Coming Clean ...

               A competition set by Richard Hewison

I've enjoyed contributing to SynTax over the last five or six
years. but I think it's now time to come clean about something
which only you and I have known during that period. As some SynTax
readers might know, I've been working in the Computer Games
industry for over seven years now so I know quite a large number
of publishers and developers. For that reason I decided I should
use a pseudonym whenever I wrote a review or article for SynTax
which directly involved criticism about products produced by
people I knew and publishers whom I have worked with over the
years. However, now that my involvement in the industry is slowly
diminishing I don't think I need my pseudonym anymore.

To make this more interesting, I thought it might be a good excuse
for a competition.  I've accumulated a number of publisher
freebies over the years, and I've gathered a few together as
prizes if people can guess who my pseudonym is! 

I can give a hint or two - the pseudonym is a proper name, so you
can discount the Bitmap Kid and The Grue (but the Bitmap Kid and 
The Grue already know that don't they?). Just have a look at the 
list of contributors in this issue of SynTax. The name is in there
somewhere!

I've decided to leave the distribution of the prizes up to Sue,
but here they are:

- A Rainbird Software 'Time and Magik' badge (this is rare because
Rainbird didn't publish the Level 9 trilogy in the end, Mandarin
did instead).

- A 100% cotton XL "Rise of the Robots'' Black T-Shirt (still
sealed).

- Future Wars CD (a music CD inspired by the Delphine adventure
'Future Wars' - very rare).

- The Secrets of Dungeon Mastery (a rare FTL produced booklet
which was not widely available).

- Dungeon Master - The album (a music CD inspired by FTL's classic
adventure - as used in the 'FM Towns' conversion - also very rare.
21 tracks based on the various levels and areas in the game).

@~I think the competition is an excellent idea and I hope a lot of
@~you will enter and try to win one of those great prizes. Entries
@~should reach me by 15th October 1995 and I'll announce the
@~winners next issue.








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