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"not for publication".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.
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From Sandra Sharkey, Wigan                              (extract)

Many thanks for the courtesy copy of SynTax which I was very
impressed with. You managed to get loads of information etc on to
the one disk.

As a token of appreciation I have put some ascii files on this
disk that you can use if you wish. They are articles and reviews
that I wrote for STING. I was hoping the piracy article would
encourage letters to STING but it didn't. Maybe it would get some
sort of response in SynTax.


A little bit of news for you. Pat Winstanley will not be running
to STOS User Group after the end of the subscription year. It's
become too big for one person to handle so it's being split. The
new editor will be Aaron Fothergill. Pat will be handling the PD
and Shareware and yours truly will be photocopying, collating,
stuffing envelopes and distributing. However, she is carrying on
with the STAC User Group for another year.

Also, I have some copies of the four issues of STING left, and
I'm offering them for œ3.50 as a package if anyone is interested.

@~Thanx for the files, Sandra, they have been very useful. Also
@~for the news about the STOS User Group. For anyone who has
@~either STOS or STAC, you're really missing out on a lot of
@~useful information and advice by not joining the User Groups.
@~If you haven't got the four issues of STING, I would get
@~in touch with Sandra before she sells out of them. Her address
@~is 78 Merton Road, Highfield, Wigan, WN3 6AT. And I look
@~forward to all your comments on the piracy article!

From Laura Gow, Buckie

I enjoyed the first issue of SynTax especially the game hints.
Most games seem to assume you have their clue sheets and come up
with really cryptic (and illogical) puzzles.

The reviews were the best I'd read for adventures, informative
and interesting. I don't think screenshots are particularly
interesting and do not feel that a musical intro would enhance
the mag.

Well you asked for a bit of feedback....... Anyway, keep up the
good work.

@~Hi Laura, thanks for your views. Does anyone else have an
@~opinion on the screenshots? There won't be many in each issue
@~because we just don't have the space! Glad you liked the
@~reviews too. If anyone would like to contribute a review,
@~please do!


Linda Wright, Bristol                                   (extract)

@+Thanks for SynTax, it arrived just before we left ~(Linda was
@~just going on holiday) +so I was able to have a quick look 
before we went. I was quite surprised to see JADE STONE so well
featured (Mike Gerrard has since written to compliment me on 
getting 'in' so quickly!), my thanks for the review and the 
inclusion of the graphic.

My initial reaction was that I think it's a good idea and well
done, though obviously I would like to see a bit more in the way
of graphics and perhaps some music would be nice, something that
could be toggled on and off though in case it puts people off!
Hopefully you'll be able to include a demo or two at some stage,
unfortunately I think my own demo of JADE STONE would be too big
to fit on a single-sided disc. Are you thinking of doing two
versions, one for double-sided drive owners with the extra room



to fit demos into? I know it would obviously add to the workload
and admin, but it might be worth it - or perhaps list demos that
are available for members to buy separately if they want them?

@~Linda's demo of Jade Stone is now in the PD section as well as
@~a lot of other demos we have collected - do you have any more?
@~If so, send 'em in, please! I don't think we could cope with
@~two versions of the disk, it would make life too complicated,
@~and the people with single-sided drives would feel they were
@~missing out. But any of our PD disks can be yours - free - when
@~you send in contributions to SynTax on disk, so get sending!!
@~And if you would like to try a PBM game but have been a bit
@~nervous about giving one a go, do try Linda's Arcania, I can
@~thoroughly recommend it - just send an SAE to Marlin Games,
@~19 Briar Close, Nailsea, Bristol, BS19 1QG for more details.





Terry Roberts, Harrietsham, Kent

Many thanks for the replacement SynTax disc which works well! I
am really enjoying the contents and find it very good value.

If 'space' is a problem, I would vote for leaving out
screenshots. When the 'glossies' review adventures, they always
feature screenshots and even if you don't buy the glossies, you
can look at them in the newsagents.

Also you mentioned that you were trying to find a means of
reproducing maps. If this proves difficult, I wonder if it makes
sense anyway. I realise it is easy to include maps in a
conventional mag, but it may be more appropriate to offer maps by
mail order (as with solutions). After all, the disc mag doesn't
want to parody the paper mags in every respect. Others may
disagree!




I really liked the hints as 3-liners. This is excellent use of
the computer medium and will hopefully develop as the main method
of providing hints. Well done.

All in all, keep up the good work and I look forward to issue 3.

@~I've tried an odd map or two in this issue, drawn using the WP, 
@~I'd be grateful if people could let me know if they find them 
@~useful or not. 
@~If anyone has any 3-liners for any adventures not yet covered 
@~in that way, again, I'd be very grateful for them.









Ken Morgan, Stourport-on-Severn                        (extract)

About SynTax itself, excellent! Well thought out and well laid
out. A perfect blend that has something for everyone, keep up the
good work.

Do you have any information concerning ACL? I've not been able to
contact them for months, have they folded?

@~Rumours have been rife about ACL. They have been "unavailable"
@~since February but by the time you read this, all subscribers
@~will have received a letter from them stating they are
@~restarting soon and will be producing the ACL Reference Book of 
@~Adventure which will replace the dossiers.




Neil Shipman, Bristol                                  (extract)

Delighted when Issue 2 of SynTax dropped through the letter box
this morning. Disappointed when it wouldn't load!

Anyway, I took a quick look at most of the contents of Issue 2 by
reading the ASCII files direct. Very impressive - there's such an
amazing amount on the disk. How on earth you and John find the
time to write as much as you do is beyond me! Nice to see some
people whose names I didn't recognise sending in contributions
too.

@~Yes, once again, apologies to everyone who had problems with
@~the initial batch of Issue 2 disks! Luckily everyone was very
@~forgiving and I had so many nice letters when the disks were
@~returned that, though I wouldn't say it made it worthwhile (!)
@~it did make the situation a lot easier to deal with. Writing
@~SynTax does take a lot of time which is why we decided to
@~produce it bimonthly, so do send in your contributions and I'll
@~have time to do some hoovering [grin]!!
Mike Gerrard                   (extract from review in Zero, Nov)

SynTax is a disk-based adventure magazine for ST users. The idea
of disk-based magazines is an exciting one, as long as they use
the disk to do what it does best - which isn't trying to emulate
a regular magazine. Use lots of screenshots, include complete
programs, demos and even little programming routines and you
could be onto a winner. Just reproduce pages of text and you'll
never emulate a magazine like ZERO - but will cost three times
the price.  SynTax has made a good start with its first issue,
@+though there's room for improvement. That may come. ~(Mike then
@~listed some of the contents of Issue 1). +There are graphics
screens from some games, so you can see what you might be buying,
but I'd like to see this aspect of the magazine improved as well
as a section on STAC including readers' routines.

@~Comments, please, folks! Mike has made quite a few suggestion
@~for ideas he thinks would improve the magazine but what do YOU
@~think - please let me know!

Ian Taylor, Wallington

Many thanks for Issue 1 of SynTax. My wife and I both enjoyed 
it - with minor gripes! We particularly found the hint section 
useful - the gentle hint first and then the sledgehammer if you're
feeling particularly thick is very well executed but there weren't
enough of them! We were playing "Lurking Horror" at the time so 
Issue 1 was well-timed.

The article on Sierra was too similar to the one in Confidential
(especially for someone who doesn't like the Sierra games 
particularly).

Generally I like the mix, but I'm afraid I consider the 
screenshots a bit of a waste of space - I'd rather more hints
and tips. One last point on those - it's irritating to have to 
wait for each one to be loaded from disk. Is it possible to alter
the program to read all the hints etc into an array and then page
through the array?

I like the layout and the fact it's written in STOS. I'm writing
a cricket game in STOS and it's interesting to see similarities
and differences between two apparently diverse subjects.

I look forward to increased RPG coverage but my main quibble in 
RPGs is that I can't get hold of the ones I want - Ultima V, 
Pools of Radiance, Chaos Strikes Back are all now overdue by at
least 6 months for the ST.

When reviewing new games, it might be an idea to compare them 
to some sort of reference game that many people have played. My
wife and I (we play adventures together) like Infocom games, and
as the back catalogue is cheap, we're buying loads of Infocom
games but very little new stuff - where's the incentive? Thus
we would like to know if, say "The Jade Stone" is worth buying 
when we can get hold of Infocoms at œ6 - œ7.

Why is œ3.50 the going rate for diskmags? It seems a bit much 
compared to the paper ones. Of course, as long as SynTax is as
promising as Issue 1, I'll buy it anyway!

@~Phew - loads of points there! First, hints. Despite appearances
@~to the contrary, I don't aim to alter the programming of the
@~magazine each issue but am considering saving up all the major 
@~alterations people have suggested for our first anniversary 
@~issue next July. Good point though to load them all in together
@~and it is something we have considered. In the meantime, for 
@~all the files on the disk, keep the mouse button depressed on
@~the "next page" or "next hint" option and they will flip through
@~at a pretty rapid rate.

@~Next, the Sierra article. Confidential readers will know that 
@~John wrote both articles, so there are bound to be strong 
@~similarities. However, a lot of our readers aren't members of
@~Official Secrets and so wouldn't have had the chance to read it
@~otherwise. Someone on Micronet recently described Sierra as the
@~"Kylie Minogue of adventures" but there is no escaping the fact
@~that they are BIG sellers and also (unlike Infocom) they have
@~consistently supported the ST!

@~As for comparing games in reviews, I think it could be hard to 
@~give specific comparisons. The best thing is to get to know 
@~which reviewers like the same sorts of games as you and see 
@~what their personal opinion is. I sometimes find ratings in 
@~magazines a bit arbitrary and prefer to read a detailed review
@~of the pros and cons of a game. 

@~Finally, price. I think it is unrealistic to compare monthly
@~paper and bimonthly disk fanzines on the basis of price - the two 
@~media are too different. But if you compare the price of 
@~diskmags with a PD disk from one of the well-known libraries and 
@~consider that a PD disk isn't the original work of the vendor 
@~but is merely copied from a master disk and sold, whereas SynTax
@~and other diskmags are written from scratch each issue (barring 
@~a few bits) and for a specific and restricted market, I reckon 
@~œ3.50 is good value for the amount of work that goes into
@~them - and you can often get them cheaper by taking out a sub!