The Def Guide to Zzap!64

Fans,
comparing these days with the same period last year, I'm afraid we can say that the Zzap!64 spirit is now officially dead, and the DEF Tribute was its tombstone, or what!?

What is everybody doing? Buying Retro Gamer and dreaming about Wii?

Tsk, tsk...

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Once again I emerge from beneath a massive pile of paper which makes my desk groan to bring you the world’s most amazing posts.

Well Mr Zzapback, part of the blame lies on your doorstep. Previosuly about half the messages on the forum were from you and where have you been the past few months?

It is like a ghost town around here though. I'll have to start adding some new content, but then there's the Gamebox stuff, learning Java Servlets / JSP, finding a job etc. etc.!

It will never die, dont say that again...

By the way, have you noticed that Retrogamer has ommited to include the CBM128D at the price guide? Shame...

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Plato said, Beware the wrath of the patient man

There's only so much space in the price guide, and it took weeks to put together... They are constantly tweaking it in response to feedback.


Anyway, yes I've noticed things have been quiet here. But then we haven't got a "project" to discuss at the moment... there's one way to solve it

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http://c64goldenyears.com
http://blog.myspace.com/merman1974
http://members.lycos.co.uk/merman64

It's down to having enough people involved to get such a project going. Personally, I think Zzap!64 107 provided a fitting final issue of the magazine, and your effort was a suitable retrospective and full stop to the saga. I really don't see what good another Zzap! would do, other than being more of the same.


I'm looking forward to that new console—Nintendo still understands about the concept of innovating. As for Retro Gamer, I really like the new version of the mag. Aside from a couple of copies of ONM, it's the only gaming magazine I've looked at in the past nine months or so.

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http://www.craiggrannell.com | http://www.projectnoise.co.uk

I believe there is still room for more Zzap issues to be released. Apart from the obvious reviews of the currently new 64 games released, obviously information about emulation would be useful, as well as interviews of past cbm masters. I am still longing for a Stavros Fasoulas interview (all google searches bring up the greek basketball player with the same name ) Interviews of past crackers, hackers, demo groups would be useful too. How did they accomplish this, that, etc.
Maybe interviews of other programmers who introduced first milestones in cbm gaming, ie background music while a disk game loads, background games while loading, etc.
Even have reviews of demos, in the old Zzap style.

Well, thats just me, a nostalgic 32 years old greek. Forgive me if all this has already been suggested in the past

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Plato said, Beware the wrath of the patient man

I think the problem is that these issues are a hell of a lot of work. You need slightly mad people who happen to have the right skills (design, editing, writing, and so on), to create the magazines. A lot of people might say they'd be up for such a task, but very few see it through.

From my own point of view, I have absolutely zero interest in having much to do with another Zzap! We created something good the first time round, and Rob's effort (which I helped out with, albeit in a much more minor role) was equally good, but these days I'd rather put my energies into the likes of Retro Gamer. That mag contains quite a lot of C64-oriented stuff. For example, for the most recent issue (#25), I interviewed Paul Norman of Forbidden Forest fame. I'm sure if someone could find Stavros Fasoulas, the Retro Gamer editor would be happy to publish an interview with him, assuming Stavros would be interested, of course.

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http://www.craiggrannell.com | http://www.projectnoise.co.uk

Never mind Stavros, it's hard finding anyone!

There are plenty of us that still love ZZAP!, but what more can we do? We could post more, I suppose, but I'm guessing most already post on lots of other forums. But it's still fun to pop in here and see what, if anything, is going on.

I loved working on 107 and the Tribute. I'd do it again if it ever came up. But I'm doing a reasonable amount of other writing in my spare time, and I'm toying with the idea of starting a huge project (making notes and stuff at the moment, to see if it's worth going forward), so spare time is in really short supply!

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They Were Our Gods - a website charting my progress on an upcoming book of the same name, about the UK gaming scene in the 1980s.

I suppose it is hard to find anyone who is no longer involved in the business directly, nowadays, so as to gain from the publicity. Maybe thats the reason i can no longer find any traces of Stavros, Anita Sinclair (Magnetic Scrolls), Rod Pike(CRL advenures) or other cbm legends.

In fact, as a hobby I decided to start up a web page with interviews from adventure games writers, but was so hard locating anyone, i gave up And imagine this was back in 1998, when I started the Cinemaware webring, and gave up on it a few years ago when i got so disappointed by the products of the new Cinemaware....

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Plato said, Beware the wrath of the patient man

I'd like to find a lot of them, too, for a project I may or may not get deeper involved with. We'll see.

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They Were Our Gods - a website charting my progress on an upcoming book of the same name, about the UK gaming scene in the 1980s.

I don't think the ZZAP! spirit is dead - just resting! This forum goes through periods of being really quiet for weeks on end, then I log on and find ten new posts. As others have said, most aspects of ZZAP! have been discussed in one way or another. ZZAP! fans are quite 'hardcore' in that most of us here are quite knowledgable about the magazine, staff, games reviewed etc - Therefore its mostly when new members join and ask questions that discussions get moving again.

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Contributor to Def Tribute to ZZAP!
Compilation64 - http://compilation64.zzap64.co.uk/
Crazy about the C64? - www.lemon64.com
Amiga Anguish? - www.lemonamiga.com

WOW... hard to believe that a number of years have already passed by since first finding this very site. It'll be a retro memory itself soon

I still pop in every so often for a browse and to see who's kicking around (although I obviously missed this thread!).

Most of me agrees with Craig -- personally I think I'm done. I now enjoy reading Retro Gamer and I occasionly pull out my copies of 107 and the Def Tribute, smile for a while and then put them away.

But there is a small, almost non-existent part of me that wonders ... what if we did just one more?

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"Isn't this where ... we came in?"

I believe the magazine would be unbeatable and everyone would be interested in purchasing it. Now that Retrogamer is around and will certainly cover the event, I dont see why there shouldnt be another issue.

However, i think the topics of the new issue should be discussed beforehand on this forum, so that it would have general interest as well as specific interest to the "constant reader" who goes through the old issues, until they have dissovled into thin dust.

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Plato said, Beware the wrath of the patient man

I doubt it. Bear in mind when we did the very first tribute, it took Iain bloody ages to shift just 200 copies of it. As for another issue at all, that's down to enough mad people having the time and skill. Topics for 108 have already been discussed, many moons ago. We even came up with a flatplan, which is somewhere on this forum.

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http://www.craiggrannell.com | http://www.projectnoise.co.uk