the progress of the site in this blog.

That's yer lot for now. See ya next time!

Kenz / www.psytronik.com