Happy Halloween: Bit2 Slasher demo (MSX)

When I uploaded the "valis - the fantasm soldier 2 - scary part" I remembered I had somewhere a Japanese demo which had also some kind of horror in it. I first though it was from T&E Soft, but after searching more than 20 disks, I had to admited it was Bit2.

Yes, the guys that made nice programs like Quinple, Nyancle Racing and Graphsaurus.
Then I watched this demo, very dark and no happy ending. Was that the same Bit2 ?

Because of all the Japanese titles I dont know what the demo is all about and more important I could find out what the title of the game was. 

Yes, I only have the intro-demo, not the game itself. Kinda sad, it could be a very good game if it had the graphics of the demo. 

Why I called it the Bit2 Slasher demo...watch this

Of course this was not the entire demo and I saved only the best part, cutt off the disk loading times otherwise the YouTube movie should be to boring too watch. 

I saved the Japanese texts, music and soundeffects cause that's part of the story the demo tries to tell.

Happy Halloween !

TnC Collected Works: TnC ToolZ & DemoZ part B

I started to release that 2 screens full of programs, was not enough to show all the tools and demo's I already selected for part B. I had the modify MAINMENU.BAS to screen 5 to have 4 screens. That was so much work, I felt like I had to start over again. Only the submenu's with Manual/Program were untouched...

In the end I was proud of the result, although I had difficulties writing for every program a short description and still use no more than 112 files. I manage and I'm planning to use this MAINMENU.BAS for the rest of the series,well sometimes with another logo of course.

BTW: the TnC characters was made in Philips Videographics after converting the MSX-2 start-up screen screenshot made in BlueMSX emulator into a screen 8 picture with the best picture to msx convertor every (and online): http://msx.jannone.org/conv/

And for screen 5 picture I took a screenshot from the screen 8 picture with the TnC characters and converted to screen 5 with ...the MSX Screen Conversor 

Here are the links to Gavitex and Mediafire 

The screenshot show the new MAINMENU.BAS in screen 5, the crazy textfile changer DIALECT v2.1 and the simple scroll-demo of EMP-Soft, simply called EMP-demo. 

I am still proud of this demo, cause it was written completly in MSX-Basic without any KUN complier or Turbo-Basic, with it's own characterset and adjustable speed of the scroller. 

The music was a song called Thunderblade and I converted the FM Basic listing to FAC Soundtracker format so both FM-Pac and Music Module users could listen to the song. Lately I listened to the FM Basic listing and the EMP-demo, I have to say the FAC Soundtracker version is better...

On YouTube I found the song was called Type II from Thunderblade.

TnC Collected Works: TnC ToolZ & DemoZ part A

 It seems as a good idea to collect the best tools, demo's and music I had created in the period I was most active on my MSX-2 computers.

And when I had a couple, I realized most of the programs where written in Dutch, not very handy if you want to share it with non-Dutch MSX-ers around the world.

Translating was too much work, so I created a short description what the purpose was of each program...

But I wanted more, a nice menu so you had easy access to the programs, without typing to much...

So the first version of MAINMENU.BAS (or MM.BAS) was created in screen 8, and with only 2 screens, not a lot of programs could be displayed.
Still I could fill an entire disk, and called  it "TnC ToolZ & DemoZ part A".

First I started collecting my tools and demo's and when I'm out of tools, I will continue
the serie with "TnC SoundZ & DemoZ part A", with of course lots of noise.

I used my very first TnC logo as background in MAINMENU.BAS, when I start with a "SoundZ & DemoZ" disk I will use one of my new logo's, created by SupMSX

The screenshots show the MAINMENU.BAS, the PCX Picture Show and the Silly Prompt Changer (in Dutch). There are plenty of interesting programs on this disk and if you really want an English version of any program, leave a comment...

Here is the link to Gavitex, or Mediafire

TnC House Classics presents : Open Your Mind

There are so many versions of this classics, but this original can still compete against them.
It´s really hypnotizing song that stays in your head for a very long time once you heard it.
The breaks, the samples, the main loop, everything is in place.


But then I read the comments on YouTube, it's just a speedup version of the Simple Minds song "New Gold Dream" !!!  Yes, really !!!

And the sample came from the first  "Total Recall" with Arnold Shwarzenegger.

The video is also special, seeing miss Thatcher morphing into mr. Stalin. and back...

Cant fight it,  I want more U.S.U.R.A.
And more....

Ok that's enough for now, bye !

TnC House Classics presents : Is There Anybody Out There ?

When housemusic started, there were producers that just put some synths, some housebeat, a rapper and a lot of samples together and called it housemusic.

Most of that stuff in the early 90s sounds nowaday sooo old, but this one of The Bassheads is a long time favorite of mine.

And yes, "Is There Anybody Out There" has that old school formula for making

house music...

Somehow I still like it, it just fits and the changes in the track are very enjoyable.

Wanna hear more, here is the Extended and the Non Verbal Communication goes were Extended stops, with great use of panflutes and whale sounds ???

PS1: I tried to copy the piano riffs in FAC Soundtracker for use in my own house-track
"No-Acid part 3", but I failed.

PS2: What happened to "part 1" and "part 2" ? Well, they were never finished, but parts were all re-used in "part 3"

PS3: In a desperate attempt to finish it, I converted the FAC Soundtracker song to Magic Music Module, added some effects and created a very simple animated demo for it, called...

PS4: In the profile of Zooitroep you can see a glimp of that "No Acid" demo, maybe the only MMM demo every made...

Happy Halloween: Fantasm Soldier II intro (MSX)

I have said it before, the most scariest part of
any MSX game was the 2nd part of the intro demo of Valis - Fantasm Soldier II for MSX-2.
So special for Halloween I uploaded only that part
to YouTube.

Enjoy !

The link is here

Happy Halloween: Thriller

Another candidate for some scary MSX stuff, suprising rare.

This is not a real musicdemo, but it have some MSX-1 animation and the music is of course "Thriller"of MJ.

The music is very good arranged, keep in mind if you used FM-drums you had only 6 FM channels left.

Hope you like it, I think it's one of the best covers in FM Basic I ever heard.
Marco Dufour did a good job.

To download: Gavitex or Mediafire

If you want to see the videoclip of MJ again, watch this.
Yeah it's the longer version, but that's a bonus, right ?

I was planning to create a top 5 of horror games on MSX,
but sadly I knew not enough games that can be qualified as horror, like the Resident Evil series and so much more on PC.

Happy Halloween : Nightmare on Elm Street 4 demo (MSX)

Halloween is really an unknown event in the MSX World, I tried to find the most scary, spooky, creepy or haunted musicdemo's and ended up with no more than 3 possible candidates.

This is one of them. The Unicorn Corporation with their "Nightmare on Elm Street 4 demo" with some MSX-Music and some animated screen 8 digi's.

The "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies were very populair, because of the story behind it ("don't fall asleep"), the bad guy and his remarks. But the last movie "Freddy vs. Jason"
was the worst of them all, I watch it only to know if I bet on the right monster to survive...

By the way, Freddy is on the left...

Here is the demo (together with more Unicorn stuff): Gavitex and Mediafire

My Music Memories : Nightmare ( Happy Halloween )

If you have a Halloween house-party than this track is a most.

Show the videoclip on a widescreen and you have a great time. 

The combi of the creepy bells and the sinister violins is really spooky. 

Other Brainbug releases are more of the same 

Lots of violins, but not another "Nightmare".

When I first hear this track on a Trancemaster compilation, I knew this was the best track mixing house with horror.

My Music Memories : Fall of the House Of Usher ( Happy Halloween )

Sitting in a room alone with no lights, listening to these 5 parts of music was the most scariest experience with a piece of music I every had. 

If you dont know what the story, behind this track is about, watch this old movie.

Alan Parsons Project have made lots of instrumental classics, like I Robot and Mammagamma, but this music was part of a LP full of music influenced by Edgar Allan Poe.

There are more haunted music on it, like for example The Tell-Tale Heart 

I wonder which heavy metal band dares to cover this song, NO NOT YOU Slough Feg...

So when it's Halloween, and you are in the mood for a scary story transformed into music.

Here it is...

MSX-1 Beatles FM-Music demo

After I posted "Fan Of The Beatles" I remembered that EMP-Soft  (which I was a member of) released a small Beatles FM-Music demo, completly made in MSX-1 Basic, but the music was made MSX-Music not MSX-PSG.

In this demo all music was made by Elko Duijm and all gfx by me.But to make the music more interesting I changed sometimes the solo instrument during the songs.
Why MSX-1 ?
I just wanna proof that MSX-Music or FM-Music wasn't only MSX-2(+) or higher, it runs fine on every MSX-1, but nobody made any MSX-1 software.
If you dont believe me, check out the menu program in the original FM-Pac, its made in MSX-1 colors...

About the music, you can hear some small mistakes in timing, but some arrangements are 

very fresh, like Blackbird, Eleanor Rigby and Michelle. The music was arranged and converted 

to FM-Basic in SynthSaurus 2.0, so that why the drums seems a bit monotone.

I made a program to generate weird FM-sounds and because the screen took some time
to be generated I added these FM-sounds during the waiting, still fun/annoying to hear...

PS there is a hidden song in the demo, but that one will be easy to find...


I uploaded the demo in LZH and ZIP, cause LZH is more used in the MSX-world, and ZIP is more common in the PC-world.
Hope you enjoy this little demo, I had to create 3 parts, otherwise all songs didnt fit in a single MSX-Basic program...

Gavitex LZH
http://gavitex.com/share/cdmwoflhy

Gavitex ZIP
http://gavitex.com/share/3tud0eho5

Mediafire LZH
http://www.mediafire.com/download/vtvxpx9yi0vda6a/BEATLES.LZH

Mediafire ZIP
http://www.mediafire.com/download/a43irzq92i1z0ku/BEATLES.ZIP

112 MSX Basic games presents: PLAYMAZE.GAM (103)

Another Basic game in black and white ! And I almost forgot an MSX-1 had 15 colors !
I could add a nice background picture, flashing title screens, colorfull characterset, but no.

First of all it's too much work for me, second this game doesnt need fancy stuff.
It's perfect in b&w, believe me. The game had no title, but in Dutch it was called: "DOOLHOF.BAS".

That was a very bad name, cause I had at least 2 other Basic games
with the same name, but totally different in gameplay (if there was any...).

I decided to call this one "PLAYMAZE", because you can really play the generated maze
(instead of printing it on the screen and quit...).
And there is more, you can fill in how but the maze can be, if it will be generated visilble or not,
if the whole maze is visible or not and if you should play it or the computer.
Yes, really !
You can let the computer finds his way through the maze and see how fast he gets to the exit. Well..always faster than me.

It's amazed me how many options the programmer put into this listing.
Sadly I dont know who, I only know it was a C.U.C. member cause the listing was made for MSX-1 and Spectravideo 328/728.
I changed only minor details like deleting the Spectravideo parts and made the color of the sprite in the maze changable.

I know there was a MSX-2 maze-game called Leather Skirts,
but that was a very boring game with just a bigger maze and some drawn pictures of girls
of the red light district.

You can download PLAYMAZE.GAM from Gavitex and Mediafire
and Leather Skirts NOT, why should you play it ? Didn´t you watch that boring video ?

112 MSX Basic games presents: DETECTIV.GAM (104)

This is a very simple version of the "Guess Who" game.

So you dont owe an MSX computer to play it, you just need a computer with some Basic interpreter.
The original game was more guessing than clever thinking, so I added some difficulty levels into the game.

There are plenty of text-only games made for MSX, but I liked this one for the staging (police officiers) and the comments how the player is doing.
A P.C can ask more questions than a Inspector, so most of the time the Inspector has to quess...

There is no much left to say, so I give you the download links.

At Gavitex 
At Mediafire

I could add some colorfull backgrounds to this game, but
I dont like games with nice gfx and less gameplay.

After all, this game has not much gameplay, just fun to play for a short time... 

112 MSX Basic games presents: Blitz Attack (105)

This is a simple game, just throw bombs on tanks and buildings before your plane crashes.

But there is more in "Blitz Attack" than you expect. For example: you can play in daylight or at night.

And believe me, getting a good score at "Night Blitz" is not so easy, cause you see no buildings... Of course I could make the tanks invisible during the "Night Blitz" too.
I think you find that more annoying than challenging.

Well I played the game a couple of times before I noticed the movement of the tanks are sometimes reversed ! What a clever way to make the game more interesting !



Here are the links for Gavitex and Mediafire

Until now, all the 112 MSX Basic games are typed over from some listingbooks and not from any MSX Magazine.
So the GFX of these games seems the bare minimum of which an MSX-1 computer is capable of.
Maybe it will change during the serie, I select the games on playability, fun and strictly MSX Basic, no ML code should be used.

112 MSX Basic games presents: Johnny Jump (106)

The hardest part to make this game ready to publish here was: the title of the game. Really.
The original name was "Jantje Wip" and if you translate that directly you get "Jumping Jack" or "Johnny Bounce" or "John get laid".

So I name it "Johnny Jump", not a very good name, cause our hero had to climb a lot of ladders too. It's a kind of Donkey Kong game, avoiding all strange creatures and climb to the top. After that it's getting more difficult.

The game amazed me of it's speed and playability, it's a basic game but everything moves without slowing down our hero Johnny.
Impressive work this game.
Even the Game Over screen is animated !

If you want to get a good highscore, timing is more important than speed...

PS: If you know a better name...let me know in the comments...

112 MSX Basic games presents: Granny Crunch (107)

Granny Crunch was at first a nice but boring game.
If you stay in the bottom of the screen with your "Granny" pacman, you could play it forever without any Game Over.

So I change the rules a bit to make it harder and more enjoyable.
Now you can choose between "Normal" and "Hard" mode.

The "Normal" mode the walls will be in place, but in "Hard" mode the walls will become bigger, every time you lose enough apples.

Maybe I forgot to explain what you have to do in this basic game...
With your "Granny" pacman you must eat the apples that are falling from the sky (I think, cause I see is no tree).

If you forgot to eat apples the game will soon be over, and your score will displayed.
Can you beat my highest score ? Give it a try, if you still find it boring, you are a better game player than I am.

Try it at: Gavitex and Mediafire

Fan van KONG

It was not easy to find their website, cause the word KONG is used in so many ways, with or without the KING. 

is an Dutch group of musicians,  who make instrumental music with influences from metal, ambient, chillout, house and industrial and use spoken samples to finish it.

They make perfect soundtracks for art-house movies. Some times loud and fuzzy, sometimes light and full of melody.
I start bying their CDs after I heard the song Stockhouse on a Dutch complation CD of Noorder slag Festival (Nieuw Nederland Peil).

For me:  the song visualizes what happened if you go on a rollercoaster, it's a crazy ride,
I can assure you!

Some of their albums were produced by Tom Holkenborg,with sometimes a remixe of Junkie XL (both ex-members of Nerve).
I was also fan of...but that's another story to tell someday...

Years after they broke up I got a mail links to some new tracks, but it was not KONG anymore, just another solo project.

So I bought KONG remixes 93-99, cause I like remixes...well...they all are great disappointments altough I saw some great names of early Dutch house-music composers. Famous names means great sells, not great quality...

The 2nd album of KONG was the best they ever made (Push Comes To Shove),
I played it a lot and loud !
Sadly they never are really populair in other countries, maybe the music was just not pop enough...

I checked their website and they released  already 3 albums I didnt have. But now my taste of music is slightly changed so I listen but wont buy.

PS: on their website you can hear ALL of their songs, check out the RELEASES...

Puzzle Inc Videos

When my son was much younger, we watching BabyTV sometimes.
Most of these programs were highly education
to learn children usefull things like colors, counting, new words, sizes, etc, etc.
And there was one show that wasnt very education, it was just fun to watch and was
called Puzzle Inc.

If you like the intro, the rest is even better.
Every episode creates a simple fantasy world where toys blocks come to life. The crazy voices, sounds and classical music, this strange combination let you smile and make you wonderhow it will end.
Well I recorded several episodes, but I am afraid that YouTube will taken them down soon, because of the copyright of the animation studio... and BabyTV logo.
I send the animation studio a request to post just one episode on YouTube,  no response sadly. So I give you some poor quality videos of Puzzle Inc, I think the quality was so bad YouTube had no reason to remove these videos...

* Train

* Oleadas

Puzzle Inc showed me you really can sing-along with classic music and forever changes my opinion about classic music in general. It's not boring, Puzzle Inc proofs it in every episode.

My Music Memories: Last Night The DJ Saves My Life - Indeep

Talking about basslines, this song has one of the best I ever heard (the other ones are "Radar Love" of Golden Earing and "Another One Bites The Dust" of Queen).

Listen to this bass cover (with tabs to play along) and you know what I'm talking about...

Wanna sheet music to play the song ? Here

Indeep was a one-hit-wonder, but the song "Last Night The DJ Saves My Life" got plenty remixes. The rapper, the female singer, the bassline, the guitar riff, everything is perfectly put in place, a real dance classic.

For some 80s memories: check out the original video
For the strange video ever (but a great remix)here



I love basslines like in the songs of Chic, but that's another
story...

112 MSX Basic games presents: 112-MENU.BAS

If you start a serie with 112 Basic games, you have to find an easy way to start any games without having typing names or numbers. 

So I wanted to make a menu that had room for 112 games and completly can be using with cursorkeys or joystick (1). 

That wasnt easy cause I wanted to create an MSX-1 menu in screen 2, so lots of colorspill and not much space to put texts on. My solution; check the screenshoy below.

The 112-MENU.BAS is allmost complete and fully functional and a version will be released on this blog when I have posted the first 10 MSX Basic games.

Note 1: It will take some time to translate all Dutch texts in any Basic games soon to come, so...stay tuned.

Note 2: of course if you have a AUTOEXEC.BAS menu-program 112 MSX Basic games
will not fit.
CARDS.BAS has 2 games in 1 file, so there was room on the disk for a menu-program.

112 MSX Basic games presents : Adventure (108)

At the time when MSX-1 began, text-adventures were a populair game-genre, cause at that time most computers were not able to create fast high resulution pictures. Not to mention animated pictures...

So there were commercial software based on text-adventures like The Hobbit or De Sekte and of course some MSX Basic programmers that made some very large text-adventures.
I once had a MSX Basic text-adventure that only could run from tape. It was too large to run when Disk Basic was loaded...

But here is a very small text-adventure called Marie Celeste.
I like it cause I like the way it describes the place you are. Like you are really on board on a old ship.
It's no horror story, more a hide and seek.
I never got to the end of the adventure, so many times I checked the listing for mistakes or hidden clues, no luck.

Maybe you can solve it ? If you do, send me a walkthrough please.
After all these years I still wanna know the solution.

Here is a list of commands to get you started: GET KNIFE, CLIMB ROPE, CUT ROPE, LOOK, FORARD, EXAMINE NOTE, GET NOTE, AFT, PORT, FORARD, EXAMINE BUCKET, GET KEY, STARBOARD, EXAMINE CAT, FORARD, OPEN STORES, ....

Download it from: Mediafire or Gavitex

112 MSX Basic games presents : Parrot (109)

This game gave my headaches, cause changing the layout and the controls 

(now also playable with joystick ) was not so simple. 

The maker was very good at using all kinds of MSX characters and I was forgotten that kind of information.

I added an easy and normal mode at Parrot, which is basicly a musical memory game.

Just remember the notes in the right order.

My personal record (easy mode ) is 12, I guess that's  not hard to beat.
In the easy mode you can see the directions, in normal mode you don't.
Have fun and play it with all your friends or family !

Download it at: Mediafire or Gavitex

112 MSX Basic games presents : StarTrek (110)

I hope I dont get any legal problems, the game was just named after the famous SF serie.

So StarTrek is a simple space game. 

You have to dock to fill your energie, shield and fight aliens.

 

To get to 1 position to another you have to warp. 

Warp costs energie and fighting aliens will lower your shield, so you need to get on time to the starbase to dock. 

Docking and fighting is not easy, cause the controls are opposite of what you expect. 

Once again, no joystick needed, cause most commands you need are easy to learn and it's faster to type then go with your joystick sprite to the right place on your screen. 

Of course the docking and shooting seems slow, remember timing is more important than speed...

NB: I didnt have the listingbook anymore, so I didnt know the commands to use.

By playing a lot I found out, so I made a instruction page with all commands you need.

And I changed the difficulty so you can play along in the easy mode without getting out of energie too soon. 

Have fun with STARTREK.BAS.

Download with Mediafire or Gavitex

112 MSX Basic games presents : Cards (112 + 111)

The game Cards was original a collection of 3 listings I put together in a simple menu.

 

But I didnt like the game-listing Plantoon much,
so in the end I forgot to type it over.

Still there are 2 games left:
* the blue "Concentration (Memory)"
* the green "Hi-Low".

I liked the games, cause it looks very transparant and easy to play.

Keyboard is required, I dont miss the joystick at the game. See screenshot and below the links to download CARDS.BAS.

NB : Yes, I modified "Concentration " and the main menu 

to make it more playable.

To download: 

* via Mediafire

* via Gavitex

Fan van Paul Mc Cartney and Wings

I guess that was no suprise, cause I published already some Wordstore demos with his music in it. 

My friend who liked The Beatles  just as much as me, had bought a set of MCs with songs of the The Beatles. Sadly it were no originals but a couple of nobodies singing their songs. But they did a very good job so it took a while before we noticed it. 

Any way, on the last tape there were some songs from Paul Mc Carthey and Wings. 

I liked them so I started to buy Paul Mc Cartney albums, and ...well...in my Wordstore demo's I will explain more about each album.

My older sister liked his music too, so she bought the double live album Wings Over America, Band On The Run on cassettes and Wings Greatest on LP with a couple of hickups in the song "Hi Hi Hi" (a light pick-up arm helped).

But Pipes of Peace was the last album I bought. Why ? Check out my post about my Hey Hey Karaoke Wordstore demo.

And did you know that Paul Mc Cartney also made some nice instrumental songs ?
If I would collect all of them I have on cassttes or LP , I could make a whole CD full.
To number a few I really liked: "Valentine's Day", "L.O.U.P.","On The Cuff Link" and "Rockestra Theme".

You can find the originals all over YouTube, so here are my first pick of covers
from Wings Greatest on YouTube:

"Another Day"
 "Silly Love Songs"
"Live and Let Die"
"Junior's Farm"
"With a Little Luck"
"Band On The Run"
"Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey"
"Hi, Hi, Hi"
"Let 'Em In"
"My Love"
"Jet" 
"Mull Of Kintyre"

Everyone with a guitar or piano can play these songs, but these songs are not so easy to play and sing as they seem to be...