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by Axel of Brainstorm and Menace of Spaceballs, Keyboarders and Boozoholics
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Download the pdf here
So it took us a while to get ZINE 14 done, eh? Checking my calendar I'd say we are like two and a half years delayed or so? That's tolerable, no? Reason for that is that a lot has changed. The main shakeup happened when Smash quit the project team in order to focus on other projects which was a huge blow to us. Not only didn't we have any technology we could continue to use, as everything was built on Fairlight's demo tool, but we also had no one else who could pick up the pieces. In the end, deathy and BitArts got in touch with Fishguy876 who helped a lot in the rebuilding of Nectarine. So I decided to talk to Fish and see if he was interested. We spoke for a while and we both thought it might be a good fit and we would give it a try. Progress was brutally slow at first, but it was our best shot, and Fish has worked diligently over the last year to get ZINE 14 off the ground. Truckloads of thanks to you(Fish) and your wife(Epec) for the efforts. The layout was in prm's capable hands from the start, so I wasn't worried about that at all, since I loved the layouts in ZINE 13. Another key figure was Menace who I stubbornly pestered about joining our team because I needed help with the content and couldn't manage it all alone.
| "I'd say we are like two and a half years delayed or so?" |
ZINE 14 has both advantages and disadvantages. We had to make some compromises in order to get multiplatform compatibility, and it's difficult to make the right decisions. We may have made some good decisions, but also some bad ones. Bear with us, we'll get there.
As a consequence of the long development, there are some articles that might be a little dated, but we kept the interesting ones and dumped some of the really outdated ones (apologies to the respective authors).
I hope you enjoy your time with ZINE 14.
-Axel
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When I was first approached about coming aboard Zine, it was on the back of helping out bringing the first few issues of the "old" Zine online, for BitFellas. I worked really well with Axel, and he later came to me asking if perhaps I'd like to get more involved. I've written a couple of articles for diskmags in the past, but joining on as co-editor was a different kettle of fish altogether. However, I usually don't know how to say no to a challenge. So I didn't.
When I saw my first proper demo, it was 1987. I had already started enjoying the intros that came in front of the games we traded in the schoolyard more than the games themselves. I read the scrollers from start to end, and it was like glimpsing into a hidden, cloaked world. And then, demos. Just intro screen after intro screen, without those tiresome games taking up diskspace. Two years later, I migrateted to my second Commodore platform (one of those Amiga things), and more demos. Not only demos, but dentros, cracktros, message boxes, packs, doc disks... and diskmagazines. Since the mainstream at large didn't follow the demoscene in any real capacity, the scene created their own publications. I devoured the things, read them from start to finish. Cracker Journal, R.A.W, Maggy, R.O.M, Upstream ... and Zine.
Somehow, with my joining the editorial team for Zine, all these years later, I feel like I've come full circle.
| "I've made a few new friends, and I've loved every minute" |
For those who do not know me or who I am, that isn't that surprising. So, just so you have some idea; I am one humble cog in a wheel of fantastic people who organize the Kindergarden demoscene party in Norway each and every year. I formed Boozoholics with my good friend Kusma back in 2003, and I recently also took on organizing duties at two other Norwegian demo parties; Solskogen, and another small one you may have heard about called The Gathering. I help out with admin duties on a number of demoscene-related sites, like BitFellas (and their subdivisions ArtCity and BitWorld), and a new one you may hear about in a while. I am a father, a boyfriend, a lover of movies, music and technology. I spend my workdays making sure people get on the internet, heading up deployment for a local isp (who in turn magically tends to sponsor demoparties in Norway. Funny how that works out.)
So now you know a little about the why, and the who. So what about the how? I love what Axel told me the first time we spoke about what my responsibilities would be. He said: "Basically, what I need you to do is kick my ass." So I do that, and then as it often works out in my life, I get involved with everything else as well. So for our 14th issue I've written, I've commissioned, I've edited, I've made a few new friends, and I've loved every minute of it. It's been a learning experience, and as you're reading this, I'm already working on the next one.
Hope you get some modest enjoyment of this. I know I do.
Menace.
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