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