Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

Hey dude Qtoms
I want to hear from you if you have
any program, whatever its purpose,
which you consider worthy of review.
Whether it will be freely distributable
Public Domain, Shareware or
Licenceware, if you feel it is of suffi
cient quality to merit coverage, stick
it in a padded envelope and send it
in with all haste.
Although Public Sector cannot possi
bly hope to cover all submissions, I
promise 111 at least look at your work
- even if it is yet another Lottery pro
gram or Klondike cardset. (t does
make my job a lot easier though if
disks are dearly labelled.
Please also include a covering letter
detailing the disk contents and price
and giving some basic instructions.
The magic address is:
PD submissions
Amiga Computing
Media House
Adlington Park
Macclesfield
SK10 4NP
Programmed by: Michele Berionne
Available from: Aminet
(as game/think/Atoms31.lha)
Based on an old Atari ST game, Atoms offers
brain-bending fun for up to four players. If
you don't have any friends (either in the
room or in the world), the computer can play
for up to three people or you can simply
choose to play with less than four partici
pants.
Each player takes it in turns to place an
atom in a square on the gameboard. Players
can only place atoms in empty squares or in
squares containing their own coloured atoms,
if too many atoms are placed in a square, the
atoms become unstable and explode.
The number of atoms which will cause an
explosion varies depending on the position of
a square on the board - corner squares can
hold only two atoms, edge squares hold
three and other squares hold four. When the
atoms in a square explode, neighbouring
squares are showered in atoms of the same
colour.
trix Generator
Programmed by: Mathieu Dhondt
Available from: Aminet
(as game/role/SRunMatrix3_3.lha)
In the past I have hypothesised in these
pages that Rawk music appreciation is, for
many people, a fundamental part of the
adolescence experience (although I'd like
The Matrix Generator doesn't look too impressive but will
be a great help to Shadowrun GMs
It all sounds horribly confusing, but in prac
tice makes for an engaging game combining
luck and skill. With passable graphics and
nice sound effects too, the only thing Atoms
can really be criticised for is the dreadful
music which will have you reaching for the
volume control within moments of first load-
to re-emphasise that I, like most of the AC
staff with the unfortunate but notable
exception of our beloved editor, managed
to avoid succumbing to it). There is a sec
ond, perhaps equally common, phenome
non which is particularly prevalent in males.
Allow me to elucidate.
Many hours of my early teenhood were
spent hunched around a dinner table rolling
dice, calculating experi
ence points and consult
ing colourful maps of fic
titious worlds. Yes, I was
a roleplayer. Perhaps it
was to escape from the
obligatory teenage angst
or perhaps it was just
because Manchester
United were hovering
dangerously close to rel
egation - who can tell?
Suffice to say that for
some time I wasn't at a
loss for something to do
in the evenings and
weekends.
My obsession began
with the seminal fantasy
RPG that was Dungeons
& Dragons and 1 confess
that over a couple of
years 1 accumulated an
obscene amount of rule
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Amiga Computing
MARCH 1997
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Atoms: Mind-boggling (tin, or something
ing the program.
Atoms is Shareware and the registration
fee is 15,000 Italian Lira. In these days of con
stantly changing currency exchange rates
(and Italian governments, the cynical might
say), I'm not exactly sure how this translates,
although I believe it is probably about £6
(don't you just love the Lira?) For your trouble
you will not only receive peace of mind and
the knowledge that you're helping sustain the
Amiga in these troubled times, but you'll also
get a disk full of games by Michele.
books, adventure packs and copies of TSR's
ever-so-slightly biased Dragon magazine.
I later left the confines of the fantasy
environment to guide teams of intrepid
spacefarers around the universe in
MegaTraveller. At the same time, one of my
roleplaying friends made the leap from
Runequest to Shadowrun. Shadowrun is
based around a Gibson-esque cyberpunk
theme, but as an added twist, fantasy crea
tures such as elves feature too.
However, the main thrust of games I par
ticipated in was always the technological
aspect of cyberpunk life and as such my
character became an accomplished hacker
and broke into several large corporate com
puter networks. These networks were called
matrices and invariably the gamesmaster
would not let me hack into one unless he
happened to have prepared it in advance,
because otherwise the game would grind to
a halt for ten minutes whilst he rolled some
dice and consulted his tables to generate a
matrix.
Shadowrun GMs will therefore consider
the Matrix Generator something of a god
send - in a matter of seconds it can gener
ate an entire computer system, which can
then be printed out for reference. Whilst it
clearly caters only for an extremely small
number of people, this is the sort of simple
but useful program that the Public Domain
was made to house.
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