SOULLESS - Unleash the beast from your C64!

Greetings Retro Chums!

With the release of the amazing new Commodore 64 title SOULLESS now imminent I thought I would treat you guys & gals to some more details about the game, previously unreleased screenshots and some sneaky peeks at the lush new packaging that we are working on.


Firstly, a bit about the game itself. SOULLESS tells the story of Rizek, the ruler of a war-torn land who grew weary of battle. He declared a time of peace but was betrayed by his bloodthirsty Generals who wanted the wars to continue. The Generals plotted against Rizek and enlisted the help of Kalen, an evil Wizard who cast a spell on Rizek, transforming him into a grotesque beast, robbing him of his soul and casting him into a dungeon for all time. Rizek was locked away and forgotten for a thousand years - until a great quake shattered the walls of his cell. Rizek was at last FREE and began his quest to reclaim both his soul and his kingdom. And that is where the game begins.

A still from the superb animated intro!

You start off in the dungeons and must find your way from the deep dungeon into the nearby temple. The dungeon area is inhabited with a few guards and there are no objects to search - so this is a good way to familiarize yourself with the controls and to learn how to avoid the guards and other monsters that inhabit the game.

Rizek begins his quest deep in the dungeons

As you enter the main temple you will encounter searchable objects. Hidden away throughout the game are twelve randomly placed SPIRIT STONES - you will need to find all 12 of these and then take them to the Soul Chamber and place them in the correct order in order to reclaim your imprisoned soul. This gameplay dynamic is similar to Impossible Mission - but, thankfully, is much simpler. The correct order in which you have to place the Spirit Stones is shown in the form of clues that are displayed on the walls of 12 rooms in the game. Each time you encounter one of these clues all you have to do is make of note of the Spirit Stone and which slot you must place it in the Soul Chamber. One of the clues is shown in the screenshot below.

The red clue on the wall shows where to place one of the Spirit Stones
It will help if you keep a note of these as you play the game

The game will even include a printable Spirit Stone sheet in which you can record the position of the Spirit Stones each time you play it. So don't worry if you are are put off by the puzzle aspect of the game, it's very easy to pick up and makes for a very enjoyable part of the game. The searchable objects in the game also contain other things as well as the vital Spirit Stones. Some contain different magic spells that will either slow down, freeze or destroy all the enemies on the screen. You will also find gold & rubies that will increase your score along with potions that will restore your life energy or give you extra lives.

Boom! Rizek has just destroyed all the enemies on
screen by finding Red Magic hidden in an object!

You will also encounter spawn points scattered throughout the map. Once you have activated a spawn point you will return to that point if you lose a life. You can also replenish your life energy from a spawn point as well. You will find that some areas of the map are blocked by locked doors. You will need to find keys to open these doors in order to access more parts of the map. Once you have correctly placed all 12 Spirit Stones in the Soul Chamber Rizek will reclaim his soul and your quest will be complete!

Rizek poses for a photo near to a spawn point

SOULLESS was designed by Trevor 'Smila' Story who also produced the amazingly detailed graphics for the game. The game was programmed by Georg 'Endurion' Rottensteiner (author of the hugely popular C64 game Joe Gunn) and should prove popular with Joe Gunn fans as it does share a few similarities (I.E. It's a huge flick-screen adventure!) - although the main character sprite in SOULLESS is much bigger (think Draconus, crossed with Impossible Mission with a hint of Shadow of the Beast!) Amazingly, the main game and its lavishly detailed 70+ screen map has been crammed into a single load - with the animated intro and end sequence included as separate files (the end sequence can only be accessed once you have completed the game of course). The atmospheric soundtracks for the game were composed by Mikkel 'Encore' Hastrup.

The awesome Premium Disk cover artwork by Smila

To make SOULLESS an extra special release for C64 fans we have really gone to town with the packaging on this one. The game will include a stunning full colour A3 print that features a complete map of the game on one side and a poster of the game artwork on the other. The game will also include a superb 16 page comic booklet showing the game back-story along with a companion CD that features an emulator compatible version of the game, bonus 'making of' materials, a printable Spirit Stone sheet to help you with your quest, the game soundtracks digitally recorded from a real C64 and much more!

A sneaky peek at the Soulless goodies - including the A3 poster / map,
compantion CD, tape & disk versions of the game and the comic book!

SOULLESS will be released in May 2012 and you will be able to buy the game on C64 tape, 5.25" disk and as a digital download from www.psytronik.net and on C64 cartridge from www.rgcd.co.uk.

Thanks for reading!

Kenz / www.psytronik.net

Psytronik gets all puzzled!

Greetings Psytronikoids!

An interesting release has recently been added to the Psytronik Software C64 line-up which came to us literally as a bolt from the blue ... Well, kinda! The game is called Oracle III - The Final Chapter and was originally produced in 1995 by Art Project Studios. Unfortunately, the game was never commercially released on the C64 due to problems with the publisher at the time. Our chum Jazzcat suggested Psytronik as a possible publisher and after seeing the game in action I decided it would make a nice addition to the Psytronik range.

Psytronik has not actually released a puzzle game before and I was immediately impressed with the quality of the graphics and overall presentation of the game. I got in touch with the author in order to start the ball rolling on making this an official Psytronik release. The actual game itself was complete and the version I received to test already had been updated to include messages to say it was a Psytronik release so it was literally ready to be released straight away on the Psytronik label - but then things started to get even more interesting!

In of the message exchanges between myself and the game author Tufan 'SoNiC' Uysal, he sent along an example of one his SID tunes - a superb ambient track. He mentioned that back in 1996 he was thinking of changing the game music to his own compositions and would be interested in making new music for the game. I was so impressed with the music he sent me we decided to delay the Psytronik release of Oracle III slightly so that the game could include brand new soundtracks for the 2011 Psytronik release.

But then things got even better! Tufan had been sending me mp3 recordings of the soundtracks for the game recorded from his very own SID chip. This gave me the idea of bundling a free soundtrack CD in with the game that features all the music from the game. Tufan had also been thinking along the same lines and so we decided to run with that idea and include a CD with the Premium version of the game - that way people will hear the music with the filters as intended (the music was produced on the 8510 SID chip and so may sound different on the older 6581 chip).

Another problem that had to be solved was what to do for artwork for the game. Oracle III is a puzzle game that features blocks that are moved around the screen by your character that looks like a frog (or F.REE R.OAMING O.BJECT G.RAPPLER - as I decided to call it). The object of the game is to move two or more matching blocks next to each other in order to remove them. Once all the matching blocks are cleared you move onto the next screen. Anyway, for the artwork I called on the assistance of my chum Mat 'CGI' Recardo (he of www.preferredimage.co.uk fame) and sent him details about the game. Mat designed an excellent cover picture featuring a cool robotic-frog moving blocks around on a spacey backdrop. Perfect! I dropped in elements from the game as a border around the artwork to complete the cover design - you can see the completed artwork below.

Oracle III - The Final Chapter will be available for the C64 as a Premium & Budget disk release and as a digital download in October 2011. You will be able to pick up your copy exclusively from the Binary Zone Interactive Retro Store.

Thanks for reading!

Kenz / www.psytronik.net.

SEUDS STRIKES BACK!

Greetings Psytronikeers!

For a while now I've had the idea of doing another SEUDS (Shoot 'Em Up Destruction Set) compilation for Psytronik and now at long last SEUDS 2 is fast becoming a reality! This is thanks to the ever productive Alf Yngve who not only still has some great unreleased SEUCK games tucked away but is also still churning them out to this day, ably assisted by Richard 'TND' Bayliss, who is doing sterling work adding new front-end presentation to each game along with power-ups, extra graphical effects and fantastic music etc. Lets take a closer look at the four games I have chosen for SEUDS 2.

Super Tau Zeta

"By Your Command!"

This is a recent Alf Yngve production that was originally produced for the Sideways SEUCK competition organised by Richard Bayliss. In this game you control a mini-fleet of ships doing battle in space and on alien planets. Alf has incorporated some very clever effects into this game including a cool space-warp effect, a black hole encounter, asteroid field, parallax scrolling when you are on the alien planets and much more!

Flying over a lovely alien vista in Super Tau-Zeta

Super Tau Zeta has been specially enhanced and now features a snazzy new front-end, superb soundtracks (the in-game tune is a real belter!) and weapon power-ups that have been added by Richard Bayliss and a stunning bitmap loading screen has been produced for the game by Steve 'STE'86' Day (inspired by a certain popular 80s sci-fi show).

Bloodwheels

How much action can I cram into one loading screen? Answer: All of it!

This game was part of the original 1994 Psytronik release line-up but is now being dusted off after 17 years for release as part of the SEUDS 2 compilation. The game is an exciting driving-shooter where you (and an optional player 2) battle your way through various locations in an army vehicle blasting enemy tanks, planes, helicopters and soldiers etc. The game features some very nicely detailed tiny sprites (the enemy soldiers are particularly ee-wee!) destructible background objects (you can level houses!) and there's blasting action aplenty to be had.


Once again Richard Bayliss has coded an eye-catching front-end the game and has added new effects to the game itself including multi-sprite explosions for when you blast those pesky bosses and animated water effects. Richard has also delivered some suitably thumping tunes for you to blast along to (the in-game tune has a nice Matt Gray flavour to it). For the loading screen I decided to transfer the original artwork for this game (drawn by Alf) onto the C64 and have drawn the screen in a similar style to the one I did for the SEUDS 1 game Silverfish (I.E. Lots of explodey action!)

2,000 Kung Fu Maniacs:
The Way Of The Exploding Fish

The other 1,995 Kung-Fu Maniacs are right behind you!

The sequel to 1,000 Kung-Fu Maniacs continues after your epic battle in Blapsville in the first game and once again features the ongoing adventures of the Master of Awesome! This time our hero is tasked with a dangerous quest to find the sacred scrolls that have been stolen by some nefarious Ninjas - and, also, to buy some pickled herring (as you do).


In the game you must battle assorted adversaries in various unusual locations - like on-stage at the "Lord of the Bland" concert (featuring a familiar-looking river-dancing baddie!), at the International Arms Fair, a corrupt art gallery and even at the "Happy Moose Megamart!" Various weapon power-ups can be collected during the game including shuriken, nunchucks, a deadly knife, a garden gnome (?!) and, best of all, the way of the exploding fish!

Once again Richard Bayliss has added extra enhancements to this game including a new front-end, funky Oriental soundtracks, the weapon power-ups I mentioned above and he has even coded a special end-sequence for the game! For the loading screen I decided to make up for the fact that I didn't have the time to contribute any pixels to the first game - so for the sequel I pixelled an eye-catching loader pic featuring Ninjas - cos Ninjas are COOL!

Trojahn

The fourth game in the SEUDS 2 pack is another Alf Yngve classic that has been stomping around for approximately the last 5,000 years (well, since the early 1990s!) The game features the titular Trojahn hero on a mission to rescue his beloved Elena who has been kidnapped by an evil Minotaur. The game uses an interesting arcade style vertical screen with all the action being viewed on the left half of the screen. The right half of the screen is used for occasional interlude screens showing the plight of Elena and her cries for help in comic-book style.


Ste'86 has provided the stunning loading screen for the game, Richard Bayliss will be producing the music and coding the front-end - which will feature additional graphics by little old me!

The Shoot 'Em Up Destruction Set 2 will be released for the C64 on tape, disk and as a digital download by Psytronik Software later this year (exact release date to be confirmed). For more details head on over to www.psytronik.net ...

Thanks for reading!

Kenz / www.psytronik.net (29/07/11)

Sheepoid - The making of the artwork

I've been following the progress of the latest Richard Bayliss C64 production Sheepoid since it began and as the project took shape my Psytronik senses started tingling. The game is an homage to the classic Jeff Minter game Laser Zone which was released on the VIC-20 and C64 in 1983 and later on the C16 and Plus/4 in 1986.

Laser Zone on the Commodore Plus/4

For Sheepoid, Richard has taken the basic concept of Laser Zone (control a horizontal and vertical gun turret, blast weirdy meanies, avoid blasting goodies) and has improved the graphics, presentation and music for his C64 remake / tribute "Sheepoid".

Sheepoid on the C64

As Richard was planning on releasing Sheepoid at the 2011 Retrovision event I asked him if he would be interested in doing a Psytronik release so we could present the game at the event as a fully packaged Psytronik release. Richard gave this idea the thumbs-up so my next thoughts turned to the game artwork. Seeing as the game featured a level called The Mutant Camels Are Back this suddenly reminded me of a picture that Alf Yngve drew many years ago for a Jeff Minter issue of my Commodore Zone mag that never materialised:-

Llamas Attack! Previously unseen artwork for an
issue of Commodore Zone that was never made.

I always liked this image of Llamas attacking from space and thought this would make a cool cover for Sheepoid. I sent Alfs pic to my chum Mat 'Preferred Image' Recardo to see if a 3D rendered version was possible - and as luck would have it, Mat had a Llama object that he could use! So some swift rendering work later and Mat sent over the splendid design you see below:-

Llamas attack - in 3D rendered-o-vision!

The next thing needed was a logo for the game. I initially dabbled with a B-Movie style logo (similar to the "LLamas Attack!") logo in the Alf pic but in the end decided to use the Sheepoid logo from the front-end of the actual game - which I recreated in hi-res, tilted at a jaunty angle and then coloured in retro-arcade logo stylee.

The nice colours in the logo made me decide to go one step further and give the artwork more Yak-appeal by continuing the colours around the edges. After the the addition of game screenshots and extra text blurb the official Sheepoid Retrovision poster was born!

The yaktastic Sheepoid promo poster!

Now that all the artwork elements had been produced the next step was to the adapt the design for the Psytronik packaging. Using the premium disk edition artwork template I tweaked the artwork to fit on the packaging and you can see the end result below:-

Ta-daaa! The finished Sheepoid disk packaging.

And there you have it! That's how you go about creating the box artwork for a Psytronik release (for techno-buffs who are listening). The game was officially released at Retrovision in May 2011 and is now available on tape and disk for the Commodore 64 exclusively from the Binary Zone Interactive Retro Store.

Thanks for reading!

Kenz / www.psytronik.net

Does whatever a Spider can ... !

Greetings fellow blogonauts!

Back in 2009 Psytronik Software published a very jolly platform romp for the VIC-20 called Carling the Spider ... The idea of the game was to manoeuvre weeny little Carling the Spider around several screens collecting glittering diamonds - just like real spiders, er, don't. Out to thwart Carlings jewel grabbing expoits are the diabolical BALLS OF STEEL who like nothing better than squishing little spiders.

The game was produced by Joe Dixon who managed to cram the whole kaboodle into an unexpanded 4K VIC-20. The game proved to be popular with VIC fans as it featured excellent Chuckie Egg style gameplay, responsive controls and was nicely presented to boot.


So why am I enthusing about this 2009 release? Because the game can now be downloaded for FREE! Simply head on over to the Psytronik website and grab yourself a copy of this nifty little platformer (click here to visit the download page). The free package includes both the PAL and NTSC versions of the game in .D64 format along with a text file that contains the game instructions along with info about how to run it in an emulator.

Carling the Spider 2!

And more good news for Carling fans - Carling WILL be returning for another adventure at some point - but this time on the VIC's bigger brother, the C64. We can't give away too much info about Carling 2 yet as the game is still being developed - but the work-in-progress screenshot below shows it's definitely something to look forward to! Keep an eye on www.psytronik.net for more info about the game.


Thanks for reading!

Kenz / www.psytronik.net

It's time for a Plus/4 adventure!

Greetings fellow carbon units,

In the last blog entry I was talking about how exciting it was to add a new game to the Psytronik range - especially if it's for a system that I haven't supported before ... Well, it has happened again! Literally the same day that I had finished shipping all the Armalyte PC pre-orders an email pinged into my in-box with details about a new release for the Commodore Plus/4 called Adventures in Time. I duly fired up the Vice Plus4 emulator to give the game a whirl ... I was not prepared for what happened next ... !

If you go down to the woods today ...

The first thing that appeared was a neat comic-style intro with slick graphics and a seriously jolly tune - an intro sequence? On a Plus/4 game? NICE! The intro set the scene for the game nicely and told the story of our hero - a cute little yellow blob - who got lost in the woods while taking a stroll one day. He discovered some ruins that held something unexpected - a TIME SCRAMBLING MACHINE! Our hero pressed a red button on the machine that activated it and that is where his adventure begins. The game credits are then displayed before the music tails off with an almost Follin-esque flourish. All I could utter at this point was a rather Neo style "woah" ...

The title screen - complete with roaming Robin Hood & fireblobs!(tm)

The colourful game title screen then appeared and an appropriately jolly title tune began playing. The game beckoned me to hit SPACE to start playing and so I did just that. I was immediately impressed by the colourful bitmap graphics. But there was something else ... the music ... who had let Martin Galway into the room? The more I listened to it the more I fell in love with the music in this game - A ticking clock at the start, Galway style wibbles and nifty "tschak" type drums along with a darned catchy lead - is this REALLY coming from a Commodore Plus/4? You betcha!

Our hero leaps into the air - watch out for that goo!

The idea of the game is to safely guide your little yellow blobby chum through the screens while avoiding the assorted nicely animated baddies that inhabit them. The nasties include blinking eye-monsters, flamey fire-imps, ghoulish ghosties and, er, Robin Hood! The controls are nice and precise and the character-based movement helps you to land on tricky ledges. You can also move your character in mid-air when he jumps which allows you to steer around the roaming nasties in the game.

There's creepy caverns to explore - complete with eyeballs!

The game also features some neat animated touches. If you don't move your character for a while he goes to sleep (cute!) and if you get hit by a nasty our yellow chum keels over dizzily. He also sinks to his doom if you drop him into any of the pools of goo that can be found on some screens.

The title page again - but wait a sec, that logo looks familiar!

As you can probably tell I was rather impressed by this little platform romp and immediately responded to the email sent from the game authors about doing a Psytronik release. Work on the Psytronik release has already started and a version of the game has already been produced that features the Psytronik logo in the intro and on the title screen. Trevor 'Smila' Storey has also produced some excellent artwork for the Psytronik release of the game that captures the cartoony style of the game perfectly.

A sneaky peek at the cool Smila artwork!

Adventures in Time will be released as a special collectors edition on disk (and hopefully tape) by Psytronik Software for the Commodore Plus/4 (and expanded C16) in June 2010. If you would like to try the game you can download a free version from HERE. You can also see the game in action in the YouTube video below.




Thanks for reading, see you ... IN THE FUTURE! (Hey, that's kind of appropriate for this blog entry!)

Kenz / www.psytronik.com

Retrovision 2010

Greetings Programs!

Firstly, an apology for the lack of blog updates recently. This has been due to various factors - some personal, some mundane (including repainting the Psytronik office which took a MONTH due to all the retro stuff that had to be moved around!) All this resulted in the Psytronik releases being put on hold for a while and, unfortunately, this meant the games I was hoping to release just before Christmas (Armalyte PC & Star Sabre 128) were not completed in time. But don't worry folks, work has now resumed on these releases and both games will soon be available.

So what has been happening with Psytronik Software recently I hear you cry. Well, I've just got back to the Psytronik HQ after attending the awesome Retrovision 2010 event and I thought I'd better type up a report of the event while it's all still fresh in my mind! So are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin ...

My epic voyage to RV2010 began on Friday February 5th 2010 with me pointing the Kenzmobile(tm) in the direction of Milton Keynes. I was being accompanied to the event by my good buddy DJ Skitz (of SlayRadio fame) and in order shorten the journey a tad I crashed at the SkitzHQ after some tasty pizza scoffage (a Dominos "big smoky" - for techno buffs who are listening).

Me & Skitz zzoomed off to Oxford on Saturday morning and arrived at the event venue (The Folly Bridge Inn) just before noon. We would have arrived a bit earlier had it not been for a slight navigational error. I noticed I already had "RV guesthouse" programmed into my TomTom but what I didn't realise was it was actually a different place we stayed at a couple of years ago - so I was expecting it to navigate me to the White House View Hotel opposite the Folly and we ended up somewhere else completely! Nyeeeeeuurrrrrr!

Dunnu-dunnu-dunnu-dunnu-BEERMAN!

Anyhoo, once at the Folly a quick recce revealed the main room to be pretty much set up and operational (and stuffed with an amazing amount of retro-tech, the most I'd ever seen at an RV event in fact!) Me & Skitz unloaded the car and got the Binary Zone / Psytronik stand set up and running. This was the first time I had taken three separate systems to an event so I had a bit more setting up to do than normal.

The Binary Zone table crammed with Psytronik goodies!
(Photo by VinnyM)

My table featured a Spectrum 128 +2 complete with audio CD loading system and supa-clear SCART TV lead, the Specadore 64 (I couldn't NOT bring that along as it always proves to be popular at these events!) along with my new addition to the Specadore family, the 1541 MK II Microdrive (okay, it's a 1541 drive sprayed black complete with Speccy stripes to match the Specadore!) I also took my PC with me in order to demonstrate the full PC version of Armalyte for the first time - and this proved to be VERY popular.

Armalyte on the PC complete with a packaging mockup next to the screen!
(Photo by VinnyM)

This was the first time the FULL version of Armalyte had been on show and it gave people the chance to play the later levels of the game - which caused some "ooo-ing" and "aah-ing" as the beautiful graphics by Smila went scrolling past. I also demonstrated some of the bonus goodies that will be featured with the game including the mix-e-load music demo, the artwork "making of" demo and the jukebox (although anything music-related was pretty much drowned out by all the other retro noises in the room!) The PC conversion of the game is now pretty much 100% complete, I just need to finish off some of the bonus items that will be featured on the CD-ROM. (The game will be officially released and shipped in April 2010 - in case you were wondering!)

Frank "Games That Weren't" Gasking blowing up stuff on Armalyte!

One of the great things about these retro events is that you meet various people from the retro scene and retro forums. It was great to see lots of familiar faces from the YakYak forum, some new faces from the Retro Gamer forum, people I've met at various events and people I've known for years thanks to my retro related shenanigans! The atmosphere at RV is always really friendly and there's always people you can chat too and play classic games with. The namebadges also help to put faces to forum ID's!

Alex Aris battles the H'siffian Empire

The rest of saturday was spent playing games (Trashman on the Speccy! Yayy!), drinking Guinness (double-yayy!), playing MORE games and drinking MORE Guinness! As well as being able to demonstrate the Psytronik releases on the screens I also took along some prototype artwork from forthcoming releases - some of which was exclusively unveiled at RV. The picture below shows the first ever Psytronik Compilation which was inspired by the famous They Sold A Million compilation released back in 1985. Despite not quite selling a million the Psytronik compilation features four cracking Psytronik games, will fill four disk-sides (or two tapes) and will be released in March 2010 - you heard it here folks!

The first Psytronik compilation COMING SOON!
(Photo by VinnyM)

A herd of us then ambled off for a curry at Chutneys (shouldn't that be "Chunteys", Speccy fans?) - who (after keeping us waiting for a yonk outside) managed to accomodate over 30 retro fiends and I was soon replete with a surprisingly hot madras curry which made me hiccup somewhat.

More Armalyte blastage - this time with Piku at the helm

The evening was rounded off back at the Folly with a bit more retro gaming before the racket from Rockband was starting to damage my brain (it was very hard trying to play Bugaboo the Flea with all that din!) so I ambled over the road to the hotel to entertain DJ Skitz with lots of curry induced windypops.

RV2010 - It was just a blur!
(Photo by VinnyM)

And then all of a sudden it was SUNDAY! The very nice people at the White House View Hotel (plug plug) laid on a scrummy cooked brekkie which energized me & Skitz for another day of gaming FUN! I always like Sundays at RV as it's a great chill-out type day. I spent Sunday alternating chatting with RV peeps downstairs in the pub and gaming upstairs. A deelish Sunday roast was then consumed before me & Skitz began dismantling the Zone for the long journey home.

The brill Armalyte artwork demo runs in the background while
the main game runs happily in Windows 7 on the laptop.

And so that was Retrovision 2010 - an excellent weekend! Before I go, I'd just like to do a few shout-outs to various peeps at the event. Due to brain addledness I can't remember everyone I chatted with but special menchies go to:- My most excellent travelling companion DJ "Zer0page" Skitz, Vinny "C64 Endings" Mainolfi (thanx for the photos!), Frank "Games that Weren't" Gasking (thanx for the VIC warez), StarshipUK, VintageMatt, PsychoRob (thanx for the great event!), Amy & Piku, Dungeon Dave & Dawn (I'll bump into you in Malvern ONE day!), the awesomely awesome Bog (good luck in the U.S of A, old friend), Markie (there was no way I was gonna let you miss an RV dude!), THE Jon (not just any Jon), Bane, Alex Aris, Beerman, Mayhem, Jools, MadHippo, Juice, Paul "RG" Drury, Rinoa, SirClive, Renegade Si, Dave Moore & the RS gang and the RCM posse (see you guys in May!) ... Special thanks also for the staff at the Folly Bridge Inn for looking after us (or should I say "putting up with us") and for filling us with copious amounts of lovely food and drink. Sorry to everyone I forgot to mention here - blame the guinness!

If you would like to see the complete set of photos that I took at RV2010 CLICK HERE!

And that's yer lot for now. In the next blog entry I'll be detailing the making of one of the extras that will be featured on the Armalyte CD-ROM. And just to whet your appetite I can tell you that a certain One Man will be setting up his NEW Mic in order to record something very special for the Armalyte CD!

See you ... IN THE FUTURE!

Kenz / www.psytronik.com

More Psytronik goodies on the way!

Hiya gang!

Things have been busier than the Mayor of Busyville on a busy day at the Psytronik HQ recently. I've actually been working on FOUR Psytronik releases simultaneously (eep!) which I'm trying to have finished and released by the end of 2009. The good news is two of the releases are now ready and are now available in the BZ retro store. They are The Wild Bunch (which I talked about in the last blog entry) and the superb VIC-20 RPG package Realms of Quest.

Realms of Quest for the VIC-20 - featuring swords, scorcery, dungeons AND dragons!

And on the subject of Realms of Quest, congratulations from the Psytronik team go to Peter Hamilton from Midlothian who has won himself a rather smart Commodore Computer Club polo-shirt as he was the first person to order the game. Well done to Peter for winning the shirt and our thanks go to the excellent guys at the Commodore Computer Club for donating the shirt.

There was a bit of a delay with the release of the disk version of The Wild bunch as some eagle-eyed gamers spotted a couple of minor bugs in the tape version of the game. These bugs were duly squished by Jon and I'm pleased to say the disk version of the game is now being shipped and the disk features the full and final bug-free version of the game. While Jon was busy fixing the game it gave me a bit of extra time to work on the game artwork. In the end I decided to have the Premium inlays professionally printed in full colour and the inlays also feature the game instructions printed on the inside in full colour too - coooool!

A still from the cool Wild Bunch intro sequence (exclusive to the C64 disk version)

A lot of progress has been made on the stunning PC conversion of Armalyte which is being handled by the heroes known as S-A-S Designs. I'm very pleased to announce that the main game itself has now been finished and is now in the hands of the beta-testers who will be giving the game a serious thrashing (oo-er) before it's unleashed into the universe at large. Smila has sent over a bundle of new screenshots from the PC version of the game for you to drool over:-

Firing some serious weaponry on the Alien-esque second level

Snaffling some power-ups while walkers stomp around beneath

Unleashing some laser-death torpedoes on an end-of-level baddie

Check out those gorgeous background graphics by Smila!

Rampaging through the shiny sparkling crystalline level

Not only will the CD-ROM contain the full PC version of the game but it will also contain some rather tasy bonus extras too. These will include a stunning MIX-E-LOAD demo (inspired by the famous C64 Delta mix-e-load), an Armalyte MUSIC JUKEBOX featuring the fab music from the PC version of the game and a really neat executable slideshow showing the development of the new game artwork.

The brill Armalyte PC Jukebox - just one of the bonus extras included with the game

The CD-ROM will also contain the original C64 version of the game in emulator-friendly form along with assorted other bonus goodies carefully compiled for your entertainment and enjoyment. To pre-order your Armalyte PC CD-ROM head on over to the BZ store.

The final Psytronik Software release for 2009 will be the awesome Amstrad CPC shoot 'em Star Sabre. The game itself is now finished and I've also produced the inlay for the Premium disk version of the game which you can see below:

At long last an Amstrad CPC title has been added to the Psytronik range!

The game will be available on original Amstrad 3" disks and will be compatible with the Amstrad CPC 6128 along with the CPC 464 (as long as you have a disk-drive and memory expansion!) Hopefully the game will be available in the BZ store some time in December 2009.

The Star Sabre loading screen complete with Psytronik logo - groovy!

One final tasty titbit of news for ya. Since I released the Psytronik Premium Range earlier this year I've been literally swamped with a couple of requests (heh!) from people asking if they can buy the plastic 5.25" disk cases from me. The answer to that question is now YES as I've made the replacement cases available in the BZ store (click here for ordering info!)

At last you can replace those busted C64 game cases!

And that's yer lot for now. Keep an eye on www.psytronik.com for more news and info on the latest Psytronik Software releases.

See you ... IN THE FUTURE!

Kenz / www.psytronik.com