PUBLIC HOUSE

'It's a game! It's a show! It's the Game Show Show!' But enough of these obscure quotes. Here's Jonathan with a bumper Christmas number of Public House at entirely the wrong time of year (the clot).

No sooner had the words 'lack of Brit software' tripped from my keyboard than I received a packed disk from Dominic Morris of Worcester. Phew, eh? Not only that, but there's also another jolly selection from the old European Demos box. Hurrah! (Good old 'hurrah' - always a good get-out if you can't think of a natty pay-off line.)
Out of ZSL
By Tad
Reviewer: Jonathan Nash

Remember that bit in YS ages ago about what various people did on leaving school? Well, Tad wrote this demo. (ZSL is the name of his school, y'see.) It's a 128K-only prog (a fact only discovered after several attempts to get the blighter to load in 48K mode) that comes in three parts. So, it's known as a three-part demo. (Oh, I know it's hopeless but how else can you describe the things?)

Part One features another oddly scary digitised picture of the programmer. (Why do Speccy digitisers make their subjects look so evil? Dig out your copy of January's YS and look at the Pentagram pics. Despite being friendly bunnies in real life, Rajsoft and Hacker Chris look like serial killers, and poor old BZYK strongly resembles my old games master. Spook!) There's another jiggling look-everybody-I-can-read-the-music-channels collection of lines (although for a change there's also a logo jumping in time to the tune) and an horrific circular scrolly. It's simply unreadable, as the text cycles over on itself before you can see what the letters are. Oops.

Part Two takes a while to get going, but the effect is worth it. Tad is another practical joker - this part looks very boring (as the scrolly admits) until, relenting at last, he starts up a spinning, bouncing wheel made up of bean bags. (Well, that's what they look like to me anyway.) Whenever the wheel hits the bottom or the side of the screen, the beanbags squash inwards realistically. It's really neat (as they say). Tragically, again the scrolly is more or less illegible - this time thanks to an outlined, shadowed font set against a black background. Oops. (Again.)

Part Three features a big picture of the ramshackle school itself, with the ZSL logo flitting up and down the screen, and a masked, jiggling scrolly, erm, scrolling along in a jiggly fashion. (While being masked. Ed) You've guessed it - it's just about impossible to read (the vertical movement of the letters while scrolling makes your eyes hurt a lot). Once more, oops.

Out of ZSL is packed with funky effects and some pretty good music, but Tad has committed a capital offence in demo land by having unreadable scrollies. How can you enjoy tonnes of trivial wibble about school in far-off lands if you can't really see the letters? Tch. Makes me slightly irritable it does. (Fumette.) ('Fumette'? Ed)