Profile

Name: Richard Bayliss
Age: 31
Date of Birth: 25th December 1978
Hobbies and interests: Commodore 64 (I loved this machine format since I had it in 1990). Programming (Can be either PC Blitz Basic, Dark Basic or C64 programming in Turbo Assembler or cross platform assembler like DASM, ACME, etc.). Composing music (PC or C64). The internet (More interesting than Television today). Reading. Drawing silly imaginative things. Going out to the pub, to socialize with friends. Pool, darts.

Commodore 64 general history:
I first owned a Commodore 64 Christmas Day 1990, which came with various games and other accessories, including SEUCK. I played many C64 games in the past, which were entertaining. Best memories about the C64 is when I bought loads of games on the Mastertronic range from the newsagents. This was when I first got involved with the C64. It wasn't until New Years' Day 1990, my brother discovered that with the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit, you could actually create your very own SEUCK games. My first ever SEUCK game was using Slap & Tickle's attack waves, but redesigned GFX and sprites and wacky new SFX. The game was called "Clip Clop". It was created, and saved onto a blank tape. Sadly this game is no more, and the tape got bust years ago.

During 1991, I had made new friends, who also had a Commodore 64 computer, and they lent me games & vice versa. I also lent my friends SEUCK for a few weeks or so, and both of my friends had done a co-op game production called "Teeth", based on the movie, Jaws. Sadly the game tape never worked on their machine, but worked on mine. :) After I got my SEUCK back, I started to make strange SEUCK games with my brother Philip.

It wasn't until early 1992, one of my school friends was teaching me some simple BASIC programs on the C64. Then in 1995 I started writing hectic BASIC games, using additional machine language, like music players done on USA Music Assembler (A composer that got me started in C64 music in 1994 after getting a utility tape from a PD library), etc.  Also in 1995-2000 I created loads of SEUCK and BASIC games, and sent those to "Binary Zone PD", where the good friendly scene buddy, Kenz had installed music on to those SEUCK games, until I learned machine code.  Nyaaaah! was the game that started it all. A weird SEUCK game with funky music which sounded familiar, called Piano work. :o)

My first ever Nyaaaah! game. This was a strange little title and my first ever public SEUCK game release to have hit the C64 world.

It wasn't until 1999 I started to code assembly (err that is machine code by the way). While I was coding in assembly my first example project was a low quality little game called "Cetimiex". A simple game, where you had to jump over the mines, scrolling across the screen - in a crap kind of way (As I wasn't used to $D010 at the time).  My second game release was "Target-X", which graced the Commodore Scene cover disk. After a few months or so, I uploaded my releases on to the Mirage Designs web site for people to download. Later years, I started getting more involved with quality productions, such as "Defuzion 3", "Balloonacy" (Another game, which graced the Commodore Zone cover disk), "Camels in Space", "Bomb Chase" all the way to probably which is rumoured to be my best work "Grid Zone Remix" (Tape available from Cronosoft)

This is Bomb Chase. A fun game I wrote in the early 2000's. This game eventually got better after I did Bomb Chase 2007.

I did not only get involved with coding games, and composing music. I done demos and utilities in the past. I also got involved with helping support other people for all the hard work they have been making with their C64 games. This is by kindly adding their work on to my web site, which people are thankful for.

Demo/game groups joined and positions + history:

Civitas (2001 - 1st September 2006 / Returned in 2007 -  Inactive in 2009):
In 2001, I was offered to join Civitas, after Zeitgeist (a.k.a Hiram Kúmper) asked me whether it was possible for me to join the group as the musician as the other main musicians in Civitas had left. Zeitgeist offered me a position as music at Civitas, but I had also become programmer in Civitas, coding various intros. The first ever release which I did at Civitas was a demo called "Euro Beats". This demo had positive and negative comments by various sceners. The positive side was the music. People liked my style. Sadly the down side was the poor standard in C64 coding. I left Civitas to join an old school group Crypt.

In 2007 I rejoined the group to help produce some more releases, but unfortunately due to the inactivity in 2009, in December 2009, I have gave up for the time being. There was hardly any activity. Plus these days because of my new job, I don't have much time on my hands for scene stuff.

My first ever production for Civitas. A music demo called Euro Beats. I did two of those in total.
Best memories: I took part in a music compo at Role's Primary Star 2002 party. The tune was called Sacred Stone. And it came first place. Secondly, Zeigeist/Civitas and I worked on a co-op game production called Gravity 3, released it to the Vision 2003 party and the game won first place. Actually, this game was the only entry of the games competition.

Gravity 3 - My first ever game entered at the Vision party, I created for Civitas.

Worst memories: I don't really have any worse memories about being a member in the group Civitas

Hokuto Force (2002 - 06/2005)
I joined Hokuto Force as an intro coder, and musician for the scene group, Hokuto Force. I coded many intros for this group, using contributed graphics and also some music. Sadly I left in June 2005, after reading a disturbing article in a commercial magazine, which interviewed ELSPA and had loads of abuse about it on IRC #Lemon64. So, I e-mailed to Overkiller/HF, that I have decided to leave HF due to abuse I had been getting on the IRC channel. So this forced me to quit.

Nice Hokuto Force intro I created for fun.

Best memories: I coded this intro above for this group and it got used a lot on various games releases, although with different music.

Worst memories: I had a lot of back stabbing, abuse and could not take any more of it (off non members), so I left the group for good.

Protovision (2002 - January 2006):
I joined Protovision as a C64 musician only. It is hard to remember how/why they invited me to join the group. I was happy to join and composed music for "Snacks 4 Snakes", "Metal Dust Intro", "Tanks 3000" and also "PacIT". Some of my tunes made an appearance in their work, but probably not all of my tunes. Some of which had to be turned down. It is hard work being involved with the game group, but those great people gave me a whole lot of encouragement.


Snacks 4 Snakes, a very nice remake (Although looks basic) of the classic Snake/worm arcade game. This production featured my own music in the game. Used from the DMC collections 1 & 2.

There was a massive gap in 2004, where I had left Protovision, due personal matters, like seeking for a new job after being made redundant on July 2004. Then I rejoined this group, after I was rest assured that I had a brand new job (Which has sadly closed down at the end of July 2009). Then I left in January 2006, as I felt I needed to leave this group, and just stay in Civitas and Covenant. I was kind of burned out,

Best memories: My music appeared in a nice game called Snacks 4 Snakes (pictured above), which was released at the Vision 2002 party and won the compo.

Worst memories: Mainly something to do with my music. I kept having responses that I had to shorten the duration of the music playing or add a bit more to the game tune itself. The good thing was, I did not have to rush, I could take time :o)

Papposoft (2003 - January 2006):
This was a silly group to make crap games, look fun. Roberto asked me to join this group for a laugh as musician. He wanted me to actually compose some really crap tunes for games like Space Crap Zero, etc. Now that is something to be proud of - not really, but it was good fun. Then I left in January 2006, as, like with Protovision, I felt very inactive. Papposoft had also been inactive and sort of dried up, but Roberto/Papposoft has been very kind for me to release the Papposoft games on to the TND friends & contributors section ;) It was good fun being in this group, which I'll sadly miss. I also originally wanted to do some music for the game "Mission L.E.D", which was another Pappo game, but sadly this game never got finished.

Funny game, Space Crap Zero. Looks crap and was programmed in BASIC but the game is good fun.

Best Memories: Well, it was a good laugh to compose light hearted crap music for the games which Piti + Roberto were creating. Space Crap Zero had funny music in the title that I just could not help doing for a laugh.

Worst memories: No worse memories.

Covenant: (2004 - September 2006)
I joined this group in late 2004, as a C64 musician and coder. I was more involved with music. Not many tunes had been made for this group, but were taken from my DMC collections. We also released a co-op game production (Mainly on the TND web site) called Balloonacy 2. Still, the newer tunes got used. I left this group in Sept 2006 to join Crypt, which unfortunately for me was a bad move.

Balloonacy 2, a co-op game production I wrote with JSL/Covenant.
Best memories: After a demo from Covenant was released (Death or Glory) there were some great reactions regarding this release.

Worst memories: Nothing. It was great to be in Covenant

People of Liberty (2003 - January 2006):
This is another group, which I had joined in 2003. I was mainly involved with the POL Scene World diskmag, which I composed music for. There was also an intro coded by myself (pictured below) and also with Merman/POL adding the final touches to the intro, making it NTSC compatible (As POL is a PAL + NTSC based scene group). I left as a result to inactivity and also things seemed to have dried up on the production front. It has been nice being involved with P.O.L, but once again, sadly will be missed.

My intro for Scene World issue 8. This was the only intro I programmed for People of Liberty/Scene World. But I wrote many tunes for this group as well.
Best memories: Coding the intro for issue 8 of Scene World diskmag. It was an easy job, and even better when it got NTSC fixed :)

Worst memories: People of Liberty is finished

Crypt: (August 2006 - November 2006):
I left this group and the scene 11th October 2006. I actually left Crypt twice. The first time round was because of the stupid co-op wars. Secondly the second time was because of the amount of work to be done for the group. Crypt expected too much for me to cope with, plus I left the scene because I lost interest with being involved with demo/scene groups also see my best/worst memories of Crypt below.


A co-op intro demo I done for Troublemaker/Crypt and Violator/Alphaflight in 2006!

Best memories: Producing an old style Co-op demo production with Alpha Flight, and the excellent music which Drax created.

Worst memories: Joining Crypt was indeed a big mistake because I was used. There was a plan from one of the members of Crypt (after I left the group) to use my work (Zombies demo part) and credit himself for it (The demo has new text and new music and is available from the TND demos page). So I released the Zombies demo part on to CSDB with the whole truth about the demo. The Crypt member got annoyed and illegally released one of my WIP game previews on to the CSDB, but thankfully it wasn't the latest preview of Sub Hunter.


This is the Zombies part I wrote for Crypt, featuring graphics by Ninjasbane

Best memories of 2008: Finally getting Sub Hunter finished, and released through Psytronik Software (Thanks Kenz for your kind help publishing this game). This game got some very good vibe and I was extremely happy to see this game finally get finished and released into the Commercial range
.
The ultimate Ocean style loader for Sub Hunter. I loved it to bits, literally!

Getting involved with helping Psytronik Software preparing professional disk menus and tape mastering for their game releases (Except for Sceptre of Baghdad as it used its own loader system. I did all this work for free and for fun as well. I even generated my own fast loader system code inside the original tape loader source. Making loading time much quicker and funkier.

This was the first version of the Psykozone loader. The new version of the loader had a shaded scrolling message at the start and the loader line colours were different.



Getting involved with the Sideways SEUCK utility by Jon Wells. Creating the first ever Sideways SEUCK full game called Imaginator, then going one step further and created Nyaaaah! 11. A very last sequel to the series (And hopefully the best). Adding in game effects like a multicolour score panel and animating background and also a new front end specially for Stefan Egger's SCACOM free internet based magazine.

My second game I wrote using Jon's Sideways SEUCK engine. Featuring my own additional enhancements and a new front end.

Designing in game graphics and enhancing Gold Quest 4 specially for Thorsten Schreck and friends using SEUCK. Adding music, animating backgrounds, putting a BASIC high score table to the game (Which Jan (Mombasajoe) had originally programmed and finally getting the game released). This game took several weeks to sort out because I was waiting for Thorsten to finally finish off his levels for the game.

Worse memories of 2008: Sub Hunter cracked by The Walker Group with harsh comments against me and making a mockery out of my surname. Well. TWG is a FAKE group anyway, so what do you expect?.  I put a stop to that crack on CSDB. The crack still lies elsewhere but nothing I can do about that really.


Click on picture to see video of intro in action (Warning - Insults galore)


The fall outs with sceners. I felt burned out composing music for that same person practically every week since I was on ICQ. Getting responses "You do it, you are the best, etc" and also I felt upset. So I had unplugged them from ICQ for a few months or so. So that I could concentrate on Sub Hunter and get the project finished.

I was showed a crack of Sideways SEUCK and I was falsely credited for original supply of the project. That really made me angry about this crack, but luckily it was not spread over the internet. It was hell of a mystery to why I was credited for the crack for the original supply of this production where I am not even a cracker and I don't want to be involved with this kind of activity either (Unless I create my own fake label and crack+train my own productions just for fun to make fools out of those crackers who have a bad reputation against me). If anyone tries anything silly like that (falsely crediting me for something) then they had better watch out!

Best memories of 2009

Well, not much really happened on the productive front in 2009, apart from helping do tape mastering for Psytronik Software's games, this time by using the fast IRQ tape loader source which Martin Piper provided and kindly gave me permission to use it. Also being part of The Wild Bunch project (I did the tape master using Martin's source, to make the loader as authentic as possible (Made it look a bit like Visiload, but with music in the background. Working with Iferior Software to help create and release "Trash Course". A fun sideways scrolling shoot 'em up, created with Sideways SEUCK. (I hope we will see a right-scrolling version of the S-SEUCK. That would be fantastic, but I can't really expect too much:o)). I was also involved with Berzerk Redux on the music front.



Worse memories of 2009
On the C64 nothing, apart from making a bit of a mess when I programmed a front end screen for The Last Amazon 2. I made a silly mistake, where I forgot to remove all sprites when Game Over was showed. After the user pressed fire to exit the game over screen, the front end was flickering and everything was running slowly. Thankfully no copies of The Last Amazon Trilogy were sold at the time when this happened. Only the master tape which I received two days before going away on holiday for 2 weeks or so. I reported the issue to Kenz, and got the problem fixed straight after the summer break.

The future (2010)
I have not given up with this fine 8-bit machine yet, so there are more works in the pipeline. My main goal will be to finish off Up in the Air, for Wayne. Also try and work more on Ultimate Stunt Boat Challenge. Help Psytronik Software and Cronosoft with more C64 tape mastering for any new C64 games that are created. I also plan a 9th DMC Album later on in the year, featuring some more tunes. A few other surprises are in the pipeline as well. You might see a couple more new C64 tools made by me. One of which is a 2 frame picture animator and another of which you will have to guess for yourself.

General C64 stuff:

The C64 Charts (2010)
Top 10 of the best C64 games ever:

  1. Mayhem in Monsterland (1993 Apex Computer Productions/Psytronik Software 2008)
  2. Armalyte - (Thalamus 1988)
  3. The Last Ninja 2 - (System 3 1988). Creatures - (Thalamus 1990/Psytronik Software 2009)
  4. Creatures (Thalamus 1990/Psytronik Software 2009)
  5. Knight 'n Grail (Psytronik Software 2009)
  6. SWIV (1991 The Sales Curve)
  7. Ricochet (1988 Firebird Software)
  8. Ikari Warriors (1989 Elite Software/Encore)
  9. Nebulus (1987 Hewson)
  10. Barbarian 2 (1988 Palace Software)

Top 10 of the worst C64 games ever:

  1. Robobolt (Alpha/Omega The Power House 1986)
  2. Brian Bloodaxe (The Edge 1985)
  3. BMX Ninja (Alternative Software 1988)
  4. Purple Turtles (Quicksilva 1983)
  5. Speed zone (Mastertronic Software 1988)
  6. Pedro (Imagine Software 1984)
  7. Freddy Hardest 2 - Guardian Angel (Dinamic Software/Codemasters 1990)
  8. Sabotage (Zzeppelin Games 1988)
  9. Snodgits (Creative Sparks 1986)
10. Jumpin' Jack (Livewire 1983)

Top 5 of the BEST ever games created with S.E.U.C.K (With new enhancements)

1. Synetic (2000 Cyber Systems and Commodore Zone)
2. Archetype (1994 Psytronik Software)
3. Monster Mash (1993 Phoenix Computers)
4. Twin Tigers (1992 Binary Zone PD)
5. Laserhawk (1990 S.Coleman)

Top 5 of the BEST ever games created with S.E.U.C.K (Without new enhancements)

1. Critters (1995 KJN)
2. Aqua Blasta (1991 Commodore Format Magazine)
3. Fire Eagle (1992 Sensible Software - New Zeland)
4. Super Galaxy Apocalypse (1995 Cyber Systems)
5. Sea Command (1993 Commodore Force Magazine)

Top 5 of the BEST ever C64 utilities
1. Turbo Assembler
2. DMC V5.0
3. Dir Master V8.4
4. Multi-Screen Construction Kit
5. Shoot 'em up Construction Kit (Sideways)

Top 5 of the BEST ever C64 tape loader tunes

1. Ocean Loader 5
2. Last Ninja 2 loader
3. Ocean Loader 2
4. Deliverance
5. Snare loader

Top 5 of the BEST demos ever:
1. Edge of Disgrace - Booze Design
2. Deus Ex Machina - Oxyron and Crest
3. OneDer - Oxyron
4. Mathematica - Reflex
5. Insomnia - 64ever