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 :) |
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name
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planet
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comment
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date
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reply?
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Wee Mark.
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Romanno Bridge
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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.
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28/7/00
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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. ;-)
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Jonathan McCormack
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Belfast, Northern Ireland
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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.
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26/7/00
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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.... :-)
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Tyrone C
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London
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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?
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25/7/00
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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! :-)
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Andrew Rollings
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Chicago
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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?
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21/7/00
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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.
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Baaaaah!
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Edinburgh
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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 ;-)
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20/7/00
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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?
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Pod again
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Podville
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Thanks for the spinning Pod....more than makes up for it...
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19/7/00
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You're welcome!
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Joe
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Romanno Bridge
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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
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19/7/00
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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!;)
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Jake
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Bristol
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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!
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19/7/00
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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!
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Pod
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Podville
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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?)
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18/7/00
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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: ;)
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Droky
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Spain
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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
:)
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17/7/00
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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!
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e.a.s.liddle
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@
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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.
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9/7/00
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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!)
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Fin
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stiil not sure....
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Okay just saw the scan.....hurrah!
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5/7/00
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we aim to please! ;-)
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FIN
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I`m not sure yet
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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......
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5/7/00
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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!
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muffin-master
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The best city in Scotland
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Sandy, Alas still no bucky balls or AA, I'll try and try again!
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3/7/00
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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!)
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Reverent Camus |
you know where
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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
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28/6/00
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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...
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raihsala
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falkirk grahamstone
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when the treels prayne ohn the whenerbulate you best cry phwool.
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14/6/00
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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? ;-)
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H & D
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directly above the centre
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Hi Sandy Playing AA is pure nostalgia, haven't been bitten since 1983.
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9/6/00
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hey! that's where I live! ;-) glad you got the bug again!
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Joe
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no living is not optional
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Hi Mr White Like the site
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1/6/00
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Thanks Joe... I have now changed "lives: (optional)" simply to "location
on planet" ..hold on though... living is
optional isn't it?
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Anon
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Edinbugh
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Absolutely amazing stuff..Pure genius!
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1/6/00
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Hi Mum & Dad! (no bias there then...)
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White 2000