About The New Dimension
PROFILE / HISTORY
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
Hi there, I'm Richard Bayliss, 38. C64 programmer and musician. I own a PC, a WII, a recreated ZX Spectrum and of course a Commodore 64. I also visited various retro gaming events, as I have a passion for classic video games. Most of all of course the Commodore 64. I have also been involved in hosting a few online Commodore 64 related competitions, such as the annual SEUCK competition. Which despite deadline extensions, become a success. I have also been helpful with other/wannabe C64 programmers with support. A new SEUCK compo is set to take place in Spring 2016.
In the C64 world, my strongest point is composing music, using DMC, Goat Tracker, or Cheesecutter. Where as my weakest skill is graphics. Programming is my moderate skill. I tried my bash in PC programming retro games and other silly things in Blitz Basic, and DarkBASIC, but there was just TOO MUCH for me to learn at too little time. PC programs, which I wrote on the PC were 'Bomb Catch' (A remake of Marq Watkin's C64 Mini Game), 'Jeffy' (Remake of my own C64 game). 'Moo-Lander' a game, where the cow had to land on to the ground, and avoid other animals and falling into the water. and 'Snodge's Bad Day', based on 'Cherry Dash'. In order for me to be able to write any more retro games for the PC, I will need to study the books I have, but time is a major problem. ... I never really thought about it due to my passion for the C64 environment ;)
Games can be found HERE
From Left: Moo-Lander, Jeffy, Bomb Catch, Moo-Lander
I run this web site,"The New Dimension", as a freeware hobby project - NOT A BUSINESS!. In which hosts the 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 on to hardware such as SDIEC, Turbo Chameleon, The 1541Ultimate. TND also provides .TAP (digital tape images) for use on tape style hardware or 1541Ultimate's tape adapter (1541U2 also required). TND allows C64 fans share my creations and contributor's releases on to your own sites - as long as the software, is still FREE. The New Dimension is my own software label, in which specifies mostly by the way of games, but I also like to write some demos and utilities now and then. 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 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 drives me most of all towards the Commodore 64?
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, 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), some great 8-bit arcade ports (Loved 1942, 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'.
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
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
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 3 computing courses. BTEC first diploma in IT, BTEC National Diploma in Computing and HND Computing. 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 GeoCities and ended up making some friends with people on-line, who had the same interest as me. 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 short no. of days and check 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 like that much, due to it's pure difficulty. I started composing more music, and added those to my SEUCK + BASIC games. The later years I am still composing music now and then. Most tunes I wrote in the past and present are thumping trance SID tracks. Although I am not into that kind of style, I just can't stop myself from making it :)
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 times 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. This 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. Loading stripes were changed, but I had forgotten to remove the anti-expert cartridge protection, as there wasn't really any need for it. 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.
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 to 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 type of 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..
X - FORCE
(Version 1 available - with no loading picture or sound effects) For final version please visit: BINARY ZONE'S RETRO STORE
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.
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. This game was released on 50 limited edition cartridges and also as a free digital download.
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 teen. 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 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 - NICE
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 4 loading games, and compiling the masters together to form "Loader Game Tape Master Kit 1 + 2". 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. 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. Finally was a game, which was "Blitz-A-Load".
(From Top left: MooTilation, Happy Blocks, Square Pit, Blitz-A-Load).
A touch of class
I ended up expanding the 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 special Power Pack tapes (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. Telling estimated loading time. 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
MY C64 SCENE INVOLVEMENT
CIVITAS (2001-Present)
This was the first demo scene group I had joined, as a sofa scener, was when Zeitgeist invited me to join Civitas as a musician. I got involved with composing music for various CIVITAS demos. The first demo was the end part of 'Clown'. Ending was quite a sad tune. I also programmed a few things as well as composed music for this group. Zeitgeist and I did a demo which sadly never got properly finished, due to real life, called "Fear". G-Fellow had joined in the team, we worked on the MSX FRONT music series, and ended up making the last MSX Front (3) use both G-Fellows and my own tune. We even did a co-op tune using JCH's new player. When Zeitgeist had disappeared and various members left or remained inactive. G-Fellow and I were left to keep this group active, but now remains inactive.
PROTOVISION (2003-Present)
I was involved with this group as a C64 musician. I composed a lot of tunes for a few games, and entered every game competition that was run at the Vision party. I originally did a title tune for the game 'Metal Dust', but sadly the tune never got released for the game, and I no longer have the tune in my possession either. The guys in Protovision had me motivated with doing tunes for 'Pac It' and also 'Tanks 3000'. One of the games got completed, but the other game is still awaiting completion. It was good fun composing tunes for Protovision. They were a real friendly bunch, I even tested my coding skills to make a new SEUCK front end for Zynax 3 as well :)
HOKUTO FORCE (2002-2005)
I mainly joined the group as a programmer, and programmed intros for the group, just for fun. My intros were used quite a lot, and eventually got improved by some of the later members of the group. The intros that I did for the group also contained a built in editor. It was up to HF to link their own programs on to the intro. I decided to leave the group in 2004.
COVENANT (2004-2006)
Covenant was a demo and game making group, which I ended up creating a co-op game production with JSL, and covenant. One game was meant to have been a demo part for the Death or Glory demo. Sadly it didn't turn out well, so I decided to scrap the game. However a full game hit the scene in Christmas 2005, by the name of "Balloonacy 2". This game impressed the guys at Covenant, and I released it into the public scene. The game only took me a couple of days, and the speed of the logo produced for the game was really fast. I also was involved as a musician for various demos.
BLAZON (2007-current)
I was invited to join the group Blazon, where I could code simple demos for the group. I did my first plasma part and submitted it to Blazon, but sadly I don't think that ever got used. If I remember correctly it may have been a hidden piece. I also got involved with a hidden demo part for the covers music demo. It was a simple demo, which used two screens and animated a space invader and scrolled some text. I also was involved in composing music. We also released a co-op game called Sub Duel. I am still a member of this group today, but group status inactive.
PEOPLE OF LIBERTY AND SCENE WORLD (2001-current)
People of Liberty was a PAL/NTSC demo group, which created the disk mag "Scene World". I was involved with the group where I composed music for practically every issue of the disk mag (Scene World) and also wrote games news, and some other features. All of this, for "FREE" and as an enjoyment.
CRYPT (2006 - 2008)
I was invited to join the demo group, "Crypt" as a coder and musician in 2006. I liked the old school demos and hoped that I could learn more about the old style demo programming amongst some of the members. We did co-op a TND + Crypt demo for Buenzli. I did loads of tunes for the group as well. Unfortunately, I decided to leave the group in 2008, due to the very bad behaviour and bullying around the C64 scene database, and also due to the constant pressure I had to put up with requesting code, and music at very little time. This led me to leaving the group.
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 library finally closed its doors. 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. 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 been doing that since. 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 - I was mad on those), Music Scene, and 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. 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 CS 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. All was done for free and as a hobby of course :)
RGCD (2011 - 2015)
I helped support RGCD, supply a few of my game creations, and also entered all of the RGCD 16KB cartridge competitions since 2011. We also worked on 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.
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 SEUCK. 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 :)
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
Hi there, I'm Richard Bayliss, 38. C64 programmer and musician. I own a PC, a WII, a recreated ZX Spectrum and of course a Commodore 64. I also visited various retro gaming events, as I have a passion for classic video games. Most of all of course the Commodore 64. I have also been involved in hosting a few online Commodore 64 related competitions, such as the annual SEUCK competition. Which despite deadline extensions, become a success. I have also been helpful with other/wannabe C64 programmers with support. A new SEUCK compo is set to take place in Spring 2016.
In the C64 world, my strongest point is composing music, using DMC, Goat Tracker, or Cheesecutter. Where as my weakest skill is graphics. Programming is my moderate skill. I tried my bash in PC programming retro games and other silly things in Blitz Basic, and DarkBASIC, but there was just TOO MUCH for me to learn at too little time. PC programs, which I wrote on the PC were 'Bomb Catch' (A remake of Marq Watkin's C64 Mini Game), 'Jeffy' (Remake of my own C64 game). 'Moo-Lander' a game, where the cow had to land on to the ground, and avoid other animals and falling into the water. and 'Snodge's Bad Day', based on 'Cherry Dash'. In order for me to be able to write any more retro games for the PC, I will need to study the books I have, but time is a major problem. ... I never really thought about it due to my passion for the C64 environment ;)
Games can be found HERE
From Left: Moo-Lander, Jeffy, Bomb Catch, Moo-Lander
I run this web site,"The New Dimension", as a freeware hobby project - NOT A BUSINESS!. In which hosts the 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 on to hardware such as SDIEC, Turbo Chameleon, The 1541Ultimate. TND also provides .TAP (digital tape images) for use on tape style hardware or 1541Ultimate's tape adapter (1541U2 also required). TND allows C64 fans share my creations and contributor's releases on to your own sites - as long as the software, is still FREE. The New Dimension is my own software label, in which specifies mostly by the way of games, but I also like to write some demos and utilities now and then. 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 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 drives me most of all towards the Commodore 64?
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, 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), some great 8-bit arcade ports (Loved 1942, 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'.
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
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
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 3 computing courses. BTEC first diploma in IT, BTEC National Diploma in Computing and HND Computing. 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 GeoCities and ended up making some friends with people on-line, who had the same interest as me. 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 short no. of days and check 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 like that much, due to it's pure difficulty. I started composing more music, and added those to my SEUCK + BASIC games. The later years I am still composing music now and then. Most tunes I wrote in the past and present are thumping trance SID tracks. Although I am not into that kind of style, I just can't stop myself from making it :)
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 times 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. This 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. Loading stripes were changed, but I had forgotten to remove the anti-expert cartridge protection, as there wasn't really any need for it. 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.
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 to 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 type of 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..
X - FORCE
(Version 1 available - with no loading picture or sound effects) For final version please visit: BINARY ZONE'S RETRO STORE
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.
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. This game was released on 50 limited edition cartridges and also as a free digital download.
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 teen. 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 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 - NICE
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 4 loading games, and compiling the masters together to form "Loader Game Tape Master Kit 1 + 2". 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. 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. Finally was a game, which was "Blitz-A-Load".
(From Top left: MooTilation, Happy Blocks, Square Pit, Blitz-A-Load).
A touch of class
I ended up expanding the 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 special Power Pack tapes (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. Telling estimated loading time. 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
MY C64 SCENE INVOLVEMENT
CIVITAS (2001-Present)
This was the first demo scene group I had joined, as a sofa scener, was when Zeitgeist invited me to join Civitas as a musician. I got involved with composing music for various CIVITAS demos. The first demo was the end part of 'Clown'. Ending was quite a sad tune. I also programmed a few things as well as composed music for this group. Zeitgeist and I did a demo which sadly never got properly finished, due to real life, called "Fear". G-Fellow had joined in the team, we worked on the MSX FRONT music series, and ended up making the last MSX Front (3) use both G-Fellows and my own tune. We even did a co-op tune using JCH's new player. When Zeitgeist had disappeared and various members left or remained inactive. G-Fellow and I were left to keep this group active, but now remains inactive.
PROTOVISION (2003-Present)
I was involved with this group as a C64 musician. I composed a lot of tunes for a few games, and entered every game competition that was run at the Vision party. I originally did a title tune for the game 'Metal Dust', but sadly the tune never got released for the game, and I no longer have the tune in my possession either. The guys in Protovision had me motivated with doing tunes for 'Pac It' and also 'Tanks 3000'. One of the games got completed, but the other game is still awaiting completion. It was good fun composing tunes for Protovision. They were a real friendly bunch, I even tested my coding skills to make a new SEUCK front end for Zynax 3 as well :)
HOKUTO FORCE (2002-2005)
I mainly joined the group as a programmer, and programmed intros for the group, just for fun. My intros were used quite a lot, and eventually got improved by some of the later members of the group. The intros that I did for the group also contained a built in editor. It was up to HF to link their own programs on to the intro. I decided to leave the group in 2004.
COVENANT (2004-2006)
Covenant was a demo and game making group, which I ended up creating a co-op game production with JSL, and covenant. One game was meant to have been a demo part for the Death or Glory demo. Sadly it didn't turn out well, so I decided to scrap the game. However a full game hit the scene in Christmas 2005, by the name of "Balloonacy 2". This game impressed the guys at Covenant, and I released it into the public scene. The game only took me a couple of days, and the speed of the logo produced for the game was really fast. I also was involved as a musician for various demos.
BLAZON (2007-current)
I was invited to join the group Blazon, where I could code simple demos for the group. I did my first plasma part and submitted it to Blazon, but sadly I don't think that ever got used. If I remember correctly it may have been a hidden piece. I also got involved with a hidden demo part for the covers music demo. It was a simple demo, which used two screens and animated a space invader and scrolled some text. I also was involved in composing music. We also released a co-op game called Sub Duel. I am still a member of this group today, but group status inactive.
PEOPLE OF LIBERTY AND SCENE WORLD (2001-current)
People of Liberty was a PAL/NTSC demo group, which created the disk mag "Scene World". I was involved with the group where I composed music for practically every issue of the disk mag (Scene World) and also wrote games news, and some other features. All of this, for "FREE" and as an enjoyment.
CRYPT (2006 - 2008)
I was invited to join the demo group, "Crypt" as a coder and musician in 2006. I liked the old school demos and hoped that I could learn more about the old style demo programming amongst some of the members. We did co-op a TND + Crypt demo for Buenzli. I did loads of tunes for the group as well. Unfortunately, I decided to leave the group in 2008, due to the very bad behaviour and bullying around the C64 scene database, and also due to the constant pressure I had to put up with requesting code, and music at very little time. This led me to leaving the group.
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 library finally closed its doors. 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. 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 been doing that since. 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 - I was mad on those), Music Scene, and 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. 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 CS 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. All was done for free and as a hobby of course :)
RGCD (2011 - 2015)
I helped support RGCD, supply a few of my game creations, and also entered all of the RGCD 16KB cartridge competitions since 2011. We also worked on 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.
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 SEUCK. 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 :)
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