@2{The Quest For PD Originality @3 }By Andrew Campbell @1 People used to look down on PD thinking it was a cheap realm where nothing existed apart from poor-quality games (mainly commercial rip-offs), boring slideshows and stunning but incredibly repetitive demos. But in recent years this seems to have changed - the overall `cheap' label still remains (and to a great extent so does the `poor quality' one) but PD is now filled with far better disks than ever before. The Shareware and Licenceware markets have also become bigger and better, with many magazine coverdisks featuring programs from both of these outlets. But what about originality? Games have certainly become better with some of the most recent releases being nothing short of brilliant. However, as Paul Cuipek of NBS Public Domain Library told us in issue 2 of "Amiga Pro" magazine, the single-man programmer is slowly dying out. As hi-tech CD technology grows ever bigger, so shrinks the market for freelance coders and, I suspect sadly, the PD market itself. I predict a sharp rise in the quality and originality of PD productions just before the CD revolution takes over. Whether I am right, God only knows but until then, I for one certainly hope to take PD to the limits. So what's this article about then? How Andrew Campbell intends to push his software over the edge? Partly, yes. I've been examining a lot of PD productions and library catalogues lately and trying to find any `missing markets'. Not easy, I can assure you; at first glance PD seems to have a low-cost answer to just about every kind of software on sale. Obviously there are exceptions; who's going to write a Brilliance-beating art package and release it as a Shareware disk (apart from some one as crazy as me)? Not many. Perhaps the best you can expect from a PD disk is semi-commercial quality (okay, just- about-on-par with commercial quality if the program is Shareware or Licenceware. Satisfied?). So, lets take a quick look at what's currently available shall we? Of course there are millions of games, but only a small proportion actually sell hundreds of copies. Browsing through a popular PD library's advertisement, what do I see? The same names appearing every time - "Ork Attack" (supposedly the goriest game in PD. Ha! I think not. Crap and severely overated is more like it), "Deluxe Galaga" (a super-smooth Galaxians clone - good but far from original), "Road To Hell" (more tired clones), "Dithell In Space" (please God not another platformer), "Black Dawn" (the `nearest thing to Hired Guns yet' according to one library. No comment because I coded it!) and the ever popular "Megaball" (Goddamned breakout clones! Argh!). Far more interesting than all the above titles are games like "Raise The Titanic" (a great idea for a 3D Construction Kit Game), "Numerix" (smart, original puzzle game) and "Sensible Massacre" (now this is a good example of PD as a means of self-expression!!). I really couldn't find anything missing, apart from a decent "Lemmings"/"Troddlers" clone (my own "White Rabbits" isn't bad but it's more of a sliding puzzler than a save-em-up). Some one has yet to write a game as technically impressive as "Doom" (or even the now quite dated "Wolfenstien 3D") as seen on the PC, but I guess that's asking a bit too much. Utilities and Educational software is perhaps Amiga PD's strongest point. "Text Engine" (superb, solid Word Proccessor), "D-Copy" (just as good as "X-Copy"), "MessySid" (multi-format disk/file handler), "ProTracker 3" (commercial quality music maker) and "Power Packer" (amazing file-cruncher) are just a fraction of the fantastic tools available for just over the price of a disk. Recently there has been an increase in the number of kid's programs - my own "Artistix" (the success of which has been printed in several PD magazines) seems to have started off a chain of children's art programs such as "Art School", "AZ Paint", "Kids Paint" and "Smarty Paints" (or the sudden appearance of educational stuff could be a coincidence in which case I apologise for trying to premote myself as the creator of a new trend!). Educational software is extremely worthwhile and often very rewarding to the programmer - in this area of PD originality thrives! I say no more. More PD originality appears in the form of animations, though most seem to be merely sick jokes rather than anything else (eg. "Suicide Man"). Floppy disks and low-memory severely limit this potentially exciting means of showing talent/making yourself heard. Similarly, slideshows are often original, though tend to sell less copies due to the "boring" label that shrouds them. Talented artists can freely advertise examples of their work through PD in the hope of attracting commercial interest, unusual styles and techniques can be shown to the world, and of course, the female body can be exploited in 256-colour AGA scans (which is why all pervs own A1200's I'm told). Apart from the odd experimental disk that really makes a change, art on the Amiga is far from varied, the only slideshows with a decent "theme" being the ever-dull "Star Trek" clones. Definitely a lacking area (quite what is lacking I can't seem to pin-point but there is something). The majority of disk magazines are as dull as ever too, bursting at the seams with unneccessarily offensive language, tedious "Top 10" charts, galleries of "scene" party snapshots and big-headed articles about how "lame" every non-machine coding Amiga user is. You get the odd giggle out of "Grapevine", "Visual Intensity" and the like but rarely much else. Sensible, useful diskmags such as the excellent "Amoszine", and Cybercraft's superb "Shareworld" are far more worthy purchases if you want serious, interesting articles (like this one - hehe!). Okay so the presentation is hardly as polished but you're unlikely to find any offensive or sexist jokes thrown in "just for the laugh" and you won't be made to feel like a "lamer" for owning an Amiga, either. Short-stories have appeared in the PD scene on occasion, perhaps most recently in the form of "The Quatermass Experiment" (a science-fiction diskmag and a "platform for new and aspiring writers") but are such productions worth buying? Surely reading a whole story from your monitor screen would give you a major headache, never mind fail to hold your attention. Not so; "The Quatermass Experiment" is a superb read (you can print the stories, too) and a fantastic idea for a new PD realm. Add my own "Dark Portal" short-horror-story compilation and Ivan Millett's epic on-disk novel "Deus Ex Machina" and you're talking about a new, limitless form of PD that, given a chance, could allow talented writers an alternative way in to the commercial book- publishing market. I have my own plans to shift this area of PD into the mainstream with the release of "Dark Portal Edition 2" and later, I hope, a true on-disk novel. Well, I've trampled through a jungle of PD and Shareware disks and to be honest I don't think I've got a good enough excuse to compain. The market is massive, varied, full of life, and it's cheap too - what more could I possibly want? Apart from the odd gripe where originality is concerned and the hopefully soon-to-be-corrected lack of a decent writers' market, I'm perfectly happy with PD at the moment. My up-and-coming releases? The biggest, fastest Shareware `Dungeon Master' game ever, a collection of short-stories which break down the walls of insanity, and a dangerously emotional on-disk novel that I hope will encourage others to express themselves through the wonderful realm that is - PD.@2 END.