Letters If you write to us here at SynTax, we will assume you don't mind us including your letters on here unless they are clearly marked "not for publication". Please feel free to comment on any adventure-related topics. ---------------------------------------------------------------- From Len & Mark Bovingdon, London N11 Many thanks for the first issue of the magazine. We have not had much opportunity to look at other disk mags, but compared with those that we have seen SynTax stands out as being the most professional by a considerable margin. The system of menus; the style and the ease of use all combine to make it a first rate job and best of all no spelling mistakes. Special thanks for our personal solution to Shadowgate.We had got as far as killing the Cyclops but kept getting lost in the maze of rooms that followed. As the solution was stored in ASCII form I was able to extract it from the disk and print it via "First Word Plus" with plenty of page breaks so permitting us to read one clue at a time rather than the whole solution in one go. We also liked the two levels of tips available for the other games ie "Subtle" and "Sledge Hammer" - perfect for giving one a nudge in the right direction without giving the game away too much. Music, no we don't want background music, it would take up a great deal of valuable disk space and would, I'm sure,only prove to be a distraction; if all of the great games get by without a soundtrack then so can SynTax. The only criticism that I would offer is the loading screen, blue text on a blue background is not the most exciting combination that I can think of. Could you please give greater details of the PD adventures that you offer,ie text only or text/graphics as some could be of interest but Mark, who is only nine, finds the text only games a bit dull and it is only the addition of some graphics that gives him the interest to stop zapping aliens in Xenon and the like and have a go at an adventure. As we are still stumbling around at some stage or the other in every adventure that we own from Amazon to Wizard Warz we await the next issue with great interest. Keep up the great work. @~Hi Len and Mark, thanx a lot for your letter and for giving @~your views so clearly. I hope you prefer this issue's colour @~scheme. Incidently, if anyone has suggestions for a good @~colour combination (4 colours only, nothing too psychedelic, @~please!), let me know. And consider the PD list ameded. From Mike Brailsford, Glenrothes, Fyfe Congratulations on an excellent launch issue, you can give youselves a big pat on the back for an excellent idea well implemented. I can honestly say that the subscription I sent has been well spent and I look forward to the future issues with eagerness. It must take an awful lot of work to fill up a whole disk with material, I know only too well the time it takes to do Spellbreaker! and that is only pages. I was very impressed with the layout of the whole magazine, easy to read, easy to use and the option to print out each file is an excellent idea, this will give people the chance to print out a particular file and keep it for later reference, especially the solutions. I have enclosed some hints and tips for Hammer of Grimmold for use in SynTax I hope they are of some use to you. Sorry I can't come up with any criticism. By the way, I wouldn't like music - a waste of space. Well I must go, I've lots to do with Spellbreaker! with me being away on holiday this month. So I'll say WELL DONE and Cheers for now. @~Hi Mike, thanks for the encouraging letter and your hints for @~Grimmold. I must admit I don't know how you find the time to @~bring out an issue of Spellbreaker! each month - I hadn't @~realised till we started SynTax exactly how much work was @~going to be involved but you were right when you told me it @~was both enjoyable and rewarding! From Clive Swain, Greenford, Middlesex Thank you very much for the first issue of SynTax. I think you have come up with a very well thought out and presented Disk Mag. Congratulations. One minor point, is it possible to include a STOS compatible printer spooler? It takes ages (yawn) to print out a file when we could be moving on to the next section. Looking forward to your next edition. @~Hi Clive, thanx for your letter and suggestion about the @~printing - it was a very valid criticism of Issue 1 as it did @~take an age to print. As you can see, we have solved the @~problem to a certain extent this issue; see Editorial for more @~details. From Dave Spinks, Folkestone (extract) I must compliment you and John on SynTax's presentation and content, which is very professional, and I was most interested to see that the menus etc were put together using STOS (what a flexible language that is turning out to be, having been launched as a shoot-em-up writer's package!). I particularly liked the layout of the hints and tips, where one can opt for a subtle or not so subtle clue. The series of disk mags will, no doubt, grow into a valuable reference source for an ailing adventurer. I hear that you too are a Hack! addict. What a game that is, and I have spent many a night time hour exploring the dungeons and coping with the hazards and obstacles! Do you know how popular is amongst the readership of SynTax? It strikes me as a suitable candidate for a forum in its own right. I've been deciphering the instructions to AdvSys, the PD adventure creator for the ST, which compiles ASCII files into data files which can then be interpreted by the interpreter AdvInt. It's heavy going, though, so I doubt I'd be able to do much with it in a hurry. @~Thanks for your letter, Dave, and I hope you don't mind me @~reproducing parts of it here, but it raises some interesting @~points. First of all, thanks for the comments on SynTax, it @~looks as though the two-level hints have been generally @~well received. @~Yes, Hack! is a great game; most deceptive to look at as it @~hasn't exactly got the best graphix about, so you wouldn't @~expect it to be as good as it is. I haven't got as far into it @~as I would like, but ONE day ...... @~As for AdvSys, I bought that several years ago and found it @~completely unintelligible. On the surface, it looks an @~excellent system for writing an adventure but in practice - @~forget it! However, Starship Columbus, which was written with @~it, is pretty playable so obviously someone somewhere made sense @~of it all. For anyone interested, both Hack! and AdvSys/Columbus @~etc are available through us (see the PD section).