As we hit the New Year (02) Loads of changes started taking place,
not just within the CRYPT ..But also in RIYAN Productions and the
Amiga Scene. As we saw in the New Year .. We were hit by two of our long term
Members deciding to call it a day or move on to greener pastures. Yes sadly we have lost the services of both Craig Daines and Steve
Hyde. Steve Hyde (Staff Writer). Was a Member of the original CRYPT Team,
and had his own unique style of writing. Steve was also one of the
first to come back when Ray and I decided to re-issue the CRYPT
Magazine. Steve has been a close friend of mine for a number of years, keeping
in contact both by letter and telephone (Something that certainly
brightened up my days:) Unknown to a lot of people, Steve, sadly lost his wife in 2001. He
decided at that time to continue with his work at the CRYPT , however,
as time progressed Steve is trying to rebuild his personal life, and
in doing so is finding less and less time for computer work. Steve mate! You will be sadly missed by all the Team Members, but we
respect your wishes and hope you will find happiness. Craig Daines (Technical Editor). Another original CRYPT Member who
returned upon our re-issue. Craig is one person with superb
knowledge of all things Amiga. Sadly in January this year Craig
informed us that due to the inactivity in the Amiga Scene, he was
finding it harder and harder to find things to write about, and had
decided to leave the post of Technical Editor and move on to Beta
testing that wonderful Amiga game DYMamite. Our heartfelt thanks to these two good friends and our best wishes
for the future. Now most hobbyist type magazines would crumble at the loss of two Key
Members. In fact I have seen Magazines close for a lot less, but not
so the CRYPT . We have a wealth of talent not only within our team
but also in our readership. At this point, Ray and I decided not just to fill the vacant
positions but to take the opportunity for a slight re-organisation of
RIYAN Productions. Technical Editor (Amiga):- This post has been filled by Francis Loch
one of our former Staff Writers. Francis has a fantastic knowledge
of the Amiga and is also a skilled programmer. Technical Editor (PC) :- This NEW Post has been taken by Ian Urie,
Ian was of course one of our Staff Writers, And has a wealth of
knowledge not only of the PC but also of the Amiga. Staff Writer :- Bruce Steers. Bruce is well known in Amiga circles
and has written several excellent programs. I am sure we will see
some excellent material from him in issues to come. Staff Writer :- Kathy Danby. Kathy is another Amiga enthusiast, that
is well known ...Originally from Manchester, but now residing in
Orkney. Even in this issue Kathy has added her own blend of writing
skills to produce some excellent articles for us.
Firstly you will notice that the CRYPT now has a larger content
relating to the PC format. We offer no apology for this. Many Amiga
supporters now own a PC, either running under Amiga emulation or (As
I do) have both platforms (PC and Amiga). If you are an Amiga owner ..And you are considering upgrading your
machine to a PC ... Hoping to run Amiga emulation, or even just
replace your existing Amiga, Then we at the CRYPT can give you all
the help and advice you need. Feel free to join our "Madcap Mailing list" At Yahoo Groups. Sadly after many years of faithful service, we have decided that this
will be the Last issue of the CRYPT to appear using the DMC package
(Disk Magazine Creator) This decision was taken for several reasons: For an example this
issue is huge ..7 floppy disks. This has increased our costs and the
costs of those readers not on line. The postage alone for this
amount of disks is crippling and it is just not viable to continue
distributing the magazine in this format. Another reason was the limitation of the DMC package. Only using
Pictures/Graphics of 16 colours was a massive drawback. The fact
that DMC has difficulty with expanded Amigas or OS 3.9, and the time
taken to develop 3 different versions of the Magazine, all meant that
something had to give.
The CRYPT will still be available as a FREE Download from our Web
Site .. As a "Zip" file, This allows Amiga or PC users to download
our HTML version and read it off line via there preferred browser.
For those readers NOT online. The CRYPT will still be sent out,
however now it will be on a CD-ROM and will be the HTML version.
Again easily read via an Amiga/PC browser. All this means is that as we are only producing one version of the
magazine, we can spend more time looking/writing bigger and better
articles for YOU the readers.
This current issue of the CRYPT contains several new features. We
have a large readership of ladies, so we have included a new page
entitled CRYPT CUISINE.
Featured this issue is the superb series of Valhalla Games from
Vulcan Software. These were the first ever speech adventure games
for the Amiga computer. I myself am an ardent fan of adventure games, and the Valhalla series
rank among my top five all time games on Amiga or PC. Amiga users who have not tried these games (Demo's) are available
from the Aminet .. Or our sponsor Forematt Home Computing carry the
full range of the Valhalla series (See list for prices) PC Users ...Not to be left out ... Vulcan Software have re-released
their Valhalla games for the PC. Simply go to the Vulcan Website and download the Vulcan Portal (Free
and required to run the game) ...Then download the first level of
Valhalla "Lord of Infinity", again completely FREE. Should you like the series, further levels can be purchased via the
Portal for ONLY £5.00 per level. Well, enough from the chatty Ferret. Time to let you carry on and
delve into the depths of the CRYPT - Vassels of Valhalla.