----------------------------------------------------------------- | | +--\ /ÿÿÿ\ /-- /ÿÿÿ\ -\ÿÿÿ/---+ | / /ÿ\ \ / /ÿ\ \ | | | |__| | | |_|_| ÿÿ | | | . | | | | | | __ | | /| | \ \_/ / \ \_/ / | |___/ | +--/ \___/ \-- \___/ -/______ | | \ | | \| ----------------------------------------------------------------- ORGANISED CHAOS LICENCEWARE -= The Fairest Face of Licenceware =- ----------------------------------------------------------------- T H E P R O P A G A N D A Courtesy of OCL's top man, Kev Davis ----------------------------------------------------------------- [Note - I've tended to use the word "game" here rather a lot; we do, of course, release serious utilities, disk mags and the like, but you eventually run out of synonyms for "release" and "game" is as good as any of them.] Organised Chaos Licenceware is very, very probably the finest and fairest licenceware house in the world. Ah yes. If washing powders and toothpastes can get away with almost- definitive claims like that, then so can we. With OCL, we put the programmers first. Royalties are paid on a strictly sales-related basis - none of this "a tenner no matter how well your game did" foolishness we see inherent in Budgie UK. If your game is good enough to shift a few hundred copies, you'll see a lot of cash being thrown at you. It also gives an incentive to produce top-notch games - the better you make your game, the better the reviews, the larger the sales, and you end up getting more money. Lovely. This also works out rather well for the punters, who end up buying better quality titles. OCL titles are distributed through PD libraries, for the most part. This is a nicely symbiotic arrangement, beneficial to both parties - here at OCL we don't have to fret about advertising and selling the stuff purely from OCL HQ, and the PD libraries enjoy a nice cut of the profits for their troubles. From each OCL game sold, the PD library takes two pounds, to cover the effort they put it on advertising, distribution and everything. Titles released on two disks see the PD libraries taking a bit more, but it's usually just two squid. All of the rest goes to the programmer. If your title sells for a fiver, and shifts a hundred copies in its first quarter, you'll get three hundred pounds. As well as this, you're perfectly entitled to sell your game from home - selling it for a fiver will get you four-fifty or something per sale, depending on how cheaply you can get disks and whether you bought lots of stamps before the last postage-price increase. Funding for OCL (it does cost us a fair bit to release games; we have to send copies to all our distributors) should hopefully be covered from the money we get through direct OCL orders (when folk buy games straight from OCL HQ, we get about one-fifty left over once we subtract stamp and disk costs, and royalties). Order from Chaos, as they say. OCL is probably (probably, Mr Lawyer, not definitely) the most helpful licenceware group around. If you're struggling with a project of yours - you can't work out how to code part of it, you're stuck for ideas, you could do with a loading screen or some title music - we can help. In fact, we get hideously involved in your work. I've even had programmers offering me a share of their game's royalties, with the amount of work I've put in. I've refused, of course (I may be rather short of cash, but I can appreciate that nobody deserves royalties more than the programmer). Taking an example - and I'm sure Harvey Reall won't mind - Antroids is one of the games that's seen a lot of involvement from myself. Way back in the mists of time, shortly after Genocide's release and my consequent casting out from Budgie (a long story, explained in another document somewhere), Caroline Price from New Age PDL contacted me regarding "Mega Ants", a life simulation from Harvey Reall. Harvey had sent it to Caroline for possible inclusion in her Creative Influence range, and - for some reason - she turned it down, passing Harvey's address and a copy of his game on to me. At that time, "Mega Ants" wasn't much to behold. Some little dots wandering around biting bits out of green circles. The user interface was a mite hostile (Harvey has since admitted this, by the way - this isn't getting at him at all), and Harvey planned to release it as Shareware. Until I contacted him. I saw that the program had potential. It didn't look much, but I could see that - with a bit of work - it could develop into something muchly better. DNA programming things (the software lets you write "programs" for the ants to follow, telling them how to move, when to mate, and so on) were rare on the ST licenceware scene, and if the program were developed further it could do well. "Sprites instead of circles," I suggested, "Sound effects if you've got the memory." Harvey took heed. Nice graphics were added, foolish spot effects, and the lad spent a year and a bit refining the program to make it a great deal better. It was speeded up a lot. Extra DNA commands were added. Pre-drawn maps could be used, and an "art package" map designer was added. Population graphs could be produced. I started work on a loading screen, and (via the OCL network of contacts), we found someone to write a MOD for the intro screen. "Antroids", as the game is now called, is a hundred times better than the version Harvey planned to release as Shareware all those months ago - he'll be getting a lot more money from it, and the customers will be getting a great deal more enjoyment from it. I'm rambling, here. Best wrap up, I think. In conclusion, OCL is dedicated to the programmers' needs; it's the epitome of truthness when we say that programs turn out best if they're something of a team effort. If you're writing a platform game and you're struggling over some aspect of the coding, we'll put you in touch with an OCL member who can help you out. Even if you just fancy writing a text adventure or something, where you've got the ideas but could do with a few pointers on what to write it in and how to do it - we'd contact one of our numbers to give you a hand. We've got a network of peripheral entities also - folk who haven't actually written anything, but are always happy to contribute music and graphics to OCL titles. If you fancy joining this group, feel free - the cash you get is negotiable with the programmer you're "working for", really; you could argue for a royalty cut, settle for a one-off payment, or ask the programmer to put your address in the game and ask folk to send you money. I've recently thrown a tenner at Chris Pritchett for writing a couple of MOD tunes for my forthcoming releases - a good thing for both of us, as the inclusion of a musical intro to a game is likely to boost sales. And I've also put an advert in both games for some more of Chris's music, which he's selling himself for a few quid - so he'll see some interest there. Even if you're terrible at computer graphics, can't code and are as musically inclined as The Wurzels, you could join our ranks as a playtester (all our releases are playtested to death before release, and all testers get a credit in the finished game) (as well as the dubious honour of being able to play a game months before its release), contribute to ST Beermat - our erratically-released disk magazine, or team up with a programmer with you providing ideas. To contact OCL, send your missives to:- Kev Davis Organised Chaos Licenceware Chasewater House Kings Green Berrow Malvern Worcestershire WR13 6AQ In the unlikely event of you sending me money (you can buy all OCL titles direct from me for their usual price), make cheques payable to merely "Kev Davis". Sending cash through the post is unwise, as I can pocket it and claim that it was lost in transit, and you've got no way of finding out where it went. Oh, what a giveaway. ----------------------------------------------------------------- NOW, THE LIST OF OCL TITLES CURRENTLY AVAILABLE... ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | +--\ /ÿÿÿ\ /-- /ÿÿÿ\ -\ÿÿÿ/------+ | / /ÿ\ \ / /ÿ\ \ | | | ___| | | |_|_| ÿÿ | | | . | | | | | | __ | | /| | | \ \_/ / \ \_/ / | |___/ | | +--/ \___/ \-- \___/ -/______ |-+ | \ | | \| ----------------------------------------------------------------- ORGANISED CHAOS LICENCEWARE -= Chaos Works - it really does = ----------------------------------------------------------------- All titles will require a colour system to run, unless otherwise stated. We can't vouch for Falcon compatibility at this point in time, but we'll keep you posted. ----------------------------------------------------------------- G A M E S ----------------------------------------------------------------- OCL001- Dead or Alive...? Written by: Kev Davis Released: 13/5/1992 Category: Text adventure Drive requirements: D/S Memory requirements: 1/2 Meg Version number: 2.0 Price - œ3.00 Just when you thought your life as a private detective couldn't get any worse... it ended. Rather messily. Being rudely awoken from the dead the next morning is only the first of your many problems as you trek around the town of Malton and venture beyond to kill your assassin in Kev Davis's highly acclaimed and bloody difficult comedy adventure. Recommended for both beginners and hardened adventuring veterans alike. This is the concentrated, fat-digesting, cool-tasting, non- bleaching, thirst-quenching, low-alcohol, seventy-two calorie, best-ever chocolate, tartare-scraping, eco-bagged, realistically- MIG-sound-effected, interactive fiction version of the game, the few bugs lurking in the old version have been killed - dead. Dead will run on single-sided drives, but you'll need to find a double-sided drive in order to transfer the relevant files onto two disks (instructions on disk). (Note: Dead was sold by Budgie UK from September 91 until April 92. If you've got that version (with the lovely "packing crate falling out of a rockfall and nailing itself to the floor" bug intact), you're perfectly entitled to send the disk to OCL HQ and claim an update.) "Very tongue in cheek. I ended up revelling in its sheer silliness. If you enjoy a good laugh then look no further than Dead or Alive...?" - Neil Shipman, Syntax Magazine (preview). "An excellent example of what a good adventure should be. Loads of puzzles, great responses, good parsing, many jokes and a very polished front end. It plays almost like an Infocom game. If you are an adventure player then get this game!" - Colin Campbell, Syntax Magazine (88%) "Weird! Have a look if you fancy a little bit more of a challenge." - Chicken (apparently), ST Action (who don't give percentages, for reasons known only to themselves) "An atmospheric text adventure... The author's surreal sense of humour pervades every aspect of the game from the sarcastic comments you get from the parser to some dowright silly situations. If you thought text adventures were dull, get Dead or Alive and you may be forced to change your mind... Take a walk on the wild side and pop down to the local graveyard." - Somone, STF (83%) "As text adventures go, Dead or Alive is a good one... The difficulty is quite high, but things get far easier once you begin to appreciate the author's twisted sense of humour! Numerous nice touches." - Nial Grimes, ST Review (four stars) "A decent adventure. Cute footnotes." - Matthew Robinson, Shareware and PD Shopper (five stars - maximum) (Cute???!) OCL002- Murder on the Orion Express Written by: Kev Davis Released: 13/4/1993 Category: Comedy-murder-strategy Drive requirements: D/S Memory requirements: 1/2 Meg Current version: 666 Price - œ3.00 The world's first ever comedy-murder graphically-based mousie-driven game. Dare you take on the role of a detective aboard the Orion Express? When all but eight of the passengers die simultaneously, and the crew are gradually bumped off as the night progresses, it's your job to sort things out. Armed only with an electronic notebook, you must trudge around the ship, interrogate the people on board and use your skill and judgement to work out "whodunnit" (and other tired clich‚s) in this bizarrely humorous "Cluedo-meets-2001-meets-Red Dwarf-meets-Hitch Hiker's-meets-Monty Python" as I used to say before I found out about copyright laws. Orion has a free five-thousand-odd word comedy-sci-fi novella thrown in just for the hell of it, centring around a series of unwieldy events aboard the Express. The game -will- run from S/S drives - you've just got to delete everything except the PRG file and the game data files, and copy it over to a S/S disk. Easy as three point one four one five nine two seven something. [The words "interactive fiction" haven't been applied to this blurb, since the phrase applies to every computer game ever written.] "If you're a Cluedo fan, be sure to get hold of Murder on the Orion Express - it's better acted than the TV programme and a lot more challenging than the board game! There's a strong thread of humour running through the game and it's very much a parody of more serious commercial software. If you enjoy a good laugh, Orion comes recommended." - Nial Grimes, ST Review (four stars) "It's basically one big logic puzzle... It's well screwed together and there are plenty of humorous touches to lighten things up." - Someone, STF (75%) We've had some interest regarding the Orion T-shirts - if anyone else wants to put their name down for one of these exclusive garments (featuring the Orion logo on a black background), contact OCL HQ and we'll get back to you. Send no money now. These articles are not available in the shops. And so on. ----------------------------------------------------------------- " S E R I O U S " S T U F F ----------------------------------------------------------------- OCL003 - Sprite Works Written by: Terry King Released: 7/10/1993 Category: GFA Extension / Art Package Drive requirements: D/S Memory requirements: 1/2 Meg Current version: 1.22 Price - œ7.00 Sprite Works is a powerful new set of commands available for GFA Basic - Versions 3 and above. Essentially for games writers, the kit also provides a professional edge to any program. It turns GFA into a games language that can produce results that can equal and possibly better those managed through STOS. 38 new commands are provided, as well as a superb art package that allows easy sprite design, and two map designers. Extra GFA commands include:- * Fast sprites - 16x and 32x widths with a variable height up to 48 pixels, sprite handler and variable clipping * Low processor time sample player - 2.5-15 KHz * Multi-directional and vertical scrolling maps * Non-scrolling, multi-screen maps * New fonts - 20, 40 and 64-column widths * Program speed regulator * Depacker for ICE and AUTOMATION packers * Mirror copy * Fast screen clear and copy * Fast screen line copy * New mouse controller * Palette switching (32 colours on-screen) * Banner scrolling (with an option for running them on interrupt whilst disk accessing or something) * Degas Elite compressor and decompressor * Spectrum 512 displayer Also a must for any budding assembly programmers, as full 68000 assembly source for all the commands is included. The art package includes six fast zooms, full-screen real- time zoom, animation preview, an option to save sprites in ready- to-use format, controllable splines and polygons, loading and saving in numerous formats, and has fast resizing, recolouring and block rotation. Half meg and full meg versions are included. Two map designers come with the package, one for flip-screen maps and one for non-scrolling maps. Each are fully featured and allow the easy use of "flags" for each screen block to aid collision detection. Sprite Works comes on two disks, with full documentation and annotated GFA examples of the commands, as well as GFA source for the three games and the two demo programs given away on the Freebie disk. "You will not believe the quality of the games that can be produced with Sprite Works - the platform game demo runs every bit as smoothly as Magic Pockets! It's probably a bit advanced for the casual programmer, but is ideal for the seasoned GFA fan in seach of a bit more power. One of the best things that's happened to GFA Basic in a long time" - ST Review (five stars) OCL004 - The Ultimate Cheat Database Written by: Kev Davis Released: 13/3/1994 Category: Er, a cheat database Drive requirements: D/S Memory requirements: 1/2 Meg (ish) Current version: 1.00 Cheats last updated: 6/3/1994 Price - œ3.00 You know the feeling. After a fearsome hour battling with the fifth end-of-level nasty on Cynic the Bullfrog III, you decide that enough is enough, and elect to start cheating. This invariably means searching through a billion ST magazine back issues in search of a cheat, which can get quite horribly annoying after a while. The UCD solves that problem at a stroke. It's simplicity to use - page through the list of cheats until you find the title of the game that's troubling you, click on the blighter and you can either scribble down or print out the text of it. At the time of writing there are well over four hundred cheats in the UCD, and we're constantly updating and refining them (customers are invited to send in any cheats they've got that aren't in the database already, so it'll always be expanding) - you can claim a free update whenever you want. Note for 1/2 meggers - the UCD program itself bursts into flames on a 520, I'm afraid, so you'll have to use the less advanced displayer program (you can still print cheats out, and everything, but you don't get the foppishness of the proper version). Such is life. ----------------------------------------------------------------- F R E E B I E S ----------------------------------------------------------------- Before spending your hard-earned/stolen wealth on one of the OCL titles, you might like to get hold of a nearly-free demonstration disk, to give you some idea what you'll be buying. Freebie bundles are only available from OCL Headquarters itself, or from the software's programmer - all addresses are in the OCLADDRS.DOC somewhere. Please enclose a blank disk when writing for a Freebie - if we gave out disks to anyone who wanted them, we'd soon run out of money. And whilst an SAE isn't entirely essential, you'll get a far swifter reply than you would get without one. It's possible to get more than one Freebie bundle on a disk, so if one of our authors is offering two Freebies that'll fit on the same disk, you can request both. And, of course, OCL Headquarters can offer you a blend of any Freebies you like. Oh - mention if you want a double or single-sided disk, by the way. Just to be sure. FREEBIE001 - Sprite Works (331k) This bundle contains two rather swish demos (both coded in GFA with bits from Sprite Works) and three demo games - an 8-way scrolling platform game, a flip-screen platform and an above-view driving game; all are coded in GFA with the aid of Sprite Works, and give an inspiring example of what you can achieve using the package. A cut-down version of the Sprite Works art package is also included. Blimey. ----------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATES If you own an earlier version of a game that's been mentioned above, you can claim a completely free update by sending your *original* game disk to the programmer, ensuring to enclose an SAE (or an SSAE, or whatever you call it - an envelope with your address and an adequate stamp on it, anyway). Oh, and the OCL programmers reserve the right to keep your disk and ignore you completely if you send them an old relabelled coverdisk that you swear blind is an original, or if you neglect to forward an SAE. The version numbers for some games are a trifle odd, and I think Colin Campbell was having a go at me for this a while back. Despite all this, the version numbers do go up in ascending order with their rerelease, so it's safe to assume that version 146657.372 is a later and consequently more wonderful one than version 19+(52cos20)ý. But it shouldn't ever get that bad. ----------------------------------------------------------------- COMING SOON (ISH) Dead or Alive Too...? - Not Dead but Sleeping By Kev Davis Expected date of release: Mid-1994. Honest. Waking up on the back of a lorry on its way to an Icelandic burger factory is not the best way to start the day. Neither, for James Milton - proprietor of Milton's Chipporama, is being shot by an armed robber. And as for the Egyptian king, Ptedious, after three thousand years trapped in a freezing mountainside, virtually anything could be better. Dead Too takes place five years after the end of Dead or Alive, and includes the option to switch between the three undeads at will. Prepare to do battle with Weresheep, cereal killers, psychopath robots, vengeful octopi, possessed electrical goods, suicidal gargoyles, demons on the housing estate, cablecar-riding Nihilist monks, interplanetary buses, chickens and billions more things in this stunningly brilliant (Footnote 3) text adventure. Death has never been so much fun. Antroids By Harvey Reall Expected date of release: Somewhen in 1994 Hours of endless fascination as you tinker about with the DNA programs of insects, before letting them loose on the world to build their colony. Antroids is one of the most absorbing life simulations to date. There are limitless possibilities for the game set-up - two ant colonies battling against each other for survival, a team of cannibal ants descending on helpless workers, a two-player challenge to create the perfect ant, or even just initialising a colony and watching it grow. The game features a dazzling variety of features to make your enjoyment of the simulation even greater, as well as sampled sound and superb graphics. If you can bear the sleepless nights, then buy this game. ST Beermat Programmed and Edited by Kev Davis Expected date of release: Whenever we've got enough stuff for it We still need a goodly number of articles and things for this. If you fancy writing anything for this, send your stuff in ASCII format to me at the usual address. Any subject or style you want - quality is our only aim. None of that foolish "see how many swearwords, obscene references and exclamation marks we can get per sentence" attitude favoured by other disk mags, thanks all the same. Mission Implausible II - The Metal Lurgy By Kev Davis Expected date of release: Early 1994 Set in the latter half of the 24th century, Mish Two sees the crew of the Drunken Sailor caught up in the Metal Lurgy outbreak in the city of Malton. When the ship's android co-pilot takes another crewmember hostage, it's your job to beam down and sort things out. Mish Two uses the rather swish Perpetual Reality Engine - a graphic-adventure system requiring the minimum of keyboard input. Presented with a graphic screen, you click on an object to bring up a list of relevant verbs, from which you choose one that takes your fancy. Couldn't be simpler. Note that "Mission Implausible - Involuntary Suicide" - a rather nice adventure using a Kev-written version of Simes Brown's "Stone Cold Sober" system, will probably never be released because I got completely carried away with it all and ran out of memory. Such is life. Escape from the Dungeons of Trax By Robin Ball Expected release date: Early 1994? An extremely impressive game, utilising the Perpetual Reality Engine. Stunning visuals and a wicked sense of humour combine to form a superb graphic adventure. The plot for this is all a bit up in the air at the moment, but it's fairly safe to assume that Escaping from the Dungeons of Trax comes into it somewhere. Strana Mechty By Kev Davis and Simon Brown Expected release date: 1994? This game's been undergoing severe rethinking, and we're on the fourth version at the moment. We're trying to make a comedy- RPG sort of thing, but it could end up as dayglo underwater space-invaders at the rate we're scrapping ideas. We had a Dungeon Master layout a while back, but we've ditched that in favour of an above-view approach. For the moment. ----------------------------------------------------------------- LIES, DAMN LIES AND RELEASE DATES Although the release dates stated above are vaguely accurate, we can't promise anything. We live in an uncertain world, where nothing is for definite, and it's quite likely that some games will take a while to appear. There's not a lot I can do about this, as I don't like to pressurise people into a quick release (anyone who bought Genocide on its day of release will have seen what this can lead to). However, if you desperately want to see Antroids out by the end of the year, or if Trax sounds like something you'd really like to see - contact the programmer (via myself, probably) saying how much you'd like to see their product completed. This sort of ego-boosting does wonders for bringing forward actual release dates. Kev Davis ----------------------------------------------------------------- Organised Chaos Licenceware, Chasewater House, Kings Green, Berrow, Malvern, Worcestershire WR13 6AQ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thought for the day:- "BU81 - Life as a private detective."