Hullo there, fellow Retro Software forumites!
It's been a little over a year since we first opened the doors to our little community. In that time, we've seen a turnover of a number of retro projects. Some never made it past the screenshot phase, a few others have stalled but a selection have reached the playable demo stage and, finally, one has reached the goal of becoming our first commercial release!
It's taken a lot of work to get to this stage, the website and community have been steadily growing in 2008, due heavily to, you, the Retro Software contributors. The wiki is becoming a formidable developer's resource and the forum remains a great place to talk at the most detailed technical levels. Behind the scenes, founder member DaveM has been investing time, energy and not an insignificant amount of his own cash into building up our physical publishing label.
The results were available, for the first time, for sale at the recent Retro Computer Museum open day, where Zap! was officially launched for the BBC B/B+/Master and Master Compact.
You'll find some pics of the first cassettes and discs up at the Zap! page:
http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/zapWe're still working on a more permanent web home but, for now, you can order your own copies of Zap! through eBay, in the following formats:
- BBC Micro Cassette (£1.95)
- BBC Micro 5.25” Disc (£2.95)
- BBC Master Compact 3.5” Disc (£2.95)
An SSD version for emulator users will be available soon (on CD-ROM) priced at £1.95.
If you'd rather not sign up for an eBay account, you can also PM DaveM via the Retro Software forum for details on how to purchase the game directly.
We hope you'll take a look at the Zap! homepage and consider placing an order to encourage all of our hobbyist developers to stick through to the end of their projects. Even if shoot-'em-ups aren't generally your thing, Zap! is actually a remarkably good one for the beeb and is a worthy addition to any collection.
Remember, Retro Software is wholly a not-for-profit organisation and the cover price of each release is split between the cost of production, royalties to the author and, if there's anything left, into a fund for advertising Retro Software.
So there it is. Get the #1 title in the Retro Software label here ...
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/dllmKeep an eye on
http://www.retrosoftware.co.uk/ for further titles in the future - and, please, do leave us some feedback in the forums!
Many thanks,
Samwise.
