Apex Developments

Neil Holmes

Doug Holmes

Andy Monk

A game they said couldn’t be done; this sort of thing really should have been impossible…

Basically it’s like Smash TV on the Sam!

Shoot lots and lots (and lots) of enemies, collect power-ups and crisp packets, and advance screen-by-screen until you’ve beaten the big bad B.U.T.T. (Bugs Unified Terrorist Team).

Review by Graham Goring from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

Exodus is quite an old game by now, it’s probably been knocking around for two, maybe three years and unlike a lot of SAM games it hasn’t dated that badly at all.

This is mainly due to Doug Holmes producing what where probably his best ever graphics and some very slick programming.

The game is basically a Smash TV rip-off, only minus the level structuring idea and without the organised enemy phases of the original. This is a bit of a pity as knowing what what going to happen next helped a LOT on the original game, and in this one you have NO chance at all because it throws everything at you on every level. There’s none of this ‘learning curve’ stuff, oh no. It’s hell-bent destruction from the first moment.

On each level you must collect five crisp bags to progress to the next one, and this is where it can be slightly annoying, in that some bags are impossible to reach (having been deposited in the enemy-producing holes at the edges of the screen, and it’s also annoying that it has a multiload for some reason. Even when each level is almost EXACTLY the same, maybe the mega-enemies deserve a multiload, but I think it was probably a move to keep 256k compatability.

Oh well.

In case you have never seen Smash TV, here is a brief description of this particular version of it:

The levels consist of a square room with about 6 entrances in the side from which enemies constantly pour. You must shoot the enemies to produce crisp bags and other bonuses, such as extra lives, and improved weapon power. When you’ve got all 5 crisp bags it’s onto the next level. Simple, but bloody hard. You really come to rely on getting extra-lives, because unless you get seriously massive quantities of them then you’re not going to survive the first 10 levels. It’s really a pity about the difficulty level, as the game has lot’s of nice bits, including a full disk intro sequence (though not to the standard of Steven Picks work), lovely music and simultaneous 2-player option. Anyway, it costs about 6 quid and can be bought from, um, well, it might be SAM PD (Derek Morgan), or it could be Phoenix Software Systems (David Ledbury) who knows? Licences on the SAM change ownership more often than I change my pants (so that’s about once every 6 months :) ).

Phoenix Software Systems and later Persona

Kassoft of ESI

Andrzej Mielcarek

Dyadic is a compilation of two puzzle games; Craft and Snakemania.

In Craft, your aim is to connect all the sections of wire from the grid presented to you. You can rotate each individual block in units of 90 degrees, or shift the whole row horizontally.

In Snakemania, you must collect each of the dots in the maze, being careful not to trap yourself by your tail which grows longer with the more you eat.

Your Sinclair review, courtesy of The YS Rock ‘n’ Roll Years.

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

Puzzle games!! Arrghh!! But don’t fear, SAM owner. Don’t throw out your SAM out of the window to the disbelieving crowds below. For this duel compilation is in fact (dare I say it!) original! Well, one of them is and the other is QUITE original, never the less. This compilation has been out and about for absolutely ages and ages, but is back again in the public eye - and how! The first thing to strike you is the “slow loading” system, which I was guarenteed by David Ledbury to be reliable (but ending up putting a HUGE bug in Craft). Craft is the first of the two game pack, and simply presents you with 80 levels of twisted circuit tiles, which you must rearrange into a complete circuit, and speed you off to the next level. This is all done in a time limit, though. The game is written by ESI (yeah!!). From what I have seen so far (until that reeeaallllyyy nasty bug came up in Craft) the game is certainly presentable! The graphics are more than functional (though what else can you do with tiles?) and the music is quite nice, too. The difficulty curve is that so you can learn from your mistakes, and keep this “vital” information all ready for the next level.

The other game on this compilation is the completely original one of the pack, entitled Snakemania. Basically, the game is based on the golden oldie, Snake. Snake, if you can remember that far back, was set on a green field. You were controlling a snake, eating mushrooms and consequently, getting more and more longer. Meaning that your body was becoming a hazard, not just the four walls which surrounded the field.

Persona

Kaz of ESI

Ziutek of ESI

A game based on the venerable arcade classic, Pengo. Your aim is to move the three green boxes into a line, without being caught by the violent blob creatures which lurk around every corner.

I have no objection to disk images of Syncytium being made available for download from worldofsam.org.
— Andrew Collier, 7/2/06.

Phoenix Software Systems

Andrew Collier, Ian Collier

Roger Hartley, Andrew Collier

Syncytium was a compilation of games and utilities by Andrew Collier, with some contributions by Ian Collier. Many of the programs were previously unreleased, others had been featured in places such as Fred magazine (but of the ones that did, some were enhanced versions).

Highlights include Pipetris, a GamesMaster game based on the “falling block” bonus round of Pipe Mania (which actually was missing from the official Sam version of Pipe Mania); On The Tiles, a BASIC puzzle game; and Ian’s Play command, a Sam implementation of the 128k Spectrum’s Play command (including about an hour of demonstration music from a variety of PD sources).

The compilation sold literally some copies.

Consisted of Neil Holmes (Code, Gfx) and Stuart Leonardi (Music, Code)

Responsible for many “Grab Put & Scroll” demos in BASIC in the early years which were notable for the music in a time before Etracker.

Pinacle of these was when they re-wrote the Offical Sam Computers Coupé Demo.

Went on to code many notable machine code demos and commercial titles such as Exodus and Parallax (aka Purge:No Way Back 2 after an early BASIC demo on Fred 11).

A bob demo, also known as ‘infinately animated bobs’ uses the Sam’s multiple screen feature, to give the impression that many more sprites are being moved around the screen than, in reality, are actually being drawn.

There are many examples of bob demos, including part 2 of ESI’s Surprise demo, part 2 of MNEMOtech’s MNEMOdemo, and the Statues of Ice screen by Masters Of Magic.

Entropy

When Simon Cooke formed the coding group Entropy, two of the first released demos were Entro 1 and Entro 2, which contained messages advertising a soon-to-be-released megademo which was to be called Statues Of Ice. Anticipation was set high, it even got a pre-release write-up in Your Sinclair, but fame turned to notoriety as the release date got pushed ever further backward.

The whole demo was never completed, but a few of its individual component screens were eventually released. These included a bob demo by Masters of Magic, a screen by Solar Flare, and a Tetris game based on the gameboy version.

What is it?

It’s part of Statues of Ice that I managed to dig up off some disk images that Chris White sent me a while back.

No, Really… What Is It?

I’m not kidding. It really is part of Statues of Ice.

OK, so it’s part that you would have accessed by walking around (using a rather nice Parka-wearing character drawn and animated by Gordon Wallis to walk up to doors) an ice-filled cavern. Behind each door would be a demo. Behind one of the doors would have been this demo.

So what is this demo?

Well, it’s more of a game than a demo. At some point I found some source code for an Amiga port of a Gameboy version of tetris, using what was allegedly a Gameboy emulator. So I hacked the code and got it working on the SAM. It’s not the best version of the game on the SAM, but at least it’s a version. And not only that, but it has interesting historical value in being one of only two bits of Statues that actually exist (the rest may still live in my Dad’s attic… so at some point I might be able to recover more of it… and of course, some of it was already released on Fred by the respective authors - eg. the MOM BOB demo).

Roger Hartley converted the music from an Amiga MOD tune that goes along with this. (I think it’s an old C64 tune that was ported to the Amiga).

Simon Cooke 12/26/2004

I haven’t defined a “policy” about this, as such, but I’m thinking I might try to get drupal to expire (or at least, hide) old comments after a couple of weeks, on person/company and product pages. It probably doesn’t serve a useful historical purpose to preserve conversations like “Can you change such-and-such?” “Yep, done that” - any useful corrections should be incorporated into the page text instead.

Any objections?