About The New Dimension
PROFILE / HISTORY
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
Hello, I am Richard. I am a homebrew Commodore 64 games developer and musician during my own time, who is also learning indie game development in Unity (You may have noticed my first ever game called Rockit on https://richard-tnd.itch.io). I have been supporting the Commodore 64 (and the C64 internet gaming scene) releasing my own computer productions since 1995. I have made many friends in the C64 scene in the past and I am pleased how much I had become from a beginner C64 SEUCK user all the way to a professional indie C64 games developer. As a bonus, I release all of my work free for people to download for use a Commodore 64, with a 1541Ultimate or whatever hardware you have to transfer from PC to C64. My best work to date is Sub Hunter, Woolly Jumper, Starfysh, Blastopia Deluxe and Amazon Tales.
My other C64 skills
In the C64 world, my strongest skill is composing music, using DMC, Goat Tracker V2, or Cheesecutter. Although a lot of my tunes sound too much the same, I don't really care about it. Since it is much easier to compose in that kind of fashion and I really enjoy creating my own tunes and bolting these on to my own productions. I can also be quite good on some older C64 music editors, like Voicetracker, Future Composer, etc. Where as my weakest skill has always been graphics. Luckily there have been some great people who supported me with their own graphics assets for my free game creations.
Many years back I tried have a bash in PC programming retro games and other silly things in Blitz Basic, and DarkBASIC. You can see some examples of my PC games found HERE
From Left: Moo-Lander, Jeffy, Bomb Catch, Moo-Lander
I run this web site called "The New Dimension" as a hobby project. The New Dimension hosts games and software, which I created for the Commodore 64, in digital form. Programs are both disk and tape images, which you are welcome to download and transfer to your Commodore 64 related hardware you own (Or just run in VICE, CCS, etc.).
Other C64 activities I enjoy doing is writing music. I mostly compose techno, disco and thumping trance SID tracks using Goat Tracker nowadays. Also still use older music editors now and then, such as DMC, Music Assembler, Future Composer, etc. I also enjoy tape loaders, enhancing SEUCK games, as well as programming games. Sounds crazy, but that is true.
The New Dimension started in 2000, and 20 years on, TND still goes strong and productive today. Although, I prefer to work on quality rather than quantity these days. The New Dimension hosts annual SEUCK game competitions, and additional competions now and then.
Now enjoy my C64 history :)
THE COMMODORE 64 HISTORY
What draws me towards the Commodore 64 than any other console?
Excellent classic games - Unlike the games you buy on the shelves at present for modern day consoles, the C64 gaming era had a huge array of titles, in which had plenty of variety of genres. Puzzle games, shoot 'em ups, beat 'em ups, MMORPGs, FRP/RPGs (Not my style, but there are loads of people that loved this type of genre), strategy, flight simulators (yet again not my cup of tea, but I do remember trying to make one in BASIC back in the late 1990's and it was naff!). Some great 8-bit arcade ports hit the C64, (I loved 1942, Ghosts and Goblins, Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Ikari Warriors and Commando, as well as R-Type). There was also really funny games, which you wondered 'What the heck am I playing here?!?!?! but have great fun playing it.
The loading screens - In the present day, people lack the patience of waiting for their computer / TV SET, etc. to boot up. Back in the past, we had to put a tape into the C2N, press the SHIFT+RUN/STOP keys and load a game. Most games had fast loaders, which used multicoloured stripes. Which to me were pretty cool. Later tape loading screens had loading pictures, and played music in the background, while you waited to load a game. There were also tape loaders that allowed you to play games, during the loading times. 'Invade-A-Load', 'Load 'N' Play', 'Micro Painter'. You name a few. (I also made a few tape loader games of my own, which I think you'll probably might have fun mastering tapes with).
You can see plenty of these type of tape loaders on the TND games and contributor's page.
The Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit - Ah yes, this classic tool was used a lot, when I was a teen. I didn't just have the desire to play C64 games, but also MAKE games using the editor. Most of the time during my school days, I used the example attack waves and just made different graphics, until I learned the blank SEUCK. This tool came with my first Commodore 64. Although I tend to program games quite a lot. I like to use SEUCK now and then. In the later years, the Shoot Em Up Construction Kit gave me freedom to enhance my own and friends creations to add additional code to the titles.
Ah yes, the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit. A brilliant utility for creative minds. A game can be made easily. The example above is the game Rocket 'N Roll. Which I created in SEUCK in 2019. Thank you Sensisoft :o)
You can do MORE on a C64 than just play games - The C64 wasn't just built for playing games. It was also used for other tasks, such as drawing graphics, bitmaps, the loading screen, charsets, sprites, composing music and most important of them all, writing new programs.
The Demo Scene - These talented programmers, graphicians and musicians like to PUSH the C64 to its limits to bring top quality demos in the C64 scene. Demos like Deus Ex Machina, Royal Arte, Edge of Disgrace, Wonderland XI, are a good example for the great effects.. They also get and deserve a lot of respect for all the hard work which was done during their free time, and expense.
My previous Commodore 64 History - How I got to where I was
On Christmas Day 1990, I had a Commodore 64 as my main birthday present. A Commodore 64C, light fantastic pack. It also came with SEUCK (Pronounced short for 'Shoot Em Up Construction Kit). More about SEUCK later, The Image System (CRL), Typing Tutor (Pitman Computing), The Music System (Firebird), Batman the Caped Crusader (Ocean), Gangster, Army Days, Time Traveller by Mindscape games, Blaze Out (Ocean) and Mike Read's Pop Quiz (Elite) - all which came with a light gun. Also a C2N. First ever C64 game I bought (with my Birthday money on Boxing Day 1990) was Sailing, followed by R-Type, then my C64 ventures moved on.
In the late winter and early spring of 1991, I was introduced to Commodore Format (Issue 8), by Uncle Steve (Who I believe was a computer fan as well and used to own an Amstrad CPC). In the spring of 1991, I bought Zzap 64 (issue 85 - with Zzap Megatape 19), and didn't stop buying the mags until the end - where the cover tapes took my attention. Between 1990-1994, I had C64 tapes as Christmas presents from friends and family, and most of the tapes I still own today. Some of my tapes used to be borrowed by one of my brother's friends, but after he moved away, I was unable to get my tapes back. Ah those were the school days. - I even played on the machine all day on weekends. I had 5 C64's in total. 4 of which broke, and one which has been actively working since 2006, when I bought it for £4.00 (without PSU or accessories) on EBAY.
During my teens, I was mostly a gamer, and a SEUCK fan (Still am today). I did write many games using the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit. While I was practising with the SEUCK I kept on using the same attack waves in SLAP 'N TICKLE, and only changed graphics until I learned more about the editor. Then I was ready for using the blank SEUCK and made loads of games in the past. Sadly although those games had been stored on tape, I am unable to salvage those, as the tapes are / were no more. The same happened when the following year I had a 1541-II disk drive for my birthday and also Action Replay cartridge. I made loads of SEUCK games, stored them on disk. Disks corrupt, I threw them away and nothing remains of the games. In 1991 - 1993.
Galactic Man was made in 1991 (On tape it was known as GMAN WAZ ERE), and oodles of years later, I had found it on an old C64 tape and I managed to preserve and rescue the game from a corrupt tape. Only things that were messed up was the title screen chars - which only used the original SEUCK chars anyway. I recovered the game. The game is on TND Classix #16 disk anyway. Things did eventually improve later on the SEUCK front. It was a terrible game, but it does deserve a piece of history.
I used to go to a friend's house to check out his C64 stuff, and he taught me some simple BASIC programming. I started learning from the C64 book which had come with my computer, and in 1994 managed to create my first ever C64 game 'CIDCOM'. It was a simple game in which you had to match three flashing lights in a row, by a simple hit of the Space Bar key. In 1995, I made some more games using SEUCK and also BASIC. Got in touch with Binary Zone PD (As I saw BZPD advertised in Commodore Format) and ordered a free PD catalogue. Then I started contributing programs to Binary Zone PD (More about BZPD/Psytronik later), and I kept on going until the PD library had stopped running. I was also introduced to Commodore Zone and Commodore Scene magazine in the late 1990's.
Friendship and the Internet
In 1995-2000, I was learning in college. I was studying mainly computing courses which I passed successfully during the five years. ... And I was still enjoying the Commodore 64 - while other people tried to push me to PC / Playstation consoles, which I didn't want. There were one or two people who shared memories about this beloved machine.
Anyway, back to the college years ... During the courses, I was introduced to the internet, and for a session we were introduced to web site hosting, and had a hobby project to work on. I generated my own C64 web site, uploaded it to a web site provider based in the 1990's and I ended up making some friends with people on-line, who had the same interest as me. Some of the people still follow my productions today. When I frequently had internet access at home, I was in touch with people more often. Then ended up as part of the legal C64 demo / games scene. (More about this later).
REAL LIFE C64 ACTIVITIES
We all studied things in college, and experience work life, but outside these things, I wanted to do more great things for the Commodore 64. I never wanted to depart from this machine, and love making good use supporting the machine. Here's an example of things I did in my C64 lifetime:
Composing music
You may have read earlier about The Music System by Firebird Software. Well, I did use this quite a lot in the 1990's before I had any other music composing software. However the main music composing hobby started in 1994. I ordered the Binary Zone Utilities tape (Featured in Commodore Format issue 44) from Binary Zone PD. I received the tape within a few days and checked the tools out. There were some great, but tough music editors on the tape. I experimented with the editors, and ended up doing some music using USA Music Assembler, Demo Music Creator V2.0, Future Composer, Music Mixer, etc..
Then with more PD on the way, I had more C64 music editors to play around with. Today I compose C64 music using a PC based tracker, 'Goat Tracker' and also the recently new 'CheeseCutter', but I still like the good old DMC music editor. I did one or two tunes using JCH's music editor, but didn't feel comfortable with the JCH Newplayer, due to its functions and environment.
DMC V2.0, a true classic editor by Graffity
Fitting music on to my own programs
Before I coded demos, and M/C games in the late 1990's-2000's I needed to learn a way to get music fitted on to my own programs. Luckily it wasn't all that difficult. I used to type in some routines from C64 magazines and use the interrupts to generate BASIC with MUSIC. Then learned in my head how to program an IRQ raster interrupt. When I was writing in BASIC I didn't need to do an IRQ routine player for tunes, which were composed using Dutch U.S.A Music Assembler. The music routine, already had a built in player. 1997-1999 was the time I used existing type-in sources for scroll text and music, etc.. It all changed in the 2000's. However tunes which needed music from different players required relocating memory, and additional IRQ player code. Which most of my productions used.
Where SEUCK games were concerned, I mostly had the tunes installed on to my SEUCK games by Binary Zone, in the late 90's, and allowed full use of the games in the BZPD catalogue. After I learned a lot more machine code, I managed to add similar routines that would play music in SEUCK games, using an Action Replay cart machine code monitor. More about the history of SEUCK later. (See SEUCK Enhancements)
Assembly Code Programming
I was learning assembly in the late 1990's, by referring to some of the magazine features in Commodore Format and also some fanzines as well. I ended up programming some simple, but rather naff little games. I first started programming by using the Action Replay cartridge, and used a notebook. When I ordered PD disks from various PD libraries, I ended up with a diskmag on the back of one of the disks called 'Coders World'. A tutorial in programming simple demo effects. I just didn't have the clue what I was doing as I was pretty much new to the thing. I learned from various internet resources and magazines, to program my first ever game, and ended up with a small crap game called 'CETIMIEX'.
Thankfully, as time moved on, things eventually got better. My first top quality game was 'Balloonacy', a simple crazy balloon style of game game. Where you needed to get to a switch and flee to the exit, without getting burst by the electrified walls or aliens. Things did improve even more. Releasing the games to my web site wasn't a problem at the time. This was because I had an old PC, which I also had bought an XE1541 cable with star commander and I was able to port my work from the Commodore 64, and digitally preserve it from my C64 to the PC for my web site.
Later on, I learned the use of cross-assembly programming and compiling tools - and that is how I seem to program games these days. Mostly ACME cross assembler, with EXOMIZER as compression. I used a wide range of resources around the internet and asked for help from various people to get over certain obstacles at the time, which I did many times in the past. Making notes of routines to do various tricks was very useful for me as a future reference for programming stuff.
THE GAMES / HIGHLIGHTS (CLICK TITLE TO DOWNLOAD FOR YOUR C64)
BALLOONACY
In 2001, my first quality game production was Balloonacy. It was an arcade game in which you guided a balloon around each of the 16 levels, while avoiding collision with the deadly walls, and creatures. The game felt a bit like Crazy Balloon, but CB never had opening/closing lasers or a task to release an exit and flee through it for bonus points. Balloonacy was programmed through Turbo Assembler and each screen was created manually by loading in my own character set, and using the Action Replay screen editor to manually draw each level.
Then I had to transfer the screen RAM to a memory position. I did that for the other levels as well. The game ended up split into two parts at the end. It took me a few months to make. The front end was quite a challenge, but with help from Phantom's diskmag 'Coders World' and making notes about the effects results turned out great. Later in 2003, the game got published on tape for fun by Cronosoft. After the game was released on tape, I ended up with a nice loading picture in 2005 by Marq Watkin.
GRID ZONE REMIX
In 2004, I created Grid Zone, and then remixed it in 2005. I thought it would be great to try an original game title, and I ended up with a little gem collect 'em up. It was a game where you control a dog called Ned. He has been warped into the Grid Zone, while his girlfriend Daisy was warped into a laser powered cell. The evil monster ruler, Traxionian threatens to eat her for lunch, unless Ned picks enough diamonds. The game idea was simple, run around the screen and pick up moving gems.
Grid Zone was also the game I first used the Ocean Freeload tape for (Source is now public domain software) loader source to master the game to tape. The loading stripes were changed, but I accidentally forgot to remove the anti-expert protection code. Which unfortunately forced gamers to remove their cartridge from their C64 and re-load. The game was released yet again by Cronosoft, along with the first Grid Zone. I launched a cover drawing competition on the TND web site, and the winning entry was used as a cover.The original Grid Zone only used Spectacular Copy tape loader. A public domain disk/tape copy program.
This was the later TND release of Grid Zone Remix, using TAPE MASTER PRO. (Right ... Grid Zone, original)
SUB HUNTER
Between 2004 - 2008 I worked on a co-op game project with Frank Gasking called "Sub Hunter". It was a type of game I had never done before, and I gained loads of great respect for the work made on this game. Sub Hunter is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up in which you guide a submarine under water, and must rescue the swimmers from mutant sea creatures and enemy subs. There are assorted stages that involved bombing enemies with depth charges, within a time limit. Also a land and rescue stage and a shark survival round. This game had me really happy with the final result.
2010 - 2015. It wasn't just Sub Hunter that ended up as a co-op game project. My progress with programming game projects got much better, I ended up creating a couple of horizontal scrolling games. One of which was "Woolly Jumper", and another which probably has to be one of my all time favourite games I ever wrote "X-Force" (Cross-Force).
WOOLLY JUMPER
Woolly Jumper was a roller-coaster scrolling platform game, in which you controlled a sheep which had to reach the other side of the screen on 16 different levels. Blow a whistle and the rescue ship comes to pick it up - the sheep also had to avoid having an early night's bath :) . The sheep had to fight against the a series of aliens, which had their own formation. This game turned out great, as a co-op production with Shaun Pearson's excellent graphics.. It was first entered in to the RGCD 16KB cartridge Compo in 2011, where there were 8 levels in total. The game got expanded after the competition, adding another 8 levels to it. Also a high score table and enhanced title screen were added.
X - FORCE
X-Force is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up, in which you go through 16 tough levels, battling against the aliens, in order to escape from the planet Darx. The game turned into a stunner, after Saul Cross's graphics were in place. The maps really stood out and the game project made me really pleased with it overall. Sadly not everybody liked this game much, due to the difficulty factor. The game had some good reviews, and some bad reviews as well. I wrote this game as I always wanted to write a horizontal space blaster.
TRANCE SECTOR ULTIMATE
Saul Cross also helped me develop an improved version of my 2012 game, 'Trance Sector', which eventually became 'Trance Sector Ultimate', a simple game, in which you guide a ship around each of the 32 screens in either standard or competition mode. The ship has to pick up all of the pods in order to move on to the next level. The game had a massive overhaul in presentation, graphics, remixed thumping trance music, but the game play was still the same. TSU also featured some nice character graphics by Akira from the Kiken Corp.
LET'S INVADE
This was one of my most ambitious game projects of 2016. It was basically a sprite/multiplexed Space Invaders game with different scrolling tiled background. Also with flashing effect which sync to the sound effects, or in game trance music. 40 levels of alien blasting fun. A really fun Space Invaders style game, with funny power ups. The game gained lots of proud gamers, although it was just too easy to play. A deluxe 16KB cartridge version may be on the cards for a future 16KB cartridge making compo.
ENHANCING SEUCK GAMES
I had a passion for making games since I was a teenager. I also love checking out and playing SEUCK and sideways scrolling SEUCK games. However, in the 1990's, I remember seeing the first ever enhanced SEUCK game on the Commodore Format cover tape called "Twin Tigers", followed by "Monster Mash". It made me think "I wish I can do that!!!!". I started learning to change the colour of the title screen raster bars, and adding music to the front end, or in game. I learned a bit more about enhancing SEUCK. In 1999-2000, I created a tool, called "Colour Fantastic", in which allowed you to create very a simple front end and save it to add on to your very own SEUCK game.
After the SEUCK vault was born, and included The Secrets of SEUCKcess by Jon Wells and also learned some other tricks from some Lemon64 forum members. I learned new skills to adapt SEUCK enhancements a bit further by referring to the maps, exploring the game code more and began to experiment. Jon also helped me out with some of the clever tricks on how to do a smart bomb effect, and also how to detect which enemy has been shot. I also learned about the char positions of the background chars, and ended up creating blinking and scrolling characters to form some kind of background animation. I also managed to explore a little more in SEUCK and managed to create the very first ever trick that was NEVER ever used with SEUCK. Such as bolting two players together. This was of course the enhancements for "Huntress of Midgard" by C64 contributor, Anthony Burns. It felt like a SEUCK version of Golden Axe one way or another. :)
I also did a co-op production with Alf Yngve as a New Year project for 2014, where I used the same sort of method with Huntress of midgard. This time a vertical scrolling space shoot 'em up in which you fly across 3 different zones battling against the aliens. The game of course 'Dark Force', a SEUCK tribute to Faster Than Light's "Light Force". My game was originally an experiment, which worked extremely well. It featured additional tricks in which changed the colour of the background for each level, and also gave a slight twist of fate for the ending, should not all generators be destroyed. The game was later re-generated using the SEUCK Redux engine, by Martin Piper. ... talking of which you can find it and the Thunder load IRQ tape source here.
Left: Huntress of Midgard - Right: Dark Force (Click on the image to download one of the 2 games)
SEUCK REDUX
I also like to toy around with Martin Piper's SEUCK Redux engine, and import SEUCK games into the source, to avoid slow down syndrome - and add extra enhancements. The best project which I did for SEUCK Redux was at first 'Super Tau Zeta 2 - Special Edition', which Alf Yngve and I had launched as a Christmas treat. This game featured great enhancements, but now a new favourite came along. It was Zap Fight 2. Which we both couldn't resist to enhance and put together as a bonus treat for the Kung Fu Maniacs trilogy. The game felt like a proper arcade game. Enemies which used to fire random shots, use AIM fire, and I could still program new front ends and add new thumping music and power ups to the source. Zap Fight 2, turned out excellent, although I had encountered many issues with the game before release.
(Top: Super Tau Zeta 2, Bottom Zap Fight)
TAPE LOADERS
Just add a picture and music and dance
It wasn't just SEUCK I was mad for. Tape Loaders was another highlight. I used to use various disk/tape copying utilities in which I could put programs from disks to tape using an auto boot turbo loader. When Freeload tape loader source came out, I played around with it and put loading pictures on to tape loaders, with music. In 2009, Martin Piper launched a complete C64 archive of available resources, in which I was granted permission to use for stuff outside of TND. I ended up updating the source code to build a tape mastering system which would write a program from disk, and display a scroll text, optional flashing sprite to indicate loading, play music, and draw a picture while loading. The program had a wide choice of loading stripes schemes, and you could choose whether or not you want to cycle the border per block loaded. That was of course Tape Master Pro. Most of the time, I used these loaders for games that had loading pictures for the games.
Load and play these
It wasn't just standard tape loaders I wanted to do, but also attempt other things by experimenting. Using the tape loader source I ended up creating at least 5 loading games, and compiling the masters together to form "Loader Game Tape Master Kit 1 + 2 and 3". The first game was "MooTilation", a simple shoot 'em up game, where you had to protect cows from being captured by incoming flying saucers. There was also "Happy Blocks", inspired by a an on-line FLASH game called "Block Dodge", where you had to move your block and avoid it from smashing the other trundling blocks. Happy Blocks also become a full standalone score attack game by the name of Happy Blocks DX. There was also "Square Pit", a loader game version of "Square Pit 64", which was inspired by a Mini Game Compo entry for the MSX. There was a game, which was "Blitz-A-Load", which was a Blitz type of game. Finally in 2018 came Zap 'n Load.
(From Top left: MooTilation, Happy Blocks, Square Pit, Blitz-A-Load).
One of the most memorable loading games for me was "Happy Blocks" (inspired by the PC flash game, Block Dodge). The game concept was such a simple idea, just dodging nasty blocks and survive for as long as you can. There has been great feedback about the tape loader game. Just over a decade later, the game become a deluxe full high score attack challenge game. After designing, remixing the loader tune, programming the full game, and crunching it. The file size was just too small. I just came home from the pub on that day decided to add silly digi sampling. They were recorded from my mobile and transferred to my workstation and editied with audiacity.Then I converted the wave file into digi sample data,using Wav2Digi and rendered a routine to play the samples. The final result turned out highly entertaining. It is amazing how messing around for a laugh can actually turn into a quality game.
... okay, back to the loader:
A touch of class
I ended up expanding Martin's loader further to do additional tricks, and made Thunderload Series 6, and Thunderload 7, which were pretty special and exclusive for this web site. It basically displays the loading screen with music, a huge scroll text and helps me promote some stuff I'm involved with, such as incoming games, demos, music etc.. Most tunes in the loader are usually already in HVSC and sometimes used again. However I loved this loader. Mostly contributor's game used this loader system.
(Left: Thunderload Series Six, Right: Thunderload 7)
Rasterload Re-visited
I did something quite special for the Commodore Format archive, in which we worked on producing 3 legit special freewware downloadable tapes (The CF Archive Power Packs 62 - 64), where contributors could submit their own work. Little did people know, that the games were to be mastered with an authentic loader. CF's tape loader was known as "Rasterload", a loader system with a black screen with clock at the bottom left corner of the screen, but it had nothing else. The clock indicated an estimated loading time inside an interrupt routine. It is not known who originally made this loader.After CF64 we decided to do no more.
I did something similar and tried to re-create the loading clock sprites, then added some additional code using TapeToolBuild by Martin Piper. This had to spring in a big surprise. PP64 loader used a logo contributed by SHINE. The Commodore Format Archive was proud with the work I did just for fun. Everything was all free of course. The loader resulted out cool. The loader then got recycled as Thunderload 7. Mostly contributor's game used this loader system.
CHECK OUT THE FREE (AND LEGAL) FAN BASED CF POWER PACKS AT THE COMMODORE FORMAT ARCHIVE
Mastering tapes for Psytronik Software and other hobby software houses
I have also been involved to help prepare digital tape masters from TapeToolBuild for C64 hobby based software houses, such as Psytronik Software and some others. This was done on a voluntary basis. I used to modify the TapeTool loader assembly source to suit a loading scheme that would fit a particular game. Sometimes complex loaders had to be made, for multi-part games. I generated a test tape, and try it out on my C64, before generating the final C64 disk to tape tape recording software.Sometimes I write my own music for the tape loaders. (Pictured below is the tape loader I did in the style of a classic tape loader with music for the game Flubble and Squij (Which also consists of music I made) :)
The Games Scene and Fanzines
Binary Zone PD / PSYTRONIK SOFTWARE (1995-Current)
I had a strong bond with Binary Zone PD and Psytronik Software. I mostly wrote games for the Binary Zone PD library back in 1995-2000, before the PD library finally closed its doors and gone online. I also contributed to the C64 fanzine, Commodore Zone a few times. Most games I wrote at the time for Binary Zone, were in the "Nyaaaah! Series". The most funniest moment was when Nyaaaah! 3 made an appearance on the Commodore Zone cover tape. There was an amusing joke added to the game instructions by the team I created the game for a laugh, during my student years. Other cover mounted games were Squibblies, Nyaaaah! 8, Balloonacy and Camels in Space.
In 2004-2008, Frank Gasking and I wrote Sub Hunter originally for the TND web site, and Cronosoft, but was offered a place in the Psytronik Software label. That motivated me even more. I also offered to do tape mastering for Psytronik Software as well, and I have been doing that since for free (See the above comment about tape mastering). Although existing sources were used for tape mastering, permission was granted to use the loaders any way I liked, and I credited the creators on the loading scroll text, or loader game :) We also worked a lot with Alf Yngve, to bring a load of his SEUCK games to life. We did Shoot Em Up Destruction Set #2 and #3. We had a whole lot of fun making the SEUDS #2 and SEUDS #3. My favourite game I worked on in the compilation was Zap Fight, A SEUCK homage to Slap Fight, featuring thumping trance music. I also had fun and plenty of laughs making the Kung Fu Maniacs Trilogy.
I was also involved in creating some disk menus for some of the productions. Most menus were practically the same as my old menus, but with a different font, music, graphics and colour scheme. It was by far the easiest job of them all.
Commodore Scene (1997 - 2006)
I was involved quite a lot with the paper fanzine Commodore Scene, I did features on Crunchers (rating on depack effects, rather than compression rat),, Music Scene, and I also took over the Commodore Scene cover disk from issue 37, and compiled the disk with loads of goodies - until the bitter end of the magazine (Issue 51 was the very last issue).
It was good fun to compile near to new Public Domain programs and game previews on to the cover disk, and type in a traditional scroll text on the Commodore Scene disk menu. I did a new disk menu for the mag, and compiled a cover disk with that menu, but sadly the mag closed its pages for good. The menu become something for the TND User Tool Disk at the end. So it wasn't all wasted. Compiling and writing for CS was all done for free and as a hobby of course :)
In 2006, I also did a new disk menu for Commodore Scene, it was planned to be used for CS issue 53, but since issue 51 of the magazine was the very last issue. The menu was used in the "TND User Tool Disk" instead. I enjoyed being part of the team since issue 21 - to the end.
RGCD (2011 - 2015)
I helped support RGCD, supply a few of my game creations for the RGCD 16KB cartridge competitions since 2011. I also collaborated with some of the RGCD team members making an improved version of Sheepoid, featuring an overhaul of Smila's stunning graphics. The overall result was magic. Sheepoid DX was born as a bonus for Woolly Jumper. The final game I developed for RGCD was Trance Sector Ultimate. It was a collaboration of the standard and competition levels from the original Trance Sector, with brand new presentation and music remixes.
The Demo Scene
I have been involved in contributing to the demo scene, writing demos, intros and music for some of the productions. The groups I mainly created demos for were Blazon, Civitas, Crypt, Hokuto Force, People of Liberty (As part of the Scene World programming and music development) and of course TND (My homebrew software label). I had left a few of these groups due to certain pressures or the dissolving of the groups.I have also particpated on various competitions. I even ran a few of my own.
More public domain - It's the contributors page
The New Dimension doesn't just host my own projects, and co-op productions, but I also wanted to help support other game authors, who liked to create stuff for the Commodore 64 in any way they liked. No matter how the game looked, I provided a friendly service for people to contribute their own work. People still can do that if they wish to - should their productions not be offensive or infringe any form of copyright. Most work which was submitted was mostly created with the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit. There were occasional programmed games as well. Someone contributed a music editor, a drawing program, and also some little basic toys. So we did accept anything. Everything on the contributor's site gets used with permission from the game authors :)
Most Favourite Commodore 64 games of all time (1983-1993):
FAVOURITE PLATFORMER:
Mayhem in Monsterland (APEX) - Excellent platform game, with great platform action, where you have to jump on to the enemies, and pick up magic dust at the first phase. Then collect a limited number magic stars (or collect the whole lot) for the bonus phase. I got as far as level 3 in this game, as it is SO tough. Really nice colourful graphics, great game play and a whole lot of fun. This game later got released as 15th Anniversary Edition, by Psytronik Software.
FAVOURITE SHOOT 'EM UP
Armalyte (THALAMUS/Kixx)- Damn right awesome horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up. Real tough to play, although I still cannot complete level 1 of this game yet (I don't react very well to the enemy firing, and things like that) my ship always ends up becoming toast (Try and spread some butter on that:)). Groovy graphics, excellent music and excellent game play. Tape loading isn't too long either - considering the atmospheric music during loading intervals.
FAVOURITE PUZZLE GAME
Puzznic (OCEAN/Hit Squad) - It really hits me hard this game does. A fast paced puzzle game in which to match 2 or more adjacent tiles together. There are plenty of puzzles that keep me occupied, and the game gets really hard the further you progress.
FAVOURITE ARCADE ADVENTURE
Last Ninja 2 (SYSTEM 3/Hit Squad) - Great game. There's various puzzles in which can be solved, to help the ninja progress much better on his quest. I managed to get as far as the second part in the game. It is really hard, but good thing is that 'you can continue your adventure on the stage you progress to' when game is over. The graphics and design is ever so nice, and the excellent music by Matt Gray was purely awesome.
FAVOURITE BEAT 'EM UP
Dragon Ninja (OCEAN/Hit Squad) - An excellent conversion of the original arcade port. Fighting the bad guys, travel on trucks and trains, and smack those ninjas. Great graphics and music. Top quality title.
FAVOURITE RACER
Carnage (Zzepelin Games) - Really funny top-down racing game., You can buy your own upgrades, etc. to increase the ability to reach the checkered flag 'first'.
FAVOURITE UNCATERGORIZED GAME
Puffy's Saga (UBI/Hit Squad) - Strange, and weird cute game,, but this game had me really hooked to it. Lovely graphics, excellent music and game play. Loading time of the main file took a few minutes, but loading each level from tape afterwards didn't take all that long.
FAVOURITE ENHANCED SEUCK GAME (NOT ENHANCED BY ME)
Synetic by Frank Gasking - Stunning, graphics, brilliant game play. Really tough game, with brilliant intros and outros, superb Matt Gray inspired tunes
FAVOURITE UN-ENHANCED SEUCK GAME (NOT ENHANCED BY ME)
VIOS by Carl Mason. Nice graphics, some very clever tricks and great sound effects
Hello, I am Richard. I am a homebrew Commodore 64 games developer and musician during my own time, who is also learning indie game development in Unity (You may have noticed my first ever game called Rockit on https://richard-tnd.itch.io). I have been supporting the Commodore 64 (and the C64 internet gaming scene) releasing my own computer productions since 1995. I have made many friends in the C64 scene in the past and I am pleased how much I had become from a beginner C64 SEUCK user all the way to a professional indie C64 games developer. As a bonus, I release all of my work free for people to download for use a Commodore 64, with a 1541Ultimate or whatever hardware you have to transfer from PC to C64. My best work to date is Sub Hunter, Woolly Jumper, Starfysh, Blastopia Deluxe and Amazon Tales.
My other C64 skills
In the C64 world, my strongest skill is composing music, using DMC, Goat Tracker V2, or Cheesecutter. Although a lot of my tunes sound too much the same, I don't really care about it. Since it is much easier to compose in that kind of fashion and I really enjoy creating my own tunes and bolting these on to my own productions. I can also be quite good on some older C64 music editors, like Voicetracker, Future Composer, etc. Where as my weakest skill has always been graphics. Luckily there have been some great people who supported me with their own graphics assets for my free game creations.
Many years back I tried have a bash in PC programming retro games and other silly things in Blitz Basic, and DarkBASIC. You can see some examples of my PC games found HERE
From Left: Moo-Lander, Jeffy, Bomb Catch, Moo-Lander
I run this web site called "The New Dimension" as a hobby project. The New Dimension hosts games and software, which I created for the Commodore 64, in digital form. Programs are both disk and tape images, which you are welcome to download and transfer to your Commodore 64 related hardware you own (Or just run in VICE, CCS, etc.).
Other C64 activities I enjoy doing is writing music. I mostly compose techno, disco and thumping trance SID tracks using Goat Tracker nowadays. Also still use older music editors now and then, such as DMC, Music Assembler, Future Composer, etc. I also enjoy tape loaders, enhancing SEUCK games, as well as programming games. Sounds crazy, but that is true.
The New Dimension started in 2000, and 20 years on, TND still goes strong and productive today. Although, I prefer to work on quality rather than quantity these days. The New Dimension hosts annual SEUCK game competitions, and additional competions now and then.
Now enjoy my C64 history :)
THE COMMODORE 64 HISTORY
What draws me towards the Commodore 64 than any other console?
Excellent classic games - Unlike the games you buy on the shelves at present for modern day consoles, the C64 gaming era had a huge array of titles, in which had plenty of variety of genres. Puzzle games, shoot 'em ups, beat 'em ups, MMORPGs, FRP/RPGs (Not my style, but there are loads of people that loved this type of genre), strategy, flight simulators (yet again not my cup of tea, but I do remember trying to make one in BASIC back in the late 1990's and it was naff!). Some great 8-bit arcade ports hit the C64, (I loved 1942, Ghosts and Goblins, Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Ikari Warriors and Commando, as well as R-Type). There was also really funny games, which you wondered 'What the heck am I playing here?!?!?! but have great fun playing it.
The loading screens - In the present day, people lack the patience of waiting for their computer / TV SET, etc. to boot up. Back in the past, we had to put a tape into the C2N, press the SHIFT+RUN/STOP keys and load a game. Most games had fast loaders, which used multicoloured stripes. Which to me were pretty cool. Later tape loading screens had loading pictures, and played music in the background, while you waited to load a game. There were also tape loaders that allowed you to play games, during the loading times. 'Invade-A-Load', 'Load 'N' Play', 'Micro Painter'. You name a few. (I also made a few tape loader games of my own, which I think you'll probably might have fun mastering tapes with).
You can see plenty of these type of tape loaders on the TND games and contributor's page.
The Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit - Ah yes, this classic tool was used a lot, when I was a teen. I didn't just have the desire to play C64 games, but also MAKE games using the editor. Most of the time during my school days, I used the example attack waves and just made different graphics, until I learned the blank SEUCK. This tool came with my first Commodore 64. Although I tend to program games quite a lot. I like to use SEUCK now and then. In the later years, the Shoot Em Up Construction Kit gave me freedom to enhance my own and friends creations to add additional code to the titles.
Ah yes, the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit. A brilliant utility for creative minds. A game can be made easily. The example above is the game Rocket 'N Roll. Which I created in SEUCK in 2019. Thank you Sensisoft :o)
You can do MORE on a C64 than just play games - The C64 wasn't just built for playing games. It was also used for other tasks, such as drawing graphics, bitmaps, the loading screen, charsets, sprites, composing music and most important of them all, writing new programs.
The Demo Scene - These talented programmers, graphicians and musicians like to PUSH the C64 to its limits to bring top quality demos in the C64 scene. Demos like Deus Ex Machina, Royal Arte, Edge of Disgrace, Wonderland XI, are a good example for the great effects.. They also get and deserve a lot of respect for all the hard work which was done during their free time, and expense.
My previous Commodore 64 History - How I got to where I was
On Christmas Day 1990, I had a Commodore 64 as my main birthday present. A Commodore 64C, light fantastic pack. It also came with SEUCK (Pronounced short for 'Shoot Em Up Construction Kit). More about SEUCK later, The Image System (CRL), Typing Tutor (Pitman Computing), The Music System (Firebird), Batman the Caped Crusader (Ocean), Gangster, Army Days, Time Traveller by Mindscape games, Blaze Out (Ocean) and Mike Read's Pop Quiz (Elite) - all which came with a light gun. Also a C2N. First ever C64 game I bought (with my Birthday money on Boxing Day 1990) was Sailing, followed by R-Type, then my C64 ventures moved on.
In the late winter and early spring of 1991, I was introduced to Commodore Format (Issue 8), by Uncle Steve (Who I believe was a computer fan as well and used to own an Amstrad CPC). In the spring of 1991, I bought Zzap 64 (issue 85 - with Zzap Megatape 19), and didn't stop buying the mags until the end - where the cover tapes took my attention. Between 1990-1994, I had C64 tapes as Christmas presents from friends and family, and most of the tapes I still own today. Some of my tapes used to be borrowed by one of my brother's friends, but after he moved away, I was unable to get my tapes back. Ah those were the school days. - I even played on the machine all day on weekends. I had 5 C64's in total. 4 of which broke, and one which has been actively working since 2006, when I bought it for £4.00 (without PSU or accessories) on EBAY.
During my teens, I was mostly a gamer, and a SEUCK fan (Still am today). I did write many games using the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit. While I was practising with the SEUCK I kept on using the same attack waves in SLAP 'N TICKLE, and only changed graphics until I learned more about the editor. Then I was ready for using the blank SEUCK and made loads of games in the past. Sadly although those games had been stored on tape, I am unable to salvage those, as the tapes are / were no more. The same happened when the following year I had a 1541-II disk drive for my birthday and also Action Replay cartridge. I made loads of SEUCK games, stored them on disk. Disks corrupt, I threw them away and nothing remains of the games. In 1991 - 1993.
Galactic Man was made in 1991 (On tape it was known as GMAN WAZ ERE), and oodles of years later, I had found it on an old C64 tape and I managed to preserve and rescue the game from a corrupt tape. Only things that were messed up was the title screen chars - which only used the original SEUCK chars anyway. I recovered the game. The game is on TND Classix #16 disk anyway. Things did eventually improve later on the SEUCK front. It was a terrible game, but it does deserve a piece of history.
I used to go to a friend's house to check out his C64 stuff, and he taught me some simple BASIC programming. I started learning from the C64 book which had come with my computer, and in 1994 managed to create my first ever C64 game 'CIDCOM'. It was a simple game in which you had to match three flashing lights in a row, by a simple hit of the Space Bar key. In 1995, I made some more games using SEUCK and also BASIC. Got in touch with Binary Zone PD (As I saw BZPD advertised in Commodore Format) and ordered a free PD catalogue. Then I started contributing programs to Binary Zone PD (More about BZPD/Psytronik later), and I kept on going until the PD library had stopped running. I was also introduced to Commodore Zone and Commodore Scene magazine in the late 1990's.
Friendship and the Internet
In 1995-2000, I was learning in college. I was studying mainly computing courses which I passed successfully during the five years. ... And I was still enjoying the Commodore 64 - while other people tried to push me to PC / Playstation consoles, which I didn't want. There were one or two people who shared memories about this beloved machine.
Anyway, back to the college years ... During the courses, I was introduced to the internet, and for a session we were introduced to web site hosting, and had a hobby project to work on. I generated my own C64 web site, uploaded it to a web site provider based in the 1990's and I ended up making some friends with people on-line, who had the same interest as me. Some of the people still follow my productions today. When I frequently had internet access at home, I was in touch with people more often. Then ended up as part of the legal C64 demo / games scene. (More about this later).
REAL LIFE C64 ACTIVITIES
We all studied things in college, and experience work life, but outside these things, I wanted to do more great things for the Commodore 64. I never wanted to depart from this machine, and love making good use supporting the machine. Here's an example of things I did in my C64 lifetime:
Composing music
You may have read earlier about The Music System by Firebird Software. Well, I did use this quite a lot in the 1990's before I had any other music composing software. However the main music composing hobby started in 1994. I ordered the Binary Zone Utilities tape (Featured in Commodore Format issue 44) from Binary Zone PD. I received the tape within a few days and checked the tools out. There were some great, but tough music editors on the tape. I experimented with the editors, and ended up doing some music using USA Music Assembler, Demo Music Creator V2.0, Future Composer, Music Mixer, etc..
Then with more PD on the way, I had more C64 music editors to play around with. Today I compose C64 music using a PC based tracker, 'Goat Tracker' and also the recently new 'CheeseCutter', but I still like the good old DMC music editor. I did one or two tunes using JCH's music editor, but didn't feel comfortable with the JCH Newplayer, due to its functions and environment.
DMC V2.0, a true classic editor by Graffity
Fitting music on to my own programs
Before I coded demos, and M/C games in the late 1990's-2000's I needed to learn a way to get music fitted on to my own programs. Luckily it wasn't all that difficult. I used to type in some routines from C64 magazines and use the interrupts to generate BASIC with MUSIC. Then learned in my head how to program an IRQ raster interrupt. When I was writing in BASIC I didn't need to do an IRQ routine player for tunes, which were composed using Dutch U.S.A Music Assembler. The music routine, already had a built in player. 1997-1999 was the time I used existing type-in sources for scroll text and music, etc.. It all changed in the 2000's. However tunes which needed music from different players required relocating memory, and additional IRQ player code. Which most of my productions used.
Where SEUCK games were concerned, I mostly had the tunes installed on to my SEUCK games by Binary Zone, in the late 90's, and allowed full use of the games in the BZPD catalogue. After I learned a lot more machine code, I managed to add similar routines that would play music in SEUCK games, using an Action Replay cart machine code monitor. More about the history of SEUCK later. (See SEUCK Enhancements)
Assembly Code Programming
I was learning assembly in the late 1990's, by referring to some of the magazine features in Commodore Format and also some fanzines as well. I ended up programming some simple, but rather naff little games. I first started programming by using the Action Replay cartridge, and used a notebook. When I ordered PD disks from various PD libraries, I ended up with a diskmag on the back of one of the disks called 'Coders World'. A tutorial in programming simple demo effects. I just didn't have the clue what I was doing as I was pretty much new to the thing. I learned from various internet resources and magazines, to program my first ever game, and ended up with a small crap game called 'CETIMIEX'.
Thankfully, as time moved on, things eventually got better. My first top quality game was 'Balloonacy', a simple crazy balloon style of game game. Where you needed to get to a switch and flee to the exit, without getting burst by the electrified walls or aliens. Things did improve even more. Releasing the games to my web site wasn't a problem at the time. This was because I had an old PC, which I also had bought an XE1541 cable with star commander and I was able to port my work from the Commodore 64, and digitally preserve it from my C64 to the PC for my web site.
Later on, I learned the use of cross-assembly programming and compiling tools - and that is how I seem to program games these days. Mostly ACME cross assembler, with EXOMIZER as compression. I used a wide range of resources around the internet and asked for help from various people to get over certain obstacles at the time, which I did many times in the past. Making notes of routines to do various tricks was very useful for me as a future reference for programming stuff.
THE GAMES / HIGHLIGHTS (CLICK TITLE TO DOWNLOAD FOR YOUR C64)
BALLOONACY
In 2001, my first quality game production was Balloonacy. It was an arcade game in which you guided a balloon around each of the 16 levels, while avoiding collision with the deadly walls, and creatures. The game felt a bit like Crazy Balloon, but CB never had opening/closing lasers or a task to release an exit and flee through it for bonus points. Balloonacy was programmed through Turbo Assembler and each screen was created manually by loading in my own character set, and using the Action Replay screen editor to manually draw each level.
Then I had to transfer the screen RAM to a memory position. I did that for the other levels as well. The game ended up split into two parts at the end. It took me a few months to make. The front end was quite a challenge, but with help from Phantom's diskmag 'Coders World' and making notes about the effects results turned out great. Later in 2003, the game got published on tape for fun by Cronosoft. After the game was released on tape, I ended up with a nice loading picture in 2005 by Marq Watkin.
GRID ZONE REMIX
In 2004, I created Grid Zone, and then remixed it in 2005. I thought it would be great to try an original game title, and I ended up with a little gem collect 'em up. It was a game where you control a dog called Ned. He has been warped into the Grid Zone, while his girlfriend Daisy was warped into a laser powered cell. The evil monster ruler, Traxionian threatens to eat her for lunch, unless Ned picks enough diamonds. The game idea was simple, run around the screen and pick up moving gems.
Grid Zone was also the game I first used the Ocean Freeload tape for (Source is now public domain software) loader source to master the game to tape. The loading stripes were changed, but I accidentally forgot to remove the anti-expert protection code. Which unfortunately forced gamers to remove their cartridge from their C64 and re-load. The game was released yet again by Cronosoft, along with the first Grid Zone. I launched a cover drawing competition on the TND web site, and the winning entry was used as a cover.The original Grid Zone only used Spectacular Copy tape loader. A public domain disk/tape copy program.
This was the later TND release of Grid Zone Remix, using TAPE MASTER PRO. (Right ... Grid Zone, original)
SUB HUNTER
Between 2004 - 2008 I worked on a co-op game project with Frank Gasking called "Sub Hunter". It was a type of game I had never done before, and I gained loads of great respect for the work made on this game. Sub Hunter is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up in which you guide a submarine under water, and must rescue the swimmers from mutant sea creatures and enemy subs. There are assorted stages that involved bombing enemies with depth charges, within a time limit. Also a land and rescue stage and a shark survival round. This game had me really happy with the final result.
2010 - 2015. It wasn't just Sub Hunter that ended up as a co-op game project. My progress with programming game projects got much better, I ended up creating a couple of horizontal scrolling games. One of which was "Woolly Jumper", and another which probably has to be one of my all time favourite games I ever wrote "X-Force" (Cross-Force).
WOOLLY JUMPER
Woolly Jumper was a roller-coaster scrolling platform game, in which you controlled a sheep which had to reach the other side of the screen on 16 different levels. Blow a whistle and the rescue ship comes to pick it up - the sheep also had to avoid having an early night's bath :) . The sheep had to fight against the a series of aliens, which had their own formation. This game turned out great, as a co-op production with Shaun Pearson's excellent graphics.. It was first entered in to the RGCD 16KB cartridge Compo in 2011, where there were 8 levels in total. The game got expanded after the competition, adding another 8 levels to it. Also a high score table and enhanced title screen were added.
X - FORCE
X-Force is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up, in which you go through 16 tough levels, battling against the aliens, in order to escape from the planet Darx. The game turned into a stunner, after Saul Cross's graphics were in place. The maps really stood out and the game project made me really pleased with it overall. Sadly not everybody liked this game much, due to the difficulty factor. The game had some good reviews, and some bad reviews as well. I wrote this game as I always wanted to write a horizontal space blaster.
TRANCE SECTOR ULTIMATE
Saul Cross also helped me develop an improved version of my 2012 game, 'Trance Sector', which eventually became 'Trance Sector Ultimate', a simple game, in which you guide a ship around each of the 32 screens in either standard or competition mode. The ship has to pick up all of the pods in order to move on to the next level. The game had a massive overhaul in presentation, graphics, remixed thumping trance music, but the game play was still the same. TSU also featured some nice character graphics by Akira from the Kiken Corp.
LET'S INVADE
This was one of my most ambitious game projects of 2016. It was basically a sprite/multiplexed Space Invaders game with different scrolling tiled background. Also with flashing effect which sync to the sound effects, or in game trance music. 40 levels of alien blasting fun. A really fun Space Invaders style game, with funny power ups. The game gained lots of proud gamers, although it was just too easy to play. A deluxe 16KB cartridge version may be on the cards for a future 16KB cartridge making compo.
ENHANCING SEUCK GAMES
I had a passion for making games since I was a teenager. I also love checking out and playing SEUCK and sideways scrolling SEUCK games. However, in the 1990's, I remember seeing the first ever enhanced SEUCK game on the Commodore Format cover tape called "Twin Tigers", followed by "Monster Mash". It made me think "I wish I can do that!!!!". I started learning to change the colour of the title screen raster bars, and adding music to the front end, or in game. I learned a bit more about enhancing SEUCK. In 1999-2000, I created a tool, called "Colour Fantastic", in which allowed you to create very a simple front end and save it to add on to your very own SEUCK game.
After the SEUCK vault was born, and included The Secrets of SEUCKcess by Jon Wells and also learned some other tricks from some Lemon64 forum members. I learned new skills to adapt SEUCK enhancements a bit further by referring to the maps, exploring the game code more and began to experiment. Jon also helped me out with some of the clever tricks on how to do a smart bomb effect, and also how to detect which enemy has been shot. I also learned about the char positions of the background chars, and ended up creating blinking and scrolling characters to form some kind of background animation. I also managed to explore a little more in SEUCK and managed to create the very first ever trick that was NEVER ever used with SEUCK. Such as bolting two players together. This was of course the enhancements for "Huntress of Midgard" by C64 contributor, Anthony Burns. It felt like a SEUCK version of Golden Axe one way or another. :)
I also did a co-op production with Alf Yngve as a New Year project for 2014, where I used the same sort of method with Huntress of midgard. This time a vertical scrolling space shoot 'em up in which you fly across 3 different zones battling against the aliens. The game of course 'Dark Force', a SEUCK tribute to Faster Than Light's "Light Force". My game was originally an experiment, which worked extremely well. It featured additional tricks in which changed the colour of the background for each level, and also gave a slight twist of fate for the ending, should not all generators be destroyed. The game was later re-generated using the SEUCK Redux engine, by Martin Piper. ... talking of which you can find it and the Thunder load IRQ tape source here.
Left: Huntress of Midgard - Right: Dark Force (Click on the image to download one of the 2 games)
SEUCK REDUX
I also like to toy around with Martin Piper's SEUCK Redux engine, and import SEUCK games into the source, to avoid slow down syndrome - and add extra enhancements. The best project which I did for SEUCK Redux was at first 'Super Tau Zeta 2 - Special Edition', which Alf Yngve and I had launched as a Christmas treat. This game featured great enhancements, but now a new favourite came along. It was Zap Fight 2. Which we both couldn't resist to enhance and put together as a bonus treat for the Kung Fu Maniacs trilogy. The game felt like a proper arcade game. Enemies which used to fire random shots, use AIM fire, and I could still program new front ends and add new thumping music and power ups to the source. Zap Fight 2, turned out excellent, although I had encountered many issues with the game before release.
(Top: Super Tau Zeta 2, Bottom Zap Fight)
TAPE LOADERS
Just add a picture and music and dance
It wasn't just SEUCK I was mad for. Tape Loaders was another highlight. I used to use various disk/tape copying utilities in which I could put programs from disks to tape using an auto boot turbo loader. When Freeload tape loader source came out, I played around with it and put loading pictures on to tape loaders, with music. In 2009, Martin Piper launched a complete C64 archive of available resources, in which I was granted permission to use for stuff outside of TND. I ended up updating the source code to build a tape mastering system which would write a program from disk, and display a scroll text, optional flashing sprite to indicate loading, play music, and draw a picture while loading. The program had a wide choice of loading stripes schemes, and you could choose whether or not you want to cycle the border per block loaded. That was of course Tape Master Pro. Most of the time, I used these loaders for games that had loading pictures for the games.
Load and play these
It wasn't just standard tape loaders I wanted to do, but also attempt other things by experimenting. Using the tape loader source I ended up creating at least 5 loading games, and compiling the masters together to form "Loader Game Tape Master Kit 1 + 2 and 3". The first game was "MooTilation", a simple shoot 'em up game, where you had to protect cows from being captured by incoming flying saucers. There was also "Happy Blocks", inspired by a an on-line FLASH game called "Block Dodge", where you had to move your block and avoid it from smashing the other trundling blocks. Happy Blocks also become a full standalone score attack game by the name of Happy Blocks DX. There was also "Square Pit", a loader game version of "Square Pit 64", which was inspired by a Mini Game Compo entry for the MSX. There was a game, which was "Blitz-A-Load", which was a Blitz type of game. Finally in 2018 came Zap 'n Load.
(From Top left: MooTilation, Happy Blocks, Square Pit, Blitz-A-Load).
One of the most memorable loading games for me was "Happy Blocks" (inspired by the PC flash game, Block Dodge). The game concept was such a simple idea, just dodging nasty blocks and survive for as long as you can. There has been great feedback about the tape loader game. Just over a decade later, the game become a deluxe full high score attack challenge game. After designing, remixing the loader tune, programming the full game, and crunching it. The file size was just too small. I just came home from the pub on that day decided to add silly digi sampling. They were recorded from my mobile and transferred to my workstation and editied with audiacity.Then I converted the wave file into digi sample data,using Wav2Digi and rendered a routine to play the samples. The final result turned out highly entertaining. It is amazing how messing around for a laugh can actually turn into a quality game.
... okay, back to the loader:
A touch of class
I ended up expanding Martin's loader further to do additional tricks, and made Thunderload Series 6, and Thunderload 7, which were pretty special and exclusive for this web site. It basically displays the loading screen with music, a huge scroll text and helps me promote some stuff I'm involved with, such as incoming games, demos, music etc.. Most tunes in the loader are usually already in HVSC and sometimes used again. However I loved this loader. Mostly contributor's game used this loader system.
(Left: Thunderload Series Six, Right: Thunderload 7)
Rasterload Re-visited
I did something quite special for the Commodore Format archive, in which we worked on producing 3 legit special freewware downloadable tapes (The CF Archive Power Packs 62 - 64), where contributors could submit their own work. Little did people know, that the games were to be mastered with an authentic loader. CF's tape loader was known as "Rasterload", a loader system with a black screen with clock at the bottom left corner of the screen, but it had nothing else. The clock indicated an estimated loading time inside an interrupt routine. It is not known who originally made this loader.After CF64 we decided to do no more.
I did something similar and tried to re-create the loading clock sprites, then added some additional code using TapeToolBuild by Martin Piper. This had to spring in a big surprise. PP64 loader used a logo contributed by SHINE. The Commodore Format Archive was proud with the work I did just for fun. Everything was all free of course. The loader resulted out cool. The loader then got recycled as Thunderload 7. Mostly contributor's game used this loader system.
CHECK OUT THE FREE (AND LEGAL) FAN BASED CF POWER PACKS AT THE COMMODORE FORMAT ARCHIVE
Mastering tapes for Psytronik Software and other hobby software houses
I have also been involved to help prepare digital tape masters from TapeToolBuild for C64 hobby based software houses, such as Psytronik Software and some others. This was done on a voluntary basis. I used to modify the TapeTool loader assembly source to suit a loading scheme that would fit a particular game. Sometimes complex loaders had to be made, for multi-part games. I generated a test tape, and try it out on my C64, before generating the final C64 disk to tape tape recording software.Sometimes I write my own music for the tape loaders. (Pictured below is the tape loader I did in the style of a classic tape loader with music for the game Flubble and Squij (Which also consists of music I made) :)
The Games Scene and Fanzines
Binary Zone PD / PSYTRONIK SOFTWARE (1995-Current)
I had a strong bond with Binary Zone PD and Psytronik Software. I mostly wrote games for the Binary Zone PD library back in 1995-2000, before the PD library finally closed its doors and gone online. I also contributed to the C64 fanzine, Commodore Zone a few times. Most games I wrote at the time for Binary Zone, were in the "Nyaaaah! Series". The most funniest moment was when Nyaaaah! 3 made an appearance on the Commodore Zone cover tape. There was an amusing joke added to the game instructions by the team I created the game for a laugh, during my student years. Other cover mounted games were Squibblies, Nyaaaah! 8, Balloonacy and Camels in Space.
In 2004-2008, Frank Gasking and I wrote Sub Hunter originally for the TND web site, and Cronosoft, but was offered a place in the Psytronik Software label. That motivated me even more. I also offered to do tape mastering for Psytronik Software as well, and I have been doing that since for free (See the above comment about tape mastering). Although existing sources were used for tape mastering, permission was granted to use the loaders any way I liked, and I credited the creators on the loading scroll text, or loader game :) We also worked a lot with Alf Yngve, to bring a load of his SEUCK games to life. We did Shoot Em Up Destruction Set #2 and #3. We had a whole lot of fun making the SEUDS #2 and SEUDS #3. My favourite game I worked on in the compilation was Zap Fight, A SEUCK homage to Slap Fight, featuring thumping trance music. I also had fun and plenty of laughs making the Kung Fu Maniacs Trilogy.
I was also involved in creating some disk menus for some of the productions. Most menus were practically the same as my old menus, but with a different font, music, graphics and colour scheme. It was by far the easiest job of them all.
Commodore Scene (1997 - 2006)
I was involved quite a lot with the paper fanzine Commodore Scene, I did features on Crunchers (rating on depack effects, rather than compression rat),, Music Scene, and I also took over the Commodore Scene cover disk from issue 37, and compiled the disk with loads of goodies - until the bitter end of the magazine (Issue 51 was the very last issue).
It was good fun to compile near to new Public Domain programs and game previews on to the cover disk, and type in a traditional scroll text on the Commodore Scene disk menu. I did a new disk menu for the mag, and compiled a cover disk with that menu, but sadly the mag closed its pages for good. The menu become something for the TND User Tool Disk at the end. So it wasn't all wasted. Compiling and writing for CS was all done for free and as a hobby of course :)
In 2006, I also did a new disk menu for Commodore Scene, it was planned to be used for CS issue 53, but since issue 51 of the magazine was the very last issue. The menu was used in the "TND User Tool Disk" instead. I enjoyed being part of the team since issue 21 - to the end.
RGCD (2011 - 2015)
I helped support RGCD, supply a few of my game creations for the RGCD 16KB cartridge competitions since 2011. I also collaborated with some of the RGCD team members making an improved version of Sheepoid, featuring an overhaul of Smila's stunning graphics. The overall result was magic. Sheepoid DX was born as a bonus for Woolly Jumper. The final game I developed for RGCD was Trance Sector Ultimate. It was a collaboration of the standard and competition levels from the original Trance Sector, with brand new presentation and music remixes.
The Demo Scene
I have been involved in contributing to the demo scene, writing demos, intros and music for some of the productions. The groups I mainly created demos for were Blazon, Civitas, Crypt, Hokuto Force, People of Liberty (As part of the Scene World programming and music development) and of course TND (My homebrew software label). I had left a few of these groups due to certain pressures or the dissolving of the groups.I have also particpated on various competitions. I even ran a few of my own.
More public domain - It's the contributors page
The New Dimension doesn't just host my own projects, and co-op productions, but I also wanted to help support other game authors, who liked to create stuff for the Commodore 64 in any way they liked. No matter how the game looked, I provided a friendly service for people to contribute their own work. People still can do that if they wish to - should their productions not be offensive or infringe any form of copyright. Most work which was submitted was mostly created with the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit. There were occasional programmed games as well. Someone contributed a music editor, a drawing program, and also some little basic toys. So we did accept anything. Everything on the contributor's site gets used with permission from the game authors :)
Most Favourite Commodore 64 games of all time (1983-1993):
FAVOURITE PLATFORMER:
Mayhem in Monsterland (APEX) - Excellent platform game, with great platform action, where you have to jump on to the enemies, and pick up magic dust at the first phase. Then collect a limited number magic stars (or collect the whole lot) for the bonus phase. I got as far as level 3 in this game, as it is SO tough. Really nice colourful graphics, great game play and a whole lot of fun. This game later got released as 15th Anniversary Edition, by Psytronik Software.
FAVOURITE SHOOT 'EM UP
Armalyte (THALAMUS/Kixx)- Damn right awesome horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up. Real tough to play, although I still cannot complete level 1 of this game yet (I don't react very well to the enemy firing, and things like that) my ship always ends up becoming toast (Try and spread some butter on that:)). Groovy graphics, excellent music and excellent game play. Tape loading isn't too long either - considering the atmospheric music during loading intervals.
FAVOURITE PUZZLE GAME
Puzznic (OCEAN/Hit Squad) - It really hits me hard this game does. A fast paced puzzle game in which to match 2 or more adjacent tiles together. There are plenty of puzzles that keep me occupied, and the game gets really hard the further you progress.
FAVOURITE ARCADE ADVENTURE
Last Ninja 2 (SYSTEM 3/Hit Squad) - Great game. There's various puzzles in which can be solved, to help the ninja progress much better on his quest. I managed to get as far as the second part in the game. It is really hard, but good thing is that 'you can continue your adventure on the stage you progress to' when game is over. The graphics and design is ever so nice, and the excellent music by Matt Gray was purely awesome.
FAVOURITE BEAT 'EM UP
Dragon Ninja (OCEAN/Hit Squad) - An excellent conversion of the original arcade port. Fighting the bad guys, travel on trucks and trains, and smack those ninjas. Great graphics and music. Top quality title.
FAVOURITE RACER
Carnage (Zzepelin Games) - Really funny top-down racing game., You can buy your own upgrades, etc. to increase the ability to reach the checkered flag 'first'.
FAVOURITE UNCATERGORIZED GAME
Puffy's Saga (UBI/Hit Squad) - Strange, and weird cute game,, but this game had me really hooked to it. Lovely graphics, excellent music and game play. Loading time of the main file took a few minutes, but loading each level from tape afterwards didn't take all that long.
FAVOURITE ENHANCED SEUCK GAME (NOT ENHANCED BY ME)
Synetic by Frank Gasking - Stunning, graphics, brilliant game play. Really tough game, with brilliant intros and outros, superb Matt Gray inspired tunes
FAVOURITE UN-ENHANCED SEUCK GAME (NOT ENHANCED BY ME)
VIOS by Carl Mason. Nice graphics, some very clever tricks and great sound effects