Darkwurlde

Darkwurlde
Developer: PJMSoft Publisher: Top Ten Software Platform: Amstrad CPC Released in US: 1986 This game has a hidden developer message.

Developer Message

Taking up roughly 1/8th of the game's data is a long developer message, heavily praising Rare, then known as Ultimate Play the Game. Note this has been slightly formatted to make it more readable.

********DARKWURLDE Mk2 (c) DEC 31 1985 PJM.ref PJM00028512CPC464********

********Hi there! I hope your having fun! Considering that you have taken the 
trouble to hack into DARKWURLDE i have decided to bury this little message in 
the code. DARKWURLDE was written on an AMSTRAD CPC464 during the first couple 
of months of 1986. It's taken me a long time to write because i'm still at 
school doing my A-levels and and i only get a couple of hours spare time 
in the evenings. 

I used ARNOR's MAXAM assembler/disassembler/monitor to write 
DARKWURLDE and i would just like to thank ARNOR for doing an excellent job 
on it.I've got to admit that DARKWURLDE is not as good as i originally hoped 
it would be but i was getting a bit short on cash and had to rush it in the end.

I must admit that DARKWURLDE is partly based on ULTIMATE's UNDERWURLDE with a 
bit of JETPAC thrown in. ULTIMATE have greatly influenced my style of programming 
and i'm afraid the more games that i publish the more you will see a great 
similarity between them and ULTIMATE's. I must point out though that DARKWURLDE 
CANNOT be compared with anything ULTIMATE have ever written. 

I am totally addicted to everything that they have ever written and hopefully one 
day i will be able to write games that will even make ULTIMATE look average. During 
JANUARY 1986 i started seriously thinking about 3D games. KNIGHTLORE, ALIEN-8, 
NIGHTSHADE and GUNFRIGHT have really got to me. Since then i started work on HAGIS: 
Holographic Adventure Graphics Interaction System. 

It is virtually completed and uses all 4 of the mode 1 colours whereas ULTIMATE only 
use 3. The reason for this is that some of the pixels in a sprite must be transparent. 
ULTIMATE have sacrificed one of the pens to represent this transparent pixel but i 
have slightly increased the sprite data needed. Unfortunately my system slows the 
code down a bit more than ULTIMATE's.

I have already started work on 2 games that will use hagis and one of
them, i don't know which yet, will be published in spring 87 under the title of 
ISLANDIA. One of them is based on ULTIMATE's ENTOMBED and KNIGHTLORE. The other 
is based on ULTIMATE's NIGHTSHADE and KNIGHTLORE. I'd like to assure you though 
that both games will be very different from ULTIMATE's mentioned above. The game 
that i will not publish under the title of ISLANDIA will be the third game in the 
series and will be called DAWNSLEY. 

I've also got plans for a game called LUNARUN but it's only a fast action, 2d, 
shoot-em-up style arcade game and i don't think i'll bother with it just yet. 
I believe that the trend set by KNIGHTLORE is the best way to carry on at the moment 
and so you'll be seeing more advanced 3D games from PJM in the months/years to come. 
Finally i'm going to start taking programming more seriously when i've finished 
my A-levels in the summer. I'm going to publish a few more games first but then 
i'm going to set up a software house. It will be run along the same lines as 
ULTIMATE: a team of programmers, artists and musicians working together to produce 
one or two games at a time and developing new ideas and concepts. 

My aim is that it will give ULTIMATE some stiff competition. Sometime in SPRING 1987 
i will officially start looking for the people that i will need. I'm looking for 
men/women that can program Z80, 6502 or 6809 or are capable of designing graphics 
and advertisements on computers or can write and program music and sound effects. 
I need a good bunch of people that can get along together, talk to each other and work 
out problems and ideas together. Initially i can only cope with a few people so the 
sooner you can contact me the better. If you think that you fit the above description 
and are very VERY keen to work with home micros then please contact PAUL 
on 01-398 3145 anytime. 

I will be very gratefull for all enquiries. Also if you have any software of your
own please contact me for an evaluation with a view to publishing, very good 
royalties will be paid for all software under the PJMsoft label. 
SUNDAY 16/3/1986.RE-EDITED TUESDAY 2/9/1986.(c) PJMsoft (r) 1986.********!