visitors book page 1
Whoopee! The visitors book has now expanded to four pages!
Click here to visit page 4, page 3 or page 2 !
 
If you would like to leave a comment, question, suggestion, shove it in the box at the bottom of page 4! Thanks to everyone who's left a message!
Sandy :)
 
name
planet
comment
date
reply?
Wee Mark.
Romanno Bridge
Hi Sandy The site is bollocks - only joking. Like the game. You should go see www.shiningchar.co.uk it's got groovy sound which you should add to your site. PS I'm thirteen now and like to be cheeky and annoying - Joe says I am very annoying.
28/7/00
Mark! Tskkk.. being 13 is no excuse for being cheeky and annoying - once you're 39, however, you can say what you like - you cheeky wee bastard - only joking! Anyway.. I think the expression you are looking for is 'dogs bollocks', isn't it? ;-) Seriously, glad you liked the game & thanks for the tip - I shall go and have a look at shiningchar later on - perhaps the site does need some groovy sound. ;-)
Jonathan McCormack
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Hi Sandy, regarding the Crash review for use of computer...60% were they mad??? It was the first 3D Isometric game for petes sake. Although Time Gate must have been better because it was 4D :) Nice to see all the old Spectrum guys appearing out of the woodwork & I hope you are happy that us old game players still remember the good old days. I met John Cain of Booty fame a few weeks ago and I think he was astounded that people still take an interest in 15 year old games. AA was the 2nd game I bought (first was Splat!) in 1983 and it was one of the few games I still played when I finally packed up my Spectrum and put it into the Atic in 1987. How many Dreamcast games that we buy today will we still be playing in 2003 I wonder... not many I'd bet.
26/7/00
Hi Jonathan, thanks for the good words about AA! Interesting that you should mention Time Gate... it was the first game released in this country with a colour cassette sleeve (as well as the first to utilise the 4th dimention!) - and was the main reason I first contacted Quicksilva re publishing AA. Not only am I happy that there are 'old game players" still out there remembering the good old days - I count myself one of that number! ;-) Fair comment re Dreamcast (and the like) - it will be interesting to see in 10 years time.. Problem with games now is that they cost so much to develop that few publishers will take a chance on something different. My personal hope is that the climate will change back in favour of smaller developers again, if as I've heard say, people are starting to look for smaller gaming experiences. This could lead to us seeing more variety in games. Perhaps old Speccy programmers will rise once more and wrestle the conservative games industry back from the grip of the accountants who currently run it! Perhaps not.... :-)
Tyrone C
London
Hi Sandy, I'm the guy with the Hacking Ant Attack web page, and as soon as I'm done saying that AA is one of my favourite games ever, I have a couple of questions... Firstly, I've been thinking about writing a PC conversion of AA, nothing new and exciting like "Ant Attack 2000", just a faithful play-alike of the original, with maybe a few cosmetic tweaks. It's really a "get the hang of C" project, and it'd be freely available in the traditional manner of Speccy game conversions. Do you have any objections? Secondly, what were the aeroplane graphics in AA for? Some feature that didn't quite make it?
25/7/00
Hi Tyrone, glad you liked AA - loved your hacking AA page... in fact I nicked the graphics for my AA button from it! ta! ;) It was very interesting for me to look and remember how I'd done things.. The issue of new versions of old games is an interesting one - and worth answering in a general fashion. The whole scene (eg Retrospec below) is quite new to me - and I'm still trying to figure out how best to answer someone who wants to do a re-write. (naturally it's very flattering) I certainly don't want to be a spoil-sport - my current thoughts are that so long as it its just for fun, and strictly non-commercial, that's ok by me, but that I will always reserve the right to ask someone to cease! In other words I am not giving away any rights or IP in any form. Hope that sounds fair enough! I should think that that would be the attitude of almost any other Speccy IP owner - if any of you happen to be passing through - let me know! Soemeone just said I should go look at comp.sys.sinclair.faqs. Ahhh. the airoplane - good question - I had forgotten that it existed 'til I saw your page... If memory serves, however, it used to fly over the city and drop bricks in a modified version of the game which was used as a city editor... Anyway - good luck if you do start an "AA get started with C" project, let's know how it goes! :-)
Andrew Rollings
Chicago
The best thing was that if you paralysed 5 ants, you'd not be bothered for the rest of the level :) And I know what's under the pyramid :) I hacked the map out :) Hehehe PS. How did your skeletal animation system shape up?
21/7/00
Hello Andrew... so.. you know what's under the pyramid... shhh... don't tell! ;) It's true - there only were 5 ants, and if you paralysed them all.. that was it for the level... Skeletal animation system....hmmnn.... perhaps you're referring to un-published Amiga game, "Dick Special"? It never was used in anything commercial, though I suppose it transmuted over the years into the human physics stuff I am working on now.
Baaaaah!
Edinburgh
Wahey! The Man is online :) I had actually started a PC remake of Ant Attack (I'm a member of retrospec you see (http://www.retrospec.co.uk)), but i think it'd be much better if you did it ;-)
20/7/00
Hi Baaaaah! Hmmmn.. never thought of myself as being online :) half-online half-offline perhaps! I just had a look at the RetroSpec site.. never knew such a thing existed! I've made it linkable if anyone wants to check it out (lots of re-writes of classic Speccy games). Where do you guys find the time? As for me re-writing AA - er... once was enough! Often thought about doing a sequel however... trouble is, on a global scale, not that many people have heard of the original... Have you seen Ant Attack 2000?
Pod again
Podville
Thanks for the spinning Pod....more than makes up for it...
19/7/00
You're welcome!
Joe
Romanno Bridge
Hello Mr White Nice to visit the bottom of a page for a change. Feel a bit of a stranger in your AA nostalgia land. Hope all is well. Joe
19/7/00
Hi Joe ta..- Nostalgia... what do you mean nostalgia... this is 1983... isn't it? Take your point though - I've defiantely got to get round to adding something contemporary to this site!;)
Jake
Bristol
The hours I wasted playing AA in my youth! I always wondered what was under the pyramid in the centre of the city that caused all those ants to be generated!
19/7/00
Hi Jake, "Wasted" ? what do you mean"wasted" ? ;-)) I know that I should really answer, "Deep below the time worn wastes of the Desert of Antescher, hidden within the tunnels and tombs of the lost peoples of that ancient citadel, lies a dark and terrible secret..." In actual fact, I once used my debugger to "lift the lid" on that little pyramid, and I confess I found a Z80 chip under there! Seriously... did you ever notice that there were only ever 5 ants on screen at any one time? It's an ant recycler!
Pod
Podville
God, this takes me back. I used to play Ant Attack all the time. I got a Speccy for Xmas with about 5 games my Dad bought me. Ant Attack being the only good one amongst them, and me not having any money led me to finishing and knowing every location (there were two possible places for the final person, right?...one on top of the spikes..the other in a little maze/box thing). So anyway, I sent my score off to Personal Computer Games who ran a head-2-head every month on different games, I eagerly buy the next issue (waiting to see my name in ink)...hurry past their play by mail game, to the head to head thing...and see they're bloody well playing Ant Attack without me there! Fate conspired to take my 15 minutes away from me, they'd done their Ant Attack challenge & before my entry got there :O (Curse you God for making me that late). Needless to say , I would have won and been crowned ruler of gaming (for a month anyway).Anyway, Good luck Sandy, I enjoyed Zombie Zombie as well...but never really got the hang of that other one (I something?)
18/7/00

Hi Pod! Fun story...Ja know, I never knew anyone had done a head to head with AA.. I might have entered myself... mind you, I was never that good at playing it! As for there being two final places - to the best of my knowledge, there should have been 4. If you found that only 2 of them turned up, could be you found a bug... I should complain to the manufacturer! I think the less said about the "other one", I of the Mask, the better... I was never very happy with it, least of all that it was ever published...

Anyway - sorry you never got your 15 minutes! By way of compensation, please accept my gift of this small rotating Pod: ;)

Droky
Spain
Ufff...too many hours playing AA on my B&W TV... Could you explain what are the devices that are plugging in your speccy in the photo? Thanks for make me the life more funny (and sorry for my poor english :)
17/7/00
Hi Droky, I spent too many hours in front of a B&W TV too, writing AA! I wonder if they still make B&W TVs? ;-) Anyway, glad you have enjoyed playing AA! One of the devices in the photo is a "Softy" ROM emulator, and the other is a home-made adaptor which mapped the Softy into 4K of the Spectrum's memory. Apart from the city data, and some BASIC to do scoring screens, AA fitted entirely into that 4K! The advantage was that if the Speccy crashed, it didn't take my machine code with it!
e.a.s.liddle
@
Sandy, Your molecules are great! They reminded me instantly of a series of lectures on TV (probably B&W and when you were still wearing nappies) about "Entropy & Enthalpy" or something like that.
9/7/00
Hi Edgar! :-)) Pleased you like the molecules... they are Java samples from Sun Microsystems. Hmm, yes... when I was wearing nappies, TV was B&W!! (and no, it wasn't a spinning disc, with a spiral of holes!)
Fin
stiil not sure....
Okay just saw the scan.....hurrah!
5/7/00
we aim to please! ;-)
FIN
I`m not sure yet
Hey,All the best to you Sandy...Personally I like the keys..in the end at least..Also could you dig out a scan of the box..Its been a while and surely it deserves a place on here....catch you later......
5/7/00
Hey Fin... thanks :-) Yes that's perhaps the problem with the keys.. they take a while to get used to.. The reason I did it that way was to avoid having to decide which way to map AA's 4 isometric angled directions of movement onto arrow type keys - north to the right or to the left as it were... Also, thanks for the nice words in Edge!
muffin-master
The best city in Scotland
Sandy, Alas still no bucky balls or AA, I'll try and try again!
3/7/00
Hulloo ther Dave! Sorry to hear your bucky balls are still not working (if you'll pardon the expression)... Hmmnn... I didn't know you were from Edinburgh??... ;-) Sorry! OK OK it's Glasgow! (for the un-initiated - this is traditional Scottish rivalry!)

Reverent Camus

you know where
Greeeat game, even if the keys sucks, come on Sandy for a programmer like you there should be no problems to get arrows keys going! The good reverent
28/6/00
wotcha reverend! thanks! you're right, the keys are not so good.. if I could have changed any one thing in AA, it would have been that...
raihsala
falkirk grahamstone
when the treels prayne ohn the whenerbulate you best cry phwool.
14/6/00
Welcome raihsala! you hail indeed from a very distant planet... there's just one thing puzzling me... that's whit tae dae when the treels irny prayne ohn the whenerbulate? ;-)
H & D
directly above the centre
Hi Sandy Playing AA is pure nostalgia, haven't been bitten since 1983.
9/6/00
hey! that's where I live! ;-) glad you got the bug again!
Joe
no living is not optional
Hi Mr White Like the site
1/6/00
Thanks Joe... I have now changed "lives: (optional)" simply to "location on planet" ..hold on though... living is optional isn't it?
Anon
Edinbugh
Absolutely amazing stuff..Pure genius!
1/6/00
Hi Mum & Dad! (no bias there then...)
Whoopee! The visitors book has now expanded to three pages!
Click here to visit page 4, page 3 or page 2 !

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